{"id":14518,"date":"2026-10-05T16:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T23:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/?p=14518"},"modified":"2026-10-05T16:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T23:48:18","slug":"i-smelled-a-scam-didnt-bite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2026\/10\/05\/i-smelled-a-scam-didnt-bite\/","title":{"rendered":"I Smelled a Scam; Didn’t Bite"},"content":{"rendered":"

This just over the transom. It piqued my vanity, and that in tandem with my ongoing search for high-level interaction with like-minded interlocutors, almost seduced me. But my inherent skepticism and sober understanding of just how wretched we human beings can be kicked in and I did not respond. For a brief exploration of the topic, see my Why are People so Easy to Swindle?<\/a><\/p>\n

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Dear W. F. Vallicella,<\/span><\/p>\n

I hope you are doing well. My name is David Hartley, and I am the Organizer of The Glasgow Book Club, a reading community that enjoys discovering and discussing challenging works in philosophy and metaphysics.<\/span><\/p>\n

What particularly caught my attention in A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated<\/em> is the distinction between two fundamental questions about existence: the \u201cnature question,\u201d concerning what it is for a contingent thing to exist, and the \u201cground question,\u201d concerning why any contingent thing exists. Presenting these as separate but closely connected problems gives the discussion a clear point of departure, especially as the book places them against more deflationary and eliminativist approaches associated with thinkers such as Quine and Russell.<\/span><\/p>\n

I would like to invite A Paradigm Theory of Existence<\/em> to be featured in an upcoming reading session with The Glasgow Book Club. Its focus on questions that have remained central to metaphysical inquiry would give our readers a substantial subject to consider and discuss.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you would like to know more about the session, I would be happy to share the details.<\/span><\/p>\n

Warm regards,<\/span>
\nDavid Hartley<\/span>
\nOrganizer, The Glasgow Book Club<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\u1427<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This just over the transom. It piqued my vanity, and that in tandem with my ongoing search for high-level interaction with like-minded interlocutors, almost seduced me. But my inherent skepticism and sober understanding of just how wretched we human beings can be kicked in and I did not respond. For a brief exploration of the … Continue reading “I Smelled a Scam; Didn’t Bite”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[246],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14519,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14518\/revisions\/14519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}