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Philosophy

  • Grice’s Maxims: Rules for Effective Conversation

    Grice’s Maxims: Rules for Effective Conversation1

    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

    ‘Oedipus Rex’ and Victimhood Culture1

    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?

    Change Yourself, or Change the World?2

    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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  • What 3 Years Working Retail Taught Me

    What 3 Years Working Retail Taught Me2

    On a whiteboard in a communal space at my university, a student wrote this question: “If you could make one law, what would it be?” The answers, written by students from a variety of different majors, were sometimes funny. “Everyone gets free ice cream on Fridays,” one person wrote. Others were more serious and ideologically

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  • The Value of Silence: 3 Thoughts from Proverbs

    The Value of Silence: 3 Thoughts from Proverbs4

    These last few weeks have attacked me with musings on silence. It started with an anonymous quote I couldn’t shake off (“Never miss an opportunity to remain silent”) and threaded its way through my intellectual and social life. I began to see my unwarranted eagerness to speak in classroom discussions, group conversations, and even social

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  • How to Debate: What Lieutenant Columbo Teaches About Arguing

    How to Debate: What Lieutenant Columbo Teaches About Arguing2

    At age 14, I was introduced to a debate tactic I never forgot. Called the “Columbo Tactic,” this strategy allowed me to challenge any view I found even remotely illogical, all the while keeping me from having to meticulously, painstakingly articulate my own position. I first heard about this debate method in Gregory Koukl’s Tactics:

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