Inverted Qualia
A couple of months ago I attended a lecture by Saul Kripke at CUNY’s Graduate Center. Kripke is one of the most influential philosophers of the late 20th century, someone who you simply…
Researching Just War: Why is Jus Post Bellum underdeveloped? Questions of Literature Review
I've been researching the Just War tradition lately specifically jus post bellum with intent to submit a paper in January or so. So far I find the research and sources pretty satisfying and…
Podcast Teaser: Why Rationality?
Dear readers, Rationally Speaking is soon going to be (also) a podcast, produced by New York City Skeptics, and co-hosted by Julia Galef and yours truly. Before each (initially biweekly,…
Morality and the Scientific Method
Why science is a better way to explore morality.We think of science as a noun, in reality it is a verb, a process. The scientific method is a codification of a specific technique of handling and…
Morality and the Scientific Method
We think of science as a noun, in reality it is a verb, aprocess. The scientific method is a codification of a specific technique ofhandling and processing information. This method involves…
The Incoherence Of Free Will
I recently re-read a classic piece by J.L. Mackie (April 1955), entitled “Evil and Omnipotence,” a stupendous philosophical essay about why theologians like Richard Swinburne are forced by their…
Philosophy and Science
The question was just raised in a previous blog entry about what a research scientist could learn from philosophy. Perhaps this article, "Mad Science? Growing Meat Without Animals" can provide…
On The Difference Between Science And Philosophy
Attentive readers of this blog may have noticed that those who post comments to my entries often show two interesting and complementary attitudes: a fundamental distrust of (if not downright contempt…
How an atheist sought the existence of God
In my younger years, the belief in a world populated by divine entities plagued my thoughts. To the eyes of an atheist, I was a religious adherent, albeit not as devoutly as some of my contemporary…
Prophets and Philosophers
(Essay 3 in the Evolution and Morality Series)
Religious morality is by no means the only source of moral reasoning available to us. There is in fact a long history of secular philosophy dating…
