Clik here to view.
Reply to Kozinski
I’ve been meaning to write up a response to Thaddeus Kozinski’s post at Ethika Politikacriticizing my recent piece on David Bentley Hart’s views about natural law. Brandon Watson has already pointed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Philosophy on radio
The other day I was interviewed by Frank Turek for his show CrossExamined. The show will be broadcast tomorrow, Saturday April 6, at 10-11 am Eastern time. The podcast is also available at the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics
I am pleased to announce that Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics, an anthology I have edited for Palgrave Macmillan’s Philosophers in Depth series, will be out this August. Aristotle on Method and...
View ArticleCraig on theistic personalism
Someone posted the following clip at YouTube, in which William Lane Craig is asked about me and about his view of the dispute between classical theism and theistic personalism:Craig kindly cites my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What is an ad hominem fallacy?
As students of logic know, not every appeal to authority is a fallacious appeal to authority. A fallacy is committed only when the purported authority appealed to either does not in fact possess...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sheer Hart attack
In a widely discussed piece in the March issue of First Things, theologian David Bentley Hart was highly critical of natural law theory. I was in turn highly critical of his article in a response...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Around the web
Metaphysician E. J. Lowe discusses ontology, physics, Locke, Aristotle, logic, laws of nature, potency and act, dualism, science fiction, and other matters in an interview at 3:AM Magazine. Over at The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Discerning the thoughts and intents of Hart
David Bentley Hart’s recent reply to me (to which I responded here) was not his only rejoinder to his critics. In the Letters section of the May issue of First Things, he makes a number of other...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The theology of Prometheus
I’m afraid I’m very much a latecomer to the pretentious commentary party vis-à-vis Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, since I only saw the flick after it came out on Blu-ray and even then have been too...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Epstein on conspiracies
No one denies that conspiracies exist. They occur every time two thugs decide to rob a liquor store together. When people dismiss “conspiracy theories,” what they are dismissing is not the idea that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Context isn’t everything
Natural law theory holds that a large and substantive body of moral knowledge can be had apart from divine revelation. Natural theology holds that a large and substantive body of theological knowledge...
View ArticleCommonweal on Nagel
Commonweal magazine has published a symposium on Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos, to which physicist Stephen Barr, biologist Kenneth Miller, and philosopher Gary Gutting have contributed. It’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nagel and his critics, Part IX
Returning to my series on the critics of Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos, let’s look at the recent Commonweal magazine symposium on the book. The contributors are philosopher Gary Gutting, biologist...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Neither nature alone nor grace alone
Since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity… Hence sacred doctrine makes use also of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Avicenna’s argument from contingency, Part I
The medieval Islamic philosopher Ibn Sina or Avicenna (c. 980 - 1037) is one among that myriad of thinkers of genius unjustly neglected by contemporary philosophers. Useful recent studies of his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hugon’s Cosmology
Editionesscholasticaeis publishing an English translation of Cosmology, an important manual written by the Thomist philosopher and theologian Édouard Hugon (1867-1929). The translation was made by Dr....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mackie’s argument from queerness
In his book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, J. L. Mackie famously put forward his “argument from queerness” against the objectivity of moral values. The argument has both a metaphysical aspect and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Naturalism in the news
On the subject of naturalism, Raymond Tallis opines in The Guardian, Massimo Pigliucci reports at Philosophy Now, and Daniel Dennett is interviewed at 3:AM Magazine. James Ladyman, co-author of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Body movin’, mind thinkin’
The human body is the best picture of the human soul.Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical InvestigationsWe recall that John B. Watson did not claim that quite all thought was incipient speech; it was all...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nagel and his critics, Part X
It’s time at long last to bring my series of posts on the critics of Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos to a close, before it becomes a lot longer than the book itself. There isn’t, in any event, much...
View Article