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Socratic loyalty
Socrates was so critical of his country that he was put to death by it. Yet he could have escaped execution had he wanted to. The reason he did not, as he famously explained in Plato’s Crito, was out...
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Benedict is not the pope: A reply to some critics
Patrick Coffin has posted an open letter by Italian writer Andrea Cionci, replying to my recent article criticizing Benevacantism. What follows is a response. In his introduction to the letter,...
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End of semester open thread
Let’s start the summer break off right, with an open thread. Now’s the time to get that otherwise off-topic obsession of yours off your chest, at long last. From plunging stocks to Pet Rocks, from...
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Nietzsche and Christ on suffering
Over and over we are taught in scripture and tradition that suffering is the lot not only of mankind in general, but of the Christian in particular. Christ, the “man of sorrows and acquainted with...
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The hollow universe of modern physics
To say that the material world alone exists is not terribly informative unless we have some account of what matter is. Those who are most tempted to materialism are also inclined to answer that matter...
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Indeterminacy and Borges’ infinite library
Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Library of Babel” (from his collection Labyrinths) famously describes an infinite library, comprising books which together represent every possible combination of characters in...
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Anti-reductionism in Nyāya-Vaiśesika atomism
Atomism takes all material objects to be composed of basic particles that are not themselves breakable into further components. In Western philosophy, the idea goes back to the Pre-Socratics Leucippus...
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COMING SOON: All One in Christ
My new book All One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theorywill be out this August from Ignatius Press. Some information about the book, including advance reviews, can be...
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The New Apologetics
I contributed an essay on “New Challenges to Natural Theology” to Matthew Nelson’s new Word on Fire anthology The New Apologetics. It’s got a large and excellent lineup of philosophers, theologians,...
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Economic and linguistic inflation
F. A. Hayek’s classic paper “The Use of Knowledge in Society” famously argued that prices generated in a market economy function to transmit information that economic actors could not otherwise gather...
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What is conscience and when should we follow it?
I plan to post some unpublished material that’s been accumulating over the years, over at my main website. First up is a lecture on the theme “What is Conscience and When Should We Follow It?” which...
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Aristotle on the middle class
On CNN the other day, liberal commentator Van Jones complained that the Democrats are “becoming a party of the very high and the very low” ends of the economic spectrum, and do not appeal to those in...
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Problems for Goff’s panpsychism
Panpsychism is the view that conscious awareness pervades the physical world, down to the level of basic particles. In recent years, philosopher Philip Goff has become an influential proponent of the...
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Cooperation with sins against prudence and chastity
Here’s another unpublished talk which I’ve posted at my main website. It’s titled “Cooperation with Sins against Prudence and Chastity,” and I presented it at the Dominican House of Studies in...
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Goff’s gaffes
Philip Goff has kindly replied to my recent post criticizing the panpsychism he defends in his book Galileo’s Error and elsewhere. Goff begins by reminding the reader that he and I agree that the...
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The neo-classical challenge to classical theism
My article “The Neo-Classical Challenge to Classical Theism” has just been published at Philosophy Compass. The article is a response to the critique of divine simplicity and other aspects of...
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Mullins strikes out
My new Philosophy Compass article “The Neo-Classical Challenge to Classical Theism” responds to several criticisms of classical theism and the doctrine of divine simplicity that have been raised by...
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Confucian hylemorphism
The Neo-Confucian Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi or Chu Hsi (1130-1200) famously posited two metaphysical principles often compared to Aristotle’s notions of form and matter. James Dominic Rooney defends...
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Benedict contra Benevacantism
I’ve been reading the second volume of Peter Seewald’s Benedict XVI: A Life. There is much of interest in it, including a new interview with Benedict at the very end. Some of what he says is relevant...
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All One in Christ
My new book All One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory is out this month from Ignatius Press. If you are someone who prefers to order directly from the publisher, you...
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