Some of the regular readers and commenters at this blog have started up a Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion discussion forum. Check it out.
Philosopher Stephen Mumford brings his Arts Matters blog to an end with a post on why he is pro-science and anti-scientism. Then he inaugurates his new blog at Philosophers Magazine with a post on a new and improved Cogito argument for the reality of causation.
Speaking of which: At Aeon, Mathias Frisch discusses the debate over causation and physics.
The Guardian asks: Is Richard Dawkins destroying his reputation? And at Scientific American, John Horgan says that biologist Jerry Coyne’s new book “goes too far” in denouncing religion.
More Catholics defend capital punishment: Moral theologian Fr. Thomas Petri, O.P. is interviewed by Catholic News Agency; and Matthew Schmitz argues, at National Review, that the death penalty is just and merciful.
New paper from Fred Freddoso: “Actus and Potentia: From Philosophy of Nature to Metaphysics.”
David Oderberg’s Philosophical Investigationspaper “All for the Good” is now available online. So is his American Philosophical Quarterly paper “Being and Goodness.”
And a new paper from Tuomas Tahko in Mind: “Natural Kind Essentialism Revisited.”
At Times Higher Education, Richard Smith argues that peer review is based on faith rather than evidence.
John Searle’s new book on perception is reviewed in the Los Angeles Review of Books.
They don’t make public intellectuals like they used to. P. J. O’Rourke on William F. Buckley, Jr. and Norman Mailer.
At Thomistica.net, Steven A. Long on the Supreme Court and “same-sex marriage.” Fr. James Schall on the same subject at Catholic World Report. And Ryan Anderson asks “What next?” in a new book.
At The New Criterion, Anthony Daniels reflects on To Kill a Mockingbird.
Is there a crisis at the edge of physics? Physicists Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser opine at The New York Times.
On the pope’s new encyclical: Fr. George Rutler at Crisis,Fr. James Schall at Catholic World Report, and William M. Briggs at The Stream.
Siris on Nigel Warburton’s list of the five greatest women philosophers. (As you’ll see, Warburton is a moron. But you knew that already.)
Philosopher Mark Anderson on Moby Dick as philosophy.