I’m still contemplating a few issues raised or brought back to memory by my recent reading of The Meaning of Truth by William James. The ideas of William James put pressure upon my own ideas, a form of updated Thomism, just because he knew how to respect empirical reality without being a reductionist but also, … [Read more…]
Many thinkers in history, philosophers and others, have imagined they could deal with moral issues by conjecturing a small set of sharply formed assumptions, perhaps a set of virtues which were said to be the building blocks of human moral character. Christians should have known better because the fundamental doctrine of moderate realism, similar to … [Read more…]
I’ve written about evidence that we like to live and work with those similar to ourselves, though there is still some substantial uncertainty about the mixture of culture and genes in the understanding of “similar to ourselves.” I’ve also written of my strong belief that this world, our universe seen in light of God’s purposes, … [Read more…]
One of the worst things one generation can do is trap future generations in one specific way of life or one way of solving problems. There is perhaps more than some think to the witticism by someone whose name I can’t recall: “I refused to be a radical when I was young because I didn’t … [Read more…]
I’m coming to the end of this scattered series of essays inspired by Kenneth Minogue’s profound book on modern politics, The Liberal Mind. My thoughts have developed so that my understanding of liberalism has taken on a surprising form, but no form of liberalism seems to me plausible or rational. I’ve taken a position that … [Read more…]
I’m still dealing with the intellectual aftermath of Kenneth Minogue’s The Liberal Mind. In that book, he tells us: War is habit-forming, and peace is confusing to many people who cannot deal with conflicting standards and feelings of guilt. [page 111] I’m aware of others who made comments about the eerie and morally disedifying attractiveness … [Read more…]
The state as we know it in the United States and most countries in this year of 2011 can’t be limited without destroying that state. This is because — in Jeffersonian terms — the state as it currently exists in most countries is an instrument of a vague group of human beings which we could … [Read more…]
Here’s a link to a good article about some specific problems which have developed in the Medicare system, resulting in fraud: The Systemic Nature of Medicare Fraud. Some of us are crooks for sure. Why do those crooks all of a sudden have the power to bankrupt our society and destroy our middle-class prosperity? Years … [Read more…]
I’ve used a chunk of this quote in an earlier posting ( The Liberal Mind: What is politics?): Now what makes liberal individualism so plausible is that the individual is the only self-conscious entity whose limits appear to correspond to a physiological creature; and also that the thoughts and feelings which constitute institutions such as … [Read more…]
I’m trying to deal with a problem I feel to be at the foundation of a body of thought which I generally admire — libertarianism of the Old Right and Rothbardian sort. On the whole, my attitude is similar to my attitude towards Jamesian pragmatism. For a discussion of that attitude, see my earlier articles … [Read more…]