Maverick Philosopher

Word of the Day: Cack-Handed

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Short. Entertaining. Makes important points about language and male-female relations.  Improve your vocabulary. Read it!

Leftists, especially those of the 'woke'-Orwellian stripe, do not want you to have a large vocabulary. They do not want you to be able to think in a nuanced manner. 

On 'Stuff' and 'Ass'

A Substack language rant. Excerpt:

'Ass' is another word gaining a currency that is already excessive. One wonders how far it will go. Will 'ass' become an all-purpose synecdoche? Run your ass off, work your ass to the bone, get your ass out of here . . . ask a girl's father for her ass in marriage? In the expression, 'piece of ass' the reference is not to the buttocks proper, but to an adjoining area. 'Ass' appears subject to a peculiar semantic spread. It can come to mean almost anything, as in 'haul ass,' which means to travel at a high rate of speed. I don't imagine that if one were hauling donkeys one could make very good time. So how on earth did this expression arise? (I had teenage friends who could not refer to a U-Haul trailer except as a U-Haul-Ass trailer.)

When Politics Comes to be Like Philosophy

Trouble is on the way.

Substack latest. Short, incisive, 'on target.' To the range tomorrow!

For the Left, the Issue is Never the Issue

I unpack the saying in my latest Substack article.

Rand and Peikoff on God and Existence

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Wherein I analyze the Objectivist battle cry, "Existence exists!"

Ayn Rand is worth reading, mainly on political and economic topics: she is a corrective to the destructive lunacy of the collectivists. I am not suggesting that she is wholly correct, but that she is useful as a corrective, especially now, to the extremism of the clowns in control of the pathocratic Biden (mal)administration.

Free Speech Absolutism?

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The Long and the Short of it

Long views or short? Substack latest.

Why be Consistent?

Three types of consistency distinguished: logical, pragmatic, and Emersonian.

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'Infra Dig'

Can you dig it? Substack latest.

The Consolations of Philosophy

Substack latest. A Boethian-Hegelian rumination.

The Question of the Reality of God: Wittgensteinian Fideism No Answer

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Ratzinger on the Resurrection of the Body

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You will note that in my writings I use the gender-neutral 'man' and 'he.'  It is important to stand in defense of the mother tongue. She is under vicious assault these days. You owe a lot to your mother; show her some respect. On Easter Sunday and on every day. Anyone who takes offense at standard English takes offense inappropriately.

Wittgenstein on Christianity

A Good Friday meditation.

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Last year's Good Friday Substack meditation.

The Philosopher and the Christian

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Husserl, Thomas, and Sister Adelgundis

Substack latest. A meditation on Husserl's birthday.

'Equity' and Merit

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Lecturer on Personal Identity Denied Honorarium

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Be Positive!

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Nietzsche, Salvation, and the Question of the Value of Life

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On Reverence

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Death as the Muse of Morality Limits our Immorality

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The No True Scotsman or No True Muslim Fallacy

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In logic a fallacy is not a false belief but a pattern of reasoning that is both typical and in some way specious. Specious reasoning, by the very etymology of the term, appears correct but is not. Thus a logical fallacy is not just any old mistake in reasoning, but a typical or recurrent mistake that has some tendency to seduce or mislead our thinking. A taxonomy of fallacies is useful insofar as it helps prevent one from seducing oneself or being seduced by others.

By the way, the study of logic won't get you very far, but it is fun and of some use, especially at a time when shockingly mendacious and dimwitted people have taken over the government of the greatest nation on Earth.  Examples are legion from the top down. You know their names.

Critical Race Theory Attracts the Uncritical

People are suckers for Critical Race Theory (CRT) because they cannot think critically.

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Quietism versus Activism

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The Worst Thing about Poverty

Substack latest. A quotation from Theodor Haecker with a bit of commentary.

Use it or Lose it?

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If you want to maintain your physical fitness, you must exercise regularly. Use it or lose it!  Not so long ago  I thought that the same principle had a political application: if you want to maintain your freedoms, you must exercise them.  Use 'em or lose 'em! But times have changed.  And when times change, the wise re-evaluate. I'll give two examples.

Civil Liability for Gun Manufacturers?

Of course not! Substack latest.

Louis Lavelle on the Stoic Wisdom

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I am a lover of the Stoics. Why waste time on New Age hucksters when one can read Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius? But while the Stoics can take us a good stretch down the road to wisdom, they cannot bring us to the end — a fact long appreciated by first-rate minds. In late antiquity, Aurelius Augustinus offered a critique of the Stoics in Book XIX, Chapter 4 of The City of God, a critique worthy of being called classical. We will have to examine that critique one of these days. But today I want to draw your attention to some passages from Chapter 10, Section 4 of Louis Lavelle's The Dilemma of Narcissus (Allen & Unwin, 1973, tr. Gairdner):

Read the rest.

On Acquiring a Large Vocabulary

But how useful in a society of semi-literates?

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A Part-Time Monk's Solution to Suggestibility

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Toleration Extremism: Notes on John Stuart Mill

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Toleration is the touchstone of classical liberalism, but Mill takes it too far.

Is Hegel Guilty of 'Epochism'?

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'Medieval' is not a pejorative term!

Alypius and the Gladiators

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A note on the soul and its toxins on the feast of St. Augustine.

Are the Dead Subject to Harm?

Suppose the executrix of my will fails to disburse the funds I have earmarked for the local food bank after my death and instead heads for Las Vegas with the loot. Has she harmed me? Stolen my money? Violated my wishes?

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I can't eat a no-longer-existent sandwich or kick a no-longer-existent ball. How then can she harm a no-longer-existent man?  

Would Naturalism Make Life Easier?

Substack latest, for popular consumption, sans technical minutiae.

Do I imagine that what I serve up at Substack will improve the world? I am none too sanguine about that, but if it brings a bit of light into a few heads, then it is worth doing. Perhaps it will distract you from your silly distractions and ignite a few questions. It is never too late to get serious. But it is later than you think, and the Reaper Man is sharpening his scythe as we speak. 

The Witness of Maximilian Kolbe

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Four Senses of 'Absurd'

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The Uselessness of Stoicism in the Face of Death

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Latest Substack Articles

Profiling, Prejudice, and Discrimination

IQ and the Truth-Intolerant Left