Freedom and Structure in Human Life

A Medicine Which Saved Lives and Destroyed Moral Order?

Some Christians think that God being all-good and all-powerful and all-knowing could have created a world without evil. Maybe. But it wouldn’t be our world. It wouldn’t be the story of the incarnate Son of God sacrificing Himself to the Father. From that main theme, we can consider salvation of the individual and salvation within … [Read more…]

Are Communities a Form of Created Being?

[I’ve found over the past two decades that many of my fundamental ideas can be seen in the novels I’ve finished and put on my website thus far. I think I can say that exploration of communities, what they used to be and what they now are, what they can or should be, was a … [Read more…]

Can Modern Science Tell Us If We’re Free?

Something strange happens in the minds of many men as they go about their work, whether that of research in particle physics or removing cancerous tumors or running a machine milling a component of a jet-engine or, maybe especially, in those who’ve studied the evolution of human beings, individuals and species and cultures. Having established … [Read more…]

Does Free-will Make Us Free? Does It Even Exist?

Freedom as we idealize it is not at all an instrument or an agent to achieve our desires, good or bad. The lesser freedom of the tiger or the grazing deer can do that for us. Freedom as we idealize it is an aspect of the state of personhood, a state in which we are … [Read more…]

Have Scientists Found Mind or Part of It?

Years ago, I proposed that the immaterial feel of our minds might be the result of fields playing a major role in our thinking. An article, Neurons Talk Without Synapses, discusses recent work that shows neurons `talk’ to each other by way of changes in electromagnetic fields and not just by direct electrochemical contact. I … [Read more…]

Destroying the Student’s Liberty with Debt and Doctrine as He’s Encouraged to Party Away

Readers interested in our dysfunctional higher education system might be interested in an essay from one of the websites of Liberty Fund. I’m certainly not implying that the lower levels are functioning at even a minimal level of competence, but the issues are somewhat different though overlapping. In any case, I can’t add anything of … [Read more…]

Qualities Traveling Without a Man

The Death of Plato The town was on edge that fateful day when stepped from the train a frightening sight. Qualities had arrived without a man for they were traveling fast and light. Intelligent and diligent, steadfast and true, successful and loyal, honest and brave, they were every good how but not quite a who. … [Read more…]

Physics, Politics, and Metaphysics

In a short essay recently published on the Web, the political thinker Ken Masugi tells us about political scientists needing to recognize the validity of philosophical modes of thought. They’ve drifted away from reality as a result of their efforts to become quantitative empirical scientists. In that essay, Political Scientists Bow to the Laws of … [Read more…]

Human Beings Are Different as Are Their Environments

We’re born with certain physical characteristics, some good and some bad, some allowing us to excel and some limiting our possible accomplishments. Modern psychologists have shown that the physician Galen was largely right in his general principles which he taught nearly 2,000 years ago. We are born with relatively well-defined temperaments and with other relatively … [Read more…]