Apologies to Nietzsche for bastardizing his title, but it seems apropos to this announcement.

As I have stated in numerous previous posts, I am loath to speak of myself in my posts. I have sternly resisted the temptation to become self-referential, because this blog was never really about me, per se. It was one man’s record of an attempt to work his way through formal philosophy. So, philosophy was the focus. It is the product of a mind directly engaging with philosophy, such as it is in the 21st century, and trying to restate that engagement in terms which that mind could make sense. But that mind has reached the end of its adventure, and what the man who owns that mind has found in all his years of exploration has left him with the view that modernity and its philosophers are tragic ants, toiling tirelessly at an ant hill soon to be washed away by a monsoon looming just over the horizon. I don’t want to be one of those ants anymore.

Lila Rose offers a naive version of the pro-life argument. I spend a little time going over the premises, in order to try to strengthen her case.

Here’s a video wherein I draw a straight line between Descartes’ mistakes, and Alex Jones’ wacky mysticism. It’s an idea that has been percolating in me for a few months. Jones just makes it possible to explore it in an extremely colourful way.

Preface

I was only recently made aware of this book. In my teens, I devoured Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Jerry Pournelle, and many other popular sci-fi authors of the era between 1960 and 1980. But I had, for whatever reason, never heard of David Gerrold. Once alerted to it, the premise of the novel was too much for me to pass up. I have already done an analysis of 2001: A Space Odyssey, centering my focus on HAL and what he means in the context of story, and this is yet another opportunity to delve into the philosophy and psychology around our desire to project ourselves into machines in our mythology. For what it’s worth, my reviews are intensely critical on purpose. But, it should not be interpreted as a discouragement. Indeed, I would highly recommend getting a copy of the book and reading it.

I have recently finished reading Charles Dickens’ 1840 novel, Barnaby Rudge. It is a novel of both romantic and political drama set in the period leading up to the famous London Gordon Riots of 1780. To offer a basic sketch of the story, it follows the lives of four families: the Haredales, the Willets, the Vardens, and the Rudges, between the years of 1775 and 1780, culminating in the riots of June, 1780. The drama essentially boils down to the tension between the personal affections that individuals in these families have for each other, and the rising hostilities and suspicions of their differing religions.

I had a Nest thermostat (before it was gobbled up by Google) many years ago in a home in New Hampshire. It ran a furnace that burned supposedly eco-friendly pellets. To be honest, my only interest in the furnace was that it offered an economical alternative to the established expensive centralized gas utility.

The thermostat was sufficient. I never used the phone app designed for it because the house was too small, and I saw no benefit in adjusting the temperature of my house while at the grocery store. I did have to reboot it relatively frequently. Every time I did, the question of why this needed to be a linux node kept getting bigger and bigger in my mind. By the time I got rid of the house (only a couple of years later) I didn’t want to have anything to do with “home automation”. Let me take a step back to explain why.

Are Social Objects “Really Real”?

There is an intuitive suspicion expressed in common sense, that certain kinds of objects – namely, objects that seem to be dependent upon social factors – aren’t “really, real”. The intuition is a skeptical one arising out of a default common sense empiricism. While there may be some nominal understanding or some social agreement about the reality of things like national borders or governments, they’re not “really, real” in the sense that, say, an airplane, or a boulder, or a dog, are “really, real”. In contemporary philosophical literature, this distinction is typically understood as an opposition between the realist and antirealist understanding of objects, and is sometimes justified by adding the qualification “social” to the term object. The qualification is correct, but incomplete. This paper will attempt flesh out the notion of a social object, in order to provide a clearer understanding of what is meant by it, and to provide a means by which we might answer the question of whether so-called social objects are in fact, “really, real”.

Is Homo Mensura Self-Refuting?

Plato’s Theaetetus involves a famous exchange between Socrates, an old mathematician named Theodorus, and his brilliant young pupil named Theaetetus, in which they attempt to answer the question of what is knowledge. The common denominator in this exchange, is that Protagoras is an old friend of Theodorus, and Theaetetus has adopted Protagorean relativism as his own doctrine. The exchange between Socrates and the two men is at least in part (in addition to attempting to discover a theory of knowledge in general) intended to demonstrate that the doctrine of Protagoras is self-refuting. This essay will provide a brief overview of the key interpretations of the doctrine of Protagoras, cover the basic arguments and their criticisms by various philosophers¹, and then render a judgement (ironically?) in conclusion.

Is Liberalism Obsolete?

What does this question mean? What are we really trying to get at, when we ask this question? Let us take note that there are two rather expansive and indeterminate words in this question; indeterminate, because of the way the question has been asked. Namely, the words Liberalism, and obsolete.

It is out of fashion these days to begin a philosophy talk with definitions, but I cannot help but do so in this case, because otherwise you will have no idea what I am asking you to agree to in this argument. So, let us begin with the word obsolete. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, obsolete means “out of fashion, because no longer useful”. Well, if that is true, then the immediate question that arises from this is, no longer useful to whom? and for what?

When you first begin reading Plato’s dialogues, they seem like inscrutable word-problems. Complicated head-spinning exchanges that, by the time you reach the end, have you ready to face-plant onto your desk.

But the more you dip into them, the more you realise how unbelievably subtle and sophisticated they are. And, when you start to master them, the beauty in the whole just becomes awe inspiring.

Here’s a little nugget of poetic insight that only just occurred to me this week. In terms of when the dialogues were written, the Parmenides and the Theaetetus were written in Plato’s “middle” period (around 370BC). In terms of Socrates’ life, though, they are end-caps. Parmenides is the beginning of his philosophical career, Theaetetus is very near the end (literally one dialogue later, he’s sitting outside the courtroom, waiting for his hearing).

“Today is a great triumph. There is a king of Spain. He has been found at last. That king is me.” ~ Nikolai Gogol

What makes a “social object” “really real”? What is a “social object”, and what would it mean for anything to be “really real”, as opposed to just plain real? The common-sense (ala naive) understanding, is to suggest that things like chairs and tennis balls and bullets are “really real”, while things like “money” and “borders” and “kings” are only just “socially” real (if real at all). However, depending on the scope of the analysis, it is not so easy to draw the line implicit in the previous examples.

The Internet Is Forever

The attached audio, just below, was recorded in 1894 with an ingenious piece of technology invented in 1878, by Thomas Edison. It was conducted by John Philip Sousa himself, who died in 1932. The recording was digitally transcribed and remastered for distribution on CD, in 2005. I have “ripped” the file from CD, converted it to an internet friendly format, and uploaded it to my server. Now, we are all free to listen to it whenever and wherever we like, with the push of a button.

Wherein I read two extended passages from Robert Bork’s famous “The Tempting of America”, in which he dissects the false right of “privacy” read into the Constitution in the Griswold decision. I offer a few commentary remarks at the end, but basically, this is just a reading.

Back in November, I made a blog post explaining that I would be moving to a linux-only “lifestyle”, as it were, for both liesure and independent creative work in my personal life (though, for my “official” job, I am yet chained to a Mac laptop). It’s been a little over six months now, and so I figure it’s time for an update.

While I am indeed now 100% linux on both my desktop and my laptop, I have diverged quite a bit from the plan of my original post. Sometimes, out of necessity, and sometimes because of interesting discoveries that have made life quite a bit more entertaining on linux than I thought it would be at first. I’ll break down the main differences here, and discuss them as we proceed.

Wherein, I supply a brief commentary on a published academic paper, lamenting the downfall of political philosophy in America.

Original Article: https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/article/2/1/172

How I discovered this paper: https://odysee.com/@nogre0:f/philosophy-roulette-277-a-quandry-of:c

Based on a comment I left on this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W0_TuvQBUo

Here is the comment:

I don’t see why you couldn’t adopt Thomas Aquinas’ definition of love as a secular maxim: Willing The Good Of The Other.

You liberals just need to settle on what the good is. Of course, for Aquinas, it was God and his will expressed as a creative love, in creation itself (as articulated in the scriptures). So, the theory had symmetry: aligning the individual will to the universal will and then acting on that, meant love of self, love of the world, and love of other.

This is a response to Richard Dawkins’ replies to an interview he did on the Panpsychast podcast, which can be found here:

https://thepanpsycast.com/panpsycast2/episode108-1

The core question boils down to a methodological dispute that presupposes a metaphysics of naturalistic materialism. Richard refuses to accept the immaterial beyond the notion of the ‘social construct’. Yet, he has to assume the existence of immaterial intelligence in order to explain the intelligibility that underlies the scientific method itself. I try to break that problem down in my responses to this interview.

A good friend of mine recently presented me with an abandoned draft of an article. My friend claimed the essay lacked a solid thesis. Though I was unable to convince my friend to revisit it, I still think that a thesis presents itself fairly clearly in the article’s depiction of the famous conflict between C. S. Lewis and F. R. Leavis.

The gradual domination of academia by a regime of forgettable Leavis-like characters has a cause that we are only now beginning to examine seriously, as a culture. These causes may be very difficult to face for anyone who is invested in continuing the tradition of Lewis and Tolkien and yet also committed to a life in academia, because the implications are so terribly tragic. I think this may be the underlying reason why the essay was abandoned in the first place.

Buckley defined Conservatism through the metaphor of a man standing on the train tracks of history, yelling ‘stop!’. Scruton defined Conservatism as the stewardship of the beautiful, in a particular way of life. The intuition expressed in both definitions is sound. For Conservatism to mean anything, then it must include the preservation or conservation of something important. Scruton is closer to that mark than Buckley is, because he’s closer to a fundamental principle than Buckley is. But they both still miss the mark considerably because their focus is too much on present particulars, without reference to what makes those particulars important.

Why does Socrates spend so much effort defining and describing the soul in so much detail in the Phaedrus? He tells us outright, in the dialogue. It is because no man can gain true knowledge from a speech, if the orator does not himself know how his speech is going to guide the soul to its first memory of the unified reality of beauty, found in the divine realm. Dialectic is the way to wisdom, and dialectic can only be achieved through speech. So, a speech needs to be crafted and delivered in such a way that it both provokes and then satisfies the desire to know beauty (or truth, or goodness).

I have recently come round to the opinion that the original 1967 Star Trek TV series is one of the best things ever produced in the 20th century. I have been going through the old original series one episode at a time, to refamiliarize myself with it and to recapture a portion of the experience of having watched it as a boy.

When I was a boy, most of what was going on in the episode ran past me. I mainly just wanted to see Kirk and Spock get into pickles that they had to get themselves out of, and to see them shoot lasers at aliens. I’m much older now, and the euphoria of special effects and monster costumes has mostly worn off. But what I am seeing now is so much more rich and interesting than mere action sequences could offer. Star Trek is brimming with questions of ontology, epistemology, ethics, and even theology and psychology. To be fair, in a 48-minute episode where they have to pack in as much drama and visual spectacle as possible, there’s very little time to explore deep questions. Still, attempt them they did – and sometimes with surprising subtlety.

The Problem of Progress

The question I’m addressing today, is on Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It was posed to me recently, in this form: “Is Kuhn right that we cannot speak of progress across scientific paradigms?” This paper will briefly summarize Kuhn’s own definition of progress both within and across paradigms, explore the implications of these definitions, and assess the conclusion Kuhn comes to at the end of Chapter XIII of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The overall argument of this paper is that the initial question is misleading when compared to what Kuhn actually argues, but that Kuhn is still mistaken in his rejection of the notion of progress because elsewhere he admits himself that incommensurability does not deny the possibility of measurement, and because the analogy to evolution is fundamentally flawed. The paper will conclude with a few summary remarks about progress, both as it relates to science, and as a general concept.

Responding to John Rawls egalitarianism, Robert Nozick responds that “….in a socialist society… no end-state principle or distributional patterned principle of justice can be continuously realized without continuous interference with peoples’ lives. Any favoured pattern would be transformed into one unflavored by the principle, by people choosing to act in various ways…” (Nozick 1974, 163) This essay will argue that Nozick’s objection is successful against Rawls, only to the extent that it is understood in the context of Rawls’ understanding of his own theory. If Nozick is correct, then Rawls insistence on the priority of liberty is flawed because his Difference Principle is incommensurable with his Liberty Principle. Further, this paper will then argue that the objection is only a necessary step in a fully sufficient set of reasons for rejecting Rawls’ complete Theory of Justice. Finally, it will end by highlighting a puzzle at the heart of the dispute between Nozick and Rawls that has yet to be solved.

I was directed to this article about “stand-up” meetings by a work colleague. I have a few thoughts about it that nicely dovetail my “day job” with this blog.

The Superficial Question

Based on my own experience, the utility of stand-up meetings, as such, really does depend on the team, its mindset, and its needs. I have been in places where they were invaluable for team-level info share. I’ve been in other places where they were a complete waste of time, and often used as a weapon (punishing people for showing up late, incentivising token participation, and so forth). As with all other organizational tools, if the team doesn’t see a need to use this tool, trying to force it on the team is going to be counterproductive. But if there is a recognized problem with coordination or info-sharing or pacing, then maybe this tool would be useful. One of the problems I have with articles like this, is the impulse to generalize from a practical experience. This is a misapplication of universalism. Stand-ups are a tool. If they’re not working for your team, find a better tool. That’s fine. But just because you need a band-saw instead of a sabre-saw, doesn’t mean that “band-saws are dead now”.

Eleven years ago, I didn’t understand the Haldane position, because I was ignorant. Eleven years ago, I thought I understood the Hitchens position, because he made me feel good when he spoke. Working my way through a masters in philosophy eleven years later, I can say that I (mostly) understand them both. And frankly, in the light of that wisdom (such as it is), Hitchens is embarrassing.

This post is a placeholder in which to post my first video commentary on Havel’s “The Power of the Powerless”.

One errata: I said he was critiquing the Russian government. This isn’t entirely correct. He’s critiquing the Russian soviet, the Czechoslovakian government, and all other governments he labels as “post-totalitarian”. We’ll get into that, as the commentaries continue.

UPDATE: You can find a playlist with all my commentary on this book, here.

I doubt there’s anyone in the anglo-sphere this week, who isn’t aware of the case of Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Probably, a good chunk of Europe was paying attention to that trial, as well. Why? Because of the fundamental question that the trial symbolized, at its core.

The principle at the center of that case was the right of self-defense. As a matter of law, that meant demonstrating in the trial that the material facts of the event conformed to Wisconsin’s own statutory definition of an action that constitutes self-defense. That’s one way to interpret the question ‘why’. But - apart from its importance in establishing grounds for Rittenhouse’s exoneration - that’s not the interpretation that really matters here.

Since 2005, I’ve been working almost exclusively on Apple products. My first was an iBook G4. My last is the Macbook Pro 2015 on which I am typing this post. This coming February, I’ll be taking delivery of my first new computer since 2015, and it will not be a Mac. I chose the Dell XPS 8940 for its excellent balance of price and performance. But the real reason, is because I know it will work with several of the more modern distributions of Linux, and it is engineered in a way that I can still do with it as I wish.

I never used to think much of manifestos. Marx made them notorious, and subsequent generations of university students have rendered them more and more purile and self-serving, in my mind.

But I’m beginning to change my mind on the topic. I think there is utility in commiting to a cause or a set of values that give shape an direction to one’s life. I just think that one ought to refrain from doing so, until one is fully prepared to explain oneself. I’m pretty close to being able to do that, now.

Recently, Jordan Peterson did an extended interview with Bob Murphy. Peterson begins the interview by pitching it as a “two hour lesson in Austrian Economics”, but mainly, it was an overview comparison of the principles of Austrian economics against Marxism. It was difficult to dispute much of it. I’m already a proponent of free market capitalism, and I’m also fairly partial to Friedrich Hayek’s work (at least, as it is represented in The Constitution of Liberty, and Law, Legislation, and Liberty). I’m not quite as versed in Ludwig Von Mises, but from what I’ve heard said by folks like Murphy and others, it dovetails nicely with Hayek. Murphy says the key difference between them, is that one took an analytical approach, and the other a more empirical or (dare I say) sociological approach. That seems to square with what I’ve read, to date.

"…Christians must dare to challenge this fearful, risk-averse society, with its stifling multiplication of ‘health and safety’ regulations and its fear of life. In the sixteenth century, missionaries from Catholic orders - Dominican, Franciscan, Jesuit, Carmelite, and many others - travelled in great numbers to Asia to preach the gospel. Half of them never arrived. They died of shipwreck and disease; they were captured by pirates, suffered martyrdom, and yet they dared to continue without any health or travel insurance. Today, such adventures would be condemned as crazy…" - Timothy Radcliffe, 2019

]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-world-in-1967/ Mon, 09 Aug 2021 13:17:45 +0100 Blog: [philosophy psychology technology history autobiography]

I was born in a tiny southwestern suburb of Chicago, in August of 1967. Lots of people were. There’s really nothing particularly special about that. There are loads of garbage celebrities and politicians born in 1967. Jimmy Kimmel (13 November), Joe Rogan (7 August), and Peter Thiel (11 October), for example. So, if you’re looking for someone interesting and exciting, you’ve come to the wrong place. I’m just an average schmuck from the Chicagoland area, with nearly the same birthdate as Joe Rogan.

]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/religion-and-rational-belief/ Thu, 22 Jul 2021 15:50:59 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology]

This paper is an analysis of the following argument that denies the possibility of rationality in religious faith:

1. Rational belief is belief that is proportioned to the evidence.
2. Religious faith is belief that is unsupported by the evidence.
3. C) Therefore, religious faith is never rational.

To assess this argument properly, a number of key assumptions need to be examined and critiqued. First, premise 1 implies without explanation a nature of belief that allows for proportionality. Second, premise 1 also asserts a proportionality standard of rationality which is contestable on a proper understanding of belief as assent. This means that the first two premises anchor proportionality in a notion of evidence. Third, premise 2 asserts a definition of faith that erroneously eliminates the possibility of rationality by making it wholly dependent upon its prior assumptions about proportionality and evidence. Finally, it draws a conclusion which cannot be sustained even if we were to accept the first two premises.

]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/a-visit-from-wormwood/ Wed, 21 Jul 2021 22:44:57 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

I had an odd little dream last night. I was walking along a road at dusk. In an ex-urban area. Not wilderness, but not suburbs either. Along the shoulders of the road, cranes or storks were standing knee-deep in what looked like long rectangle rice patches. The storks were all trying desperately to swallow elongated fish that protruded out of their beaks, and clearly did not fit into their bellies.

]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/two-routes-to-the-same-good/ Sat, 17 Jul 2021 17:07:35 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology]

Plato and Aristotle were very different thinkers. They came at the same fundamental philosophical problems from radically different directions. Rafael nicely characterized this in his famous “School of Athens” painting – Plato, ever the tutor, sternly pointing to the sky; Aristotle, the indignant pupil, gesturing reflexively toward the earth. But this image is somewhat deceiving. To anyone unfamiliar with the territory, you might walk away from the work thinking that Plato and Aristotle differed fundamentally, rather than merely instrumentally. Indeed, since the Enlightenment, this is the dominant story told about the thinking of the two men: Plato is the “idealist”, concerned with transcendent objects of pure thought, and disdainful of the material world. Aristotle is the “empiricist” (or, at least, “nominalist”), determined to derive his general understandings from the experience of his senses only, and unconcerned with vaporous notions of transcendence. But this characterization is somewhat misleading. Both men were in fact aiming at the same end, and nowhere is it more plain to see, than in their divergent approaches to The Good. Let’s explore why.

]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-garden-of-liberty/ Sun, 04 Jul 2021 22:39:18 +0000 Blog: [philosophy culture politics]

This is a fantastic video. Highly recommend, especially today.

Just a few caveats:

1. He over-emphasizes Milton, and under-emphasizes the influence of Locke and Rousseau. Milton actually precedes Locke by about 25 years, and Rousseau by about 100 years. Milton was a proto-Enlightenment figure, who’s literary work seeded the ground for Enlightenment political philosophy (much the same way that Dostoevsky seeded the ground for Nietzsche and Marx after him).

   ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/a-future-history-of-vice/ Sun, 27 Jun 2021 22:32:18 +0000 Blog: [philosophy culture]

   We now live in an era in which Pride is Sovereign, and his two concubines Vanity and Lust are his apostles amongst men of weak will.

   He is the inevitable successor to the rule of his brother Greed and his two accomplices, Sloth and Gluttony.

   Pride’s rule will come to an end, eventually. But it will not be by succession. There is but one Sovereign of vice remaining, and he has no patience for seduction.

   ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/pride-is-nothing-to-celebrate/ Tue, 22 Jun 2021 22:14:07 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology]

   “…It was Pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels…” - St. Augustine

   The layers of inversion involved in “pride” month are breathtaking when you really look into the matter.

   Thomas Aquinas says of the sin of Pride, that it is “inordinate self-love [which] is the cause of every sin… the root of pride is found to consist in man not being, in some way, subject to God and His rule.” Pride was the first of all sins, according to the Bible’s origin stories. It was what lead to Lucifer being cast out of heaven, and what inspired Adam and Eve to listen to the snake. Pride is the queen of all the vices, and according to the bible, it is found at the core of every sin (not just by way of The Fall). The line between righteousness and self-righteousness, is Pride.

   ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/telos-is-arche/ Sat, 19 Jun 2021 22:08:34 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

   From Love, Friendship, Beauty, and the Good: Plato, Aristotle, and the Later Tradition by Kevin Corrigan:

   "…Just as teaching and learning involve two different subjects, but constitute a single activity (energeia) from different perspectives, so also what is an action or an external motive force from one viewpoint is a manifestation of the deepest reality from another viewpoint. The same activity involves two distinct subjects but is nonetheless a single activity seen from two different points of view. What is divine from one aspect may be quite human from another! At the same time, the Aristotelian scale of nature embodies a hierarchy of different developmental forms, the lower forms always requiring the higher forms for their fuller actualization and explanation. All lower forms, therefore, require the energy of higher-order forms to give them their meaning. God is not therefore an explanation or cause remote from worms, butterflies, hopes, and thoughts, but their ultimate and yet proper meaning present to them from the beginning. Their telos really is their archē."

   ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/negotiating-the-value-of-a-single-life/ Thu, 17 Jun 2021 22:00:46 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology sociology literature]

   In 1973, Ursula Le Guin wrote a short story about a utopian city called 'Omelas'. The story is, at its core, a philosophical thought experiment. To summarize: Let’s just accept for the sake of argument, a city that is so self-sufficient, and so devoid of want or suffering or strife that the people of the city were able to live in an unceasing state of joyous bliss. Every season involved weeks-long festivals of celebration, and nobody was deprived of any need, material, moral, or psychological.

   ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/a-conservative-starter-library/ Tue, 15 Jun 2021 21:35:23 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

   Here are some 20th century books that guided me away from contemporary American Liberalism (and its Germanic progressive bias), and contributed to my understanding of Conservatism as an evolving worldview. I will offer four philosophical, and four political suggestions:

   Philosophical:

   1. After Virtue (1984), Alasdair MacIntyre - This book began my divorce with both Enlightenment modernism, and the English analytical tradition. MacIntyre makes a powerful case for Aristotelian ethics, and against the Germans, especially. I see virtue ethics (in whatever form) as core to any coherent conservative worldview. MacIntyre did not take the Aristotelian turn until very late in his life. This book was the testament to that turning. His ultimate vision is of a communitarian society, which I disagree with somewhat, but elements of it are essential (particularly, the relational element of society).

      ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-death-of-the-transcendent/ Sun, 13 Jun 2021 21:30:02 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology culture]

      A good one from Paul Joseph Watson:

      The emptying out of The Beautiful has finally come to fruition. As a civilization, we now worship nihilism in truth thanks to Rorty, Derrida, Simon Blackburn and others; nihilism in goodness thanks to Russell, Mackie, Hare, Foucault, and others; and nihilism in beauty, thanks to a long train of motley vandals starting at the beginning of the 20th century (some of them mentioned here in Watson’s video).

      ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/marxism-as-false-religion/ Sun, 30 May 2021 21:21:56 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics theology]

      The ‘marxist professor’ (Glenn Bracey, Villanova) highlighted by the video linked in this article is not wrong in the most broad outline, about Marx’s theory of alienation, as a critique of commodity markets. He just so mangled and misapplied the concept that it’s almost unrecognisable.

      The theory of alienation is about the separation of human activity from fundamental human nature. It’s a metaphysical theory about where value derives from in the products of human labor. It is not a “spiritual concern” (whatever that means). Marx was a materialist, not an idealist. Marx rejected Christianity as just another ideology (one that, on his view, appropriated the problem of suffering to its own ends). So this guy’s attempt to incorporate liberal Christian sympathy into his analysis is purely cynical. What’s more, this ‘professor’ is clearly differentiating between multiple human natures. Note how and where he says “our species being!” - he means, black people have a fundamentally different nature than white people, and that living in western society is alienating black people from their nature, because western society is ‘white’.

      ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/change-technology-and-society/ Wed, 19 May 2021 07:17:45 +0100 Blog: [philosophy sociology technology]

      Once again, I am inspired to respond to Bryan Lunduke. This time, he posted the following commentary on the inevitability of change in tech, and it inspired the subsequent short editorial response.

      Not All Change Is Good

      When I was young, I naively and enthusiastically embraced all technological changes. The more ubiquitous the tech, the better. The more connected, the better. The more distributed, the better. The more integrated, the better! Watchable! Drivable! Wearable! Implantable! Let it all hang out! Star Trek, here we come! I no longer think like that. Now, I am very judicious about the presence that tech has in my life, and in my home.

      ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/linux-civil-war/ Sun, 16 May 2021 16:13:06 +0100 Blog: [philosophy religion culture]

      Bryan Lunduke posted the following video to his Odysee channel recently, and I think it warrants a serious response.

      This phenomenon is a spiritual sickness infecting the culture that extends far beyond just the “linux community”, or even the Internet. The “linux community” is just the next available target of a morally deranged mob that has been moving through the culture since at least 2000 (and probably much, much earlier). The fact that the “linux community” got to sit back and wait until 2019/2020 before this mob finally put its eyes on them, is pure accident.

      ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/yes-virginia-there-is-meaning/ Sat, 15 May 2021 14:52:43 +0100 Blog: [philosophy theology]

      In a recent exchange between Douglas Murray and N. T. Wright on the Unbelievable? Podcast, Douglas poses the following conundrum:

      Is it the case that we are meaning-seeking beings, or, that we are meaning-seeking beings and there is meaning to seek?

      This, it seems to me, is the basic choice every man faces implicitly as a fundamental part of his maturation, and every philosopher faces explicitly as a fundamental part of his matriculation. And, although reason has a role to play in this process, I have learned that it is a choice that can neither be compelled by a clinching syllogism, nor an empirical test. Indeed, if it could be compelled entirely by the weight of reason or evidence, it would not be a choice at all.

      ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/jason-fried-is-a-hero/ Sat, 08 May 2021 18:08:22 +0100 Blog: [culture politics]

      Well, this is a curiously positive coincidence. Just about a month ago, I posted a short missive here, complaining about the “bring your whole self to work” fad. I tend to be somewhat pessimistic about the direction society is going, but today, it’s taken a decidedly positive turn that relates directly to that post. It’s almost as if my post was actually read by the founders of Bascamp themselves.

      What am I talking about? Well, on April 26, Jason Fried posted the following company policy announcement to his “Hey!” blog:

      ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-parable-of-the-invisible-gardener/ Sun, 02 May 2021 23:50:09 +0100 Blog: [philosophy theology]

      Antony Flew is famous for a few things. Among them is an allegory he included in an essay originally published in 1955, called “Theology and Falsification”. As the title implies, Flew attacks religious belief from a position that would have been familiar to someone like Bertrand Russell or A. J. Ayer, and is today is recognizable as a stock materialist criticism. Let’s have a look at the parable, and Flew’s reasoning from it, to see exactly why he’s wrong.

      ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/cosmos-sagan-vs-tyson/ Sat, 01 May 2021 10:13:27 +0100 Blog: [philosophy culture science]

      I have been thinking about this on-and-off, recently. What is the difference between the Sagan Cosmos, and the Tyson Cosmos? There are lots of fairly uncharitable things to say about both of these men, but if we were forced to provide an actual explanation, I think three things could be said:

      1. Era / Audience. The original Cosmos was released in 1980. Not since the early eighties, have I felt the same sense of optimism and yearning for the promise of the future. I think the 1980 Cosmos nicely captures both that sense of hope and the sense of “wonder” often talked about by folks like E. O. Wilson and Sagan himself. The Tyson Cosmos was released in 2014. Post Gulf War(s), Post 9/11, and deep into the “disappointment phase” of the Obama era. The culture was much more cynical and exhausted in 2014, compared to 1980.

         ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/neo-and-aristotle/ Thu, 29 Apr 2021 07:43:12 +0100 Blog: [philosophy]

         All the pop philosophers will tell you that The Matrix is an allegory of Platonic Dualism. They are all wrong.

         Platonic dualism asserts that the soul and the body are distinct, and that the body is wholly dependent upon a transcendent form imposed upon it, when the soul (an instance of that transcendent form) enters it. But if we take the “real world” Neo was initially ignorant of to be the allegory for the body, and the “matrix world” into which Neo was born (and in which he was initially living out a kind of dream) to be the allegory of the soul, then it is not proper Platonism.

         ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/social-theory-of-american-politics/ Tue, 27 Apr 2021 08:03:46 +0100 Blog: [philosophy politics]

         America has always had a high and a low culture, similar to that of the English or the French. But the relationship between the two is expressed very differently than the English or the French, particularly in the political sphere.

         Throughout it’s history, American high and low culture have both more-or-less agreed with each other on the core principles governing the society, derived mainly from western Protestantism, English common law tradition, and Catholic intellectualism filtered through the late Enlightenment.

         ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/renewing-the-church-means-renewing-the-faith/ Sat, 24 Apr 2021 19:41:00 +0100 Blog: [philosophy theology] Have a look at this video, and then read my response.

         Brian completely misses the point on this one. The problem with church affiliation is not whether or not the mass is Tridentine, or whether or not there are tambourines and guitars. The problem with the church is that it has abandoned its actual “value add” (to put it in Brian’s metaphor). The “uniqueness” of the church is not in its Gothic architecture, or the specific language the liturgy is read in, or the massive late-medieval organs, or the Catholic habits, or even the lengthy intellectual tradition from St. Paul to John Paul II.

         ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/two-visions-of-justice/ Wed, 21 Apr 2021 21:06:08 +0100 Blog: [philosophy]

         In 1974, Robert Nozick wrote a lengthy response to John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, called “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”. One of Nozick’s core critiques of Rawls, centers around a characterization of the kind of Justice that Rawls was advocating. Nozick called it, the justice of “patterned distributions”.

         Famously, Nozick argued against a fixed “patterned distribution” of wealth, using the metaphor of famous basketball player Wilt Chamberlain. The entire allegory is too much for this post but to summarize briefly, he pointed out through this metaphor that, given a regime of voluntary individual exchanges which, are ostensibly morally acceptable even on Rawls conception of patterned justice, the only way to maintain a fixed pattern of distribution, would be through the application of force, which itself could be construed as unjust, on Rawls’ own theory.

         ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/soaping-with-rest/ Sun, 11 Apr 2021 13:49:55 +0100 Blog: [technology programming] This week, I have had the opportunity, as part of my new job, to reacquaint myself with the SOAP protocol. I was tasked with standing up a facade service, that would act as a live integration mock, for a new client interface being built which will be accessing a real (old) SOAP backend service, written in Java. Problem is, due to the nature of the situation, there is no way to see the innards of the service I’m mocking.
         ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/testing-new-shortcodes/ Sat, 10 Apr 2021 11:27:58 +0100 Blog: [technology blogging] Today, I’m just testing out a few new Hugo shortcodes I added to the site. I’ve culled these from around the internet, and hacked together some of my own. You might find them useful, if you’re doing static blogging yourself. You can find all the code on the repo for this site, found here. As I do more and more blogging from the static site generator, this sort of thing will be more and more useful to me, at least.
         ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/ffmpeg-scrapbook/ Mon, 05 Apr 2021 08:44:33 +0100 Blog: [technology podcasting] In order to produce videos, I have had to jump through a lot of hoops. One of those, is learning how to transcode video files with ffmpeg. This post is mostly a convenience for me. A place where I can dump copy-pasta command lines, so that I never forget them.

         Extracting video from YouTube

         If you’re initially uploading to YouTube (because its the only cellphone app that works well), and need to move the videos to other services that don’t support syncing yet (or, their support is sketchy and broken), then use ffmpeg in cooperation with youtube-dl, and do this:

         ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/nextcloud-caldav-error/ Sun, 04 Apr 2021 11:27:28 +0100 Blog: [technology sysadmin] Recently, I setup a self-hosted nextcloud instance, for my own personal use. One of the primary uses I had for this service, besides storing sharable content on the internet, was to have a central place where I stored and synced things like appointments, meetings, and tasks. That requires a working CALDAV and CARDDAV discovery service, and nextcloud has this feature, so I was eager to get it up and running.
         ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/your-whole-self/ Sat, 03 Apr 2021 08:03:49 +0100 Blog: [culture worklife politics]

         When I first entered the working world in the late nineteen-eighties, there were a few essential social ground rules that you had to learn, in order to be successful. The first was that my employer does not exist for my benefit. My role in the business is to provide some tangible value toward the end goal of the company: product and profit. To the extent that I benefited the firm, I would receive benefits in kind, after a bit of negotiation. The second, was that my employer’s goals and my personal goals are likely to be very different. The task is to find an employer that overlaps enough that you can function effectively. The third, and perhaps most important, is that the mission of the firm and the every day strategy and tactics of getting my job done, are the only political subjects you ought to be spending any amount of time on, in conversation. It is this third point I am addressing today.

         ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/book-review-the-last-superstition/ Thu, 18 Feb 2021 14:56:21 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology culture]

         This book is no ordinary work of apologetic exceptionalism, or fatalistic religious outrage. Dr. Feser attempts to go much, much further than to simply “debunk” the New Atheists. In fact, he only spends a minority of the pages of this book on the “New Atheists” themselves, because they turn out to be only the worst exemplars of a much bigger problem, according to Dr. Feser. In short, this book is a blanket indictment of the entirety of modern materialist naturalism and a significant portion of the science upon which it is based.

         ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/kant-vs-anselm-vs-cary/ Sun, 07 Feb 2021 20:56:50 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology culture]

         I have been listening to this lecture series to supplement the readings in my philosophy of religion course.

         In the first Kant lecture, Cary says that Kant argues against Anselm on the ground that being isn’t a property. It goes a little something like this:

         1. Anselm says, that which actually exists, rather than which we can merely imagine, is superior in perfection because existence is superior to all other possible properties we could imagine.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/ruminations-on-justice-in-plato-and-aristotle/ Sat, 30 Jan 2021 16:34:35 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

            The following is not a sustained argument, so much as an exploration of impressions derived from the last few years of reading. There are arguments to be gleaned from it, but I must confess, they’re not entirely conscious efforts. The blind squirrel of my mind is finding a few nuts as he tries to feel his way out of the forest.

            Plato and Aristotle had very different ideas about Justice. But I am less and less convinced that they disagreed about it, fundamentally. This is true for most of the systematic philosophy (as much as it can be so called, for Plato), from their metaphysics to their ethics and politics. It’s not really difficult to see why. Aristotle was a trained Platonist, after all. And both Plato and Aristotle were responding to the challenge laid down by Parmenides. Namely, that plurality could only be an illusion if unity could be proved, and as far as Parmenides was concerned, it was proved. Likewise, a world of becoming must also be an illusion if being could be conclusively demonstrated — and as far as Parmenides was concerned, that was also proved.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-4-chapter-3-what-good-and-evil-deserve/ Sun, 10 Jan 2021 10:01:54 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Lady Philosophy explains how the righteous never lack their reward, nor the wicked their punishment. We take a trip with Odysseus to the Island of the Winds, and find ourselves transformed into swine, by Cerce.

            ]]>

            Lady Philosophy explains how the righteous never lack their reward, nor the wicked their punishment. We take a trip with Odysseus to the Island of the Winds, and find ourselves transformed into swine, by Cerce.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-4-chapter-2-the-evil-are-powerless/ Sun, 27 Dec 2020 20:11:06 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            In today’s episode, Lady Philosophy lays out for us, the first of four arguments attempting to defang the problem of evil, and in the process, we discover that evil people simply don’t exist! Accordingly, she first expounds the paradox that the good alone have power, while the bad are altogether powerless.

            ]]>

            In today’s episode, Lady Philosophy lays out for us, the first of four arguments attempting to defang the problem of evil, and in the process, we discover that evil people simply don’t exist! Accordingly, she first expounds the paradox that the good alone have power, while the bad are altogether powerless.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/stefan-molyneux-and-the-definition-of-love/ Sun, 27 Dec 2020 17:19:17 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology]

            I am hesitant to do back-to-back critiques of Stefan Molyneux, because I don’t want the blog to become the “Contra Molyneux” journal. However, in his Christmas podcast, Stefan made a number of titillating and curious assertions, that I just couldn’t resist. He did not offer a thorough defense of any of them in the podcast, but we can excuse this on the ground that at least some of these are defended elsewhere, and were only presuppositions necessary for the present discussion.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-4-chapter-1-the-problem-of-evil-restated/ Sun, 13 Dec 2020 20:13:06 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            The mystery of the seeming moral confusion. Philosophy engages to make this plain, and to fulfill her former promise to the full. Boethius takes on The Gorgias. Let’s see what he comes up with!

            Librivox version of The Gorgias can be found here.

            ]]>

            The mystery of the seeming moral confusion. Philosophy engages to make this plain, and to fulfill her former promise to the full. Boethius takes on The Gorgias. Let’s see what he comes up with!

            Librivox version of The Gorgias can be found here.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/book-review-against-the-gods/ Fri, 11 Dec 2020 15:24:03 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology]

            A Concise Guide To Stefan Molyneux’s Atheism

            I am entering the final year of a BA Philosophy at the University of London, this year. To kick things off, I thought I’d do a book review for the blog. The focus this year is the philosophy of religion, and it’s been a while since I’ve done a book review for an “internet” philosopher. So, I’ve decided to dig my claws into Stefan Molyneux’s “Against The Gods?”. It’s a relatively short book — the subtitle does say it is a “concise” guide. So, I was expecting my review to be quite short as well. Instead, what I found in the pages of this book has taken me the better part of a 12 hour day to unravel and analyze. For a moment, I considered not doing this at all. As you read this review, you’ll see why — and if you manage to get through it, you’ll see why I did it anyway. This book is illustrative of the dire situation our culture is in, today. When even western culture’s most staunch defenders cannot competently articulate even the most basic of its core tenets (e.g., a philosophical belief in God), let alone marshal a reasonable opposition to them, is it really any wonder why we’re losing our identity? Anyway, have a read, and let me know what you think.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-addendum-who-is-lady-philosophy/ Sun, 06 Dec 2020 20:15:43 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            This week, we take a momentary pause from the text, to ponder the origins of Lady Philosophy. What you will discover in this podcast, is a nexus of faith, reason, religion, and philosophy, in the books of Proverbs and Wisdom, and a powerful symbol who’s meaning goes far beyond the superficial anthropomorphism of philosophy in human form.

            I couldn’t think of a good way to work in the famous passage from Acts 17, but that’s hovering in the background of this, as well…

            ]]>

            This week, we take a momentary pause from the text, to ponder the origins of Lady Philosophy. What you will discover in this podcast, is a nexus of faith, reason, religion, and philosophy, in the books of Proverbs and Wisdom, and a powerful symbol who’s meaning goes far beyond the superficial anthropomorphism of philosophy in human form.

            I couldn’t think of a good way to work in the famous passage from Acts 17, but that’s hovering in the background of this, as well…

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-12-boethius-loses-his-vision/ Sun, 29 Nov 2020 20:18:39 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Boethius acknowledges that he is but recollecting truths he once knew. Philosophy goes on to show that it is goodness also by which the whole world is governed (This solves the third. No distinct account is given of the first, but an answer may be gathered from the general argument of bks. ii., iii., and iv.) Boethius professes compunction for his former folly. But the paradox of evil is introduced, and he is once more perplexed.

            ]]>

            Boethius acknowledges that he is but recollecting truths he once knew. Philosophy goes on to show that it is goodness also by which the whole world is governed (This solves the third. No distinct account is given of the first, but an answer may be gathered from the general argument of bks. ii., iii., and iv.) Boethius professes compunction for his former folly. But the paradox of evil is introduced, and he is once more perplexed.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-pope-of-platitudes/ Sat, 28 Nov 2020 20:26:17 +0000 Blog: [theology philosophy culture]

            Today, I had a little extra time, so I was going to write a response to the Op-Ed piece that Pope Francis recently published in the New York Times . Seeing as how he’s such a prominent figure in the culture today, I thought it might spice up the feed to delve into current events and do an analysis. However, after reading through this twaddle twice, I have to say I found it utterly vapid and unworthy of anything like a serious critique.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/cyprian-echoed-in-boethius/ Fri, 27 Nov 2020 20:20:19 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology]

            Yesterday, I stumbled across a treatise of St. Cyprian to his congregation that might sound remarkably familiar, if you’ve been following the podcast at all. The letter is written from exile, during the Decian persecution (ad 250). A few years later (ad 258), Cyprian would be executed by Valerian for disloyalty to the emperor - albeit, exhibited by his refusal to participate in Roman religious rites. All of this echoes the life of Boethius in distant ways, but also with Socrates, who was executed in part for introducing false gods into the city.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-11-telos-and-the-good/ Sun, 22 Nov 2020 20:22:33 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Unity is another aspect of goodness. Now, all things subsist so long only as they preserve the unity of their being; when they lose this unity, they perish. But the bent of nature forces all things (plants and inanimate things, as well as animals) to strive to continue in life. Therefore, all things desire unity, for unity is essential to life. But unity and goodness were shown to be the same. Therefore, good is proved to be the end towards which the whole universe tends (This solves the second of the points left in doubt at the end of bk. i., ch. vi.)

            ]]>

            Unity is another aspect of goodness. Now, all things subsist so long only as they preserve the unity of their being; when they lose this unity, they perish. But the bent of nature forces all things (plants and inanimate things, as well as animals) to strive to continue in life. Therefore, all things desire unity, for unity is essential to life. But unity and goodness were shown to be the same. Therefore, good is proved to be the end towards which the whole universe tends (This solves the second of the points left in doubt at the end of bk. i., ch. vi.)

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-10-divine-unity/ Sun, 15 Nov 2020 20:44:05 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Such a happiness necessarily exists. Its seat is in God. Nay, God is very happiness, and in a manner, therefore, the happy man partakes also of the Divine nature. All other ends are relative to this good, since they are all pursued only for the sake of good; it is good which is the sole ultimate end. And since the sole end is also happiness, it is plain that this good and happiness are in essence the same. We have reached the summit, and Lady Philosophy now lays out the full case defending Divine Unity along Neo-Platonic lines of reasoning. Bonus Content: you may enjoy “Bella quis quinis”, a work of music written by Boethius himself.

            ]]>

            Such a happiness necessarily exists. Its seat is in God. Nay, God is very happiness, and in a manner, therefore, the happy man partakes also of the Divine nature. All other ends are relative to this good, since they are all pursued only for the sake of good; it is good which is the sole ultimate end. And since the sole end is also happiness, it is plain that this good and happiness are in essence the same. We have reached the summit, and Lady Philosophy now lays out the full case defending Divine Unity along Neo-Platonic lines of reasoning. Bonus Content: you may enjoy “Bella quis quinis”, a work of music written by Boethius himself.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-four-boxes/ Mon, 09 Nov 2020 20:05:38 +0000 Blog: [politics]

            The following metaphor is an adaptation from South Carolina Senator Stephen Decatur Miller.

            Modern liberal democracy is made up of four boxes. Each box represents a fundamental individual liberty, but it also represents a level of escalation in the quest for individual sovereignty in a liberal state.

            The first is the “soap box”. This metaphor still has its old meaning to this day. You want to change the system? Well, the freedom of speech gives you the power to persuade your fellow citizens or your leaders.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-9-the-true-good/ Sun, 08 Nov 2020 20:46:32 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            The source of men’s error in following these phantoms of good is that they break up and separate that which is in its nature one and indivisible. Contentment, power, reverence, renown, and joy are essentially bound up one with the other, and, if they are to be attained at all, must be attained together. True happiness, if it can be found, will include them all. But it cannot be found among the perishable things hitherto considered. We reach the end of the journey to the true good. Philosophy and Boethius have a brief dialogue on the false good, and turn toward the true good. Philosophy ends the dialogue with a prayer to the source of the One True Good (God).

            ]]>

            The source of men’s error in following these phantoms of good is that they break up and separate that which is in its nature one and indivisible. Contentment, power, reverence, renown, and joy are essentially bound up one with the other, and, if they are to be attained at all, must be attained together. True happiness, if it can be found, will include them all. But it cannot be found among the perishable things hitherto considered. We reach the end of the journey to the true good. Philosophy and Boethius have a brief dialogue on the false good, and turn toward the true good. Philosophy ends the dialogue with a prayer to the source of the One True Good (God).

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/two-liberalisms-mill-vs-lock/ Sat, 07 Nov 2020 19:27:36 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            I want to suggest an idea from an observation that’s been made many times before. Namely, that what the modern center-left now likes to call “classical” and/or “social” Liberalism, is a muddle of two strains of thought in the Enlightenment, that both stand in opposition to Rousseau; but that the latter strain smuggles him back in through the kitchen door.

            The division in the Enlightenment between Rousseau and Hobbes is so famous it’s practically a cliché at this point. Is human nature fundamentally good, or fundamentally bad? Is society a super-organism with a sovereign head, or a collection of self-interested agents, who need to be threatened to stay in line? Those debates will continue ad nauseam, I am sure. That’s not what I mean by the title of this post. Rather, I want to explore the distinction between Locke and Mill. It is THIS distinction that, I think, identifies the lanes of separation we see between American libertarianism, and American liberalism (or “classical liberalism”, and “social liberalism” ).

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-8-concluding-the-case-against-false-happiness/ Sun, 01 Nov 2020 20:49:35 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            All fail, then, to give what they promise. There is, moreover, some accompanying evil involved in each of these aims. Beauty and bodily strength are likewise of little worth. In strength man is surpassed by the brutes; beauty is but outward show. Lady Philosophy concludes her case against false happiness with a brief bullet-point recap, and a verse to remind us not to spend our lives looking for things where they cannot be found.

            ]]>

            All fail, then, to give what they promise. There is, moreover, some accompanying evil involved in each of these aims. Beauty and bodily strength are likewise of little worth. In strength man is surpassed by the brutes; beauty is but outward show. Lady Philosophy concludes her case against false happiness with a brief bullet-point recap, and a verse to remind us not to spend our lives looking for things where they cannot be found.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-7-the-pleasures-of-mind-and-body/ Sun, 25 Oct 2020 20:57:40 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            (e) Pleasure begins in the restlessness of desire, and ends in repentance. Even the pure pleasures of home may turn to gall and bitterness. Analysis – Boethius warns us off of bodily pleasures, through the mouth of Lady Philosophy, because they give you a hangover. *Bonus Content: a segment from a lecture by Dominican Father Dominic Legge, on the question of intellectual pleasure. You can find the original lecture here. .

            ]]>

            (e) Pleasure begins in the restlessness of desire, and ends in repentance. Even the pure pleasures of home may turn to gall and bitterness. Analysis – Boethius warns us off of bodily pleasures, through the mouth of Lady Philosophy, because they give you a hangover. *Bonus Content: a segment from a lecture by Dominican Father Dominic Legge, on the question of intellectual pleasure. You can find the original lecture here. .

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-6-glory-is-no-substitute/ Sun, 18 Oct 2020 21:01:44 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            (d) Fame conferred on the unworthy is but disgrace. The splendour of noble birth is not a man’s own, but his ancestors’. Analysis – Philosophy Tells us why Glory is a poor substitute for true happiness. The dialogue actually dances between two different definitions of glory – terrestrial, and transcendent. *Bonus content: a segment from a Paula Gooder lecture, on the question of glory. You can find the original lecture here. .

            ]]>

            (d) Fame conferred on the unworthy is but disgrace. The splendour of noble birth is not a man’s own, but his ancestors’. Analysis – Philosophy Tells us why Glory is a poor substitute for true happiness. The dialogue actually dances between two different definitions of glory – terrestrial, and transcendent. *Bonus content: a segment from a Paula Gooder lecture, on the question of glory. You can find the original lecture here. .

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-5-power-is-no-substitue/ Sun, 11 Oct 2020 21:08:01 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            (c) Sovereignty cannot even bestow safety. History tells of the downfall of kings and their ministers. Tyrants go in fear of their lives. Analysis: Lady Philosophy has been walking us through the various false routes to happiness, and this week, we revisit the question of power. I look briefly at the relationship between Seneca and Nero, and ask the question: why are philosophers drawn to the powerful?

            ]]>

            (c) Sovereignty cannot even bestow safety. History tells of the downfall of kings and their ministers. Tyrants go in fear of their lives. Analysis: Lady Philosophy has been walking us through the various false routes to happiness, and this week, we revisit the question of power. I look briefly at the relationship between Seneca and Nero, and ask the question: why are philosophers drawn to the powerful?

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/plato-parmenides-and-the-theory-of-forms/ Tue, 06 Oct 2020 21:12:55 +0000 Podcast: Plato 101

            In this podcast, I will be outlining the theory of Forms, beginning with why Plato might have concocted the theory in the first place, moving next to what exactly the theory is and how it works, and finishing up with an analysis of the criticisms of the Forms offered by Parmenides (primarily), and a few others since.;

            This podcast is a compilation and minor re-edit, of three blog posts originally posted in 2018. These blog posts are more-or-less a transcript of the podcast, in case you want to read along:

            ]]>

            In this podcast, I will be outlining the theory of Forms, beginning with why Plato might have concocted the theory in the first place, moving next to what exactly the theory is and how it works, and finishing up with an analysis of the criticisms of the Forms offered by Parmenides (primarily), and a few others since.;

            This podcast is a compilation and minor re-edit, of three blog posts originally posted in 2018. These blog posts are more-or-less a transcript of the podcast, in case you want to read along:

            • Theory of Forms, Part 1
            • Theory of Forms, Part 2
            • Theory of Forms, Part 3
            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-4-prestige-is-no-substitute/ Sun, 04 Oct 2020 21:26:00 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            The second of reasons insufficient for securing happiness: (b) High position cannot of itself win respect. Titles command no reverence in distant and barbarous lands. They even fall into contempt through lapse of time. Analysis: Philosophy explains to Boethius how the pursuit of honor and respect in this world, is no path to happiness

            ]]>

            The second of reasons insufficient for securing happiness: (b) High position cannot of itself win respect. Titles command no reverence in distant and barbarous lands. They even fall into contempt through lapse of time. Analysis: Philosophy explains to Boethius how the pursuit of honor and respect in this world, is no path to happiness

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/bork-on-ideology-in-the-court/ Wed, 30 Sep 2020 19:38:34 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            From the book “ The Tempting Of America (1991) , By Robert Bork

            …It is somewhat unclear whether the modern Court is more politicized than Courts of previous eras. Certainly it makes more political decisions each year than was true in any year in the nineteenth century, but that is largely due to the number of occasions for such decisions presented to it. Before the post-Civil War amendments, particularly the fourteenth amendment, the Court had little opportunity to impose rules on the states. The development of substantive content in the fourteenth amendment’s due process clause, and subsequently the incorporation of the Bill of Rights in that clause, enormously expanded the Court’s power over the states. It is conceivable, though unlikely, that, the Courts of the nineteenth century, given the opportunities that this legal structure presented, would have appeared as activist and political as do the Courts of the past five or six decades.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/where-are-all-the-old-people/ Tue, 22 Sep 2020 19:28:33 +0000 Blog: [philosophy culture]

            

            TV Shows are the dominant popular performing art form of the last 60 years. If you look at the most exemplary shows, one trend stands out: the viewership has gradually become radically homogeneous, and self-centered. This can be seen in the characters portrayed.

            Beginning with I Love Lucy and The Dick van Dyke show, right up to Black Mirror and The Good Place, one thing is clear: old people are anathema. Where, originally, there was always a mix of age groups and generations, now there is a sea of nothing but 20-to-40-somethings. Sometimes, you’ll find a character in his old age, but invariably, this character will be treated as wicked or avoidable. Think

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/rand-aristotle-and-modern-moral-philosophy/ Sun, 20 Sep 2020 19:32:26 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

            A common line of attack on Ayn Rand, from “professional” academic philosophers, is to go after her for her defense of egoism. This has always seemed disingenuous to me. Or, at best, uncharitable. The argument goes something like this:

            • Ayn Rand defended selfishness as a virtue
            • Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic did the same thing
            • Socrates humiliated Thrasymachus in that dialogue
            • Therefore, Ayn Rand’s defense of selfishness is obviously wrong

            But, anyone trained as a philosopher should be able to recognize the problems with this argument without much effort. Firstly, what does Ayn Rand mean by “selfishness”? Well, she defended a variety of “ethical egoism”, which basically means that the self is the focus of your ethics. But what does that focus amount to? Here, is where the mistake in this argument gets interesting. Thrasymachus was indeed, also an “ethical egoist”. His egoism was a variety known as hedonic egoism. What this means, is that the standard by which right and wrong is adjudicated comes down to whatever satisfies the most powerful person in the room, in the moment a choice is made. Is this the egoism that Ayn Rand subscribed to? In a word: NO.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-regression-of-libertarianism/ Tue, 15 Sep 2020 19:14:44 +0000 Blog: [politics]

            When I was in my late twenties, American Libertarianism was very attractive to me, because of the intellectual tradition. F. A. Hayek, Ludwig Von Mises, David Boaz, and the English heritage of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, all appealed to me greatly because it seemed to offer both a logical explanation for the state, as well as a moral foundation for its legitimacy.

            Some of that intellectual tradition remains with me to this day. I do not think that the Liberal intellectual answer to Hayek’s challenge in Law, Liberty, and Legislation has ever impressed me. But there is something deeply wrong with Libertarianism, at least as it has constituted itself in the United States – and there is no better exemplar of the symptoms of this flaw, than the Free State Project movement in New Hampshire over the last 15 years.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/rawls-justice-and-metaphysics/ Sat, 05 Sep 2020 20:01:45 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            Critics of Rawls claim that his “original position” argument entails a special metaphysical conception of the self. The critics say that this metaphysical conception of the self in the original position thus renders it metaphysically loaded, contra Rawls. In Political Liberalism, Rawls argues against his critics, insisting that the original position was merely a thought experiment meant to aid in the intuitive realization of the principles of justice according to a uniform standard of fairness. This essay will briefly summarize the original position (and the veil of ignorance that completes it), explain the metaphysical view of the self the critics imply, and conclude by disagreeing with the critics, but wondering what Rawls is up to, if its not metaphysical.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-3-wealth-is-no-substitute/ Sun, 02 Aug 2020 21:28:55 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Philosophy proceeds to consider whether happiness can really be secured in any of these ways, (a) So far from bringing contentment, riches only add to men’s wants. Analysis: Philosophy and Boethius discuss the insufficiency of wealth to the attainment of happiness. In the analysis, we shall see that Boethius is once again signaling his departure from Aristotle. The core of the discussion is the distinction between self-sufficiency, and dependence.

            ]]>

            Philosophy proceeds to consider whether happiness can really be secured in any of these ways, (a) So far from bringing contentment, riches only add to men’s wants. Analysis: Philosophy and Boethius discuss the insufficiency of wealth to the attainment of happiness. In the analysis, we shall see that Boethius is once again signaling his departure from Aristotle. The core of the discussion is the distinction between self-sufficiency, and dependence.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-2-aristotle-happiness-and-the-good/ Sun, 26 Jul 2020 21:35:55 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Happiness is the one end which all created beings seek. They aim variously at (a) wealth, or (b) rank, or (c) sovereignty, or (d) glory, or (e) pleasure, because they think thereby to attain either (a) contentment, (b) reverence, (c) power, (d) renown, or (e) gladness of heart, in one or other of which they severally imagine happiness to consist. Analysis: Boethius debates Aristotle on the nature of the Summum Bonum, and comes down on the side of Plato. The highest good is an absolute, not a relative. I read several passages from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.

            ]]>

            Happiness is the one end which all created beings seek. They aim variously at (a) wealth, or (b) rank, or (c) sovereignty, or (d) glory, or (e) pleasure, because they think thereby to attain either (a) contentment, (b) reverence, (c) power, (d) renown, or (e) gladness of heart, in one or other of which they severally imagine happiness to consist. Analysis: Boethius debates Aristotle on the nature of the Summum Bonum, and comes down on the side of Plato. The highest good is an absolute, not a relative. I read several passages from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-3-chapter-1-preparing-to-know-the-good/ Sun, 19 Jul 2020 21:39:59 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Boethius beseeches Philosophy to continue. She promises to lead him to true happiness. Philosophy then prepares Boethius for his turn toward the truth. Aristotle and Plato are untwined in the beginning of this book, as Aristotle’s method of imminence gives way to Plato’s method of transcendence.

            ]]>

            Boethius beseeches Philosophy to continue. She promises to lead him to true happiness. Philosophy then prepares Boethius for his turn toward the truth. Aristotle and Plato are untwined in the beginning of this book, as Aristotle’s method of imminence gives way to Plato’s method of transcendence.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-addendum-the-music-of-the-consolation/ Tue, 14 Jul 2020 21:59:50 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            This week is a musical hiatus from reading and analysis, because I have been working on my exams. Next week, normal programming will resume. But please enjoy this brief exploration of the medieval music of The Consolation.

            NOTE: I did not do these interviews. They were done by Cambridge University, in an effort to promote the album created by the project discussed in the interviews. If you’d like to know more about the project, please visit their website: https://boethius.mus.cam.ac.uk/. If you’d like to purchase the album they created, you can find it on Amazon (link provided here).

            ]]>

            This week is a musical hiatus from reading and analysis, because I have been working on my exams. Next week, normal programming will resume. But please enjoy this brief exploration of the medieval music of The Consolation.

            NOTE: I did not do these interviews. They were done by Cambridge University, in an effort to promote the album created by the project discussed in the interviews. If you’d like to know more about the project, please visit their website: https://boethius.mus.cam.ac.uk/. If you’d like to purchase the album they created, you can find it on Amazon (link provided here).

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/sociopathy-dressed-up-as-bioethics/ Tue, 14 Jul 2020 19:04:45 +0000 Blog: [philosophy sociology psychology politics]

            This video is absolutely stunning in its brazenness. If this fellow is what the academy is producing, then it would seem that the whole job of the bioethicist is to invent new excuses that politicians and bureaucrats can use to expand the harm they do, without pricking their own consciences.

            Note the magician’s sleight-of-hand trick he’s playing, here. His opening gambit is “making risks tolerable”. So, of course, everyone goes chasing off after “tolerable”. But in actual fact, there is no “risk”, here. Risk implies a probability of harm in some action. But infecting everyone means it’s not a risk at all: It’s a certainty. These human beings who ‘volunteer’ to be infected will be harmed. Whether or not they die from the infection is beside the point. Infecting people IS harming them.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-2-chapter-8-the-utility-of-adversity/ Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:43:00 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            One service only can Fortune do, when she reveals her own nature and distinguishes true friends from false. Philosophy explains the utility of adversity to virtue, and regales us with a paean to divine love. Analysis: Boethius evokes a frustrated aspiration to reconcile Aristotle and Plato, and we begin the transition from Aristotelian virtue, to the Neoplatonic contemplation of The Good. I summarize The Myth of Er, from Plato’s Republic, and read a short quote from it, emphasizing the need for the contemplation of knowledge.

            ]]>

            One service only can Fortune do, when she reveals her own nature and distinguishes true friends from false. Philosophy explains the utility of adversity to virtue, and regales us with a paean to divine love. Analysis: Boethius evokes a frustrated aspiration to reconcile Aristotle and Plato, and we begin the transition from Aristotelian virtue, to the Neoplatonic contemplation of The Good. I summarize The Myth of Er, from Plato’s Republic, and read a short quote from it, emphasizing the need for the contemplation of knowledge.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/libertarians-metaphysics-matters/ Sat, 11 Jul 2020 20:09:12 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            Most people don’t spend much effort considering fundamental questions like “where does value come from” or “what is real” or “why is there anything at all”. They take the world of sense experience and intuition as a given, and assume objective reality from that. This given-ness extends itself all the way up to social and political life. Contrary to the fantasy we have of ourselves in the west, as rational actors who think for ourselves, the vast majority of opinions are not conclusions drawn from careful reasoning, but accumulations of received opinion modified by cognitive shocks.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/religions-true-and-false/ Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:28:26 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology theology]

            The following are things that are presently being informally labelled “religions” by various commentators:

            • Environmentalism (Michael Shellenberger, “Apocalypse Never” )
            • Feminism (Janice Fiamengo, “Daughters of Feminism” )
            • Woke Ideology (James Lindsey, “New Discourses” )
            • Anti-Racism (John McWhorter, “Talking Back, Talking Black” )

            There are probably others, but these are the ones I am aware of. Each of these has component features analogous to features of established religions, it is true. Here is an incomplete list that comes to mind:

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/systemic-racism-is-real/ Thu, 09 Jul 2020 17:17:04 +0000 Blog: [philosophy sociology politics]

            Martin Luther King, Jr. was the last black leader to point Americans to the divine inspiration in the Declaration of Independence, and to make us face our own hypocrisy honestly. We shot him dead for it. In his place, we substituted Lyndon Johnson, who sold us a false absolution from white guilt through condescending paternalism that maintained the status quo by making it look like charity and radical liberation.

            In this sense, the complaints about ongoing systemic racism are true. Before the “Great Society” and the “War On Poverty”, black America had been making enormous forward strides economically and culturally. After those programs took root, entire generations of blacks were lost to poverty, drugs, violent crime, and existential despair. The effect of Johnson’s welfare state was not lost on his liberal allies, either. One of the most famous canaries in that coal mine was Daniel Patrick Moynihan's famous report on 'The Negro Family' in 1965 .

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/steele-on-the-history-of-the-culture-war/ Mon, 06 Jul 2020 16:45:50 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics sociology]

            Shelby Steele, Shame: How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country

            ---

            [The modern left] and I come from two very different Americas. The shorthand for these two Americas might be “liberal” and “conservative,” but this would indeed be a shorthand. These labels once signified something much less incendiary than they do today; they were opposing political orientations, but they shared a common national identity. One was conservative or liberal but within a fairly non-contentious cultural understanding of what it meant to be American. But since the 1960s, “liberal” and “conservative” have come to function almost like national identities in their own right. To be one or the other is not merely to lean left or right—toward “labor” or toward “business”—within a common national identity; it is to belong to a different vision of America altogether, a vision that seeks to supersede the opposing vision and to establish itself as the nation’s common identity. Today the Left and the Right don’t work within a shared understanding of the national purpose; nor do they seek such an understanding. Rather, each seeks to win out over the other and to define the nation by its own terms.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/adams-vs-dickinson-where-do-you-fall/ Sun, 05 Jul 2020 22:34:43 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            Are you a Dickinson or an Adams? Today, we all think we’d be on Adams’ side of the debate. However, given the relationship between the colonies and the British crown, and the people who populated the Continental Congress, I don’t think the choice is really all that clear-cut.

            Imagine it this way: you live in a small territory recently purchased and controlled by the United States. You moved there from your home state where you’d lived most of your life, in order to set up a US outpost, and make a new life for yourself.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-2-chapter-7-the-lure-of-fame/ Sun, 05 Jul 2020 21:46:06 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Fame is a thing of little account when compared with the immensity of the Universe and the endlessness of Time. Philosophy takes Boethius to task for his love of glory. She reminds him of the fleeting nature of human life, and the impermanence of fame. This is the last of the four false pursuits of happiness: wealth, power, pleasure, and honour (as Aristotle would have called them). Bonus Content: We get a visit from Carl Sagan, at the end, echoing Philosophy’s counsel on the foolishness of glory, in his famous “Pale Blue Dot”.

            ]]>

            Fame is a thing of little account when compared with the immensity of the Universe and the endlessness of Time. Philosophy takes Boethius to task for his love of glory. She reminds him of the fleeting nature of human life, and the impermanence of fame. This is the last of the four false pursuits of happiness: wealth, power, pleasure, and honour (as Aristotle would have called them). Bonus Content: We get a visit from Carl Sagan, at the end, echoing Philosophy’s counsel on the foolishness of glory, in his famous “Pale Blue Dot”.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-declaration-of-independence-part-4-our-sacred-honour/ Sat, 04 Jul 2020 21:05:36 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            The Declaration of Independence, one paragraph at a time. Conclusion: Our Sacred Honour

            We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-declaration-of-independence-part-3-a-long-train-of-abuses/ Fri, 03 Jul 2020 20:56:09 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

            But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-declaration-of-independence-part-2-self-evident-truths/ Thu, 02 Jul 2020 20:47:03 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-declaration-of-independence-part-1-a-decent-respect/ Wed, 01 Jul 2020 20:41:16 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-universality-of-human-consciousness/ Tue, 30 Jun 2020 22:26:55 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

            In academic circles right now, it is very trendy to study and write on the philosophical thought of ancient tribal Africans and near-easterners. Keen attention is paid to thinkers who “got their first” - which is to say, if you can find an African thinker that stumbled upon the cosmological arguments of Aquinas or Anselm chronologically before Aquinas and Anselm thought of them, or an Indian thinker who discovered the is-ought dichotomy chronologically before Hume, you’ll be an instant academic hero.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-loss-of-self-awareness/ Mon, 29 Jun 2020 22:13:16 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology sociology]

            In the early 90’s, I attended a performance of the Mikado put on by the college troupe my younger brother was involved in. There was one member of the cast who’d taken it upon himself to refuse to act when on stage. He would appear, shuffle to the places he was supposed to stand, and then shuffle off, when the scene required it.

            I asked my brother what that guy’s deal was, and he said they couldn’t remove him because of the threat of a complaint against the school, and that he was “protesting” the caricature portrayal of asians in the musical, by refusing to act. I rolled my eyes and went one with my life.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/what-is-philosophy-for/ Fri, 26 Jun 2020 21:59:05 +0000 Blog: [philosophy culture]

            There are a number of questions that constantly resurface around philosophy as a discipline. What is it? What is it for? What has it produced? Are its products useful? Does it make progress? And so forth. Today, we are asked to consider the singular question, “What has philosophy done for us?” I’m not going to answer this question, but I will say this. This question presupposes three underlying assumptions:

            1. That philosophy must be for something,
            2. That something must be a collective good of some kind, and
            3. That philosophy must justify itself in terms of its utility to that end.

            I will argue that (1) the cardinal value of philosophy is not in its utility to some end (no matter how grandiose), but rather in being an end in itself; (2) that if it be a utility, it is at best accidentally useful; and finally, (3) that the material utility we commonly attribute to philosophy in an attempt to justify the practice, is more correctly attributed to what are often called the “daughter” disciplines of philosophy (and theology): biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, psychology, politics, and sociology. Finally, I will offer some thoughts about the implications of our unwillingness to discipline ourselves to understanding the world, rather than mastering it.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/facts-values-rights-and-humans/ Mon, 22 Jun 2020 21:28:16 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            The human animal is thought by some to have a “divine spark” in him. What is this? I don’t mean in a metaphysical or definitional sense. I mean, what do humans do, what capacity do they have, what power are they endowed with, that sets them apart from the other animals so much so that they are thought to have this spark? Why on earth would anyone say humans are “touched by the divine”?

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-2-chapter-6-the-powerful-and-the-rational/ Sun, 21 Jun 2020 22:07:44 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            High place without virtue is an evil, not a good. Power is an empty name. Philosophy lectures Boethius on the false promise of power, and George Orwell answers her on whether the powerful can indeed get to the rational man (I read a passage from Orwell’s 1984). Happiness, honour, power, and the relation between the virtuous and the powerful.

            ]]>

            High place without virtue is an evil, not a good. Power is an empty name. Philosophy lectures Boethius on the false promise of power, and George Orwell answers her on whether the powerful can indeed get to the rational man (I read a passage from Orwell’s 1984). Happiness, honour, power, and the relation between the virtuous and the powerful.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/is-ought-a-semantic-solution/ Fri, 19 Jun 2020 22:03:54 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

            David Hume is famous for the “is-ought” problem, which comes from this famous passage, in his “Treatise on Human Nature”:

            In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. (Treatise 3.1.1)

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/social-media-is-groupthink-programming/ Mon, 15 Jun 2020 21:50:34 +0000 Blog: [psychology sociology]

            I think something is deeply wrong with social media. Mainly, I think this about Twitter, but that may just be because Twitter is the most glaring symptom of whatever this problem is. The following is a short snippet from a podcast discussion between Joe Rogan and Jack Dorsey (dated Feb. 2, 2019). It’s at the point where they’re discussing the nature of the medium, and the various forms that content on Facebook and Twitter can take:

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-2-chapter-5-the-golden-age/ Sun, 14 Jun 2020 22:22:28 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            All the gifts of Fortune are external; they can never truly be our own. Man cannot find his good in worldly possessions. Riches bring anxiety and trouble. — Analysis: Aristotle, the Summum Bonum, and a summary of the false goods. A reading from Hesiod’s Works and Days, and a comparison to Rousseau’s noble savage, and the “General Will” as a distortion of the Catholic Holy Spirit.

            ]]>

            All the gifts of Fortune are external; they can never truly be our own. Man cannot find his good in worldly possessions. Riches bring anxiety and trouble. — Analysis: Aristotle, the Summum Bonum, and a summary of the false goods. A reading from Hesiod’s Works and Days, and a comparison to Rousseau’s noble savage, and the “General Will” as a distortion of the Catholic Holy Spirit.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/two-custodians-on-the-purpose-of-the-state/ Sat, 13 Jun 2020 21:42:11 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics history]

            Traditionally, there are two great debates at the core of political philosophy. The first is what justifies political authority, and the second is what should be the form of the institution that assumes that authority. The first debate includes questions of fundamental justice. Issues like what the state owes to its subjects, and what the subjects owe to each other, are central to the debate. The second debate depends somewhat on the answer to the first, in that it seeks to answer how the duties, obligations, rights, and responsibilities of the first debate are to be enacted and enforced. Should offices be permanent or temporary? Should powers be segregated? Should it include democratic mechanisms? Who should be enfranchised? Should it be federated or centralized? Should it monopolize certain goods? And so forth.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/two-kinds-of-legitimacy/ Fri, 12 Jun 2020 21:40:25 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            It seems to me, there are two kinds of state authority. The first, is what I have already talked about yesterday. Philosophical legitimacy - a rational grounding for the moral claim to the privileged use of force. But there is a second kind of state authority, that emerges only in the actual exercise (or restraint of exercise) of power. Psychological legitimacy - the confidence that subjects and citizens have in the state’s exercise of its privilege. It is this second kind of legitimacy that I think is relevant to us, in the present circumstances.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-2-chapter-4-happiness-from-virtue/ Sun, 07 Jun 2020 22:27:31 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Philosophy tells Boethius to stop whining, and check his privilege. Boethius objects that the memory of past happiness is the bitterest portion of the lot of the unhappy. Philosophy shows that much is still left for which he may be thankful. None enjoy perfect satisfaction with their lot. But happiness depends not on anything which Fortune can give. It is to be sought within. — Analysis: self-sacrifice as a path to happiness; suffering and happiness; Aristotle contributes to the discussion on virtue and Eudaimonia. I do a reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Bonus Content: Jordan Peterson, Roger Scruton, and the value of cultural literacy.

            ]]>

            Philosophy tells Boethius to stop whining, and check his privilege. Boethius objects that the memory of past happiness is the bitterest portion of the lot of the unhappy. Philosophy shows that much is still left for which he may be thankful. None enjoy perfect satisfaction with their lot. But happiness depends not on anything which Fortune can give. It is to be sought within. — Analysis: self-sacrifice as a path to happiness; suffering and happiness; Aristotle contributes to the discussion on virtue and Eudaimonia. I do a reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Bonus Content: Jordan Peterson, Roger Scruton, and the value of cultural literacy.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/you-reap-what-you-sow/ Sun, 07 Jun 2020 21:16:34 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology]

            In a recent debate online someone complained to me, after I had pointed to one problem with idea of the Sovereign in Leviathan, that Thomas Hobbes would not have cared about such things as the “fact-value dichotomy”. He went on to assert that the analytics were simply misinterpreting the Enlightenment. I think he is mistaken.

            It is true that Hobbes would not have ‘cared’ about the fact-value dichotomy. Indeed, he would have barely been able to make any sense of the idea if you were to pose it to him. But this does not make what he did, any less relevant to it. Hobbes (and later Hume and Rousseau) laid the groundwork for what Nietzsche would later make conscious through his storytelling, and what analytics like Mackie and Russell would systematize through their critiques of ethics and metaphysics in the wake of it all.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/john-lockes-property-rights/ Fri, 05 Jun 2020 21:48:41 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            Does Locke offer a convincing account of an individual’s right to property? In his Second Treatise on Government, John Locke constructs a theory of property rights from two explicit arguments for the divine source of the moral claim of ownership, and one implicit argument for the divine source of value in labor. This essay will summarize each of these arguments, offer an assessment of the three arguments in combination, and conclude that Locke’s case is unconvincing in isolation. However, there are remedies which could make the case more convincing.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-platonism-of-aristotle/ Tue, 02 Jun 2020 21:01:35 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

            This is for my friends here, who wonder how it is that I can claim that Plato and Aristotle are not as diametrically opposed as the dominant narrative about them claims. The following is an extended snippet from Plato and Aristotle in Agreement? Platonists on Aristotle from Antiochus to Porphyry , by George E. Karamanolis. While the snippet isn’t a definitive refutation of their supposed opposition, it is the beginning of a sustained argument that claims to show just that. You can read the book yourself, to find out more. And, given that the author is Greek, I’m going to take that as definitive :D

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-2-chapter-3-the-consequences-of-fortune/ Sun, 31 May 2020 22:32:10 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Philosophy prepares Boethius for the hard road ahead by reminding him of the full scope of fortune’s blessings. Boethius is chastised for his excessive self-regard, and given a fresh set of reasons for eschewing his morbid despair.

            ]]>

            Philosophy prepares Boethius for the hard road ahead by reminding him of the full scope of fortune’s blessings. Boethius is chastised for his excessive self-regard, and given a fresh set of reasons for eschewing his morbid despair.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/hobbes-and-the-sovereign/ Fri, 29 May 2020 22:47:29 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            In the Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes posits the creation of a commonwealth by means of a social contract, and as part of that contract, Hobbes theorizes the creation of the office of a sovereign authority, the occupant of which is to act as the representative of the constituted wills of the individual parties of the contract. Hobbes insists that it is not possible for this sovereign authority to commit an injustice against those who have granted him his privileged position. This essay will briefly sketch the reasons Hobbes offers in defense of his position, and critically evaluate his arguments in light of some common objections.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-2-chapter-2-the-inevitability-of-fortune/ Sun, 24 May 2020 22:35:57 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Philosophy warns Boethius of the inevitability of his place on the wheel, and chides him for challenging this most natural state of affairs. We’ll briefly explore the history and mythology of Croesis and Perseus, and then we’ll have a quick look at the problem of fate.

            ]]>

            Philosophy warns Boethius of the inevitability of his place on the wheel, and chides him for challenging this most natural state of affairs. We’ll briefly explore the history and mythology of Croesis and Perseus, and then we’ll have a quick look at the problem of fate.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/equality-is-fake-news/ Fri, 22 May 2020 20:35:48 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            I want to make a bold claim: I don’t think there is any such thing as ‘equality’.

            Now, just to clarify: clearly, arithmetic and geometric equality is real. Otherwise the “ = “ wouldn’t exist. What I am referring to, is the sense of the term that gets applied to human social and political relations. This kind of equality is a phantasm; a will-o-wisp; a unicorn, in all its varieties. If we look at particular examples of what people tend to call “equality”, what we find are hidden changes in the meaning of “equal”. Changes so significant, that only the application of entirely different concepts could make those examples intelligible. What are those examples? Well, I think they can be boiled down to four: comparisons of economic condition, comparisons of ‘opportunity’, comparisons of legal status, and comparisons of social status or relational concern. Each of these descriptive terms is further colored by a prescriptive connotation that needs to be understood separately. Let’s explore each of these forms of so-called equality, to discover why they’re not what they appear to be.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/aristotle-101-hylomorphism-and-the-soul/ Mon, 18 May 2020 11:10:00 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

            Aristotle’s understanding of the soul is derived from his theory of substance in The Metaphysics. By way of the hylomorphic combination of body-as-matter and soul-as-form, a unique individual is generated and equipped with the capacity to act in ways that living things act. Is this theory a “middle way” between the view of living things as purely material (where life is a sort of emergent property, dependent on matter), and dualism (the view that the body is is a dependent “container” of a Platonic Form)? If so, how successful is it at navigating that path? This essay will argue that Aristotle’s goal was not to thread a needle between Atomist materialism and Platonic dualism, but to provide a more accurate account of living things in general, regardless of either pole of opposition. However, this answer will also suggest that, weighed against both materialism and dualism, it is still a superior theory, despite its flaws.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-2-chapter-1-the-foolishness-of-fortune-hunters/ Sun, 17 May 2020 22:41:00 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Philosophy reproves Boethius for the foolishness of his complaints against Fortune. Her very nature is caprice. Analysis: our first introduction to neoplatonism, and three arguments from fortune analyzed.

            ]]>

            Philosophy reproves Boethius for the foolishness of his complaints against Fortune. Her very nature is caprice. Analysis: our first introduction to neoplatonism, and three arguments from fortune analyzed.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/aristotle-101-the-zoon-politikon/ Sun, 17 May 2020 11:00:43 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            In the first book of the Politics, Aristotle argues for the view that man is a ‘political animal’. To assess the claim properly, we must first understand what he means by the term, and we should understand the reasoning he uses to defend it. Thus examined, we will find his position interesting, but ultimately unsatisfactory. However, it may be possible to shore up his case.

            Aristotle’s ‘political animal’ (zoon politikon) is not the creature we might expect today – a conventional construct enfranchised by legal edict and duty-bound only to his own individual happiness as a free agent in a democratic nation-state. Instead, what Aristotle had in mind was an animal that was best suited to realize his complete end or natural goal (his telos) in a community organized to that end as well. That community is known as a city-state (a polis). As an integrated part of a functional polis, man is a creature of the polis – a political animal.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/aristotle-101-the-aporia-of-future-contingency/ Fri, 15 May 2020 11:15:48 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

            In On Interpretation, Aristotle presents the thought experiment of the sea battle in order to grapple with a logical paradox stemming from his commitment to correspondence in truth and the Law of Excluded Middle on the one hand, and his commitment to potentiality in the future, on the other. Given these commitments, if we are to say that there will be a sea battle tomorrow, then two questions (at least) need to be considered. First, is it already true that there will be one? Second, is its occurrence already determined by that? The term “already” is an important key to understanding these questions. It suggests a role for necessity in answering this problem. This essay will briefly summarize the logical problem, outline some possible solutions to the problem, and conclude with shrugging resignation at the fact that there isn’t more extant writing from Aristotle on the question.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/locke-destroys-filmer-with-facts-and-logic/ Thu, 14 May 2020 20:29:14 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

            Everyone who studies undergraduate political philosophy already knows what Locke has to say in his Second Treatise on Government.

            But in this age of “reaction” videos, roasts, and “pwnage”, I think the polemics in Locke’s FIRST treatise are way more entertaining! It is, hands down, the longest objection screed I’ve read of the Enlightenment thinkers, apart from the responses to Descartes’ Meditations.

            The opening paragraphs had me in stitches:

            "…truly, I should have taken sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, as any other treatise, which would persuade all men that they are slaves, and ought to be so, for such another exercise of wit as was his who writ the encomium of Nero; rather than for a serious discourse, meant in earnest: had not the gravity of the title and epistle, the picture in the front of the book, and the applause that followed it, required me to believe that the author and publisher were both in earnest. I therefore took it into my hands with all the expectation, and read it through with all the attention due to a treatise that made such a noise at its coming abroad; and cannot but confess myself mightily surprised, that in a book, which was to provide chains for all mankind, I should find nothing but a rope of sand; useful perhaps to such, whose skill and business it is to raise a dust, and would blind the people, the better to mislead them; but in truth not of any force to draw those into bondage who have their eyes open, and so much sense about them, as to consider, that chains are but an ill wearing, how much care soever hath been taken to file and polish them.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/creativity-transcendence-and-love/ Wed, 13 May 2020 20:20:58 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

            People tend to romanticize the inspiration of the artist, or the insight of the philosopher. It is often depicted as a kind of tsunami of creative passion, that washes over the mind and consumes the person. Archimedes in the bath, or Mozart on his deathbed (I hate you, Milos Forman) come to mind as examples. But this is pure fantasy, as far as I can tell.

            Instead, ideas are like drops of water falling from the sky, on an arid summer day. You have to catch them in something, as they fall, and preserve them in the soil of ink and paper. Otherwise, they evaporate as soon as they hit the ground.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/marxism-and-exploitation/ Mon, 11 May 2020 20:12:45 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            What is exploitation?

            Marxists make a great deal of hay out of the term. What are they talking about?

            The dictionary offers a definition that perhaps accidentally includes a subtle but profound distinction. Exploitation is either (a) “to make full use of” or “derive benefit from”, or (b) “to use unjustly”, or “to derive unfair benefit from”.

            So, on the one hand, we have a neutral term that might even be seen as a positive, in some respects. Indeed, the resourceful woodsman will tell you that it is a virtue to fully exploit what you harvest from nature. To use anything less than the entire deer, is wasteful and wanton.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-1-chapter-6-and-7-philosophy-makes-her-diagnosis/ Sun, 10 May 2020 22:44:46 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

            Philosophy tests Boethius’ mental state by certain questions, and discovers three chief causes of his soul’s sickness: (1) He has forgotten his own true nature; (2) he knows not the end towards which the whole universe tends; (3) he knows not the means by which the world is governed. Analysis: Stoic lessons to ward off the passions; Divine order and the Great Wheel; assessment of the literary structure of the whole Consolation of Philosophy.

            ]]>

            Philosophy tests Boethius’ mental state by certain questions, and discovers three chief causes of his soul’s sickness: (1) He has forgotten his own true nature; (2) he knows not the end towards which the whole universe tends; (3) he knows not the means by which the world is governed. Analysis: Stoic lessons to ward off the passions; Divine order and the Great Wheel; assessment of the literary structure of the whole Consolation of Philosophy.

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/buckley-on-conservatism-and-modern-realities/ Sun, 10 May 2020 18:15:40 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

            From: “Up From Liberalism” (1959), William F. Buckley, Jr.

            There is no conservative political manifesto which, as we make our faltering way, we can consult, confident that it will point a sure finger in the direction of the good society. Indeed, sometimes the conservative needle appears to be jumping about as on a disoriented compass…

            …Still, for all the confusion and contradiction, I venture to say it is possible to talk about “the conservative position” and mean something by it. At the political level, conservatives are bound together for the most part by negative response to Liberalism; but altogether too much is made of that fact. Negative action is not necessarily of negative value. Political freedom’s principal value is negative in character. The people are politically stirred principally by the necessity for negative affirmations. Cincinnatus was a farmer before he took up his sword, and went back to farming after wielding some highly negative strokes upon the pates of those who sought to make positive changes in his way of life…

            ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/a-mind-shaped-universe/ Sat, 09 May 2020 18:06:01 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

            As far as I can tell, when it comes to mind, there are four possibilities:

            1. Mind is an illusion. It doesn’t exist at all. We only think we’re experiencing ourselves consciously, because the particular arrangement of matter and energy that constitutes what we call the human mind, is constituted in such a way as to cause confusion between mere matter and energy and something else we call mind.

            2. Mind is an epiphenomenal or emergent property of certain arrangements of matter and energy. There is mind, in the way that there is music from a strummed guitar, or the shape of a sphere visible in a spinning gyroscope. So, it’s not an illusion, but it’s not “real” either, in the sense that it has no ‘substance’ apart from the functioning of the human body.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/sentience-as-a-moral-ground/ Fri, 08 May 2020 17:54:58 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

               In a Psychology Today interview posted today, Stevan Harnad has this to say, in response to criticisms over his equating The Holocaust with animal slaughter. I’m going to set aside his All Capital Letters Defense Of His “Eternal Treblinka”, and instead, focus on his argument defending “sentience”, which as we’ll see, is only barely an argument:

               …The Holocaust is Humanity’s Greatest Crime Against Humanity. But the Eternal Treblinka we inflict on animals is Humanity’s Greatest Crime. The difference is obvious: Jews were slaughtered because they were Jews; animals are slaughtered for the taste. For the victims, it makes no difference.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/philosophy-hypocrisy-and-failure/ Mon, 04 May 2020 17:44:51 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

               A moment of synchronicity occurred for me, yesterday morning. A Twitter user I follow fairly closely, tweeted about the decrepit state of Karl Marx’s character (borrowing from Paul Johnson’s famous book, *Intellectuals* ), and argued that Marxists would all invariably turn out like him. At nearly the same time, one of my fellow philosophy students on the University of London student Facebook group posted an apocryphal story about how pedantic and brittle Wittgenstein was toward his hosts the Keynes, and implied that this was what it meant to be an analytical philosopher.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-1-chapter-5-boethius-makes-his-final-lament/ Sun, 03 May 2020 22:48:11 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

               Philosophy admits the justice of Boethius’ self-vindication, but grieves rather for the unhappy change in his mind. She will first tranquillize his spirit by soothing remedies. Analysis covers some ancient greek mythological imagery, and the introduction of Unity as the ultimate goal, and a quote from Kant on the Moral Law. Bonus Content: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29.

               ]]>

               Philosophy admits the justice of Boethius’ self-vindication, but grieves rather for the unhappy change in his mind. She will first tranquillize his spirit by soothing remedies. Analysis covers some ancient greek mythological imagery, and the introduction of Unity as the ultimate goal, and a quote from Kant on the Moral Law. Bonus Content: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/oakeshott-on-being-a-conservative/ Sun, 03 May 2020 17:36:52 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

               Michael Oakeshott, “On Being A Conservative” (Excerpts):

               ---

               “…[the general characteristics of the Conservative disposition] center upon a propensity to use and to enjoy what is available rather than to wish for or to look for something else; to delight in what is present rather than what was or what may be. Reflection may bring to light an appropriate gratefulness for what is available, and consequently the acknowledgment of a gift or an inheritance from the past; but there is no mere idolizing of what is past and gone. What is esteemed is the present; and it is esteemed not on account of its connections with a remote antiquity, nor because it is recognized to be more admirable than any possible alternative, but on account of its familiarity: not, ‘Verweile doch, du bist so schön’, but Stay with me because I am attached to you.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-1-chapter-4-boethius-puts-god-in-the-dock/ Sun, 26 Apr 2020 22:52:18 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

               Philosophy bids Boethius declare his griefs. He relates the story of his unjust accusation and ruin. He concludes with a prayer (Song V.) that the moral disorder in human affairs may be set right. In the analysis: on the competition between Dionysus and Apollo; The Ass and The Lyre; Boethius’ similarities to the Book of Job.

               Pardon the pops. This podcast was made before I had all the equipment necessary to make a recording properly.

               ]]>

               Philosophy bids Boethius declare his griefs. He relates the story of his unjust accusation and ruin. He concludes with a prayer (Song V.) that the moral disorder in human affairs may be set right. In the analysis: on the competition between Dionysus and Apollo; The Ass and The Lyre; Boethius’ similarities to the Book of Job.

               Pardon the pops. This podcast was made before I had all the equipment necessary to make a recording properly.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-1-chapter-3-boethius-and-the-tradition-of-philosophy/ Sun, 19 Apr 2020 22:55:47 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

               Boethius recognizes his mistress Philosophy. To his wondering inquiries she explains her presence, and recalls to his mind the persecutions to which Philosophy has oftentimes from of old been subjected by an ignorant world. Philosophy reminds us all, of the plight of Socrates. Is Boethius engaging in a bit of vanity here? I’ll leave that up to you, to decide.

               ]]>

               Boethius recognizes his mistress Philosophy. To his wondering inquiries she explains her presence, and recalls to his mind the persecutions to which Philosophy has oftentimes from of old been subjected by an ignorant world. Philosophy reminds us all, of the plight of Socrates. Is Boethius engaging in a bit of vanity here? I’ll leave that up to you, to decide.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/for-whom-the-pot-clanks/ Sun, 19 Apr 2020 17:30:48 +0000 Blog: [philosophy sociology psychology]

               During the collective neurosis that is this coronavirus quarantine, it has become customary in the Anglo-American west, to stand outside at 8PM once per week and bang pots in gratitude for the work of the various healthcare institutions of our countries. This, I think, has implications that extend far beyond the annoyance of watching everyone marching mindlessly in unison for reasons they barely understand.

               When I was a boy growing up in Chicago in the 70’s and 80’s, attending church on Sunday was a near-ubiquitous phenomenon. It might be the case that your block was randomly littered with Irish or Italian Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, and Episcopalians. But one thing you could be certain of, was that, between 9AM and 1PM on any given Sunday, you would only find those people by looking in their respective churches.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/what-do-we-owe-to-society/ Sat, 18 Apr 2020 11:27:39 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

               Socrates’ story is famous enough. Melisas accused him of corrupting the young, and worshipping gods contrary to the state. The charges were false, and thus, the subsequent conviction was unjust on its face. Yet, Socrates, committed to his principles (ostensibly), went to his grave defending the judgment on the grounds that it was a greater injustice to disobey the law, and that no good man would trade an evil for an evil.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/preparation-not-triage/ Tue, 07 Apr 2020 17:20:19 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics sociology]

               It’s been just over a month since my employer sent me home with my laptop and a headset, and just about three weeks since Boris told us all (in the UK) that we had no choice but to stay home.

               In that time, thousands have flocked online to start video channels, podcasts, and other collaborative projects. Many existing independent media producers have shifted their content, and now talk almost entirely on topics related to the quarantine and the virus.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-choice-of-pilate/ Mon, 06 Apr 2020 17:11:06 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology]

               The story of Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion involves the Roman empire. The fifth presiding governor over the territory of Judea incorporating the Hebrew tribes, was Pontius Pilate. Pilate is often quoted in undergraduate philosophy for asking Christ, “what is truth?”. He’s also often cited in pastoral homilies for his choice to “wash his hands” of the guilt of Christ’s crucifixion.

               For most, this is thought to be the central moment of choice in the Pilate story. Does he give Jesus over to the crowd, or does he risk a riot to spare him? But I think this is only half the story. You see, Pilate had another choice to make. One much more momentous, and one that made his hand-washing inevitable, once he took it.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/bork-on-liberalism/ Sun, 05 Apr 2020 17:01:04 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

               The following passage is a section from the introduction to Robert Bork’s famous 1996 book, “Slouching Toward Gomorrah”.

               ---

               Modern liberalism is very different in content from the liberalism of, say, the 1940s or 1950s, and certainly different from the liberalism of the last century. The sentiments and beliefs that drive it, however, are the same: the ideals of liberty and equality. These ideals produced the great political, social, and cultural achievements of Western civilization, but no ideal, however worthy, can be pressed forever without turning into something else, turning in fact into its opposite. That is what is happening now. Not a single American institution, from popular music to higher education to science, has remained untouched.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/boethius-book-1-chapter-1-and-2-an-introduction-to-boethius-and-his-project/ Sat, 04 Apr 2020 23:00:40 +0000 Podcast: The Consolation of Philosophy

               This feature begins with a series on “The Consolation of Philosophy”, by Anicus Manlius Severinus Boethius. Each episode will consist of a reading of one or two chapters in sequence, followed by a brief commentary offering a few insights into the text. Boethius’ chapters are very short. Each consists of a single section of verse, followed by a passage of narration. So, each episode is likely to be around 15 minutes long. There are a total of 5 books, or 39 chapters. So, this series should last us a while, given one reading per week!

               ]]>

               This feature begins with a series on “The Consolation of Philosophy”, by Anicus Manlius Severinus Boethius. Each episode will consist of a reading of one or two chapters in sequence, followed by a brief commentary offering a few insights into the text. Boethius’ chapters are very short. Each consists of a single section of verse, followed by a passage of narration. So, each episode is likely to be around 15 minutes long. There are a total of 5 books, or 39 chapters. So, this series should last us a while, given one reading per week!

               The first episode covers both chapters one and two, of Book one. Boethius makes his opening lament, and Philosophy pays him a visit. Boethius is speechless with amazement. Philosophy drives away the Muses of Poetry, and then offers a lament of her own, at the sight of the disordered condition of Boethius’ mind. As his teacher, she is dismayed that he has forgotten all he learned.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/what-is-a-community/ Sat, 04 Apr 2020 16:54:39 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology sociology technology]

               I have been thinking about this word a lot lately. In popular discussions, there are two approaches to the definition of ‘community’. First, the naive answer, which is that a community is roughly synonymous with a professional affiliation or a social association. Like being a member of a legal bar, or an alumnus of some university. Second, there are the sociological definitions, which distill “community” into a set of shared abstract properties, like “interests” or demographic characteristics, or tribal membership, such as the “community of python developers”, or “Cubs Fans”, or the “LGBT community”, or “the black community”.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/pansychism-is-a-red-herring/ Fri, 03 Apr 2020 16:49:27 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology psychology]

               As I’ve progressed in my study of physics and metaphysics over the last 5 years, I’ve gradually come to realize that we’re all whistling through a kind of graveyard. I don’t know when it began or who started it, exactly, but on thing is for sure: we really don’t like thinking about it.

               What am I talking about?

               Well, the journey for me, really began (ironically) with the philosophy of science. You see, modern science is committed to a belief that the world is explainable all the way down (as the saying goes). In other words, there is an inherently intelligible order to nature that functions as the first major premise of every scientific argument: the world behaves according to reason. And, even if we cannot fully fathom the reasons for some particular phenomenon now, still in principle it is possible to discover them all eventually.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-motherhood-pandemic/ Thu, 02 Apr 2020 16:43:47 +0000 Blog: [philosophy Sociology psychology]

               The rational self-aware consciousness has equipped the human ape with a profoundly effective shield against the vagaries of natural insults against mammalian biology such as exposure to the elements, biological parasites, disease, and hunger. We are able to conceive of and build shelters and beds; imagine and create clothing, armor, and tools. And, now, we are able to engineer the effects of biology itself, to defend against bacteria and viruses.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-identity-metastasis-machine/ Wed, 01 Apr 2020 16:36:13 +0000 Blog: [philosophy sociology psychology]

               When I was a boy in middle and high school, there were lots of other kids who, during one year were stoners, and the next, were computer nerds; one year were jocks, and the next, were stoners; one year were D&D geeks, and the next, were into cars. This is as it should be. Your tween/teen years should be fluid. They should be a point in time in your life, when you experiment and play with different ways of being. They should be an opportunity to determine what kind of person you want to be when you’re done with your teens.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/george-wills-american-conservatism/ Tue, 31 Mar 2020 16:23:15 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

               George Will, On The Character of American Conservatism (From his book “The Conservative Sensibility” )

               ---

               …Although it distresses some American conservatives to be told this, American conservatism has little in common with European conservatism, which is descended from, and often is still tainted by, throne-and-altar, blood-and-soil nostalgia, irrationality, and tribalism. American conservatism has a clear mission: It is to conserve, by articulating and demonstrating the continuing pertinence of, the Founders’ thinking. The price of accuracy might by confusion, but this point must be made: American conservatives are the custodians of the classical liberal tradition.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-barometer-of-the-soul/ Tue, 31 Mar 2020 16:06:35 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

               When I was in my twenties, I loved listening to great performances of the Tchaikovsky, Bartok, and Mendelssohn violin concerti. I was captivated by the pathos of the music, and admired the passion and athleticism of the artists performing them. Conversely, I used to dread, as a choir singer, the plodding, predictable clockwork of the baroque masters: Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi.

               Now, I am in my mid-fifties, and the tables have turned. Whenever I listen to the Bartok or the Mendelssohn, all I can hear are braying donkeys and the screeching trucks of a subway train. Likewise, in the choir which I now participate, I absolutely relish the baroque works. They seem both more textured and intellectually complex than the Romantics, but also more soothing and introspective.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/three-kinds-of-philosophers/ Mon, 30 Mar 2020 16:02:02 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

               I have been thinking a bit about what a philosopher is, and in the tradition of Aristotle, have naturally been drawn to try to categorize them. It seems to me that there are three distinct roles for philosophy: Analysis, Interpretation, and Speculation.

               The analytical philosopher is driven, as Simon Blackburn describes, to “give an account” of the universe and our experience of it - to reduce it, or explain it in simpler, more precise, or more fundamental terms. He is a reductionist, at heart. Examples: Descartes, Russell, Freud, Quine, and Aquinas.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/freedom-and-its-betrayal/ Sun, 29 Mar 2020 15:55:08 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

               The following is from Isaiah Berlin’s book, “Freedom and It’s Betrayal”, wherein he has some very mean things to say about Rousseau ;)

               In theory Rousseau speaks like any other eighteenth-century philosophe, and says: ‘We must employ our reason.’ He uses deductive reasoning, sometimes very cogent, very lucid and extremely well-expressed, for reaching his conclusions. But in reality what happens is that this deductive reasoning is like a strait-jacket of logic which he claps upon the inner, burning, almost lunatic vision within; it is this extraordinary combination of the insane inner vision with the cold rigorous strait-jacket of a kind of Calvinistic logic which really gives his prose its powerful enchantment and its hypnotic effect. You appear to be reading logical argument which distinguishes between concepts and draws conclusions in a valid manner from premisses, when all the time something very violent is being said to you. A vision is being imposed on you; somebody is trying to dominate you by means of a very coherent, although often a very deranged, vision of life, to bind a spell, not to argue, despite the cool and collected way in which he appears to be talking. The inner vision is the mysterious assumption of the coincidence of authority and liberty. The coincidence itself derives from the fact that, in order to make men at once free and capable of living with each other in society, and of obeying the moral law, what you want is that men shall want only that which the moral law in fact enjoins. In short, the problem goes somewhat as follows. You want to give people unlimited liberty because otherwise they cease to be men; and yet at the same time you want them to live according to the rules. If they can be made to love the rules, then they will want the rules, not so much because the rules are rules as because they love them. If your problem is how a man shall be at once free and yet in chains, you say: ‘What if the chains are not imposed upon him? What if the chains are not something with which he is bound as by some external force? What if the chains are something he chooses himself because such a choice is an expression of his nature, something he generates from within him as an inner ideal? If this is what he above all wants in the world, then the chains are no longer chains.’ A man who is self-chained is not a prisoner. So Rousseau says: ‘Man is born free, and yet he is everywhere in chains.’ What sort of chains? If they are the chains of convention, if they are the chains of the tyrant, if they are the chains of other people who want to use you for their own ends, then these are indeed chains, and you must fight and you must struggle, and nothing must stand in the way of the great battle for individual self-assertion and freedom. But if the chains are chains of your own making, if the chains are simply the rules which you forge, with your own inner reason, or because of the grace which pours in while you lead the simple life, or because of the voice of conscience or the voice of God or the voice of nature, which are all referred to by Rousseau as if they were almost the same thing; if the chains are simply rules the very obedience to which is the most free, the strongest, most spontaneous expression of your own inner nature, then the chains no longer bind you – since self-control is not control. Self-control is freedom. In this way Rousseau gradually progresses towards the peculiar idea that what is wanted is men who want to be connected with each other in the way in which the State forcibly connects them.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/anxiety-and-control/ Sat, 28 Mar 2020 15:50:09 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

               One of the things the stoics get right, is the insight that there is little an agent has any real power to influence. Even where it seems there is a great deal, that control is largely an illusion drawn from an overzealous interpretation of our experience of collective agreement.

               When I was young, I wasn’t particularly interested in who or what I could control, for its own sake. But I was interested in control over the world, insofar as it was an instrument to control over my own destiny. Many influences seemed to be constraining what was possible, including my parents, the requirements of public education, and my own peers. But there was one avenue of exploration that yielded very satisfying results: computing.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/two-forms-of-totalitarianism/ Thu, 26 Mar 2020 15:45:13 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

               Fascism is a form of tribalist totalitarianism. A traditional particularist tyranny, which privileges a core ethnic identity, and views the individual as an ‘organ’ in the ‘body politic’, which must conform in order for the organism to succeed. Where the individual rejects “the body”, he will, after the fashion of Rousseau, “be forced to be free”. History tends toward the ascendance of the most righteous organism, in this view.

               Communism is a form of universalist totalitarianism. A non-traditional, quasi-scientific tyranny, which privileges a wholistic “rational order”, above ethnic identity, nationality, or any particular feature of individual identity. Where the individual is given any regard, it is merely as an atomic component of a mass. History tends toward the unification of all organisms, in this view.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-meaning-of-christmas/ Tue, 24 Mar 2020 15:39:06 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology]

               If you live in the west for any serious length of time, you become familiar with the story: Mary has an audience with an angel, who tells her she is to become a mother. God visits her, and pronounces her the mother of the Son Of God. She and her oddly accepting husband Joseph head off into the desert to be counted in Bethlehem, where the boy is born in a manger, and proclaimed the savior of the world.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/toleration-and-free-association/ Sun, 22 Mar 2020 15:26:53 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

               Regarding an issue raised in the Dave Rubin Yasmine Mohammed interview:

               One particular point raised by Dave sticks out for me. He asks a few times, whether “liberalism is too soft” on radical ideologies nestled within the boundaries of its political realms. The question is never really engaged directly. But indirectly, there are many points in this interview in which toleration of illiberalism is called into question, as a general policy (either social or legal). This is something that should really be considered carefully, and not just left by the side of the road, as we move on to other things.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-dysfunctional-self-dichotomy/ Tue, 17 Mar 2020 15:10:25 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

               The world today seems divided into two camps: those seeking self-satisfaction, and those seeking self-denial. I think both of these attitudes toward life are mistaken, but an inevitable reaction to the evacuation of virtue from the center of our moral lives.

               The self-satisfaction seekers are those who have elevated into the place of virtue, a kind of incontinent pleasure drawn from the unimpeded exercise of the will. These people valorize freedom, only insofar as it serves the satisfaction of the self, whatever that happens to be in the moment. Freedom, for them, is liberation of the will. The post-modern impulse to deny the reality of history, of culture, and even of biology, all center around a disconnected will that longs to spread itself over existence like a blanket.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/aristotle-101-substance-in-the-categories/ Mon, 16 Mar 2020 23:17:24 +0000 Podcast: Aristotle 101

               Transcript can be found here.

               The Categories is Aristotle’s first attempt to outline a theory of being, in addition to the work’s central focus, which is to provide an account of the ways in which we think about being, and beings. In total, there are ten categories of thought about being, but the core of his theory of being begins with the first category. This is what he called “substance”. This essay will summarize Aristotle’s conception of substance as he presents it in The Categories, briefly explain what distinguishes substance from the other categories, and offer some additional thoughts about the metaphysics of being, in relation to Aristotle’s mentor, Plato.

               ]]>

               Transcript can be found here.

               The Categories is Aristotle’s first attempt to outline a theory of being, in addition to the work’s central focus, which is to provide an account of the ways in which we think about being, and beings. In total, there are ten categories of thought about being, but the core of his theory of being begins with the first category. This is what he called “substance”. This essay will summarize Aristotle’s conception of substance as he presents it in The Categories, briefly explain what distinguishes substance from the other categories, and offer some additional thoughts about the metaphysics of being, in relation to Aristotle’s mentor, Plato.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/aristotle-101-substance-in-the-categories/ Sun, 15 Mar 2020 11:33:25 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

               The Categories is Aristotle’s first attempt to outline a theory of being, in addition to the work’s central focus, which is to provide an account of the ways in which we think about being, and beings. In total, there are ten categories of thought about being, but the core of his theory of being begins with the first category. This is what he called “substance”. This essay will summarise Aristotle’s conception of substance as he presents it in The Categories, briefly explain what distinguishes substance from the other categories, and offer some additional thoughts about the metaphysics of being, in relation to Aristotle’s mentor, Plato.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/three-views-of-truth/ Sat, 07 Mar 2020 15:02:04 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

               I think there is a lack of subtlety in the modern debate around meaning and truth. People struggle with ham-fisted dichotomies and adversarial arguments that never go anywhere, because of this low resolution notion of meaning. I want to suggest that we think of meaning in three different ways, and that each of them has a context and a scope that is appropriate to that distinction.

               VALENCE

               Valence is the truth value of a proposition. You may disagree with this (and we can certainly debate it), but I take the metaphysical realist position that truth is necessarily bivalent. Which is to say, I take Dummett’s argument that realism necessarily entails that propositions are - and can only be - true or false. Whether that truth value can be assigned on the basis of “evidence transcendent” means is also a debate for another time. Suffice to say here, that I am committed to both ‘rational’ (a priori) truth, and ‘sensible’ (a posteriori) truth, and I think we can indeed call our awareness of those valences ‘knowledge’ of the truth. All of this demands a great deal more explication. But the point here, is just to briefly identify and define the first form of meaning.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-origin-of-causality/ Fri, 06 Mar 2020 14:58:00 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

               Why does causality work? (OR: What is change?) Modern physics offers a powerfully sophisticated description of the behaviour of matter, including extremely complex maths that gives us highly reliable predictive power.

               But, when you peel back the layers of that onion, what you find are wispy metaphors and “placeholder” terms at the core. The most popular, of course, are the terms “energy” and “force”. But, what is that? The common example of billiard balls provides a good illustration. Setting aside how the motion came to be in the first place, for discussion’s sake, imagine that one ball strikes another. The other ball, of course, itself begins to move. Physics calls this a transference of kinetic energy, but all this means in plain terms, is that ball A gave ball B the ability to do the work of motion.

               ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/three-approaches-to-the-problem-of-desire/ Thu, 05 Mar 2020 14:45:01 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

               It seems to me, that the problem of desire has three plausible attitudinal responses:

               1. The hedonic approach: there is a never-ending supply of desirable things, and life is best lived by pursuing them all. Want is sated when all desirable things have been had. The goal, then, is pleasure at all times, as an equivalent to happiness.

               2. The ascetic / Buddhist approach: the things to be desired are never-ending, which means there will never be a time when all desirable things are had. This means that want will never cease, and that leads to suffering. The goal then, is to rid ourselves of desire, and in so doing, free ourselves of the anchor of the body, which impedes the pursuit of true happiness.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/hayek-on-social-justice/ Wed, 04 Mar 2020 11:41:56 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

                  Did you know that Friedrich Hayek wrote extensively on the topic of Social Justice and Progressivism? One of the best places to look for his wisdom on the topic is “Law, Legislation, and Liberty”. He devotes an entire chapter to the subject, there. Here is an extended snippet from that chapter:

                  It is perhaps not surprising that men should have applied to the joint effects of the actions of many people, even where these were never foreseen or intended, the conception of justice which they had developed with respect to the conduct of individuals towards each other. ‘Social’ justice… came to be regarded as an attribute which the ‘actions’ of society, or the ‘treatment’ of individuals and groups by society, ought to possess. As primitive thinking usually does when first noticing some regular processes, the results of the spontaneous ordering of the market were interpreted as if some thinking being deliberately directed them, or as if the particular benefits or harm different persons derived from them were determined by deliberate acts of will, and could therefore be guided by moral rules. This conception of ‘social’ justice is thus a direct consequence of that anthropomorphism or personification by which naive thinking tries to account for all self-ordering processes…

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/aristotle-101-the-four-causes/ Fri, 28 Feb 2020 11:38:02 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  In the Physics, Aristotle says that we aim at understanding, which he says is to be able to give a full account of “the how and the why of things coming into existence and going out of it”. In other words, to understand something is to be able to give an explanation of how and why a thing changes. That explanation is what Aristotle means by ‘cause’. Today, thinking of explanation in terms of causes is not an alien notion. But, when we do this, we are typically only thinking in one narrow scientific sense of the term. Aristotle, however, describes a theory of causal explanation in both the Physics and the Metaphysics that includes four separate categorical senses of the term. Aristotle insists that a complete explanation will appeal to all four of these kinds of cause. In this answer, I will briefly describe the four causes, and attempt to explain why the fourth, ‘final’ cause is primary in Aristotle’s theory.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/aristotle-101-the-four-causes/ Thu, 27 Feb 2020 23:20:28 +0000 Podcast: Aristotle 101

                  Transcript can be found here.

                  In the Physics, Aristotle says that we aim at understanding, which he says is to be able to give a full account of “the how and the why of things coming into existence and going out of it”. In other words, to understand something is to be able to give an explanation of how and why a thing changes. That explanation is what Aristotle means by ‘cause’. Today, thinking of explanation in terms of causes is not an alien notion. But, when we do this, we are typically only thinking in one narrow scientific sense of the term. Aristotle, however, describes a theory of causal explanation in both the Physics and the Metaphysics that includes four separate categorical senses of the term. Aristotle insists that a complete explanation will appeal to all four of these kinds of cause. In this answer, I will briefly describe the four causes, and attempt to explain why the fourth, ‘final’ cause is primary in Aristotle’s theory.

                  ]]>

                  Transcript can be found here.

                  In the Physics, Aristotle says that we aim at understanding, which he says is to be able to give a full account of “the how and the why of things coming into existence and going out of it”. In other words, to understand something is to be able to give an explanation of how and why a thing changes. That explanation is what Aristotle means by ‘cause’. Today, thinking of explanation in terms of causes is not an alien notion. But, when we do this, we are typically only thinking in one narrow scientific sense of the term. Aristotle, however, describes a theory of causal explanation in both the Physics and the Metaphysics that includes four separate categorical senses of the term. Aristotle insists that a complete explanation will appeal to all four of these kinds of cause. In this answer, I will briefly describe the four causes, and attempt to explain why the fourth, ‘final’ cause is primary in Aristotle’s theory.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/the-first-question-is-there-a-god/ Fri, 21 Feb 2020 23:23:34 +0000 Podcast: 1. Main Feed

                  Transcript can be found here.

                  This post is my first foray into the question of whether or not there is a God. Before I can begin to attempt an answer, I need to explore a deeper question. Namely, what is the nature of this question? What exactly are we asking, when we ask this question? I want to suggest that this question is best understood as a fundamental choice, and that the choice is not simply one of satisfying an ontological preference, but one of universal significance. The way one answers this question will define one’s entire life, indeed all life. It will condition the content of all of one’s relationships, and predispose the outcome of every subsequent choice. It will frame every subsequent question you will ask yourself, from the nature of morality and history, to the kinds of activities you engage in, day to day. This choice lies at the center of everything it means to exist, and to be human. Which fork of the dilemma you choose, is therefore, the most important choice you will ever make.

                  ]]>

                  Transcript can be found here.

                  This post is my first foray into the question of whether or not there is a God. Before I can begin to attempt an answer, I need to explore a deeper question. Namely, what is the nature of this question? What exactly are we asking, when we ask this question? I want to suggest that this question is best understood as a fundamental choice, and that the choice is not simply one of satisfying an ontological preference, but one of universal significance. The way one answers this question will define one’s entire life, indeed all life. It will condition the content of all of one’s relationships, and predispose the outcome of every subsequent choice. It will frame every subsequent question you will ask yourself, from the nature of morality and history, to the kinds of activities you engage in, day to day. This choice lies at the center of everything it means to exist, and to be human. Which fork of the dilemma you choose, is therefore, the most important choice you will ever make.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-visual-framing-of-narrative/ Thu, 13 Feb 2020 10:48:00 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

                  I am 36 minutes into the documentary “Islam and the Future of Tolerance”, and I could not help but notice the contrast in the way that Sam and Majid are visually presented. I am not a filmmaker, but it seems clear to me that there is visual framing of a dichotomous narrative going on here.

                  Light/Dark, Good/Evil, Angel/Demon. On the left, Sam is not talking about his own experience in that scene. He’s talking about Majid’s transformation. On the right, Majid is talking about his own experience of that transformation. Sam is on an upper floor with large windows, centred symmetrically in the frame. Majid is in a parking garage basement with no significant windows, off-center in the frame and at an angle to the architecture of the room. This is clearly religious imagery I’m not quite sure exactly what the narrative is, but it strongly suggests something like, “Sam is saving Majid’s soul”.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/is-there-a-god/ Sun, 02 Feb 2020 22:30:21 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology]

                  This post is my first foray into the question of whether or not there is a God. Before I can begin to attempt an answer, I need to explore a deeper question. Namely, what is the nature of this question? What exactly are we asking, when we ask this question? I want to suggest that this question is best understood as a fundamental choice, and that the choice is not simply one of satisfying an ontological preference, but one of universal significance. The way one answers this question will define one’s entire life, indeed all life. It will condition the content of all of one’s relationships, and predispose the outcome of every subsequent choice. It will frame every subsequent question you will ask yourself, from the nature of morality and history, to the kinds of activities you engage in, day to day. This choice lies at the center of everything it means to exist, and to be human. Which fork of the dilemma you choose, is therefore, the most important choice you will ever make. The most succinct formulation of this choice, comes to two quotes:

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/two-dystopias-despair-and-redemption/ Sat, 25 Jan 2020 13:53:01 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology culture]

                  Last night, I re-viewed George Lucas’ “THX-1138” (for the 20th time), and paired it with Phillip Noyce’s 2014 film treatment of “The Giver”.

                  Both films portray differing versions of what I like to call the “escape trope” in science fiction dystopias: the main character’s whole motivation is to leave his society. In the first, THX is rejected by the dead society within which he is trapped in an unremarkable role, as soon as he is discovered to be non-compliant. The whole film becomes about him literally just trying to leave. In the second, Jonas is at first exalted by his conformist utopia as a “chosen one”, only later to be rejected when the leadership finds it cannot control him. Through the knowledge Jonas gains in his training, he becomes aware of a hidden truth about his society, which he can only share with the rest by escaping it. The whole film becomes about Jonas revealing that truth, through escape.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/roger-scruton-rest-in-peace/ Wed, 15 Jan 2020 12:06:34 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  It’s a tragedy that his death is being ignored by everyone. His voice was an essential one, in today’s culture. I do not think there is anyone sufficient to replace him. Peter Hitchens, as erudite as he is, is a pale imitation. Scruton was the last of the “somewhere” people.

                  I first discovered Roger Scruton with the release of the book “Thinkers of the New Left” (1985) – recently re-released as “Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands” – a book I discovered in the mid-nineties after reading Allan Bloom’s “Closing of the American Mind”. But it wasn’t until “Beauty” (2009) and “The Uses of Pessimism” (2012), that I began to really appreciate him as a serious philosopher.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/chamberlain-nozick-and-rawls/ Thu, 09 Jan 2020 11:43:30 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

                  In his book, “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”, Robert Nozick offers the Wilt Chamberlain thought experiment in order to demonstrate how a conception of justice based on “end-state patterned distributions” (as he put it) would require constant coercive interventions on the part of the state, in order to maintain the desired pattern. This, in turn, would undermine theories of justice that incorporated liberty into their framework. John Rawls’ theory of justice is one such example. I will briefly outline the thought experiment and the problem it poses, consider some objections to Nozick, and conclude that despite these objections, Nozick succeeds.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/a-potential-defense-of-naturalistic-idealism/ Mon, 30 Dec 2019 12:19:44 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  One frequent appeal by determinists in the free will debate, involves invoking certain facts about neuroscience to deny efficacy to the conscious subject. In order to do this, one of the things the determinist must say, is that sense impulses are somehow processed unconsciously into a coherent whole, before they are presented to the ‘conscious’ subject as an ’experience’, and that this processing (along with pre-conscious processing of decision-making activity), shows that we are entirely causally determined.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-alienation-of-childbearing/ Thu, 19 Dec 2019 12:32:11 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

                  According to Sophie Lewis (in Full Surrogacy Now) , if you are a woman, you are a vulnerable victim who at any moment, can be pressed into slave labor as a “gestational worker”, subject to horrors as evil as cancer, and as brutal as an animal attack:

                  “…It is a wonder we let fetuses inside us. Unlike almost all other animals, hundreds of thousands of humans die because of their pregnancies every year, making a mockery of UN millennium goals to stop the carnage…….biophysically speaking, gestating is an unconscionably destructive business. The basic mechanics, according to evolutionary biologist Suzanne Sadedin, have evolved in our species in a manner that can only be described as a ghastly fluke. Scientists have discovered—by experimentally putting placental cells in mouse carcasses—that the active cells of pregnancy “rampage” (unless aggressively contained) through every tissue they touch. Kathy Acker was not citing these studies when she remarked that having cancer was like having a baby, but she was unconsciously channelling its findings……a human cannot rip away a placenta in the event of a change of heart—or, say, a sudden drought or outbreak of war—without risk of lethal hemorrhage. Our embryo hugely enlarges and paralyzes the wider arterial system supplying it, while at the same time elevating (hormonally) the blood pressure and sugar supply. A 2018 study found that post-natal PTSD affects at least three to four percent of birth-givers in the UK……It seems impossible that a society would let such grisly things happen on a regular basis to entities endowed with legal standing. Given the biology of hemochorial placentation, the fact that so many of us endowed with “viable” wombs are walking around in a state of physical implantability—no Pill, no IUD—ought by rights to be regarded as the most extraordinary thing…….even the most wrongheaded of textbooks written a century ago at least stated the problem to be solved in uncompromising terms: “Birth injuries are so common that Nature must intend for women to be used up in the process of reproduction, just as a salmon die after spawning.”…”

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-irrationalist/ Sun, 15 Dec 2019 12:49:02 +0000 Blog: [psychology]

                  Sam Harris, in his latest podcast, gives his listeners a special treat late in the episode. He hounds Richard Dawkins into submitting to a mindfulness meditation, and we get to spend nearly 15 minutes listening to Harris guide us and his guest through it, while waiting for Dawkins to finally ask Harris “what was the point of that?”.

                  What is remarkable about this whole segment, is the sales pitch that Harris has to offer Dawkins, in order to cow him into doing it. Through it, Harris essentially admits to a view of the universe that is fundamentally irrational. There are aspects of reality that are inaccessible to the rational mind, Harris insists. There are states of transcendence that require the surrender of the conscious self, and the quieting of the thinking mind, to achieve them. Finally, he tells us, the most skeptical of us must imbibe hallucinogenic and psychotropic chemicals in order to disengage the critical faculties and “take the first step”.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-justice-of-market-outcomes/ Thu, 12 Dec 2019 11:48:41 +0000 Blog: [philosophy economics]

                  In any given exchange market (whether free or otherwise), goods and services are traded as a matter of course, in the pursuit of both individual and social goals. Those trades will result in substantive outcomes both for the individuals involved in trades, and more broadly for society as a whole. It has been suggested that some of those outcomes may be undeserved. If we assume this to be the case, the question then arises, are undeserved market outcomes are unjust? Any reasonable answer to this question requires a coherent idea of justice within which we could determine what is deserved and undeserved, and judge the justice of those deserts. In the interest of space, this essay will briefly describe two essential notions of justice, and rule one of them out as the less coherent of the two. Once an acceptable sense of justice is established, I will then proceed to render a decision on the question of desert and justice in the market.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/mill-harm-liberty-and-censorship/ Fri, 06 Dec 2019 11:59:07 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  J.S. Mill’s famous essay On Liberty proposes a broadly Utilitarian principle to be applied for the purpose of the preservation of individual liberty against state coercion. This principle is known as the ‘harm principle’. Mill provides three vaguely distinct formulations of the principle, and in each one, the term ‘harm’ takes on a slightly different meaning. The first formulation implies a definition of harm as an act which would require either individual or collective ‘self-protection’ as a response. The second, more augmented formulation implies that a harm is an act of either commission or omission, that is hurtful to the ‘interests of others’. The final formulation of the principle implies that a harm is any act which impedes or deprives others’ pursuit of ‘their own good, in their own way’. This essay will first briefly summarize these three formulations, and then assess whether they function as bulwarks of liberty. At that point, I will pivot to examine how the harm principle is incorporated into Mill’s view of free speech in chapter two of the work, and briefly evaluate the strength of his defense against censorship in that context.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/deduction-seems-vulnerable-to-the-problem-of-induction/ Mon, 02 Dec 2019 12:38:11 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  Dirty little secret about logic: If induction has a justification problem (and it does), then so does deduction. Why? Because deductions rely on inductive conclusions imported into their premises. Here are a few examples.

                  A. Aristotelian Syllogism:

                  1. All men are mortal
                  2. Socrates is a man
                  3. C: Socrates is mortal

                  Look at premise 1. What gives us the right to say that this is a true premise? Well, because we cast our gaze over a range of humans, and we see that they have all grown old and died. So, we all must die, yes? That’s an inductive inference. How is it justified?

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-next-stage-of-the-polis/ Sun, 01 Dec 2019 12:43:27 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

                  In Aeschylus’ play Oresteia, Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter as an offering to the primitive (pre-classical) gods of nature and war, meant to insure sea passage and victory in an upcoming battle.

                  In doing so, he sets in motion a cascade of blood vengeance that echoes the historical practice of pre-classical Greek retaliatory clan justice. On Agamemnon’s return home, Clytemnestra cuts his throat in his bath. On the discovery of this horror, Orestes then, on prompting from his sister Elektra, murders his mother Clytemnestra. At this point, Orestes is chased through the rest of the play by the Erinyes (the furies), a symbol of ancient natural justice.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/justice-culture-and-the-enlightenment/ Mon, 25 Nov 2019 12:03:26 +0000 Blog: [egalitarianism rawls utilitarianism christianity justice]

                  A question is posed to me via my coursework: “Does justice require that anything be distributed equally? If so, what?” This is, of course, the bog-standard prompt for the student to explain the modern dispute between John Rawls¹ and Robert Nozick² . We’ll get there shortly, but first I want to back up and ask the more fundamental (indeed, perennial) question: What is justice? At the risk of plagiarizing Socrates, I might clarify that I am not asking, “what makes a just circumstance just“, or “show me a particular instance of a just set of arrangements“. Rather, I want to know about Justice qua Justice. In more common terms, can we adequately describe the thing at which we point, when we want to say “this thing is like that thing”. Once we can answer that question, then we can begin to consider the question of what prerequisites must be met in any given circumstance, in order to declare, “this is a just arrangement of goods”. Of course, I’m not going to be able to answer that question in this post. But what I can offer, are some thoughts and observations on the concept, that give the coursework question some context, and some real-world purchase.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/what-problem-is-rousseau-trying-to-solve/ Thu, 07 Nov 2019 22:52:12 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

                  A core problem in political philosophy is the relation between the individual and the society in which he is a member. How does the political order, in the form of the state, legitimize itself and how are its impositions upon the individual, in apparent opposition to his freedom, justified? Jean-Jacques Rousseau attempted to solve this problem in his famous essay The Social Contract. To quote Rousseau from The Social Contract, his project is “…to find a form of association that will defend and protect the person and goods of each associate with the full and common force, and by means of which each uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as he was [in the state of nature]…”. What Rousseau found, was a theory known as the ‘general will’. Specifically, Rousseau exclaimed it to be the solution to the problem of preserving an individual’s natural freedom in a state of conventional justice (i.e. a body politic). This essay describes this theory in summary, explains how Rousseau intended for it to solve the problem of individual freedom in a political order, and in the final assessment, his solution is found wanting for three fairly damning reasons.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/what-does-marx-mean-by-alienated-labor/ Mon, 28 Oct 2019 12:20:10 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics economics]

                  In his famous Paris Manuscripts of 1844, Marx argues that a society organized around the principle of private property and the commercial production of commodities forces man to stand in opposition to his own nature in order to subsist, and that this self-oppositional stance is best described as ‘alienated’ (or ‘estranged’) labor. To fully understand what Marx means by ‘alienated labor’, and under what circumstances labor becomes alienated, we must therefore first understand what Marx means by ‘human nature’. From there, we can understand what it means to be alienated from it, and the various ways in which this alienation is accomplished in a capitalist situation.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/movie-review-planet-of-the-apes-1968/ Sat, 03 Aug 2019 15:06:40 +0000 Blog: [philosophy culture]

                  This is only the second movie review I’ve ever done. The first was for my old video channel, which you can find on my new video channel, here . I don’t do “standard” movie reviews, because I know nothing of film production, the arcane science of camera angles and lighting, or the fine art of “pacing”, and “tone”, let alone the intricacies of acting. But once in a while, the allegorical meaning of a film jumps out at me, and I can’t help but write about it. That is what a “movie review” is, for me, and Planet of the Apes is one such film.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/book-review-enlightenment-in-a-nutshell/ Sun, 28 Jul 2019 12:27:36 +0000 Blog: [philosophy history]

                  What’s the Goal?

                  In the introduction to Enlightenment Philosophy In A Nutshell, Jane O’Grady makes her intentions for the book quite explicit:

                  I hope to show how Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, and Kant respond to, develop, reform, and contradict the ideas of their predecessors and peers, such as Hobbes, Leibniz, Hutcheson, Voltaire, and Diderot, and in doing so, to convey the extraordinary courage and innovativeness of the Enlightenment as a whole… (Pg. 9)

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/cultural-knowledge-and-discipline/ Sun, 30 Jun 2019 23:39:02 +0000 Podcast: 1. Main Feed

                  We’re being robbed of our capacity for expression in more ways than just overt censorship. In the name of “liberation” from an ostensible “oppression” we are stripped of access to our cultural heritage, and denied the opportunity to learn the rules and principles that governed the creation of new art in previous generations. This is dangerous, and we ought to reject this.

                  Full Transcript can be found here.

                  ]]>

                  We’re being robbed of our capacity for expression in more ways than just overt censorship. In the name of “liberation” from an ostensible “oppression” we are stripped of access to our cultural heritage, and denied the opportunity to learn the rules and principles that governed the creation of new art in previous generations. This is dangerous, and we ought to reject this.

                  Full Transcript can be found here.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/on-culture-knowledge-and-discipline/ Sun, 30 Jun 2019 12:35:10 +0000 Blog: [philosophy culture]

                  Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Sea Symphony” is often giggled at for its overt sexual imagery, given to it by the famous poet who supplied it’s libretto. One must concede, the titterers have a point. Walt Witman’s “limitless heaving breasts”, and “husky nurse” who sings “her husky song”, are visuals that are rather hard to refute.

                  But, just as much as Witman’s poetry is littered with sexual symbolism, it is also laden quite heavily with religious imagery. Witman’s valorization of the Christian idea of purpose is everywhere in this symphony. With his “emblem of man” that “elates above death”, and his “first intent” that “remains and shall be carried out”, Witman is clearly alluding to the notion of God’s plan for man, and the salvation necessary to complete that plan. And the farther we go in the poetry, the more explicit that gets: “finally shall come the poet worthy that name; the true Son of God shall come singing his songs.”

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/the-struggle-between-public-and-private/ Sun, 09 Jun 2019 23:42:44 +0000 Podcast: 1. Main Feed

                  Full Transcript can be found here.

                  Summary:

                  The role of the private sphere of life has been drastically eroded and diminished over the last twenty-five years, by the exploitation of network technology in the form of social media – and the public scrutiny of private life doesn’t stop with Twitter or Facebook. Everywhere, network connected devices are collecting data about your activities, your choices, your relationships, your habits, and your preferences. Doorbells, televisions, stereo systems, building security systems, and of course, computers and now the ubiquitous smartphone, all have microphones, cameras, GPS trackers, ‘call home’ beacons, and various other means of generating and vomiting data about you, to massive commercial institutions that are more than willing to hand that information over to political institutions, or even to openly publicize it for no other reason than to increase the potential for revenue generation. All digital ;records are fair game for exploitation. Emails, purchase receipts, government documents, video recordings, audio recordings, private chats, even files stored on local hard disks – if they’re connected to the internet, they’re “public” in some sense enough to skirt legal limits. If your mother notes your birthday on her Facebook page, your birthdate is public record. If your girlfriend breaks up with you and rants about it on Twitter, your relationship status is public record. If you add your friends to your snapchat address book, your friends contact information is public record. What’s more, if it’s public, the automatic assumption is that it is fodder for not just commercial, but political action. Celebrity is now an abundant commodity, diluted across the entire population of internet-connected citizens, whether it wants that status or not. If you have a phone number, you are as much a celebrity as Megan Markle. The only difference, is that not everyone has heard of you yet. Where does this leave the status of the sphere of the private? When the only barrier left between public and private, is mere ignorance of your presence in this new ubiquitous public sphere, can it really be said that there is a private sphere anymore?

                  ]]>

                  Full Transcript can be found here.

                  Summary:

                  The role of the private sphere of life has been drastically eroded and diminished over the last twenty-five years, by the exploitation of network technology in the form of social media – and the public scrutiny of private life doesn’t stop with Twitter or Facebook. Everywhere, network connected devices are collecting data about your activities, your choices, your relationships, your habits, and your preferences. Doorbells, televisions, stereo systems, building security systems, and of course, computers and now the ubiquitous smartphone, all have microphones, cameras, GPS trackers, ‘call home’ beacons, and various other means of generating and vomiting data about you, to massive commercial institutions that are more than willing to hand that information over to political institutions, or even to openly publicize it for no other reason than to increase the potential for revenue generation. All digital ;records are fair game for exploitation. Emails, purchase receipts, government documents, video recordings, audio recordings, private chats, even files stored on local hard disks – if they’re connected to the internet, they’re “public” in some sense enough to skirt legal limits. If your mother notes your birthday on her Facebook page, your birthdate is public record. If your girlfriend breaks up with you and rants about it on Twitter, your relationship status is public record. If you add your friends to your snapchat address book, your friends contact information is public record. What’s more, if it’s public, the automatic assumption is that it is fodder for not just commercial, but political action. Celebrity is now an abundant commodity, diluted across the entire population of internet-connected citizens, whether it wants that status or not. If you have a phone number, you are as much a celebrity as Megan Markle. The only difference, is that not everyone has heard of you yet. Where does this leave the status of the sphere of the private? When the only barrier left between public and private, is mere ignorance of your presence in this new ubiquitous public sphere, can it really be said that there is a private sphere anymore?

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-struggle-between-public-and-private/ Sun, 09 Jun 2019 12:49:57 +0000 Blog: [philosophy culture]

                  The world around me is getting ever more crazy, with each passing day. Politics is rapidly consuming all aspects of life within itself. We’ve reached a point in some areas of society where nothing can be considered except in terms of political relations and power dynamics. From toilet functions, to one’s choice of entertainment genres, to whom one takes as friends, to larger social and electoral questions, all things are seen through the lens of ideology now. It’s not even a sliding scale anymore. All of it is equally as political, and equally as contentious. Where and how you shit, is as political an act, as who you vote for.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/terrorism-power-and-the-example-of-christ/ Sun, 31 Mar 2019 23:49:22 +0000 Podcast: 1. Main Feed

                  The transcript for this episode can be found in this blog post. I should probably put a warning on this podcast, because I discuss the Brenton Tarrant terror attack. But, I trust my audience to be able to handle it. So, take what you will from what I have to say.

                  ]]>

                  The transcript for this episode can be found in this blog post. I should probably put a warning on this podcast, because I discuss the Brenton Tarrant terror attack. But, I trust my audience to be able to handle it. So, take what you will from what I have to say.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/terror-responsibility-and-the-example-of-god/ Wed, 27 Mar 2019 12:55:01 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology psychology]

                  We are what we choose to do

                  Whether you believe there actually is a God or not, it is still instructive to explore the conception of God provided by the religious. In particular, the difference in character between the Christian God and the Muslim God, is very interesting.

                  The Muslim (and perhaps Jewish) conception of God’s omnipotence is one of active and continuous expression. God is all powerful — and thus the greatest of great — because he exercises his power everywhere, at all times. Were he not to do so, we could not call him great, or omnipotent, because there would be gaps in time in which his omnipotence is not fully expressed.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/induction-an-introduction-to-the-problem/ Mon, 18 Mar 2019 13:00:14 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The so-called problem of induction, plainly stated, comes down to this: inductive reasoning appears to have no rational justification. Unlike deductive reasoning, which offers apparent justification in its formal structure, the form of an inductive argument can at best only offer probabilistic confidence, and at worst, no justification at all, if we examine it’s application in the context of, say, a causal explanation. To see why this is the case, let’s examine some formal examples.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/schopenhauer-and-the-freedom-of-the-will/ Sun, 17 Mar 2019 23:52:53 +0000 Podcast: 1. Main Feed

                  You can find the transcript here. For those interested in the original text out of which this dialogue was constructed, you can find it here. I highly recommend giving it a read, when you have some time. I’m a defender of free will, but Schopenhauer makes a defense of determinism here, that every libertarian must answer.

                  ]]>

                  You can find the transcript here. For those interested in the original text out of which this dialogue was constructed, you can find it here. I highly recommend giving it a read, when you have some time. I’m a defender of free will, but Schopenhauer makes a defense of determinism here, that every libertarian must answer.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/podcast/the-allegory-of-the-cave-what-it-is-and-what-it-means/ Sun, 03 Mar 2019 23:56:43 +0000 Podcast: 1. Main Feed

                  This is the first official episode of the Exiting The Cave Podcast. What better way to kick things off, than with an explication of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave?

                  Unfortunately, the transcript for the episode was lost in the migration from WordPress to the static blog. However, I don’t think the transcript is really all that necessary for this particular podcast. I think you’ll find it more engaging as a listening experience, than a read.

                  ]]>

                  This is the first official episode of the Exiting The Cave Podcast. What better way to kick things off, than with an explication of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave?

                  Unfortunately, the transcript for the episode was lost in the migration from WordPress to the static blog. However, I don’t think the transcript is really all that necessary for this particular podcast. I think you’ll find it more engaging as a listening experience, than a read.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/metaphysical-realism-a-stream-of-consciousness/ Mon, 11 Feb 2019 13:05:57 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The following notes are an attempt at outlining my basic thought process, to document my progress in the study of metaphysical realism, and offer the reader some food for thought. I offer it, as is. If there are any actual arguments in this post, it is purely by accident. If there are any answers to the problem of realism within this text, the reader is free to take them.

                  A (Very) Brief History of What Is

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/mill-vs-aristotle-the-summum-bonum-that-wasnt/ Sun, 18 Nov 2018 23:20:43 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  In a previous post, I outlined some significant differences between Mill and Plato on the question of Pleasure, that I think are grounded in a misreading of Plato. Here, I present a few differences between Mill and Aristotle on the summum bonum, right and wrong action, and pleasure.

                  When considering the arguments in Utilitarianism, and the obvious allusions to Plato and Aristotle within it, many seem to me to be incomplete at best, and misguided at worst. The main disagreement, almost from the start, is on the question of both what constitutes a “chief good” (and how its justified), and what the chief good actually is. Namely, what is happiness. As we’ll see, this divergence is immediate, and catastrophic. Mill is clearly adopting Aristotle’s framing of the problem of morality, as one in which we must identify the highest good, and then justify our actions relative to it:

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/a-forgery-of-knowledge-yet-another-academic-hoax/ Sun, 07 Oct 2018 23:26:45 +0000 Blog: [academia politics]

                  Several years ago, shortly after I first started this blog, I made a decision not to engage in de jour commentary on current events and politics. One reason for that, was that I wanted the blog to be a record of my intellectual growth, and repository of whatever actual insights or knowledge I was able to produce during my formal study of philosophy. I wanted it to be a record of actual knowledge production, on my part, however meager and unimpressive that might be, as an amateur and a student.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/plato-parmenides-and-the-theory-of-forms-part-3/ Sat, 29 Sep 2018 21:53:42 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  To recap and summarize, there are three different kinds of forms presented to us in the Parmenides, by Socrates:

                  1. Relational: the subjective experience of qualities of things, relative to each other. For example, Bigness, Sameness, or Heaviness (and their oppositions: Smallness, Difference, or Lightness).
                  2. Ontological: the model or exemplar of actual things. For example, Man, Animal, Fire, and Water (but, inexplicably, not things like sticks and stones and mud and sealing wax).
                  3. Ethical: Truthfulness, Goodness, Beautifulness, and Justness. This conception is the one that has the most traction, at least with later neoplatonic followers (e.g. Plotinus and Olympiodorus).

                  And, as we saw with the last post, there were three basic theories for the existence of these forms:

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/plato-parmenides-and-the-theory-of-forms-part-2/ Sat, 08 Sep 2018 21:58:21 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  In this installment of the series on Plato’s Forms, we’ll have a brief look at the major conceptions of the theory, some of the key differences, and dig deep into the one formulation Plato seems to have favored the most. For those of you looking for a thorough discussion of Parmenides’ refutations, you’ll have to wait until the last installment. In keeping with the principle of the first post, the idea here is to just try to understand the theory itself, and the problem it was trying to solve, before we make any move to object to it.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/plato-parmenides-and-the-theory-of-forms-part-1/ Mon, 23 Jul 2018 22:03:31 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  It has become a commonplace habit in contemporary quasi-philosophical circles, to roll one’s eyes and snicker, or to sneer and sniff, whenever the mention of Plato’s Forms happens to sour the air. It seems to be taken for granted these days, that the Forms “just aren’t done” anymore, that somehow they’ve been shown to be disreputable or false, and that no one need any longer to take the idea seriously (least of all, professional philosophers). Yet, at the same time, one habit I have acquired during the last four years of intensive study of philosophy as a genuine student, is the reflex of taking people’s ideas seriously — and, for all the dismissals, nobody has ever bothered to explain to me why the Forms are no longer taken seriously, or how they’ve been shown to be disreputable.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/lsp-summer-school-conference-report/ Sat, 14 Jul 2018 23:55:36 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics ethics]

                  I decided to spend three of my vacation days on the London School of Philosophy’s “Summer School” conference, this week. The theme of the conference was “Philosophy: Past, Present, and Future”, and the talks focused heavily on the broad questions like the nature of philosophy, it’s role and purpose in society, it’s place in history, its relationship to art and literature, and the implications drawn from consideration of these questions, for the future.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/musings-on-the-problem-of-the-state/ Thu, 05 Jul 2018 22:14:25 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

                  Socrates, in The Republic, argues that a society must be ordered, and that the just and ordered polity requires a just and well ordered soul. But, not all souls will achieve the rational ideal, says the anarchist. He has a point. However, this leaves both the advocate of a state and the political anarchist with a problem. An anarchy of disordered souls is pure chaos. A state of disordered souls is a tyranny. Plato solved this dilemma simply by putting the most just and ordered souls “in charge” of the polity. But, of course, this is no solution at all for the voluntarist. He thinks there can be no such thing as a just society, over which a state rules, because rule is unjust by definition. Plato, of course, had much more to say about this. We’ll return to him shortly. In the meantime, a history lesson is necessary.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/book-review-the-art-of-the-argument/ Tue, 29 May 2018 22:19:42 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  This weekend I had a little extra time on my hands, because of the bank holiday. It’s been quite a while since I’ve looked at any work by the growing cadre of freelance internet philosophers. So, I decided to have a look at the latest offering by Stefan Molyneux. Not a man to shy away from dramatic overstatement, the book is titled, The Art of The Argument: Civilization’s Last Stand.

                  The basic thesis of the book is that “sophists” – described as those who manipulate language and appeal to emotion to gain power for themselves – are undermining the basic capacity for good people to negotiate terms amongst themselves in good faith, and that without this capacity to engage in rational debate, civilization itself will descend into a chaos of brute force misery and destruction. He has taken it to be his task, then, to recruit and educate the new generation of soldiers in the war of the rational against the “relativist” and the “sophist”, and to train them up in the art of *The Argument*.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/plato-and-nietzsche-the-end-and-the-beginning/ Sat, 14 Apr 2018 22:27:59 +0000 Blog: [philosophy theology]

                  I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ ~Isaiah 46:10

                  In The Republic, Socrates repeatedly insists that truth will be the highest value of his utopian society. To accomplish this, he argues that the myths of Homer and Hesiod should be hewn down to only those stories that are in accordance with what we know to be true, by proper philosophic study and dialectic argumentation. He further describes how the golden souls — those destined to be the philosopher king rulers of this utopia — having been weened and nurtured on these stories of truth, and having eventually come to know the truth for themselves in adulthood, will happily choose to submit themselves to the proper order of a truly just society.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/philippa-foot-and-i-exchange-words/ Sun, 08 Apr 2018 22:33:36 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The following pseudo-dialogue is based on my reading of part three of Philippa Foot’s famous essay, “Virtues and Vices”, which can be found here. All of her “dialogue” constitutes direct quotes from the essay. In this essay, she seems to me to be anxious about identifying vice for what it is and has crafted a sophisticated means of diluting the boundaries between virtue and vice, in order to relieve that anxiety. I could be wrong, of course. But Here is my engagement with those portions of the text that seem to me to be pointing in that direction.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/plato-versus-mill-on-the-pleasure-principle/ Sun, 18 Mar 2018 22:39:13 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  …after more than two thousand years the same discussions continue, philosophers are still ranged under the same contending banners, and neither thinkers nor mankind at large seem nearer to being unanimous on the subject, than when the youth Socrates listened to the old Protagoras, and asserted… the theory of utilitarianism against the popular morality of the so-called sophist… ~John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism

                  I wonder, sometimes, if Mill had ever actually read the Protagoras. The reason is, because having read that dialogue and the Gorgias many times, it makes no sense to me that Mill would be claiming that it was Socrates that was advocating for the pleasure principle, as against Protagoras. If Mill had read the dialogue, then perhaps the problem is that he was missing a layer of ironic sarcasm in his interpretation. I wouldn’t put it past Mill (or Bentham, for that matter) to be somewhat lacking in the capacity for contextual subtlety, given the enthusiasm with which they embraced a view of human nature utterly devoid of anything like it. To let Mill speak for himself:

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-platonism-of-the-categorical-imperative/ Fri, 16 Mar 2018 22:44:22 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  Moral maxims are rules governing actions, or commands to act in certain ways considered morally correct. Some of the most well known maxims are those that come to us by way of religious tradition. “Thou Shalt Not Kill” and “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness” are paradigm examples. Kant insists that his Categorical Imperative is the best means by which to test the maxims, for whether they correctly guide us to right action and away from wrong action. In this essay, I will argue that while the Categorical Imperative might seem plausible as a test of moral maxims because of it’s rigid logical form, it actually fails the plausibility test for one of the same reasons Parmenides rejected Socrates’ conception of the Forms.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/book-review-twelve-rules-for-life/ Sat, 10 Mar 2018 22:48:45 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology theology]

                  Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules For Life” is an admixture of continental philosophy, eastern mysticism, Jungian psychology, Christian theology, clinical psychotherapy insights, personal biography, and folk wisdom. At 368 pages, it’s just large enough to keep a thoughtful layman engaged without the more intimidating academic burden of his first book, “Maps of Meaning”. Dr. Peterson is obviously well read and quite thoughtful. In addition to some of his own occasional profundities, the book is absolutely littered with references to Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, and many others. If you’re a curious reader, following these up will take you weeks.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/hume-plato-and-the-impotence-of-reason/ Sun, 25 Feb 2018 22:53:32 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  Hume infers from his insight that it is not reason but moral opinion that moves us to act, that reason is not the source of moral opinion. From this, he then further argues that moral opinion is a product of the passions – special emotions that arise out of the relations of ideas and impressions. In this essay, I will argue that Hume’s initial inference is correct, but that his subsequent inference is not. Passions may indeed arise from relations of ideas and impressions, but there is no good reason to presume passions, though necessary, are sufficient to produce a moral opinion.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/autism-and-trollies-against-utilitarianism/ Thu, 15 Feb 2018 22:57:44 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  In recent years, it has been speculated that Jeremy Bentham was an autist. This speculation arises out of Bentham’s extreme attempts at systematizing human interactions in his formulation of Utilitarianism. Though I realize modern Utilitarianism is much more sophisticated now (in various forms of sociology and econometrics), I think they all still suffer from the fundamental assumptions laid down by Bentham. In this essay, I will show how one of those basic tenets leads to absurd conclusions, and hides imported value assumptions from other forms of ethics. What better way to do this, than with Philippa Foot’s trolley problem, a common modern tool of the Utilitarian.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/judgment-and-virtue/ Thu, 25 Jan 2018 23:07:19 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  It has been put by some that Virtue ethics lacks a decision-procedure to help us make moral decisions, and is therefore, not a good moral theory. In this essay, I will argue that the decision-procedure is not a satisfactory standard for judging ethical systems because they do not take the full experience of human morality into account, and because the theories instrumenting them often achieve exactly the opposite of their stated goal. I then offer an approach to virtue ethics that I think might salvage the theory as a whole, and I conclude that, despite my moral skepticism, such a theory would be preferable to decision-procedure based approaches.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/book-review-the-righteous-mind/ Thu, 30 Nov 2017 23:14:18 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  Is it better to be truly just, or merely to seem so? This is the question put to Socrates by Glaucon in The Republic. Jonathan Haidt, in his book, “The Righteous Mind”, counts Glaucon among the cynics for putting this challenge to Socrates. But Haidt is missing a subtle and very powerful nuance in Plato’s story. Socrates had just finished embarrassing Thrasymachus for his weak defense of cynical egoism. Glaucon and Adeimantus were certainly entertained, but they were not satisfied with Socrates. They sought much stronger reasons for accepting the conclusion that true justice is preferable to appearance, because they did not want to merely seem to agree with Socrates. They really wanted to believe that genuine justice was better, and giving Socrates the strongest possible objection that could be mustered is the only way an honest man (if he is honest with himself) can do this.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/is-the-categorical-imperative-convincing/ Thu, 09 Nov 2017 23:20:49 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The following essay answers the question:

                  Are you convinced by Kant’s argument that there are categorical as well as hypothetical imperatives?

                  This question is not asking us to evaluate whether the consequences of a system of bifurcated imperatives is preferable or not, or to judge whether such a system could “work”. Rather, it is asking whether Kant, in his Groundwork on the Metaphysics of Morals, supplied a convincing argument that two sorts of imperatives exist. In other words, this is a logical and an ontological question, not a normative one.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/aristotle-vs-kant-virtue-and-the-moral-law/ Mon, 30 Oct 2017 23:27:27 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  Kant’s critique of Aristotle is fascinating to me. He uses Aristotle’s own standard against him: to say that virtue consists in achieving excellence in the unique purpose of a human life, and that this unique purpose can be identified by isolating the unique features of the organism as opposed to other organisms, you then have the problem of explaining how it is that the unique feature of reason could be better suited to helping humans achieve excellence at attaining ‘material ends’ (aka ‘happiness’), than the much more efficient and much less costly instinct, which all other animals have as well.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/reason-vs-the-passions-initial-thoughts-on-humes-treatise/ Wed, 25 Oct 2017 23:31:56 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  …When in exerting any passion in action, we chuse means insufficient for the designed end, and deceive ourselves in our judgment of causes and effects. Where a passion is neither founded on false suppositions, nor chuses means insufficient for the end, the understanding can neither justify nor condemn it. It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. It is not contrary to reason for me to chuse my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. It is as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledged lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than the latter. A trivial good may, from certain circumstances, produce a desire superior to what arises from the greatest and most valuable enjoyment; nor is there any thing more extraordinary in this, than in mechanics to see one pound weight raise up a hundred by the advantage of its situation.In short, a passion must be accompanyed with some false judgment in order to its being unreasonable; and even then it is not the passion, properly speaking, which is unreasonable, but the judgment.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/morality-in-a-determined-world/ Sun, 15 Oct 2017 23:35:29 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  This essay will attempt an answer to the following question: If determinism is true, is morality an illusion? In other words, if we take the basic fact of causal necessity – the brute physical explanation that every effect has a cause – as a given, can we justify a belief in moral value and normative judgment in the narrow sense of “good” and “bad”? I will argue that there are good reasons to believe in the reality of both moral judgment and moral value in spite of causal necessity. Firstly, I will show that causal necessity does not entail what determinists insist of it. Secondly, I will argue that causal necessity leaves us no choice but to accept the responsibility of making moral choices, as members of the human community. Lastly, I will argue that the status of morality as a real phenomenon need not rest on naïve notions of ontological independence from the human mind.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/plato-freud-orwell-and-the-danger-of-the-modern-mind/ Tue, 18 Jul 2017 23:42:27 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology culture]

                  In The Phaedrus, Plato offers up two rapturously beautiful visions of the soul of man. The first, is the Manichaean winged being of pure beauty, trapped against its will in a prison of corporeal form, and able to find relief only in the apprehension and achievement of true love. The second is a famous metaphor who’s hold on the modern mind is as ubiquitous as it is distorted and tragic.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/can-the-will-ever-be-regarded-as-free/ Sun, 18 Jun 2017 23:49:25 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The question at hand, is whether or not the will can ever be regarded as free. Taken at face value, the obvious answer would be, “of course”. Most people, as a matter of fact, regard their will as “free”, most of the time. So, yes, it both can be, and is. Even neuroscientists like Benjamin Libet seem to think so.¹ But the matter-of-fact interpretation of this question is entirely uninteresting, even as an observation. What we really want to know, is whether this nearly universal intuitive belief is true — or, at least, a reasonable belief. More precisely, under what conditions could we judge such a belief, and will those conditions ever be actualized? This is a much more difficult question to answer, and one any wise common person would balk at. As the saying goes, however, fools rush in where angels fear to tread. With that spirit in mind, this paper is an attempt to answer that question by first addressing two more fundamental questions. Firstly, what is this thing we call “the will”? Can it be located in the brain, or at least defined in some tangible way? Secondly, what does it mean to say that this “will” is “free”? Once there is at least some flesh attached to these two concepts, an answer to the broader question will be attempted. However, the ultimate conclusion of this paper will be that there is no conclusion. Try as we might, the question of the freedom of the will remains as unanswerable as ever, and it seems it will remain so for a very long time to come.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/research-notebook-on-free-will/ Sun, 14 May 2017 14:27:26 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  I am working on crafting a meaningful answer to the question posed in this heading. But I have decided that the question can’t be answered until two subordinate questions can be answered. The first is “What is The Will”? and the second, “What is Freedom”? I am holding off on the latter question, for now. The following, is a compilation of my collected notes and remarks on the will itself. Hopefully, you’ll find it useful, too.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/an-interpretive-analysis-of-2001-a-space-odyssey/ Tue, 02 May 2017 15:10:03 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

                  INTRODUCTION

                  The film “2001: A Space Odyssey” is one of the best-known science fiction classics of all time. Over the decades since its initial release, this close collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke has become a focus of study for film students, philosophers, and futurists.

                  Attention tends to center on Kubrick’s depictions of space travel and its impact on human life, or on Clarke’s exploration of questions like the nature of consciousness and the ontological conundrums raised in the film’s unique climax and conclusion.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-sorites-paradox-some-doubtful-thoughts/ Mon, 01 May 2017 15:17:15 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  It has been asked how, if at all, one might resolve the Sorites paradox. I am not convinced a solution is possible, and in this paper I will explain the responses I have become aware of, and why they fail. In the end, I will conclude that there is no solution to the paradox, but I will offer a few suggestions for a way forward.

                  The first response might simply be to reject the first premise of the argument. In other words, simply deny that a man with 10 hairs is in fact bald, or that 100 grains of sand is in fact a heap. In essence, this would render vague predicates useless at best, meaningless at worst, since no predicate that allows for a vague border case would be permitted to apply to anything. There is one way in which we might stretch this into plausibility, but I will address the other responses first, before returning to this in the conclusion.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/haack-dummett-and-the-justification-of-deduction/ Sun, 30 Apr 2017 15:22:51 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  Susan Haack nicely diagrammed the problem of circularity in her 1976 paper, The Justification of Deduction. In that diagram, she drew a direct parallel to the circularity of the inductive justification of induction, as outlined originally by Hume. Haack argues that justification must mean syntactic justification, and offers an illustrative example argument to show why semantic justification fails – namely, that it is an axiomatic dogmatism: deduction is justified by virtue of the fact that we have defined it to be truth preserving.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/is-it-possible-to-act-selflessly/ Thu, 27 Apr 2017 15:27:06 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The following is my attempt to answer a question posed to me recently.

                  When I look at the question, it seems to focus on the individual. So, I think the easiest way to begin this, is to start with the self. Since I’m no Derek Parfit or Bernard Williams, and the question seems to be focusing on moral sentiment and moral choice, I’m going to reduce the ‘self’ to just that part we always end up talking about, when we talk about choice: The Will. Lacking a more sophisticated understanding of consciousness, I’m going to cobble together a rudimentary theory of the conscious self from Schopenhauer (Freedom of The Will), Dennett (Freedom Evolves, Consciousness Explained), and Peter Ulric Tse (The Neural Basis of Free Will).

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/kant-vs-mill-preference-and-universality/ Tue, 18 Apr 2017 17:02:35 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  If you look closely at Mill’s arguments in Utilitarianism, he seems to be making a very strong response to Kant (perhaps against the Groundwork?). Mill accepts the notion of moral duty, just as Kant does. But he insists it derives not from any form of analytic (i.e., Kant’s notion of synthetic a priori) truth. Rather, Mill insists it derives from the apparently universal desire of mankind (individually, in aggregate) to seek its own pleasure. Aware of some of the contextual implications of this principle, Mill attacks head-on the charge of Epicureanism. But what strikes me as interesting, is the fact that, though he makes frequent reference to Kant, he never directly refutes Kant’s position, and never fully explains how the pleasure principle isn’t obviously and soundly refuted already by Kant’s explication of deontology (in the Groundwork). Mill just seems to ignore the problem of subjectivity in the hypothetical imperative, as described by Kant. Perhaps Mill is assuming that the apparently universal preference for pleasure somehow renders the hypothetical imperative a moot point? (i.e., since everyone prefers pleasure, it’s pointless to bother thinking in terms like, ‘if you seek pleasure, then you should do x’).

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/bernard-williams-and-moral-dilemmas/ Mon, 17 Apr 2017 17:07:44 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The following moral dilemmas come from a Bernard Williams’ essay “A Critique of Utilitarianism” in a book entitled “Utilitarianism: For and Against”. They are presented as part of Bernard Williams’ specific objections to Utilitarianism. However, I want to use them here to talk more generally about hypothetical moral dilemmas as a tool of thought (an ‘intuition pump’, to use the Dan Dennett euphemism) in philosophy. Here are the dilemmas, as stated in Williams’ essay

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/artur-schopenhauer-on-freedom/ Sun, 02 Apr 2017 17:16:22 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The following is a dialogue between myself and Artur Schopenhauer, in which I basically try to interrogate the text as if I were talking directly to Schopenhauer, in an interview or discussion. All of Dr. Schopenhauer’s responses below come from the text of his essay, either as direct quotes or as slight rephrasing, in order to fit them into the flow of a conversation. It should be noted that I have not read World As Will And Representation (written before this essay), and that I have only a cursory knowledge of Schopenhauer’s biography. So, it is likely that additional context might have made this more insightful. In any case, this is meant only to offer an engaging way to consider the basic ideas contained within this essay, not as a serious critique of Schopenhauer, as such. I hope you enjoy it…

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/isp-launch-event-three-talks-on-three-philosophers/ Sun, 08 Jan 2017 17:29:56 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  This weekend I attended the launch event for the International School of Philosophy here in London. Three Talks on Three Philosophers was intended to showcase the kind of thought one could expect from the new school, as well as provide an opportunity for philosophical learning to the local community (greater Islington, mainly). Sam Freemantle, the founder of the new independent school, provided the first of the three lectures, in the form of an overview of his Phd thesis, “Reconstructing Rawls”. Following Sam, Adrian Brockless offered a passionate argument for a more thoughtful kind of education grounded in Socratic questioning. Lastly, Professor Ken Gemes of the University of London treated us with an extended version of his talk on Nietzsche’s Death of God.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-ought-in-the-machine/ Mon, 02 Jan 2017 17:35:43 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

                  “If I must choose between peace and righteousness, I choose righteousness” ~Theodore Roosevelt

                  I have long held the belief that moral self-justification is both the engine and the doom of the world. Nobody does what they do thinking to themselves “this is the wrong thing, so I should do it”, or desiring to do wrong for its own sake. Even people as evil as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot all had reasons for why they did what they did. Reasons that they believed made them right to do what they did. Some even wrote whole books justifying themselves.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/book-review-square-one/ Sat, 31 Dec 2016 15:18:16 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  I discovered Steve Patterson by way of my YouTube recommendations some time in the late summer or fall of 2016. I’ve not yet listened to all of his back catalogue, but I have listened to a number of his great interviews and interview “breakdowns”. He recently self-published a short book called “Square One: The Foundations of Knowledge”, via Amazon’s CreateSpace. I love epistemology and logic, and I’m keenly interested in the growing phenomenon of “internet philosophers” (many of whom proudly proclaim themselves emancipated from academia). So, this was a book I had to read.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/on-schopenhauers-freedom-of-the-will/ Thu, 29 Dec 2016 17:44:20 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  Expound and assess Schopenhauer’s argument that free will is an illusion. Does he succeed in showing what he calls “relative” freedom is not really enough to constitute free will?

                  Schopenhauer does succeed in logically arguing that what he calls “will” is not “free”, as he conceives the terms “will” and “free”. However, he does not succeed in showing that what we commonly understand to be freedom, is in any way undermined by his conception of the will. At best, he shows is that our common conception is incomplete. I will show that Schopenhauer sets up a false dichotomy between causality and the will via a misapplication of the notion of “negative” freedom, and that he asserts a scientifically inaccurate view of human consciousness that conflates causality with fatalism through his use of the concept of the “character” of the will. Finally, I will forgive Schopenhauer his mistakes, and show how his conception of the will, as crude as it was, pointed (perhaps inadvertently) to a more sophisticated approach to understanding human freedom.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/on-the-qualia-of-dreams/ Mon, 26 Dec 2016 17:48:05 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The IEP defines Qualia as:

                  “…the subjective or qualitative properties of experiences. What it feels like, experientially, to see a red rose is different from what it feels like to see a yellow rose. Likewise for hearing a musical note played by a piano and hearing the same musical note played by a tuba… As [C. I.] Lewis [the originator of the term] used the term, qualia were properties of sense-data themselves. In contemporary usage, the term has been broadened to refer more generally to properties of experience… Qualia are often referred to as the phenomenal properties of experience…”

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/on-david-hume-and-susan-feagin/ Sun, 18 Dec 2016 17:51:54 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology]

                  In what way, if any, is Feagin’s solution to the Paradox of Tragedy an improvement on Hume’s solution?

                  Introduction

                  Susan Feagin’s solution to the Paradox of Tragedy is not only not an improvement to Hume’s solution, it is not a solution at all. I will argue that Feagin fails to improve upon Hume’s solution for two key reasons. First, because her solution suffers from the same inscrutability as Hume’s solution. Second, because the extra complexity, despite being somewhat more self-aware than Hume, adds nothing to the solution due to its lack of scientific support.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/rousseaus-social-contract-book-one/ Thu, 17 Nov 2016 17:57:06 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  EDITORS NOTE: I wrote this at a time when I was not yet equipped to do such a thing as analyze Rousseau. This now reads more to me like a YouTube reaction video, than a proper analysis. A much improved analysis will be forthcoming in 2022. ~ Greg. 1 Dec. 2021

                  ---

                  “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.”

                  This famous opening line of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s equally famous essay, appears, to our modern minds, to point clearly toward an obvious question: ‘Why?’ But this is not the question Rousseau has in mind. Instead, what he asks is, ‘Why not?’

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/doubt-and-descartes-existence/ Sat, 01 Oct 2016 18:08:30 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The proposition ‘I am, I exist’ (ego sum, ego existo – hereafter, referred to as the ’ego’), is of special importance in the argument of Descartes’ Second Meditation for many reasons. More generally, it is important because of the implications it has for Descartes’ overall philosophical project. For example, it implicitly rejects religious authority in favor of a personal standard of knowledge in an era in which Galileo faced aggressive persecution; it also forms the nascent beginning of the still ongoing nature-nurture debate, and it ultimately makes Descartes something of an Augustinian. But these topics are far too broad to cover adequately in a brief essay. Since the language of the question at hand focuses exclusively on the the Second Meditation and specifically the argument within it, a much narrower interpretation seems more appropriate. Namely, why is the ‘ego’ necessary for Descartes to achieve his goal in the Second Meditation, and how does it facilitate that goal? On this point, I will argue that there is one fundamental reason. Namely, without the ego, Descartes has no means by which to recover from the corrosive power of his own method of doubt. I will outline and analyze this reason, focusing on whether the ‘ego’ satisfies the logical and epistemic demands put upon it by the method. Finally, I will argue that because Descartes is unclear in his justification for the ego, it remains unconvincing as a basis for epistemic certainty.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/naturalism-vs-teleology/ Mon, 05 Sep 2016 18:20:02 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  Aristotle’s argument in Physics II 8 can be summarized as follows:

                  1. Dogs typically develop teeth good for biting and chewing.
                  2. A typical result is not a coincidence.
                  3. So it’s not a coincidence that dogs develop teeth good for biting and chewing.
                  4. If the development is not coincidental, it must be “for something”.
                  5. So the dog’s development is “for something”. (that is, it is goal-directed)

                  The problem with this argument lies in premise 4. Aristotle’s use of “for something”, implies some conscious agent that has intended the thing to be the case. You make this implication clear yourself, by calling the development “goal directed”.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/getting-a-handle-on-the-truth/ Sat, 13 Aug 2016 19:03:02 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  “What is truth?” ~ Pontius Pilate

                  This is an interesting and surprisingly difficult question. If you look in the OED, what you’ll find there are entirely circular and self-referential explanations: “the quality or state of being true“, ” that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality“, and “a fact or belief that is accepted as true“.

                  So, the poor souls that rely on the dictionary are left with, essentially, “truth is what’s true”, and “what’s true is what we agree are the facts of reality.” But what if we’re wrong and we still agree? Or worse, what if we disagree, but one of us is right? This can’t be the last word on this topic. What can we say with any confidence about truth, as such? To put it in the words of Bertrand Russell:

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/ayn-rand-is-still-the-boogeyman/ Wed, 10 Aug 2016 19:16:33 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The following quote is from a discussion of Plato’s dialogue “The Republic”, from this course on Coursera. The professor, a Dr. Meyer, is explaining the interactions early in the book between Glaucon, Adeimantus, Socrates, and Thrasymachus, wherein the group is debating the subject of whether it is more advantageous to be a just or an unjust man. Dr. Meyer, in this quote, is attempting to compare the vulgar egoism of Thrasymachus to Ayn Rand’s Virtue Of Selfishness, in a throw-away line clearly intended to virtue-signal, and intimidate younger students:

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/knowledge-certainty-and-logic/ Fri, 05 Aug 2016 19:20:24 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  The Epistemic Regress (specifically, the Skeptical variety) is a little out of my depth at the moment, but what is plainly obvious by various presentations of the problem, is that at it’s core lies the Problem of Knowledge. The key question that arises in the examination of major premises in any deductive argument, is “how do you know?” This suggests that something essential about the nature of the premises needs to be discovered, before we are going to solve the riddle.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/the-euthyphro-expansion-pack/ Sun, 24 Jul 2016 15:36:23 +0000 Blog: [philosophy]

                  Introduction

                  I’ve decided to take on the challenge of re-writing the Euthyphro dialogue, from this Coursera class, to explore alternative dialectical paths around the dilemma. When I first made this decision, I knew intuitively that if I took it seriously it would actually be a more challenging assignment than simply explicating Plato’s theory of the just soul from The Republic.

                  Plato’s dialogues are not just sets of step-by-step logical walk-throughs, within which you can simply change premises to arrive at new conclusions. They are Plato’s attempt to reimagine greek dramas – with all the subtext, allegory, and metaphor that comes with any good drama. Plato repeatedly breaks his own “fourth-wall” (at least implicitly) to remind us that he was aware of his project. So, the challenge with this exercise, is to somehow preserve the integrity of the drama, as Plato envisioned it, while exploring the possibility of alternative arguments and conclusions. In my preparation for this assignment, I have discovered that this is not only a more challenging assignment, it is nowhere near as easy as it sounds.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/why-ubi-is-a-really-bad-idea/ Sat, 16 Apr 2016 19:24:04 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics]

                  Free Money For Everyone

                  Over the last year or so, I’ve seen a number of fresh videos popping up in places like TED, enthusiastically championing a resuscitated old leftist public policy idea called the “Universal / Unconditional Basic Income”, or “UBI”. This summer, Switzerland is scheduled to hold a referendum on one such proposal. And, earlier this month, I attended a lecture here in London, in which Barb Jacobson made a vigorous pitch for the idea. Since this has suddenly become a hobby horse for the left again, I think it’s time to have a good hard look at it. To start, I’m going to let the proponents of the concept define and describe it for us:

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/philosopher-kings-and-smartphones/ Sun, 06 Mar 2016 19:28:53 +0000 Blog: [philosophy politics culture]

                  ”When a man’s knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has, the greater will be his confusion” Herbert Spencer

                  Today, I attended a lecture by Derek Bates hosted by the Conway Hall Ethical Society, in London. I call it a lecture perhaps too generously. You’ll see why in a moment. The event was billed as one man’s attempt to provide a reasoned defense for the efficacy of a more direct democracy, and to propose a technological solution to the logistical problems inherent within it:

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/philosophy-an-obituary/ Sat, 14 Nov 2015 21:47:53 +0000 Blog: [philosophy psychology culture]

                  Last night, I watched a debate between a journalist, a sociologist, and a scientist over whether or not philosophy is “dead” (as Stephen Hawking put it). Lewis Wolpert completely wiped the floor with the non-philosophers pitted against him. And sadly, he was also mostly correct. Philosophy has not done itself proud of late, and the fact that this panel didn’t actually include any philosophers to stand in its defense, is evidence that it is struggling, if not dead.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/a-poem-about-words/ Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:18:00 +0000 Blog: [philosophy poetry language]

                  A short free-flow poem I wrote a long, long time ago:

                  Words beg their commission from a hidden king, whose graces they resent. 
                  Emissaries, soldiers, courtiers, troubadours, and priests, 
                  they are sent forth from his castle to bid the world take heed of him. 
                  For without their tireless march, 
                  the master would suffer alone 
                  in his windowless tower, 
                  dark, brooding, 
                  and voiceless. 
                  But without his strength, 
                  those flickering lights of mirrored meaning 
                  would themselves go dark.
                  

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/london-a-poem/ Sat, 09 Jun 2007 16:40:05 +0000 Blog: [literature poetry]

                  My first visit to London, was during a holiday trip in 2007. Here’s how I memorialized it

                  The ancient matron grasps longingly for the sky, 
                  a crowd of bony fingers stretching upward, 
                  black threads tied to each one,
                  laden with dangling bits of civilization renewed.
                  
                  Below, in her bowels, a gritty brown aroma,
                  and clattering, grumbling, tin boxes 
                  scatter frantically along well-worn paths,
                  long sullen with a heavy memory 
                  of countless other footfalls.
                  
                  Humming and pulsing with the life force
                  of a thousand generations,
                  she swells with pride at eager dawn, 
                  and heaves a great sigh at setting sun.
                  
                  She is the gray lady of the West. 
                  The history of the anglo man is embedded in her bricks,
                  and the future of the world flows through her heart,
                  and into the sea. 
                  

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/potpie-for-dinner/ Thu, 08 Feb 2007 11:09:34 +0100 Blog: [literature culture]

                  [BRADLEY] “Jerry?“

                  [JERRY] ”Yeah, Bradley?“

                  [BRADLEY] ”Where are we?“

                  [JERRY] ”I ain’t quite sure, but I can smell that fruit gettin’ close, and I ain’t stoppin’ till I find it!“

                  [BRADLEY] ”Shouldn’t we be getting back to the pad?“

                  [JERRY] ”Goddammit, Bradley! You wanna be eatin’ mold your whole damned life?“

                  [BRADLEY] ”But I can’t see a thing, Jerry. I’m scared!“

                  [JERRY] ”Well, me neither, but Jes’ stay close, and you’ll be fine!“

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/post/an-average-day-imperative-only-exercise/ Thu, 14 Dec 2006 22:01:22 +0000 Blog: [literature art]

                  Look at yourself in the mirror this morning. See the lines of failure drawn out from the points of your eyes. Remember that face before they were there. Ask yourself what you were doing before those were there. Consider, for a moment, what you could be doing today, instead of what you have to do.

                  Think of something encouraging to shake off the melancholy. Chuckle at the silliness of this ritual of self-pity, turn toward the shower, and step in. Feel the ceramic chill of the bathroom, as it rattles your frame. Hear the grumbling of the apartment building’s pipes, as the water prepares to vent out the shower nozzle. Prepare yourself for the shock. Wince, and clench your fists.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/a-brief-history-of-obscenity-law/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following is an excerpt from chapter one of “The First Amendment and LGBT Equality“, by Carlos A. Ball.

                  A Brief History of Obscenity

                  During approximately the first 120 years of obscenity prosecutions in the United States (that is, roughly between the 1810s until the 1930s), courts frequently, and without much controversy or disagreement, pointed to the promotion of public morality as the main objective behind obscenity laws…

                  …The first reported obscenity conviction in the United States took place in Philadelphia in 1815. The defendants in Commonwealth v. Sharpless were charged under the common-law crime of public indecency for allowing members of the public, after paying a fee, to enter “a certain house” in order to observe a painting “representing a man in an obscene, impudent and indecent posture with a woman.” In upholding the convictions, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court explained that “what tended to corrupt society, was … a breach of the peace and punishable by indictment. The courts are guardians of the public morals.… Hence, it follows, that an offence may be punishable, if in its nature and by its example, it tends to the corruption of morals.”…

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/discourse-on-inequality/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Enlightenment Philosophy

                  A Dissertation On the Origin and Foundation of The Inequality of Mankind and is it Authorised by Natural Law?

                  IT is of man that I have to speak; and the question I am investigating shows me that it is to men that I must address myself: for questions of this sort are not asked by those who are afraid to honour truth. I shall then confidently uphold the cause of humanity before the wise men who invite me to do so, and shall not be dissatisfied if I acquit myself in a manner worthy of my subject and of my judges.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/what-is-enlightenment/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Enlightenment Philosophy

                  What Is Enlightenment?

                  Immanuel Kant ¹

                  Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) “Have the courage to use your own understanding,” is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/areopagitica/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  A Pamphlet by John Milton to Parliament, published in 1644 (Note: I have obtained the original text from Dartmouth college linked above, but I have modified spellings and substituted some vocabulary for modern readers, to make it at least a little easier to follow)

                  This is true Liberty when free born men Having to advise the public may speak free, Which he who can, and will, deserves high praise,Who neither can nor will, may hold his peace; What can be juster in a State then this?

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/contractarian-free-speech/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following excerpt is from, “Free Speech”, by Alan Haworth

                  Free Speech From The Contract

                  [Given John Rawls’ rational choice theory, and the veil of ignorance thought experiment, from A Theory of Justice]… we are… faced with the following question: would a group of rational choosers, who are constrained to coexist and who are negotiating from the standpoint of an appropriately constructed original position, include a free speech principle amongst the fundamental elements of their constitution? I shall argue that, for all contractualism’s initial promise, an attempt to construct a contractualist defence of free speech must ultimately fail because it requires making too many ad hoc presuppositions*…*

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/does-the-constitution-protect-free-speech/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following is a paper published in the Michigan Law Review, in 1921. It provides excellent commentary and context on Holme’s “clear and present danger” standard, the effect of the Espionage Act on the First Amendment, and the general mood of the court, at the end of the First World War.

                  Does The Constitution Protect Free Speech?

                  MANY thoughtful men and women, witnessing the suppression of speech, by means both judicial and extra-judicial, in the period through which we have just passed, have reluctantly concluded that our hard won right of freedom of speech has been lost, swept away in the flood tide of war enthusiasm. They point to the example of the recent candidate for the presidency, Eugene Debs, who is still confined in a federal prison for words he uttered during the war. They call attention to the fact that the fate of Mr. Debs is no worse than that of scores of other persons, members of his and other minority groups, who have gone to jail since April, 1917, for giving utterance to unpopular opinions. Finally, they show us a widespread wave of “anti-disturbance” legislation among our legislatures during and immediately after the war.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/free-speech-from-property-rights/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  This excerpt is from Chapter 6 of, “For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto”, By Murray Rothbard

                  Personal Liberty, Property Rights, and Free Speech

                  There are, of course, many problems of personal liberty which cannot be subsumed under the category of “involuntary servitude.” Freedom of speech and press have long been treasured by those who confine themselves to being “civil libertarians”—”civil” meaning that economic freedom and the rights of private property are left out of the equation. But we have already seen that “freedom of speech” cannot be upheld as an absolute except as it is subsumed under the general rights of property of the individual (emphatically including property right in his own person). Thus, the man who shouts “fire” in a crowded theater has no right to do so because he is aggressing against the contractual property rights of the theater owner and of the patrons of the performance.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/free-speech-is-supposed-to-be-free/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The Following is an Excerpt from Chapter 1 of “Trigger Warning”, by Mick Hume

                  Free Speech Is Supposed To Be Free

                  It often appears to have slipped our Anglo-American society’s mind that free speech is supposed to be Free. That’s free as in ‘free as a bird’, to soar as high as it can and swoop as low as it chooses. Not as in ‘free-range chicken’, at liberty only to scratch in the dirt within a fenced-in pen and en route to the chopping block.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/gaming/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Blog: Gamma World

                  • Gamma World Gaming Tools
                  • Drive-Thru RPG PDFs

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/hate-speech-and-moral-knowledge/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following is an excerpt from Jonathan Rauch’s “Kindly Inquisitors: New Attacks on Free Thought”

                  Minorities, Hate Speech, and Moral Knowledge

                  Some ideas actually are false, and at some point the process of checking establishes their falsehood so firmly that to proceed as if they might be true becomes ridiculous. For example, Holocaust denial: isn’t it a stretch to claim we can learn something by debating neo-Nazis about the existence of gas chambers? Fallibilism is all well and good, but come on—enough is enough. In the twenty-first century, do Jews really need to put up with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious anti-Semitic fraud?

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/hate-speech-is-free-speech/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following is an excerpt from “Hate: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech Not Censorship”, By Nadine Strossen

                  Hate Speech Is Free Speech

                  Debates about [free speech] issues are often marred by widespread confusion about the governing free speech principles. Too many people, including even some lawyers, wrongly assert that under our Constitution “hate speech” is either absolutely protected or completely unprotected. Neither statement is accurate.

                  On the one hand, many who argue that we should revise our law to empower government to punish “hate speech” wrongly assume that such speech is now absolutely protected. In support of their proposals, they cite many examples of speech that already is subject to sanction in the United States, consistent with longstanding free speech principles. For example, they regularly point to speech that constitutes a genuine threat or targeted harassment, and thus directly causes specific imminent serious harm, making it already punishable consistent with the emergency principle.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/miscellaneous-free-speech-arguments/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  • In Defense of Wholly Free Speech
                  • The Two Clashing Meanings of ‘Free Speech’
                  • The ACLU Position Paper on Freedom of Speech

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/on-the-freedom-of-speech-and-the-press/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND THE PRESS (Published 1839, Harper & Brothers) [Spellings modernized, and footnotes renumbered to flow independently of the rest of the book]

                  Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government: when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the actions of the magistrates; this privilege, in all ages, has been, and always will be, abused. The best of men could not escape the censure and envy of the times they lived in. Yet this evil is not so great as it may appear at first sight. A magistrate who sincerely aims at the good of society will always have the inclinations of a great majority on his side, and an impartial posterity will not fail to render him justice.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/on-the-liberty-of-the-press/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following is from a compilation of essays by David Hume (1711 – 1776), preserved on Gutenberg.org, and posted here to add to my collection of topical arguments.

                  Nothing is more apt to surprise a foreigner, than the extreme liberty which we enjoy in this country of communicating whatever we please to the public and of openly censuring every measure entered into by the king or his ministers. If the administration resolve upon war, it is affirmed, that, either willfully or ignorantly, they mistake the interests of the nation; and that peace, in the present situation of affairs, is infinitely preferable. If the passion of the ministers lie towards peace, our political writers breathe nothing but war and devastation, and represent the specific conduct of the government as mean and pusillanimous. As this liberty is not indulged in any other government, either republican or monarchical; in Holland and Venice, more than in France or Spain; it may very naturally give occasion to the question, How it happens that Great Britain alone enjoys this peculiar privilege?

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/on-liberty-of-thought-and-discussion/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following is an excerpt from chapter two of John Stuart Mill’s ‘On Liberty’.

                  *On The Liberty of Thought and Discussion*

                  THE TIME, IT IS TO BE HOPED, IS GONE BY WHEN ANY DEFENCE WOULD be necessary of the “liberty of the press” as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear. This aspect of the question, besides, has been so often and so triumphantly enforced by preceding writers, that it needs not be specially insisted on in this place. Though the law of England, on the subject of the press, is as servile to this day as it was in the time of the Tudors, there is little danger of its being actually put in force against political discussion, except during some temporary panic, when fear of insurrection drives ministers and judges from their propriety; and, speaking generally, it is not, in constitutional countries, to be apprehended that the government, whether completely responsible to the people or not, will often attempt to control the expression of opinion, except when in doing so it makes itself the organ of the general intolerance of the public. Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/on-the-public-use-of-reason/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  Excerpted from “An Answer To The Question: What Is Enlightenment”, published 1784

                  On The Public Use Of Reason

                  For any single individual to work himself out of the life under tutelage which has become almost his nature is very difficult. He has come to be fond of his state, and he is for the present really incapable of making use of his reason, for no one has ever let him try it out. Statutes and formulas, those mechanical tools of the rational employment or rather misemployment of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting tutelage. Whoever throws them off makes only an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch because he is not accustomed to that kind of free motion. Therefore, there are few who have succeeded by their own exercise of mind both in freeing themselves from incompetence and in achieving a steady pace.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/social-power-over-liberty-of-opinion/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following are extended excerpts from “Democracy In America”, Book Two

                  *On The Social Power Over Liberty of Opinion In America*

                  I do not say that tyrannical abuses frequently occur in America at the present day, but I maintain that no sure barrier is established against them, and that the causes which mitigate the government are to be found in the circumstances and the manners of the country more than in its laws.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/locke-on-toleration-of-religious-difference/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  This is an excerpt from “A Letter Concerning Toleration”, by John Locke

                  …The toleration of those that differ from others in matters of religion is so agreeable to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to the genuine reason of mankind, that it seems monstrous for men to be so blind as not to perceive the necessity and advantage of it in so clear a light. I will not here tax the pride and ambition of some, the passion and uncharitable zeal of others. These are faults from which human affairs can perhaps scarce ever be perfectly freed; but yet such as nobody will bear the plain imputation of, without covering them with some specious colour; and so pretend to commendation, whilst they are carried away by their own irregular passions. But, however, that some may not colour their spirit of persecution and unchristian cruelty with a pretence of care of the public weal and observation of the laws; and that others, under pretence of religion, may not seek impunity for their libertinism and licentiousness; in a word, that none may impose either upon himself or others, by the pretences of loyalty and obedience to the prince, or of tenderness and sincerity in the worship of God; I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. If this be not done, there can be no end put to the controversies that will be always arising between those that have, or at least pretend to have, on the one side, a concernment for the interest of men’s souls, and, on the other side, a care of the commonwealth.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/postmodern-censoriousness/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following is an excerpt from Stephen Hicks’ “Free Speech and Postmodernism”

                  The Censoriousness of Postmodernism

                  The Social Construction of Minds

                  Traditionally, speech has been seen as an individual cognitive act. The postmodern view, by contrast, is that speech is formed socially in the individual. And since what we think is a function of what we learn linguistically, our thinking processes are constructed socially, depending on the linguistic habits of the groups we belong to. From this epistemological perspective, the notion that individuals can teach themselves or go their own way is a myth. Also, the notion that we can take someone who has been constructed as a racist and simply teach him to unlearn his bad habits, or teach a whole group to unlearn its bad habits, by appealing to their reason—that also is a myth…

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/resources/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Blog: Reference

                  • The Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy
                  • The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

                  Research

                  • Tufts Perseus Digital Library
                  • Gutenberg - Philosophy Bookshelf
                  • The JSTOR Archive
                  • PhilPapers Archive

                  Organizations

                  • The Oxford Philosophical Society

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/speech-is-not-violence/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following is an excerpt from “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up A Generation for Failure”, by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff

                  Why Telling Kids That Speech Is Violence Is A Bad Idea

                  Most students oppose the use of violence. When asked in a poll conducted by FIRE whether they themselves would use violence to stop someone from speaking, only 1% said yes. But there is a much larger group—roughly 20% to 30%, according to the two surveys we described earlier—that is willing to support other students who use violence, drawing on the sorts of justifications offered by the Berkeley students. The most common justification is that hate speech is violence, and some students believe it is therefore legitimate to use violence to shut down hate speech. Setting aside the questions of moral and constitutional legitimacy, what are the psychological consequences of thinking this way?

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/there-is-no-such-thing-as-free-speech/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following is an excerpt from the essay that shares the title of the book: “There’s No Such Thing As Free Speech”, by Stanley Fish.

                  There’s No Such Thing As Free Speech

                  Lately, many on the liberal and progressive left have been disconcerted to find that words, phrases, and concepts thought to be their property and generative of their politics have been appropriated by the forces of neoconservatism. This is particularly true of the concept of free speech, for in recent years First Amendment rhetoric has been used to justify policies and actions the left finds problematical if not abhorrent: pornography, sexist language, campus hate speech. How has this happened? The answer I shall give in this essay is that abstract concepts like free speech do not have any “natural” content but are filled with whatever content and direction one can manage to put into them. “Free speech” is just the name we give to verbal behavior that serves the substantive agendas we wish to advance; and we give our preferred verbal behaviors that name when we can, when we have the power to do so, because in the rhetoric of American life, the label “free speech” is the one you want your favorites to wear. Free speech, in short, is not an independent value but a political prize, and if that prize has been captured by a politics opposed to yours, it can no longer be invoked in ways that further your purposes, for it is now an obstacle to those purposes. This is something that the liberal left has yet to understand, and what follows is an attempt to pry its members loose from a vocabulary that may now be a disservice to them.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/two-concepts-of-free-speech/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  This post is an excerpt from: Pettit, P 2018, ‘Two Concepts of Free Speech’, in Jennifer Lackey (ed.), *Academic Freedom*, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 61-81pp.

                  …all agree… that free speech exists only to the extent that there is considerable latitude in speakers’ choices about what to say. And they debate in detail about the precise extent of the required latitude. But they say little or nothing on what it is about choices in that range of speech that makes them free.

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/vlogs/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Blog: Old Computer Nerd Show

                  Old Computer Nerd Channel

                  Upcoming Shows

                  • Every Tuesday, topics to be determined by the show.

                  ---

                  Old Sci-Fi Nerd Show

                  Old Sci-Fi Nerd Channel

                  Show Schedule

                  • 8 January: “The Veldt”, Ray Bradbury (Sep 1950)
                  • 15 January: “The Man”, Ray Bradbury (Feb 1949)
                  • 22 January: “Reject”, John Johnson (Aug 1956)
                  • 29 January: “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, Ursula Le Guin (1973)
                  • 5 February: “Time And Time Again”, H. Beam Piper (1947)
                  • 12 February: “The Cyber and Justice Holmes”, Frank Riley (Mar 1955)
                  • 19 February: “All You Zombies…”, Robert Heinlein (1959)
                  • 26 February: “The Last Question”, Isaac Asimov (1956)
                  • 5 March: “All Cats Are Gray”, Andre Norton (Aug 1953)
                  • 12 March: Out Of Office Special: “From Agnes, With Loive”
                  • 19 March: “All The Time In The World”, Arthur C. Clarke (July 1951)

                  Dystopian Spring Cycle

                  • 26 March: “Examination Day”, Henry Slesar (Feb 1958)
                  • 02 April: “Harrison Bergeron”, Kurt Vonnegut (1961)
                  • 09 April: “The Pedestrian”, Ray Bradbury (Aug 1951)
                  • 16 April: “Repent, Harlequin!”, Harlan Ellison (1965)
                  • 23 April: “2BRO2B”, Kurt Vonnegut (1962)
                  • 30 April: “There Will Come Soft Rains”, Ray Bradbury (1950)
                  • 07 May: “The Machine Stops”, E.M. Forster (1909)
                  • 14 May: “That Hideous Strength (Chapter 7 - Pendragon)”, C.S. Lewis (1945)
                  • 21 May: “That Hideous Strength (Chapter 8 - Moonlight at Belbury)”, C.S. Lewis (1945)
                  • 28 May: “That Hideous Strength (Chapter 13 - They Have Pulled Down Deep Heaven)”, C.S. Lewis (1945)
                  • 04 June: “The Abolition of Man (excerpts)”, C.S. Lewis (1943)
                  • 11 June: “The Nine Billion Names of God”, Arthur C. Clarke (1953)
                  • 18 June: “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”, Harlan Ellison (1967)

                  Space Opera Summer

                  • 26 June: TBD
                  • 03 July: TBD
                  • 10 July: TBD
                  • 17 July: TBD
                  • 24 July: TBD
                  • 31 July: TBD

                  ---

                  Old Philosophy Nerd Show

                  Old Philosophy Nerd Channel

                  ]]> https://gmgauthier.com/reading/why-should-speech-be-free/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Reading: Free Speech

                  The following is an excerpt from “Free Speech: Ten Principles for A Connected World”, by Timothy Garton Ash

                  Why Should Speech Be Free?

                  [W]hy should speech be free? As soon as we start trying to hold governments to their word, or debate the proper limits of free speech, we find ourselves reaching for arguments that either underpin or call into question the terms of such treaties, laws and policies. Even if your instinct, like mine, is to say, ‘but of course speech must be free!’ it is still important to spell out why.

                  ]]>