Philosophy

Against Determinism 7
- Philosophy
- May 10, 2023
In Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir published a long discussion she had with her companion—the world-renowned, radical-left philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre—in the last years of his life. Though the two of them believed many things I find unpalatable, this phrase served me for some time as an email signature: Simone de Beauvoir: Broadly speaking,
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Rediscovering Meaningful Skills with Ray Bradbury’s Gardener 2
- Philosophy
- May 9, 2023
‘Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people
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How to Fight Our Failed Post-Modernist Gods 1
- Politics, Philosophy
- May 3, 2023
When men make themselves gods, they make themselves demons. The last hundred years bear out this assertion. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and other dictators wielded the power of life and death over millions of people. Those who blessed these tyrants or venerated them had more favorable chances of survival and success. Those who cursed these tyrants
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Grice’s Maxims: Rules for Effective Conversation 1
- Philosophy
- April 27, 2023
For most of us, conversation is an intuitive, passive practice. We’re used to the contours of natural speech and writing, and we often make contributions to everyday interactions almost without thinking. Our habits of communication can come as natural as breathing. But when communication breaks down, there’s always the question of where things went wrong.
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‘Oedipus Rex’ and Victimhood Culture 1
- Politics, Philosophy
- April 26, 2023
A plague has struck Thebes, and the Oracle declares that the city is cursed due to the presence of a murderer who is an abomination in the sight of the gods. This murderer killed the former king of Thebes Laius. And the current king, Oedipus, sets out doggedly to find the killer so he can
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Change Yourself, or Change the World?2
- Philosophy
- April 25, 2023
It’s a perennial philosophical question: What is the best strategy for addressing life’s problems? Change yourself, or change the world? In a clip from a few years ago that a student recently shared with me, the leftist public intellectual Slavoj Žižek offered a take that my student apparently found convincing. To judge from Žižek’s online popularity,
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