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(a) Alienated, (b) Confused, (c) Honest, (d) Shifty, (e) All of the Above

This is the first of three posts which I originally began shaping not for the general public but for friends and family members who are understandably perplexed and occasionally vexed by my...

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What happened

I had been going to post two long lists of points on which I diverge from political "progressives" or "conservatives," but before I do that, I realized that today brings us the first Sunday of Advent,...

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Why I am not a "Progressive"

Last post but one, I offered a kind of apologia for a weaselly apolitical politics, of a sort. Partly because it could have been mis-read as a defense of political indifference, I concluded with a...

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And No, Not a "Conservative" either

Well, if anyone cared enough to read the whole of last post about Why I Am Not A (capital-P) "Progressive," the first thing I have to say is.... Why? Why would some one guy's "positions" be of the...

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The fetishism of positions

“OK, but what do you believe? Do you think abortion should be illegal?” “Do you think a trans person is the gender they say they are?” “Do you think Israel should get out of the West Bank and Gaza?”...

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privilege

This year SCT will be one decade old. It is likely to be a year of scant posting here, but I am not closing shop. My aim is to finalize plans for a (small) book and to have made a significant beginning...

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Let no one enter here who has not studied Conspiracy Theory

I am a conspiracy theorist, of the common-sense variety: I "theorize" that shared interests make for alliances; and if those interests are served by secrecy, then secrecy there will be. The larger the...

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Drunken Philosophy in the Seattle Times

No long post this month -- between other commitments, writing, and a shoulder in a sling after tripping on some basement stairs, I have found lots of typing to be beyond me. Here though is a brief...

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R.I.P. Robert Firmage, 1944-2019

Robert Firmage, who I interviewed on this blog two years ago, has died. Robert called himself a Platonist, a Taoist, and a Christian, not always in that order; I knew him as a philosopher; but he...

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And/Or

I deeply dislike the question “What do you really want?” – a demand to name your desire. It has always seemed to me to have an impatience to it, a cut-to-the-chase subtext. And yet, if one cannot offer...

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Deleuze, Wittgenstein, history, and madness

I have been re-reading Deleuze, Dialogues (w/ Claire Parnet). The book again confirms my impression that I can't go along with him substantively -- I don't reject Transcendence; indeed I reject this...

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Mou Zongsan on the stakes of transmission

One of Mou Zongsan’s controversial claims in his Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy is that neither Wang Yangming nor Zhu Xi represented the “true” spirit of Confucianism in their time, but that...

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mikras endeixeos

Plato: I do not think it a good thing for men that there should be a disquisition, as it is called, on this topic--except for some few, who are able with a little teaching to find it out for...

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Three addenda to mikras endeixeos

These are more or less just notes to myself, but since they are occasioned by the previous post, they may as well be posted too.I had written: Hillel’s lesson is not that “the rest” is negligible.Hmmm....

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Many sentences on one sentence on no sentences at all.

Speculum Criticum is a decade old this month. Posting has fluctuated but obviously the trend of late has been towards more and more rarely. This isn’t because I am thinking or writing less; it’s...

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Prize and consolation

Just as, when I pay someone a visit, I don't just want to make him have feelings of such-and-such a sort; what I mainly want is to visit him, though of course I should like to be well-received too.--...

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an argument for esotericism

Them: Go Red.Other Them: No, Blue. Obviously.Me: Well, there's a distinction to be made --Other Them: What? What do you mean? Me: For example, Plato says -- if we read carefully --Them: Red!Other Them:...

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please ask the New York Times to not risk ruining someone's life in exchange...

I was deeply sorry and not a little alarmed to find Slate Star Codex entirely subtracted from the internet, with the exception of a post explaining why, to wit: that the New York Times was planning on...

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...the nth time as satire; the n+1 time as...

First they came for the Klan, and of course I fucking cheered, because No I wasn't in the Klan, those guys were assholes. I shed zero tears for them. Then they came for the run-of-the-mill blue-collar...

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"Teach us to care and not to care" *

A recurring festival of great solemnity is once more observed. As I remarked last time we went through this, the main result of the election of 2016 was the dramatic increase in intensity in fervor and...

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Non-specific wishlist

This is a modified form of a general letter I sent to a number of friends. I've received several responses already and decided to put this version here, casting my net a little wider. Some SCT readers...

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Reticence

I have been very gratified by the responses to my previous post -- thank you, and by all means keep them coming if there is more where that came from.  (Comment section or email is fine.)  It is...

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A Simulating Conversation

(This is a portion of a longer work in progress. Despite appearances, it is not primarily about whether the world "really is" a simulation.)  Adam, Ursula, & Yorick  arriving; Emilia, Iachimo,...

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A florilegium in lieu of an explanation of a year's silence.

  Everybody's shouting: Which side are you on? -- Bob Dylan, "Desolation Row"Whoever does not take sides in a civil war is struck with infamy, and loses all right to politics.  -- Solon, Athenian...

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Sometimes it happens

 As months pass without a post, the labor of breaking silence becomes more and more onerous because of the weight that would implicitly be placed on whatever the post is that breaks it.  This post will...

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