A short story I wrote in high school, 1980-82 or so. Around the time I decided to stop hunting. The Dawn of Knowledge The boy impatient clicked the safety of his 20 gauge shotgun on and off. As he struggled down the trail through the weeds and briers in an open patch of the forest, […]
A short story I wrote in high school, 1980-82 or so. The Basset Hound The Basset Hound leisurely trotted down the center of the railroad tracks. The sky was vast, pale, and blue, and curved down an left and right to meet the green lines of trees in the forest. The wind was dry and […]
I have had a private freewheeling libertarian email discussion list for many years, and many private memes have emerged. I used to gaslight someone by adding “No offense, John” after a comment that I wanted to signal was an implicit insult or critique of their views. So now they all say “No offense, Kinsella” or […]
The race-baiting wave of 2020-2021 took a slightly unusual turn over the weekend when a Los Angeles Times opinion writer named Erika D. Smith published two pieces about the California recall gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder. She leads off her articles with these headlines: Larry Elder draws fire for N-word comedy clip Column: Larry Elder is the […]
We often hear the same objections to TAG based on similar mistakes. A year ago I did a specific stream presenting TAG and why it holds up against TANG found here. I covered the supposed transcendental argument for the non-existence of God, but we saw this was based on a fallacious understanding of theological voluntarism. Today we will cover more common and simpler objections to TAG which are usually based on misunderstandings, fallacies and basic blunders.
The following is my contribution to the “digital festschrift” for Sean Gabb, arranged by our mutual friend Keir Martland, in honor of Sean’s 60th birthday. Other entries so far: SEAN GABB TURNS SIXTY, by Keir Martland Including short notes from Walter Block and Robert Carnaghan ALWAYS TRAVEL WITH SEAN, by Robert Grözinger SEAN GABB ON THE […]
Personal: I ran headfirst into a bit of a classic burnout two years ago. I’m still recovering from it. I’ve been trying to maintain a presence and not make this condition show too much, but I need to scale down the rest of my presence too for a while in order to reset and recharge.
I’ve been starting and re-starting writing this post way too many times now. I’ve decided to just post it as a stream of consciousness, readable or not as it may be, rather than my usual bar of having some sort of clear red thread with step-by-step logical coherence.
Picking up where we left off on the last defense of theology and philosophy stream, I return to questions of apologetic method, the ontological status of numbers, logic and other invariant conceptual entities, the nature of metaphysics and transcendental arguments, the relationship of historical philosophy to dialectics and why dialectics must be avoided. We will also discuss revelation in Scripture in terms of the epistemic authority, the circularity of foundational truth claims at a fundamental level, as well as your questions. How do numbers prove God?
In this intro video that sets the stage for the full lecture on St. Athanasius’ apologetic work, Ad Gentes or Against the Heathen, we do a presuppositional critique of paganism. If there’s no Thomistic “natural theology” or generic theism, then a different apologetic characterizes Orthodoxy.
My memoriam for Tibor Machan, R.I.P., was published today at FEE.org: Remembering Tibor Machan, Libertarian Mentor and Friend: Reflections on a Giant. A local copy is repixeled below. Update: Jack Criss’s touching tribute is available here. And here is one by Pater Tenebraram. *** One of my long-time friends, libertarian philosopher Tibor Machan, passed away last month, […]
