more linting cleanup

content/post/aristotle-101-the-zoon-politikon.md

@@ -11,15 +11,15 @@ In the first book of the Politics, Aristotle argues for the view that man is a
 
 Aristotle’s ‘political animal’ (*zoon politikon*) is not the creature we might expect today – a conventional construct enfranchised by legal edict and duty-bound only to his own individual happiness as a free agent in a democratic nation-state. Instead, what Aristotle had in mind was an animal that was best suited to realize his complete end or natural goal (his *telos*) in a community organized to that end as well. That community is known as a city-state (a *polis*). As an integrated part of a functional polis, man is a creature of the polis – a political animal.
 
-What does Aristotle mean by ‘realizing complete ends’, and how could it be that the polis (and only the polis) enables this realization? In the Nicomachean Ethics (NE from now on) Aristotle argues that the chief good for man is *eudaimonia* (roughly: the achievement of excellence in life – aka – the ‘Good Life’). He further argues that this Good Life is only attainable by way of *phronesis* (roughly: excellence in both practical and intellectual virtues; or, excellence of character and of intellect). Phronesis, he further argues in both NE and Politics necessitates a community whose telos is the Good Life for its members. That community, according to Politics, is the polis. But why does Aristotle say this?
+What does Aristotle mean by ‘realizing complete ends’, and how could it be that the polis (and only the polis) enables this realization? In the Nicomachean Ethics (NE from now on) Aristotle argues that the chief good for man is *Eudaimonia* (roughly: the achievement of excellence in life – aka – the ‘Good Life’). He further argues that this Good Life is only attainable by way of *phronesis* (roughly: excellence in both practical and intellectual virtues; or, excellence of character and of intellect). Phronesis, he further argues in both NE and Politics necessitates a community whose telos is the Good Life for its members. That community, according to Politics, is the polis. But why does Aristotle say this?
 
-The polis, according to Aristotle, is the culmination of two more primitive forms of community: the family, and the village. These communities are formed out of two basic relationships: the man and woman, for the purpose of producing children; and, the master and slave, for the purpose of maintaining the household. The basic subsistence this enables further requires security and cooperation. This end is met by the village: a network of related households. By themselves, they are necessary components of the Good Life, because they exist for the sake of life itself. However, they are insufficient for the Good Life, until they are combined in such a way that they give rise to the polis – a network of interrelated villages. Once the polis emerges, the telos of the whole becomes the eudaimonia of the members of the polis.
+The polis, according to Aristotle, is the culmination of two more primitive forms of community: the family, and the village. These communities are formed out of two basic relationships: the man and woman, for the purpose of producing children; and, the master and slave, for the purpose of maintaining the household. The basic subsistence this enables further requires security and cooperation. This end is met by the village: a network of related households. By themselves, they are necessary components of the Good Life, because they exist for the sake of life itself. However, they are insufficient for the Good Life, until they are combined in such a way that they give rise to the polis – a network of interrelated villages. Once the polis emerges, the telos of the whole becomes the Eudaimonia of the members of the polis.
 
-The strongest argument Aristotle offers in defense of the natural necessity of the polis as such, come from his assertion that nature never does anything in vain (that is to say, without a purpose). The argument runs something like this: humans possess the power of speech; speech is only present in animals capable of moral discernment; the only such animal is man; moral discernment is a necessity for the proper pursuit of rational goods (phronesis); phronesis is necessary for eudaimonia; eudaimonia is only possible in a polis. He bolsters this argument by asserting that the solitary man (the man incapable of living in a polis) must be sub-human, and that the ideal man (the man that has somehow achieved eudaimonia independently of the polis) could only be a god.
+The strongest argument Aristotle offers in defense of the natural necessity of the polis as such, come from his assertion that nature never does anything in vain (that is to say, without a purpose). The argument runs something like this: humans possess the power of speech; speech is only present in animals capable of moral discernment; the only such animal is man; moral discernment is a necessity for the proper pursuit of rational goods (phronesis); phronesis is necessary for Eudaimonia; Eudaimonia is only possible in a polis. He bolsters this argument by asserting that the solitary man (the man incapable of living in a polis) must be sub-human, and that the ideal man (the man that has somehow achieved Eudaimonia independently of the polis) could only be a god.
 
-A few objections arise from this account of man as a ‘political animal’. Firstly, on the previous argument, it appears that Aristotle is simply defining other forms of living out of the acceptable range of eudemonic lives. Why? No clear answer can be found in either NE or Politics. Secondly, Aristotle provides no account for the telic transition from family and village (subsistence) to the polis (eudaimonia). How does this happen? Why could it not have been a conventional imposition (say, as part of the existing conditions of Hellenic political life)? Lastly, why could other primitive forms of community not have arisen explicitly with eudaimonia as a telos? It is not clear from Aristotle’s arguments why subsistence needs to precede eudaimonia.
+A few objections arise from this account of man as a ‘political animal’. Firstly, on the previous argument, it appears that Aristotle is simply defining other forms of living out of the acceptable range of eudemonic lives. Why? No clear answer can be found in either NE or Politics. Secondly, Aristotle provides no account for the telic transition from family and village (subsistence) to the polis (Eudaimonia). How does this happen? Why could it not have been a conventional imposition (say, as part of the existing conditions of Hellenic political life)? Lastly, why could other primitive forms of community not have arisen explicitly with Eudaimonia as a telos? It is not clear from Aristotle’s arguments why subsistence needs to precede Eudaimonia.
 
-In any case, Aristotle’s claim is still a fascinating one. In the realm of counterfactuals, one wonders what the world might have looked like today, had we never developed the nation-state and remained a vast interlinked network of city-states. Finally, is it really necessary to establish a natural telos in order to justify such a social arrangement? The communitarians (at least a few of them) don’t seem to think so. There are plenty of consequentialist defenses of the position, and given the havoc that the nation-state seems responsible for over the last three-hundred years, it is tempting to take that as a demonstration in the negative, of the correctness of Aristotle’s point about the necessity of the polis for eudaimonia.
+In any case, Aristotle’s claim is still a fascinating one. In the realm of counterfactuals, one wonders what the world might have looked like today, had we never developed the nation-state and remained a vast interlinked network of city-states. Finally, is it really necessary to establish a natural telos in order to justify such a social arrangement? The communitarians (at least a few of them) don’t seem to think so. There are plenty of consequentialist defenses of the position, and given the havoc that the nation-state seems responsible for over the last three-hundred years, it is tempting to take that as a demonstration in the negative, of the correctness of Aristotle’s point about the necessity of the polis for Eudaimonia.
 
 ```[Imported from exitingthecave.com on 29 November 2021]```
 

content/post/john-lockes-property-rights.md

@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ image: img/john-locke-wide.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-Does Locke offer a convincing account of an individual’s right to property? In his Second Treatise on Government, John Locke constructs a theory of property rights from two explicit arguments for the divine source of the moral claim of ownership, and one implicit argument for the divine source of value in labor. This essay will summarize each of these arguments, offer offer an assessment of the three arguments in combination, and conclude that Locke’s case is unconvincing in isolation. However, there are remedies which could make the case more convincing.
+Does Locke offer a convincing account of an individual’s right to property? In his Second Treatise on Government, John Locke constructs a theory of property rights from two explicit arguments for the divine source of the moral claim of ownership, and one implicit argument for the divine source of value in labor. This essay will summarize each of these arguments, offer an assessment of the three arguments in combination, and conclude that Locke’s case is unconvincing in isolation. However, there are remedies which could make the case more convincing.
 
 The first of the three arguments begins with an exegesis of passages of Genesis. Locke concedes that we could only conclude that God’s initial grant of dominion over nature, from the story of the Garden of Eden, was a grant in common to all humanity, and not merely a right of absolute rule granted to Adam’s successors, or an open license to private acquisition by individuals. This may seem like a problem for Locke, but he goes on to argue from the story of The Fall, that when God cursed man to scrape his living out of the soil by the sweat of his brow, he implicitly granted men an implicit right to appropriate as much from nature as was necessary to the achievement of that living. He says that, were this not the case, then God would have left us in a double-bind: forced to live in a continual state of injustice by appropriating the common inheritance for our own self-preservation, or starving to death for the sake of justice. Thus, at a minimum, we must have a right to appropriation for the sake of self-preservation, granted implicitly to us by God, when he condemned us to live off the land.
 

content/post/judgment-and-virtue.md

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ What’s more, the prevailing theories all boil morality down to a single princi
 
 Lastly, Julia Annas[^1] points out that the decision-procedure (whatever it might be) looks suspiciously like a subtle substitution for mature judgment. Indeed, if we were mere robots or computers, with a slot in the side of the head into which one could insert an SD card with the appropriate set of procedural instructions, it would be hard to imagine why any such thing as philosophy, let alone ethics as a discipline, would even exist.
 
-Virtue ethics, insofar as it recognizes the developmental nature[^2] and experiential complexity of moral maturity, ‘gets it right’. But Aristotle didn’t have the tools or the intellectual framework to conceive of a model sophisticated enough to make much sense outside of Athens in the third century BC. What’s more, later iterations have consistently failed for much the same reason to craft a system of values that can be claimed of all humans (let alone, a method of evaluating the mastery of those values). One recent valiant attempt at this, comes from Jonathan Haidt’s book, “The Righteous Mind”[^3] (though he would probably disagree that he was contributing to a system of Virtue Ethics). Haidt assembles a list of six “foundational” values that he attributes to everyone (in the west, at least) and argues that we differ with each other as human beings, only with respect to our psychological “sensitivity” to each of these six values (“care”, “fairness”, “loyalty”, “authority”, “sanctity”, and “liberty”). All six of these propensities are present and set to ‘default sensitivities’ at birth, but they fluctuate as we grow and are influenced by environmental pressures. It isn’t clear from his book whether these fluctuations are like studio sound-board knobs, that we consciously adjust (at least to some extent), or are merely barometer needles reporting the determined outcomes of causal factors. If the former is the case, then his psychological theory might provide the basis for an Aristotelian normative theory in which the position of each of these sensitivity ‘knobs’ is ‘tuned’ throughout life, for their optimal position. The point here isn’t to prove the case, but simply to show that the merger of psychology and normative ethics is at least plausible, and that such an approach would provide us with a developmental ethic that is simultaneously *measurable*.
+Virtue ethics, insofar as it recognizes the developmental nature[^2] and experiential complexity of moral maturity, ‘gets it right’. But Aristotle didn’t have the tools or the intellectual framework to conceive of a model sophisticated enough to make much sense outside of Athens in the third century before Christ. What’s more, later iterations have consistently failed for much the same reason to craft a system of values that can be claimed of all humans (let alone, a method of evaluating the mastery of those values). One recent valiant attempt at this, comes from Jonathan Haidt’s book, “The Righteous Mind”[^3] (though he would probably disagree that he was contributing to a system of Virtue Ethics). Haidt assembles a list of six “foundational” values that he attributes to everyone (in the west, at least) and argues that we differ with each other as human beings, only with respect to our psychological “sensitivity” to each of these six values (“care”, “fairness”, “loyalty”, “authority”, “sanctity”, and “liberty”). All six of these propensities are present and set to ‘default sensitivities’ at birth, but they fluctuate as we grow and are influenced by environmental pressures. It isn’t clear from his book whether these fluctuations are like studio sound-board knobs, that we consciously adjust (at least to some extent), or are merely barometer needles reporting the determined outcomes of causal factors. If the former is the case, then his psychological theory might provide the basis for an Aristotelian normative theory in which the position of each of these sensitivity ‘knobs’ is ‘tuned’ throughout life, for their optimal position. The point here isn’t to prove the case, but simply to show that the merger of psychology and normative ethics is at least plausible, and that such an approach would provide us with a developmental ethic that is simultaneously *measurable*.
 
 This, it seems to me, is the basis for the opposition to virtue ethics. Not the lack of a ‘decision-procedure’ *per se*, but the lack of a *measurable standard* by which I can justifiably judge someone. With a sufficiently sophisticated understanding of human psychology, the “journeyman / apprentice” developmental approach to virtue ethics provides an ethical mentorship system with measurable outcomes. However, I can imagine two potential problems with this concept. First, who decides what the list of values are, how many there are, and what the optimal sensitivity settings are? This problem implies the need for some sort of ur-ethic that can be used to evaluate the evaluation system – and suddenly, we’re plummeting into an infinite regress. Secondly, such a system could ultimately end up stratifying the society into the ‘enlightened’ graduates, and the ‘benighted savages’ who haven’t had the privilege of studying yet. To the first objection, I must admit I have no reply. It seems a bit like the problem of set-theory, and like set-theory, it calls the whole system into suspicion. But, if we’re willing to continue using sets – merely coping with the edge-case problems of set-theory – then why not this moral theory as well? Perhaps because set-theory won’t get you killed by the state, if you run afoul of its paradoxes while using it. To the second objection, I would say that this doesn’t seem to me like a serious concern. If it were fully adopted in an already liberal democratic culture, the transition would be almost invisible. Much of the system is simply describing habits of human psychology that we already observe. The rest would be a matter of crafting environments that steer developing minds in the right direction, while modeling appropriate behaviors. The latter is already a natural parental impulse, and the former could be done by modifications to existing social organizations or minor changes to legislation.
 

content/post/more-exploration-of-social-objects.md

@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ Having identified the three kinds of social objects, the question of whether the
 
 ### Social Objects as Collective Social Beings
 
-It can be argued that social objects of the collective kind are in fact *more real* than their constituent parts, as is seen in Hegel's theory of objective mind (Quinton 1976). Hegel couched his theory in the context of the life of the state in history, but it could also be applied to something a bit less intimidating, like a sports team.  The 1984 Chicago Cubs, picks out a social object we can classify as a team. On Hegel's account, there is (analogously), a spirit of baseball, out of which the team spirit of the 1984 Chicago Cubs becomes a concrete universal (a concept somewhat analogous to the concrete universal of a color, for example). The team's individual members have their reality as that  team, and the team  'only is, as an organized whole' (Quinton 1976, 6).  To pick out individual team members when talking about the team, is to abstract away from the team, rather than to explain it by reducing it to its individuals. This might be thought of as a sort of supervenience view of social institutions, but this is still slightly misleading. The substantial reality is the idea that the group actualizes an already existing spirit, and the individuals in the group are only important insofar as they actualize the spirit of baseball in its concrete form of the the 1984 Chicago Cubs.
+It can be argued that social objects of the collective kind are in fact *more real* than their constituent parts, as is seen in Hegel's theory of objective mind (Quinton 1976). Hegel couched his theory in the context of the life of the state in history, but it could also be applied to something a bit less intimidating, like a sports team.  The 1984 Chicago Cubs, picks out a social object we can classify as a team. On Hegel's account, there is (analogously), a spirit of baseball, out of which the team spirit of the 1984 Chicago Cubs becomes a concrete universal (a concept somewhat analogous to the concrete universal of a color, for example). The team's individual members have their reality as that  team, and the team  'only is, as an organized whole' (Quinton 1976, 6).  To pick out individual team members when talking about the team, is to abstract away from the team, rather than to explain it by reducing it to its individuals. This might be thought of as a sort of supervenience view of social institutions, but this is still slightly misleading. The substantial reality is the idea that the group actualizes an already existing spirit, and the individuals in the group are only important insofar as they actualize the spirit of baseball in its concrete form of the 1984 Chicago Cubs.
 
 This view implies an ontology that not only extends beyond the material, but also extends beyond the individual mind (if we take mind to be immaterial). In other words, it posits the ontological reality of a realm of spirit, which has a causal power in the material to the extent that it can give existence or being to certain arrangements of individuals as groups, by giving the group a coherent *meaning*. Hegel called collective beings like states, 'substances', and argued that they are 'actualized' in the material stuff of individuals (Hegel 1807). This is characterisitc of the language of Aristotle, but the concept of the national spirit is more akin to the concept of the Platonic Form, because Hegel's own conception of the spirit of a collective being was one of transcendence, not immanence. To put it another way, Hegel's idea of the collective being is much more akin to the idea of the Catholic Holy Spirit, than it is to the idea of the school spirit of a typical American high school.
 
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ A disciple of Quine might find that this kind of ontological realism comes at fa
 
 Likewise, with collective social objects like teams. The team that included Rick Sutcliffe, Ryne Sandberg, and Gary Matthews would not have been the same team, if it hadn't included those athletes. The 1984 Chicago Cubs (and the emergent team spirit), depends for its reality on the presence of the tangible individuals that constitute the team at that particular time. If Rick Sutcliffe, Ryne Sandberg, and Gary Matthews were not a part of the team, it wouldn't *be* the 1984 Chicago Cubs (Theseus notwithstanding). Those men had to come together at that time, to produce that team (and whatever spirit was said to be had of it).
 
-A more general political analogy for this, can be seen in Rousseau's notion of the general will. The entity has no reality, until a particular group of like-minded individuals comes together and unanimously agrees to be governed in a certain way. It is in the precise moment in which they come to unanimous consensus, that the general will is birthed into existence -- and the moment that these individual cease to consent to the contract, the general will ceases to exist. On this view, the general will is as real as the the individuals that constitute it, because it emerges as a property of the collective agreement (just like the sound emitting from the spinning corrugated tube is just as real as the tube). However, it depends entirely on the individuals constituting it for its reality, unlike the Hegelian spirit of the state.
+A more general political analogy for this, can be seen in Rousseau's notion of the general will. The entity has no reality, until a particular group of like-minded individuals comes together and unanimously agrees to be governed in a certain way. It is in the precise moment in which they come to unanimous consensus, that the general will is birthed into existence -- and the moment that these individual cease to consent to the contract, the general will ceases to exist. On this view, the general will is as real as the individuals that constitute it, because it emerges as a property of the collective agreement (just like the sound emitting from the spinning corrugated tube is just as real as the tube). However, it depends entirely on the individuals constituting it for its reality, unlike the Hegelian spirit of the state.
 
 But would this satisfy the Quinian? Would Quine accept the concept of a general will into his ontology? Probably not. Quine's eliminativism seems to suggest the necessity to roll back collective notions entirely, until we are left with individuals over which we can quantify variables. In the same way there can be no "average American", there can be no "steelworkers union" or "1984 Chicago Cubs". Terms like "team", and "union", and "nation", are just labels of convenience attached to aggregations of individuals, in order to reduce a cognitive load in the act of communicating, or to reduce the practical or logistical problems inherent in organizing groups of people. Quine's nominalist eliminativism is attractive, because it helps to highlight one way in which subject and object can be demarcated. If we can reduce collectives to individuals, then we can get to something "real". Indeed, contra my own suggestion above, Passinsky (2020) suggests that this is the source of the antirealist intuition about social objects: the degree to which they depend on the subjective is the degree to which they are not real.  To put it in terms of a question, we might ask, where does object stop and subject start? One answer to that is indeed to insist on tangible individuals as the standard of what is real. As we will see, however, it is not so easy to stop even at the level of the objective individual.
 
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ What is interesting about this theory, is that it extends to social objects in t
 
 There is a consistent experience of the celestial bodies we call planets, up there in the heavens, exhibiting certain properties, and behaving in certain ways. However, there is also continuous dispute over them. Astronomers have been arguing for decades over whether Pluto actually is a planet or not. Before that, they were arguing over whether there was a Pluto at all (whether planet, or not), because observations of the orbits of other planets did not conform to the expectations derived from Newtonian calculations. In a moment, we will see why this is significant, but the focus for now, is a bit different.
 
-The question of whether or not there *is* a Pluto, is a question of its *thatness*. In other words, *that* it exists. The question of whether or not Pluto is *a planet*, is a question of its *whatness*. In otherwords, *what* exists. The former is almost entirely an empirical question. When we look up at the night sky, in the right place, at the right time, do we we see something? And can we distinguish it numerically from other somethings that we’ve already seen? There is a minimal amount of social negotiation involved in this, but only to the extent of experiential corroboration. You would be asking your colleague, do you have the same visual experience that I have (or, do your experiments produce the same results)? Assuming you both have reasonably good equipment, are competent with telescopes, and are visually healthy, you’ll come to more-or-less the same answer (as indeed we have, in the case of Pluto). The latter question, however, is a question of identifying *the nature* of the thing seen. Do you see *what* I see? Do you see a *planet*? Today your colleague is likely to say, "no, I see an asteroid" (or a planetoid). The answer you got would depend mainly on the outcome of social negotiations that took place around the time that you asked. In 1966, he would likely have answered, yes, he sees a planet. When the relevant practical authorities cannot come to a consistent consensus on whether or not Pluto is a planet, does it cease to be one? Or, are the various nit-picks of astronomy nerds just so much irrelevant noise to silent Pluto, as it continues its journey around the sun regardless of what they want to call it? It's not clear how to answer that question.
+The question of whether or not there *is* a Pluto, is a question of its *thatness*. In other words, *that* it exists. The question of whether or not Pluto is *a planet*, is a question of its *whatness*. In otherwords, *what* exists. The former is almost entirely an empirical question. When we look up at the night sky, in the right place, at the right time, do we see something? And can we distinguish it numerically from other somethings that we’ve already seen? There is a minimal amount of social negotiation involved in this, but only to the extent of experiential corroboration. You would be asking your colleague, do you have the same visual experience that I have (or, do your experiments produce the same results)? Assuming you both have reasonably good equipment, are competent with telescopes, and are visually healthy, you’ll come to more-or-less the same answer (as indeed we have, in the case of Pluto). The latter question, however, is a question of identifying *the nature* of the thing seen. Do you see *what* I see? Do you see a *planet*? Today your colleague is likely to say, "no, I see an asteroid" (or a planetoid). The answer you got would depend mainly on the outcome of social negotiations that took place around the time that you asked. In 1966, he would likely have answered, yes, he sees a planet. When the relevant practical authorities cannot come to a consistent consensus on whether or not Pluto is a planet, does it cease to be one? Or, are the various nit-picks of astronomy nerds just so much irrelevant noise to silent Pluto, as it continues its journey around the sun regardless of what they want to call it? It's not clear how to answer that question.
 
 In contrast, returning to the question of tangibile individuals, quite a lot of what counts as a 'real thing' in science is only taken to be so by virtue of consensual agreement amongst the 'relevant authorities'. In other words, those things are objects in spite of the fact that they do not satisfy the definition of tangible, in *any* sense. We might be comfortable admitting things like skin cells and paramecium and even molecules into our collection of tangibles because, although they are not directly sensible, they are sensible with the aid of special tools like microscopes or other equipment (as is the case of many airborne chemicals or nuclear particle radiation), in addition to being outfitted with coherent scientific theories. But there are many more of these things that are insensible even with the aid of special tools, regardless of scientific theories about them.
 

content/post/movie-review-planet-of-the-apes-1968.md

@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ What is the significance of this? Well, Taylor is the epitome of the modern West
 
 ### The End In The Beginning…
 
-In other words, Taylor is an outright rebuke of Enlightenment modernism. The creatures he encounters are all apes: chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas, all living out a rigidly hierarchical caricature of pre-modern European tribalism, and they all turn out to be creations evolved from Taylor’s own failed civilization. The apes are both a mirror of him and his history, and a warning for the future to the audience. Dr. Zaius, as the embodiment of his own culture’s hypocrisy, is a representative of the duplicitous, or at least schizophrenic nature of of our own society — and a direct mirror of Taylor, himself. To make this more explicit, the Nietzschean Will To Truth has banished the mythology of our past to the dustbin, but without that mythology, we are left only with the raw Will To Power. Zaius carries this inherent conflict around inside himself, like the patient-zero of ape society, and Taylor, as the mirror-image of that conflict, lays it bare for us all to marvel at. Zaius struggles in utter futility, to stem the tide of Zira and Cornelius’ discoveries, and to maintain the facade of his own society’s sacred myths, all while harboring the secret horror of his own society’s true origin — a secret Taylor is yet to realize. In the conflict at the cave, the schism of ape society is brought to a head as Taylor repeatedly throws evidence in Zaius’ face, that ironically should be opening Taylor’s eyes, but isn’t. Not until we reach the full denouement, is the conflict transferred fully to Taylor, in the famous scene of a nearly-naked Charleton Heston on his knees in front of a remnant of the Statue of Liberty.
+In other words, Taylor is an outright rebuke of Enlightenment modernism. The creatures he encounters are all apes: chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas, all living out a rigidly hierarchical caricature of pre-modern European tribalism, and they all turn out to be creations evolved from Taylor’s own failed civilization. The apes are both a mirror of him and his history, and a warning for the future to the audience. Dr. Zaius, as the embodiment of his own culture’s hypocrisy, is a representative of the duplicitous, or at least schizophrenic nature of our own society — and a direct mirror of Taylor, himself. To make this more explicit, the Nietzschean Will To Truth has banished the mythology of our past to the dustbin, but without that mythology, we are left only with the raw Will To Power. Zaius carries this inherent conflict around inside himself, like the patient-zero of ape society, and Taylor, as the mirror-image of that conflict, lays it bare for us all to marvel at. Zaius struggles in utter futility, to stem the tide of Zira and Cornelius’ discoveries, and to maintain the facade of his own society’s sacred myths, all while harboring the secret horror of his own society’s true origin — a secret Taylor is yet to realize. In the conflict at the cave, the schism of ape society is brought to a head as Taylor repeatedly throws evidence in Zaius’ face, that ironically should be opening Taylor’s eyes, but isn’t. Not until we reach the full denouement, is the conflict transferred fully to Taylor, in the famous scene of a nearly-naked Charleton Heston on his knees in front of a remnant of the Statue of Liberty.
 
 Why was Taylor put in front of the Statue of Liberty? It could have been any artifact that was uniquely recognizable, really: the top of the Empire State building, or the top of the Eiffel Tower (which would have been a nice call-back to the novel), or the Big Ben clock. The answer lies in the symbolic significance of the work, not its recognizability. But what does Lady Liberty actually symbolize? The full French title for the work, when it was given to the United States is, “Liberty Enlightening The World”, and the figure itself is a stylization of the Roman goddess “Libertas”. Libertas, portentously, was a patron of the populares faction of late imperial Rome, and an emblem used by Julius Caesar’s assassins. More recently, she is personified as “Marianne”, the anthropomorphic symbol of the French Republic, famously depicted in the art of Eugene Delacroix, bare-breasted and triumphantly leading the French peasantry into battle. For the Romans, Libertas is the goddess of vengeance against the illegitimate tyrant. For the French, Lady Liberty is the culmination of Enlightenment rationality — the inevitable outcome of the progress of Reason, as envisioned by the likes of Voltaire, Rousseau, and the “philosophes”. Anyone even vaguely familiar with French history knows where this goes next: Robespierre, the conversion of Notre Dame into a “Temple of Reason”, the violent repression of monarchists and Catholics, and the beheading of more than seventeen thousand enemies of the revolution. All this, before Robespierre himself is finally subjected to the Guillotine, and is eventually replaced by a diminutive man who would call himself “Emperor”.
 

content/post/musings-on-the-problem-of-the-state.md

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ draft: false
 
 Socrates, in *The Republic*, argues that a society must be ordered, and that the just and ordered polity requires a just and well ordered soul. But, not all souls will achieve the rational ideal, says the anarchist. He has a point. However, this leaves both the advocate of a state and the political anarchist with a problem. An anarchy of disordered souls is pure chaos. A state of disordered souls is a tyranny. Plato solved this dilemma simply by putting the most just and ordered souls “in charge” of the polity. But, of course, this is no solution at all for the voluntarist. He thinks there can be no such thing as a just society, over which a state rules, because rule is unjust by definition. Plato, of course, had much more to say about this. We’ll return to him shortly. In the meantime, a history lesson is necessary.
 
-Ancient Greek society (between 1100-700 BC) was primarily composed of wealthy families that had formed a loosely connected society of clans. Their primary mode of justice was inter- and intra-familial retribution. After this Greek “dark age”, came the Archaic and Classical period, and along with it, the transition to the city-state. That transition included surrendering the natural right of personal retribution to a central and “neutral” authority that would adjudicate those disputes. Euripides’ play *Oresteia* is an allegory describing this transition and highlighting the necessity of the institution of the city-state as a part of that transition. At the end of the play, Athena comes down from Olympus and imposes Olympian justice upon Orestes, driving the Erinyes underground. The Erinyes are symbols of primal justice; Athena is a symbol of the sublimation of those dark passions, and the *delegation* of our primal powers of retribution to a rational manager, for the betterment of all.
+Ancient Greek society (between 1100-700BC) was primarily composed of wealthy families that had formed a loosely connected society of clans. Their primary mode of justice was inter- and intra-familial retribution. After this Greek “dark age”, came the Archaic and Classical period, and along with it, the transition to the city-state. That transition included surrendering the natural right of personal retribution to a central and “neutral” authority that would adjudicate those disputes. Euripides’ play *Oresteia* is an allegory describing this transition and highlighting the necessity of the institution of the city-state as a part of that transition. At the end of the play, Athena comes down from Olympus and imposes Olympian justice upon Orestes, driving the Erinyes underground. The Erinyes are symbols of primal justice; Athena is a symbol of the sublimation of those dark passions, and the *delegation* of our primal powers of retribution to a rational manager, for the betterment of all.
 
 Nietzsche recognized this sublimation, and railed against it in works like *The Genealogy of Morals*. This view of our ancient past, exemplified also by Hebrew history, constitutes the basis for his master-slave morality theory, and the will to power. His goal was to end the alienation of ourselves from our capacity to enact primal justice. His “over-man”, would supposedly be such a person. Unfettered by “soft” Christian morality, he would experience no inner “laceration” when acting out what is his right, by natural endowment of power. This is a very decidedly non-rational approach to the end of the state, and arguably (if you take the words of someone like Jonathan Haidt[1](https://exitingthecave.com/musings-on-the-problem-of-the-state/#fn-528-1) to be correct), more true to the actual nature of man. However, even if Nietzsche’s idea could somehow come true, it is ultimately doomed because the law of nature (as a doctrine of raw power) affords no opportunity for such things as industry, art, and science, which require a society that is stabilized by common doctrines and predictable rules of behavior.[2](https://exitingthecave.com/musings-on-the-problem-of-the-state/#fn-528-2)
 

content/post/nozick-rawls-and-the-problem-of-patterned-principles-of-justice.md

@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ So, if we wish to take Nozick seriously, then we must first accept that he was n
 
 To understand whether this is the case, we need to better understand what Rawls means by "having an equal right to... basic liberties...", and how enforcing an end-state patterned distribution of mitigated inequalities under the difference principle would systematically disturb that equal right. To begin this examination, we can ask why Rawls keeps attaching the qualifier "basic" to the list of liberties associated with the liberty principle? What does he mean by "basic"? Rawls offers an explanation by way of description (Rawls 1999, 54):
 
-> *...basic liberties are are given by a list... political liberty (the right to vote and to hold public office) and freedom of speech and assembly; liberty of conscience and freedom of thought; freedom of the person, which includes freedom from psychological oppression and physical assault and dismemberment (integrity of the person); the right to hold personal property and freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as defined by the concept of the rule of law... [the liberty principle] is prior to [the difference principle]... infringements on the basic equal liberties protected by [the liberty principle] cannot be justified , or compensated for, by greater social and economic advantages. These liberties have a central range of application within which they can be limited and compromised only when they conflict with other basic liberties...*
+> *...basic liberties are given by a list... political liberty (the right to vote and to hold public office) and freedom of speech and assembly; liberty of conscience and freedom of thought; freedom of the person, which includes freedom from psychological oppression and physical assault and dismemberment (integrity of the person); the right to hold personal property and freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as defined by the concept of the rule of law... [the liberty principle] is prior to [the difference principle]... infringements on the basic equal liberties protected by [the liberty principle] cannot be justified , or compensated for, by greater social and economic advantages. These liberties have a central range of application within which they can be limited and compromised only when they conflict with other basic liberties...*
 
 So "basic" liberties are, more-or-less, the right to things we would find enumerated in the American constitution's famous Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments), and they are "basic" because they are grounded in something other than a utilitarian goal (though Rawls is not explicit about this). However, he says they are not absolute (because they can be limited when clashing with each other). Still, they are to be shielded against complaints anyone might make on consequential grounds from the point of view of the Difference Principle. In short, no matter how much better it might be for the worst off, infringement of my right to property is sacrosanct.
 
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ At the heart of Nozick's critique of Rawls, is a dispute about the fundamental n
 
 The structural understanding, too, will come with a set of assumptions of the kind that Rawls includes in A Theory of Justice. Among those assumptions is egalitarianism, which is an inevitability inherent in the concept of the original position, according to Nozick. He helps to make this problem starkly clear in a subsequent thought experiment in the same chapter as the Wilt Chamberlain thought experiment (Nozick 1974, 199-200)
 
-> *Suppose there were a group of students who have studied during a year, taken examinations, and received grades between 0 and 100 which they have not yet learned of. they are now gathered together, having no idea of the grade any one of them has received, and they are asked to allocate grades among themselves so that the grades total to a given sum... let us suppose they they are to decide jointly upon a particular distribution of grades; they are to give a particular grade to each identifiable one of them present at the meeting... Next suppose that they are unanimously to agree not to a particular distribution of grades, but rather to general principles to govern the distribution of grades... What principle would be selected? The equality principle, which gives each person the same grade, would have a prominent chance... and if it turned out that the total was variable depending upon how they divided it, depending on which of them got what grade, and a higher grade was desirable... then the principle of distributing grades so as to maximize the lowest grades might seem a plausible one. Would these people agree to the non-end-state historical principle of distribution: give people grades according to how their examinations were evaluated by a qualified and impartial observer?*
+> *Suppose there were a group of students who have studied during a year, taken examinations, and received grades between 0 and 100 which they have not yet learned of. they are now gathered together, having no idea of the grade any one of them has received, and they are asked to allocate grades among themselves so that the grades total to a given sum... let us suppose they are to decide jointly upon a particular distribution of grades; they are to give a particular grade to each identifiable one of them present at the meeting... Next suppose that they are unanimously to agree not to a particular distribution of grades, but rather to general principles to govern the distribution of grades... What principle would be selected? The equality principle, which gives each person the same grade, would have a prominent chance... and if it turned out that the total was variable depending upon how they divided it, depending on which of them got what grade, and a higher grade was desirable... then the principle of distributing grades so as to maximize the lowest grades might seem a plausible one. Would these people agree to the non-end-state historical principle of distribution: give people grades according to how their examinations were evaluated by a qualified and impartial observer?*
 
 Nozick says no, they would not. If they were in the original position, they would have no knowledge of the historical process that led to the grades in question, and as such, there is no way in which a particular assignment could appear just (indeed, receiving the exact opposite of ones actual grade would appear as unjust as ones actual grade, because there would be no way to know the difference). So, justice would come down to a purely probabilistic calculation, grounded entirely in nothing but abstract self-interest about where in the global arrangement one might end up. In other words, no other conception of justice is possible in the original position but an end-state conception. As Nozick put is: "The nature of the decision problem facing persons deciding upon principles in an original position behind a veil of ignorance limits them to end-state principles of distribution." Thus, Rawls' Theory of Justice is already assuming what it seeks to prove.
 
@@ -90,4 +90,4 @@ Hayek, Friedrich. 1960. The Constitution of Liberty. Abingdon, UK: Routledge Cla
 
 Livingstone, Rodney, and Benton, Gregor. 1992. Karl Marx: Early Writings. London, UK: Penguin Classics
 
-Meadowcroft, John. 2011. "Nozick's critique of Rawls: distribution, entitlement, and the assumptive world of A Theory of Justice". In The Cambridge Companion to Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Cambridge, 2011, 168-196
+Meadowcroft, John. 2011. "Nozick's critique of Rawls: distribution, entitlement, and the assumptive world of A Theory of Justice". In The Cambridge Companion to Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Cambridge, 2011, 168-196

content/post/peterson-murphy-and-alienation.md

@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ image: img/peterson-murphy-marx.jpg
 draft: false
 ---
 
-Recently, Jordan Peterson did an extended interview with Bob Murphy. Peterson begins the interview by pitching it as a “two hour lesson in Austrian Economics”, but mainly, it was an overview comparison of the principles of Austrian economics against Marxism. It was difficult to dispute much of it. I’m already a proponent of free market capitalism, and I’m also fairly partial to Friedrich Hayek’s work (at least, as it is represented in The Constitution of Liberty, and Law, Legislation, and Liberty). I’m not quite as versed in Ludwig von Mises, but from what I’ve heard said by folks like Murphy and others, it dovetails nicely with Hayek. Murphy says the key difference between them, is that one took an analytical approach, and the other a more empirical or (dare I say) sociological approach. That seems to square with what I’ve read, to date. 
+Recently, Jordan Peterson did an extended interview with Bob Murphy. Peterson begins the interview by pitching it as a “two hour lesson in Austrian Economics”, but mainly, it was an overview comparison of the principles of Austrian economics against Marxism. It was difficult to dispute much of it. I’m already a proponent of free market capitalism, and I’m also fairly partial to Friedrich Hayek’s work (at least, as it is represented in The Constitution of Liberty, and Law, Legislation, and Liberty). I’m not quite as versed in Ludwig Von Mises, but from what I’ve heard said by folks like Murphy and others, it dovetails nicely with Hayek. Murphy says the key difference between them, is that one took an analytical approach, and the other a more empirical or (dare I say) sociological approach. That seems to square with what I’ve read, to date. 
 
 In any case, the point of this post, is that one segment of the interview did stand out as significantly disputable. Namely, neither men seemed to know what they were talking about, when they got on to the topic of Marx’s theory of the Alienation of Labor. In particular, it is this clip I'm especially focusing on:
 

content/post/plato-parmenides-and-the-theory-of-forms-part-2.md

@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ and:
 >
 > Socrates: And likewise, with the virtues, however many and varied they may be, they all have **one common character** whereby they are virtues, and on which one could of course be wise and keep an eye when one is **giving a definitive answer** to what virtue **really is**…” Meno, 72b-c (emphases are mine)
 
-The idea of a “Form”, then, seems to be serving a number of useful purposes. It is an attempt to give definitive account for difficult to define objects, such as “man” and “animal”; it is an attempt to “quantify” the qualitative aspects of reality, such as “the beautiful”, and “the virtuous” (even including subjective experiences such as “largeness” and “sameness”); and it is an attempt to explain how these things are not mere *doxa* (opinion), but *noesis* (knowledge). That’s quite a tall order. As we’ll see in the upcoming conclusion, Plato wasn’t as successful at accomplishing these goals, as he might have assumed he was. But there is a a very good reason for this, I think.
+The idea of a “Form”, then, seems to be serving a number of useful purposes. It is an attempt to give definitive account for difficult to define objects, such as “man” and “animal”; it is an attempt to “quantify” the qualitative aspects of reality, such as “the beautiful”, and “the virtuous” (even including subjective experiences such as “largeness” and “sameness”); and it is an attempt to explain how these things are not mere *doxa* (opinion), but *noesis* (knowledge). That’s quite a tall order. As we’ll see in the upcoming conclusion, Plato wasn’t as successful at accomplishing these goals, as he might have assumed he was. But there is a very good reason for this, I think.
 
 ### The plausibility of Forms
 

content/post/protagoras,-homo-mensura,-and-self-refutation.md

@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ Earlier, we saw how the radical subjectivism of the "private worlds" interpretat
 
 The basic idea of alethic relativism, is that what is true for one, may not be true for another, and as put by Baghramanian and Carter (2022), "*there is no context-independent vantage point to adjudicate the matter. What is true or false is always relative to a conceptual, cultural, or linguistic framework.*" While this turn of phrase looks nearly identical to the concept considered in the "private worlds" section, there is one significant change. It does not posit independent, incommensurable "worlds" which function as the subject-dependent truth-makers for truth claims about those worlds. Instead, what is asserted is that the predicate "is true" is a deceptive two-place term which always includes (hidden or not) a term qualifying the first. There is no requirement that the correspondence take place in a unitary reality. More to the point, the correspondence ocurring between a subject and any given slice of a unitary reality need not be the same correspondence taking place between any other subject and that unitary reality. To borrow a phrase common in pop culture today, something can be true "*from a certain point of view*".[^3]
 
-On this understanding, the example of the doctor and the professional teacher make much more sense. Now, instead of incommensurable individual worlds, it is possible to construct social realities out of agreements between individuals, and pragmatism can function as a substitute for aletheia. Indeed, this is precisely the the point of what Burnyeat (1990) calls the "New Formulation". The sick man and his doctor come to an agreement about the doctor's expertise, and what constitutes a better state of health, and they engage in the project together. Whether or not that project would work for anyone else is irrelevant, and not conducive to the present concern. But that capacity to engage socially requires a common reality in which the two can meet and negotiate terms.
+On this understanding, the example of the doctor and the professional teacher make much more sense. Now, instead of incommensurable individual worlds, it is possible to construct social realities out of agreements between individuals, and pragmatism can function as a substitute for aletheia. Indeed, this is precisely the point of what Burnyeat (1990) calls the "New Formulation". The sick man and his doctor come to an agreement about the doctor's expertise, and what constitutes a better state of health, and they engage in the project together. Whether or not that project would work for anyone else is irrelevant, and not conducive to the present concern. But that capacity to engage socially requires a common reality in which the two can meet and negotiate terms.
 
 Burnyeat (1990) uses the dialectic around "advantage" to make this point, and in his footnotes, says "the New Formulation employs a somewhat different vocabulary from the Defence. The key word in the Defence was chrestos, translated 'sound', 'wholesome'. This is now replaced by 'sumphereon', 'advantageous', or 'in one's interest'.." It's the "*in one's interest*" part that is most interesting, here. This suggests precisely, the "*true for me*" formulation of the early statements of the doctrine. But, it's framed in terms of what is *valued* rather than *what is judged true*.
 
@@ -107,7 +107,7 @@ As Fine and Burnyeat have both rightly pointed out, this formulation of the argu
 
 4. Therefore, Protagoras must believe that his own doctrine is false *for them* (reaffirming 1)
 
-On this formulation, the argument is valid and non-question-begging, but simply affirms Relativism by example. So, at long last, we can finally see that it it is straightforward that Plato has *not* shown that the Protagorean doctrine of *homo mensura* is self-refuting.
+On this formulation, the argument is valid and non-question-begging, but simply affirms Relativism by example. So, at long last, we can finally see that it is straightforward that Plato has *not* shown that the Protagorean doctrine of *homo mensura* is self-refuting.
 
 ## Conclusion
 

content/post/religion-and-rational-belief.md

@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ Alvin Plantinga offers five plausible definitions for rationality in his book Wa
 
 The rationality of proper mental function is essentially asking whether religious belief is the product of dysfunction of the rational faculty. It is to interpret the idea of the rational as the ‘sane’. Plantinga makes a distinction here between ‘internal rationality’, which he describes as ‘proper function of all belief-producing processes downstream from experience’, and the ‘upstream’ experiences, which he divides into two types: phenomenal (sensuous) imagery, and doxastic experience.[^16]  Beliefs formed as a result of phenomenal imagery are formed ‘in response to sensuous imagery and on the basis of such imagery’. They are beliefs of the kind expressed by Newman as ‘the sun is shining’, or ‘I see an elephant, and not a pink flamingo’. Proper functioning, here, would be to hold the belief that the sun is shining or that there is a pink flamingo before you, when you are in fact presented with the sense experience of sunshine or pink flamingos. Internal rationality, on Plantinga’s view, would prevent the perceptions from being understood as anything other than what they actually are. If there were an incongruity, it would have to be as a result of a malfunction in the senses, not the ‘belief-producing processes’.
 
-Beliefs formed by way of doxastic experience, on the other hand, are beliefs grounded in phenomenal experiences unaccompanied by sense evidence. Such things as memories, the feeling of certainty itself, a priori understanding, and the awareness of the self, are all instances of doxastic experience, according to Plantinga, because they accompany belief formation but are unaccompanied by sense experience. So, for example, the memory of a party you attended in Cleveland, the feeling of certainty that it was *Cleveland* and not *New York*, the a priori understanding that a city is not a set, and the awareness that it is *you* who is recalling the memory of the party, and not your brother Tom in Toledo, would all be examples of doxastic experiences leading to specific beliefs. Here, it is is possible to exhibit ‘external’ irrationality, while still exhibiting internal rationality. Plantinga borrows Descartes’ famous example of the madmen who believe their heads are made of pottery. If the mind is ‘so troubled and clouded by the violent vapours of black bile that they… imagine that they have an earthenware head'[^17]  then it would be internally rational to believe so, and it would be pragmatically rational to, say, always wear a helmet, or to wash one’s head with dish soap or glass cleaner.
+Beliefs formed by way of doxastic experience, on the other hand, are beliefs grounded in phenomenal experiences unaccompanied by sense evidence. Such things as memories, the feeling of certainty itself, a priori understanding, and the awareness of the self, are all instances of doxastic experience, according to Plantinga, because they accompany belief formation but are unaccompanied by sense experience. So, for example, the memory of a party you attended in Cleveland, the feeling of certainty that it was *Cleveland* and not *New York*, the a priori understanding that a city is not a set, and the awareness that it is *you* who is recalling the memory of the party, and not your brother Tom in Toledo, would all be examples of doxastic experiences leading to specific beliefs. Here, it is possible to exhibit ‘external’ irrationality, while still exhibiting internal rationality. Plantinga borrows Descartes’ famous example of the madmen who believe their heads are made of pottery. If the mind is ‘so troubled and clouded by the violent vapours of black bile that they… imagine that they have an earthenware head'[^17]  then it would be internally rational to believe so, and it would be pragmatically rational to, say, always wear a helmet, or to wash one’s head with dish soap or glass cleaner.
 
 Here, one might think it easy to identify signs of external irrationality in religious beliefs. But this would be to assume the conclusion being sought. Plantinga defines external rationality as, ‘proper function with respect to the formation of the sensuous experience on which perceptual belief is based, and… in the formation of the right kind of doxastic experience — that is, the sort of doxastic experience required by proper function.'[^18]  So, to show that the beliefs of, say, a Christian, are irrational, one would have to show that both his perceptual and doxastic beliefs are the product of a perceptual or cognitive malfunction. But, everyday experience shows that this is not the case, at least cognitively. Most Christians are functional enough to raise families and hold steady jobs (some, even as academics, as Plantinga points out). So, a demonstration of irrationality on these grounds would require an appeal to evidence, and something Plantinga calls ‘warrant’ will address that move. This point will be concluded in the section on evidence.
 
@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ When asking questions that have things in the material world as their object, em
 
 Is this the kind of evidence that could be used to provide support for religious beliefs? Perhaps some beliefs would be amenable to physical evidence. For example, take belief in the phenomena of stigmata. We might be able to collect blood or skin tissue samples during the time someone is having an episode, or record certain physical conditions present at the moment of eruption of the phenomenon, or even take testimony from eye witnesses. But what does this information have to offer us? In the case of the Eiffel Tower, the information we collect seems directly connected to the question we are asking: namely, how tall is the structure? Linear measurements of the shadow, combined with calculations using distance to the structure and angle to its peak, will in fact give us (roughly speaking) the height at the peak. But what is the question we are asking about the person experiencing an episode of stigmata (or reporting that he had witnessed one)? The naive question is to ask whether or not its real, but what do we mean by ‘real’? Hume asked a slightly more sophisticated version: is it reasonable to believe that this person experienced a miracle? But this is in effect, the same question. Are miracles ‘real’?
 
-Setting aside the adjudication of Hume’s case against them, the point here is to consider what evidence, understood as information collected from experience (understood as the systematic collection of material evidence), would help us answer that question? The Roman Catholic church adheres to a list of twelve criteria[^27]  — all of them forms of material evidence — that must be satisfied, before they will accept the phenomenon as a miracle. But the list has two interesting peculiarities. First, one of its primary purposes is to rule out imitators. For example, criteria 11 is ‘the wounds do not close perfectly and instantaneously’. This criteria exists because many have attempted to emulate stigmata by surreptitiously dabbing blood in their palms and ankles, to emulate the ‘real’ effect of stigmata. Second, it presupposes the reality of the incarnation. Critiera 1 says that the stigmata must be present on the body in all five places where Christ was wounded, and Criteria 12, says that the person experiencing the stigmata must be undergoing intense physical and moral suffering when the phenomenon ocurrs (congruent with the intense physical and moral suffering Christ underwent on the cross). To put it in the form of a modus pones: ‘if the incarnation is true, then then for a stigmata to be authentic it must exhibit the full effects of the crucifixion. The incarnation is true, and this particular stigmata does exhibit the effects of the crucifixion. Therefore this particular stigmata is authentic’.
+Setting aside the adjudication of Hume’s case against them, the point here is to consider what evidence, understood as information collected from experience (understood as the systematic collection of material evidence), would help us answer that question? The Roman Catholic church adheres to a list of twelve criteria[^27]  — all of them forms of material evidence — that must be satisfied, before they will accept the phenomenon as a miracle. But the list has two interesting peculiarities. First, one of its primary purposes is to rule out imitators. For example, criteria 11 is ‘the wounds do not close perfectly and instantaneously’. This criteria exists because many have attempted to emulate stigmata by surreptitiously dabbing blood in their palms and ankles, to emulate the ‘real’ effect of stigmata. Second, it presupposes the reality of the incarnation. Critiera 1 says that the stigmata must be present on the body in all five places where Christ was wounded, and Criteria 12, says that the person experiencing the stigmata must be undergoing intense physical and moral suffering when the phenomenon ocurrs (congruent with the intense physical and moral suffering Christ underwent on the cross). To put it in the form of a modus pones: ‘if the incarnation is true, then for a stigmata to be authentic it must exhibit the full effects of the crucifixion. The incarnation is true, and this particular stigmata does exhibit the effects of the crucifixion. Therefore this particular stigmata is authentic’.
 
 The second point is the important one, here. If we accept just for the moment, that stigmata are instances of supernatural phenomena, it would not immediately follow that the phenomena were demonstrations of the truth of Christianity. Indeed, the church itself admits that the phenomenon can be classified into four different categories: (a) divine origin, (b) diabolical origin, (c) unknown origin, (d) psychological origin. By ‘divine origin’, the church just assumes Christian conception of God (which includes Christ as part of the Trinity), and everything else less than divine by degrees, concluding finally with a natural origin. But, setting aside the question of the assumed Christian theodicy, we can still ask if the presence of the background assumption of supernaturalism in general is reasonable, and whether physical evidence is indeed at least indicitive of that super nature. The case of stigmata does suggest that there is indeed a discernable difference between a hoaxer, a psychologically troubled person, and a genuine miracle, and (if the Catholic criteria is to be taken seriously) that physical evidence can provide support for assent in particular cases.
 
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ But suppose someone were to insist that the background assumption is enough to d
 
 The inductive skeptic is correct to identify the position that the empiricist is in (though he may be overstating his case a bit), but what is key here, is what the condemnation implies. The empiricist is relying on an undefended background assumption. That background assumption is the belief that the universe is orderly and predictable, and that it always will be so. In more theological terms, the empiricist implictly assents to the proposition that the universe exhibits a self-evident design. If we take that presupposition as the major premise in a deductive syllogism, suddenly, the problem of induction in science doesn’t look like much of a problem anymore, because all reasoning ultimately resolves to a deduction beginning with the order of the universe. But what gives us sufficient reason to take this first premise as read? What evidence sustains the expectation? Ultimately, again, we are stuck with Hume’s ten thousand sunrises, and not much else.[^29] 
 
-The point here, is not necessarily to prove the existence of God or even the existence of an overarching supernature. Rather, it is to highlight the need for something else besides mere evidence (even as it is rigorously conceived of in the scientific disciplines) in order to make a rational case. To say that the order of the universe is just a ‘brute fact’ or an axiom of which no question can be asked coherently, is to say that the universe itself is fundamentally irrational, despite all the order apparent to our sense experience, because there can be no explanation for it.[^30]  But if we are to remain committed to the implicit standard of the original syllogism (that beliefs must be rational to be respectable, and evidence-sensitive to be rational), then there are certain questions that cannot be answered rationally even if we take evidence into account, without also allowing for the possibility of explanations that extend beyond matter in motion. Thus, it might even be said that religious belief is not only supported by the evidence, but also it would be irrational to reject certain religious beliefs that are strongly suggested by the the very idea of evidence itself. For example, a belief in the existence of God.
+The point here, is not necessarily to prove the existence of God or even the existence of an overarching supernature. Rather, it is to highlight the need for something else besides mere evidence (even as it is rigorously conceived of in the scientific disciplines) in order to make a rational case. To say that the order of the universe is just a ‘brute fact’ or an axiom of which no question can be asked coherently, is to say that the universe itself is fundamentally irrational, despite all the order apparent to our sense experience, because there can be no explanation for it.[^30]  But if we are to remain committed to the implicit standard of the original syllogism (that beliefs must be rational to be respectable, and evidence-sensitive to be rational), then there are certain questions that cannot be answered rationally even if we take evidence into account, without also allowing for the possibility of explanations that extend beyond matter in motion. Thus, it might even be said that religious belief is not only supported by the evidence, but also it would be irrational to reject certain religious beliefs that are strongly suggested by the very idea of evidence itself. For example, a belief in the existence of God.
 
 **V.** **Faith As Co-Estensive With Rationality**
 
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ The argument under scrutiny clearly defines faith as a religious belief, and sim
 
 According to John Bishop[^32] , conceptions of faith can be roughly divided into various different categories, some of which overlap. In the most broad sense, he distinguishes between faith understood as an individual ‘act’, and faith understood as the ‘state’ an individual is in. Taking the notion of faith as a state, understandings of faith can then further be divided into two groups of either cognitive or non-cognitive ‘models’. Under the cognitive head, he includes ‘special knowledge’, the ‘belief’, and the ‘doxastic venture’.
 
-The ‘belief model’ of faith can be summarized as belief that propositions with theological content are true. This model of faith is one tightly coupled to reason, as its justifying method. Rational beliefs are obviously, then, beliefs that are justified to the degree that their arguments are rational, and supported by evidence. Swinburn (via Bishop) seems to think this could enable some religious beliefs to qualify as knowledge on the Justified True Belief theory of epistemology. For certain religious beliefs, this seems possible. For example, there are dozens of good arguments that purport to demonstrate the existence of God. Some begin with the assumption of God’s existence (similar to the case of stigmata above), and argue in modus ponens fashion to a state of affairs in the world. Others begin with an observation of a state of affairs in the world, and reason to God from it. Several of of the latter are highly convincing, as well as evidence-sensitive.[^33]  This is the kind of faith that Thomas Aquinas had in mind, and what is commonly refered to, today, as ‘natural theology’. It is the reasoned belief that existence includes the supernatural, and that the supernatural is where God can be found. This is, more or less, the implicit conception of faith this paper has been relying upon.
+The ‘belief model’ of faith can be summarized as belief that propositions with theological content are true. This model of faith is one tightly coupled to reason, as its justifying method. Rational beliefs are obviously, then, beliefs that are justified to the degree that their arguments are rational, and supported by evidence. Swinburn (via Bishop) seems to think this could enable some religious beliefs to qualify as knowledge on the Justified True Belief theory of epistemology. For certain religious beliefs, this seems possible. For example, there are dozens of good arguments that purport to demonstrate the existence of God. Some begin with the assumption of God’s existence (similar to the case of stigmata above), and argue in modus ponens fashion to a state of affairs in the world. Others begin with an observation of a state of affairs in the world, and reason to God from it. Several of the latter are highly convincing, as well as evidence-sensitive.[^33]  This is the kind of faith that Thomas Aquinas had in mind, and what is commonly refered to, today, as ‘natural theology’. It is the reasoned belief that existence includes the supernatural, and that the supernatural is where God can be found. This is, more or less, the implicit conception of faith this paper has been relying upon.
 
 But this cannot be enough. If we can rest our belief in the existence of God on rationally inferred conclusions to arguments that drawn in particular from direct experience of things like change and order, why can we not simply call this a rational belief? What does the idea of faith add to our understanding of faith? If one can reason one’s way to the bare fact of the existence of God, then perhaps faith is not operative in that belief. How would we know the difference? According to Bishop, what distinguishes mere rational inferences from faith beliefs, is the content of the belief. So, for example, an argument for the existence of quarks or dark matter that resulted in firmly held beliefs that quarks and dark matter existed, would constitute natural beliefs. But arguments for the existence of God or sin or angels that led to beliefs that these things existed, would constitute faith beliefs. This raises all sorts of questions, of which there is unfortunately, no space left to address.
 

content/post/research-notebook-on-free-will.md

@@ -117,7 +117,7 @@ But all of this is starting to distract from the central question of this explor
 
 [^1]: A. Schopenhauer, Prize Essay On The Freedom Of The Will, New York, Dover Publications, 2005
 [^2]: P. E. Tse, The Neural Basis of Free Will, Cambridge Mass., MIT Press, 2013
-[^3]: D. Dennett, Freedom Evolves, Londone, Penguine Books, 2003 
+[^3]: D. Dennett, Freedom Evolves, London, Penguine Books, 2003 
 [^4]: R. Kane, The Significance of Free Will, New York, Oxford University Press, 1998 
 [^5]: M. Balaguer, Free Will, Cambridge Mass., MIT Press, 2014
 [^6]: G. Watson (ed), Free Will (Oxford Readings), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013 

content/post/ruminations-on-justice-in-plato-and-aristotle.md

@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ So, unlike Plato, Aristotle wants to start with what he thinks is the more famil
 
 Plato presupposes the realm of Ideal Forms, within which the Form of The Good resides, and in which every particular worldly phenomena “participates”. The form of Justice resides there also, and in a hierarchical relationship with The Good. Thus, circumstances on earth which participate in the Form of Justice must also be participants in the Form of The Good. This is why we say that just things are good things. And, unlike Aristotle, Plato makes very few distinctions in the varieties of justice because for him, all instances of justice must unify under the Form of Justice. Thus unified, it is understood. Today, we might think of this as a kind of reductionism. But Plato is not interested in an “explanation” of justice, in either the scientific sense we understand today, or in the taxonomic sense that Aristotle employed. Rather, he sought a holistic apprehension of the Form, similar to what we might today call a ‘beatific vision’. To see the whole, in all its perfected magnificence, as a complete totality, regardless of how baroque its contours, is the pinnacle of wisdom for Plato.
 
-Aristotle, on the other hand, insists that an *account* of all those baroque intricacies are necessary for genuine understanding. In fact, in The Politics, he is convinced that the parts of justice which he does find on examination, are not something that can be unified into a totality in the way that Plato wants it. There are, he insists, at least three ‘kinds’ of particular justice, and at least two kinds of general justice — only one of which resembles Plato’s perfect totality. But this is not a serious problem for Aristotle’s ethics, since justice conforms to virtue, and virtue to happiness (eudaimonia). Justice, on Aristotle’s account, is the virtue concerned primarily with *the other*, while courage, temperance, and prudence are primarily concerned with *the self*. Being other-regarding means cultivating social habits that maximize the actualization of potentials inherent to the individual, which are then expressed in the aquisition of one’s proper station, relative to others. In aggregate, then, Aristotelian justice effects the same sort of natural order by the freely exercised deliberate desire of individuals, as Plato seeks to impose by authoritarian mandate through rigorous indoctrination and conditioning of citizens.
+Aristotle, on the other hand, insists that an *account* of all those baroque intricacies are necessary for genuine understanding. In fact, in The Politics, he is convinced that the parts of justice which he does find on examination, are not something that can be unified into a totality in the way that Plato wants it. There are, he insists, at least three ‘kinds’ of particular justice, and at least two kinds of general justice — only one of which resembles Plato’s perfect totality. But this is not a serious problem for Aristotle’s ethics, since justice conforms to virtue, and virtue to happiness (Eudaimonia). Justice, on Aristotle’s account, is the virtue concerned primarily with *the other*, while courage, temperance, and prudence are primarily concerned with *the self*. Being other-regarding means cultivating social habits that maximize the actualization of potentials inherent to the individual, which are then expressed in the aquisition of one’s proper station, relative to others. In aggregate, then, Aristotelian justice effects the same sort of natural order by the freely exercised deliberate desire of individuals, as Plato seeks to impose by authoritarian mandate through rigorous indoctrination and conditioning of citizens.
 
 ### Justice and Society
 

content/post/social-construction-and-madness.md

@@ -18,17 +18,17 @@ First, what is a real object? In modern realist ontologies, objects are somethin
 
 But this is only half the story of "real" objects. Why do we call a planet a planet? Why do we call a magazine a magazine? Ontology focuses so tightly on the *thatness* of things, that it tends to ignore the *whatness* of them. But it is the *whatness* that makes it possible for us to distinguish one thing from another not just in a quantitative sense (ala Quine), but in a *qualitative* sense. It's not *just* an object, but *a planet* that I am looking at, through my telescope. It is not just an object from which I am reading a passage to you, but a *magazine*. Things aren't *just* things, in some indiscriminate, undifferentiated abstract way. They are *instances of kinds*. A magazine is not the *kind* of thing that a planet is. A chair is not the *kind* of thing a king is.
 
-Where I am going with this, is to suggest that *everything*, to a certain extent, and in certain ways, is a social object. Namely, social agreement is required to establish the *nature* of almost every object. Whether we're talking about the characteristics of sub-atomic particles, or the structural constitution of a government, it is social negotiations of various kinds that are necessary to establish agreement on what is and is not "real" about those things. For scientists, it is the scientific method applied in experimentation and collaboration, that function as the form of negotiation. For politicians and citizens, it is public debate, policymaking, voting, and armed conflict that function as the form of negotiation. For the everyday person, it is experiential corroboration that functions as the form of negotiation ("do you see what I see?"). It is this last form that tends to be taken for "common sense" ontology. Social construction, therefore, is at the heart of all ontology, whether we realize it or not. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do social construction.
+Where I am going with this, is to suggest that *everything*, to a certain extent, and in certain ways, is a social object. Namely, social agreement is required to establish the *nature* of almost every object. Whether we're talking about the characteristics of sub-atomic particles, or the structural constitution of a government, it is social negotiations of various kinds that are necessary to establish agreement on what is and is not "real" about those things. For scientists, it is the scientific method applied in experimentation and collaboration, that function as the form of negotiation. For politicians and citizens, it is public debate, policymaking, voting, and armed conflict that function as the form of negotiation. For the every day person, it is experiential corroboration that functions as the form of negotiation ("do you see what I see?"). It is this last form that tends to be taken for "common sense" ontology. Social construction, therefore, is at the heart of all ontology, whether we realize it or not. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do social construction.
 
-The everyday experience of reality is not just as collection of things, but also as a *forum for acting*. Things have their meanings (are given their reality) in relation to the *role they play* in the *ends of human action*. (Peterson, Maps of Meaning, Chapter 1). A chair is an object of a certain kind. It has a specific shape, a specific material composition, a specific creative history, and especially, *a specific use*. While it is true that there would be no chairs if there were no humans, this is a trivial fact. The more interesting observation, is that there would be no chairs, if men did not want them.
+The every day experience of reality is not just as collection of things, but also as a *forum for acting*. Things have their meanings (are given their reality) in relation to the *role they play* in the *ends of human action*. (Peterson, Maps of Meaning, Chapter 1). A chair is an object of a certain kind. It has a specific shape, a specific material composition, a specific creative history, and especially, *a specific use*. While it is true that there would be no chairs if there were no humans, this is a trivial fact. The more interesting observation, is that there would be no chairs, if men did not want them.
 
 But, would that also mean there would be no trees, if men did not want them? Setting aside the impulse to clear-cutting, the point here, is that there are some things that seem to have their meanings - their *whatness* - independent of human intention. It is that independence that seems to be at the center of the "really real" complaint. But implicit in that complaint, is the presupposition that the human experience of a thing somehow cannot count toward its reality. That chairs are only "real" in some vague metaphorical sense, as compared to trees, because chairs depend a great deal more on their relation to human experience, for their existence (as expressed in their meaning). In short, the degree to which a thing's nature is dependent upon social agreement, is the degree to which its reality will be disputed. And the degree to which its reality is disputed, is the degree to which the object's meaning is intertwined with human experience. But the problem isn't whether the things we call trees would disappear if we didn't want them. The problem is, whether those things would have a *different nature* if we had a different relation to them. Let's look at a different example, that will make this point more clear.
 
 There is little *use* we can make of planets (at least, for right now). But there is a consistent experience of them, up in the heavens, exhibiting certain properties, and behaving in certain ways. However, there is dispute over them. Astronomers have been arguing for decades over whether Pluto actually *is* a planet or not. Before that, they were arguing over whether there *was* a Pluto (whether planet, or not). This is an interesting example to explore, on the question of the reality of social objects, because it nicely defines an important categorical boundary.
 
-The question of whether or not there *is* a Pluto, is a question of its *thatness*. In other words, *that* it exists. The question of whether or not Pluto *is a planet*, is a question of its *whatness*. In otherwords, *what* exists. The former is almost entirely a purely empirical question. When we look up at the night sky, in the right place, at the right time, do we we see something? And can we distinguish it numerically from other somethings that we've already seen? There is a minimal amount of social negotiation involved in this, but only to the extent of corroboration. You would be asking your colleague, do you have the same visual experience that I have? Assuming you both have reasonably good equipment, are competent with telescopes, and are visually healthy, you'll come to the same answer. The latter question, however, is a question of identifying *the nature* of the thing seen. Do you see *what* I see? Do you see a *planet*? Your colleague might say, no, he sees an asteroid. And the answer you got would depend mainly on the outcome of social negotiations that took place around the time that you asked. In 1966, he would have answered, yes, he sees a planet.
+The question of whether or not there *is* a Pluto, is a question of its *thatness*. In other words, *that* it exists. The question of whether or not Pluto *is a planet*, is a question of its *whatness*. In other words, *what* exists. The former is almost entirely a purely empirical question. When we look up at the night sky, in the right place, at the right time, do we see something? And can we distinguish it numerically from other somethings that we've already seen? There is a minimal amount of social negotiation involved in this, but only to the extent of corroboration. You would be asking your colleague, do you have the same visual experience that I have? Assuming you both have reasonably good equipment, are competent with telescopes, and are visually healthy, you'll come to the same answer. The latter question, however, is a question of identifying *the nature* of the thing seen. Do you see *what* I see? Do you see a *planet*? Your colleague might say, no, he sees an asteroid. And the answer you got would depend mainly on the outcome of social negotiations that took place around the time that you asked. In 1966, he would have answered, yes, he sees a planet.
 
-The shift in identification and definition of the 9th celestial body in the solar system has as much to do with the politics of NASA's purpose, as it does with the property specifications of celestial bodies. In otherwords, the *nature* of Pluto is partially dependent on the *purposes* man intends for Pluto -- the role it plays in our ends. The same is true for money, borders, social institutions, and -- to raise a popular contemporary debate -- gender identities.
+The shift in identification and definition of the 9th celestial body in the solar system has as much to do with the politics of NASA's purpose, as it does with the property specifications of celestial bodies. In other words, the *nature* of Pluto is partially dependent on the *purposes* man intends for Pluto -- the role it plays in our ends. The same is true for money, borders, social institutions, and -- to raise a popular contemporary debate -- gender identities.
 
 The arguments presently swirling around in popular culture over who is and who is not "a woman", are roughly analogous to the arguments over whether Pluto is or is not a planet. To a certain extent, the traditionalists are correct. There is a material reality to be contended with. Just as the celestial body is "really real", the human body is "really real". But the question is, what is *the nature* of the human body? There are, of course, property specifications for kinds of human bodies. While it is true that those property specifications do distinquish between two different *kinds* of human bodies, the question before society now seems to be, what *role* do those bodies play in the end of human action?
 
@@ -36,6 +36,6 @@ Admittedly, this is a slightly more complicated problem than the question of Plu
 
 In the past, the end of human action was *the good*, both in a relative and an absolute sense, as revealed to us through philosophy and scripture. Male and female -- man and woman -- were complementary identities that cooperatively served the pursuit of *the good*, by way of the establishment of families, and the distribution of social responsibilities like protection, provision, nurturing, and tutoring, across those complementary identities as was prescribed by social institutions. Genders, and their tightly associated roles, served to orient the society toward *the good* implied in its theological and philosophical narratives describing its common ends. But the theological and philosophical narratives of *this* society have all been either relegated to obscurity or outright abandoned over the last 300 years, and *the good* that served as the guiding star for it is no longer visible to it. As such, one by one, all of this society's "social objects" that were once very real, are gradually falling out of existence.
 
-The gender debate is just one more of these existential collapses, and it is happening with such aggressive force, that some are even struggling to recognize the underlying material reality below it. Imagine a fight over Pluto so vociferous, that astronomers were actually questioning themselves when they looked into their telescopes, as to whether they were really seeing anything at all. On the other end of the spectrum today, we see examples of Gogol's infamous madman everywhere we look. Everyone is now his own King of Spain. Only, we are not limited to merely being one more King of Spain. Some of us are dragons and dogs, some ornate buildings and transdimensional aliens, and some are at one moment men, and another moment women. In short, having disconnected ourselves from the *the good* as a common object, it is now the case that both *everything* and *nothing* is "really real". Which is to say, nothing can be said about what is real.
+The gender debate is just one more of these existential collapses, and it is happening with such aggressive force, that some are even struggling to recognize the underlying material reality below it. Imagine a fight over Pluto so vociferous, that astronomers were actually questioning themselves when they looked into their telescopes, as to whether they were really seeing anything at all. On the other end of the spectrum today, we see examples of Gogol's infamous madman everywhere we look. Everyone is now his own King of Spain. Only, we are not limited to merely being one more King of Spain. Some of us are dragons and dogs, some ornate buildings and transdimensional aliens, and some are at one moment men, and another moment women. In short, having disconnected ourselves from *the good* as a common object, it is now the case that both *everything* and *nothing* is "really real". Which is to say, nothing can be said about what is real.
 
-Social objects are "really real", but only insofar as they are the result of a *meaningful* construction process, and *meaningful* construction is only possible when man is capable of discovering and orienting himself toward *the good*. Thus oriented, his intentions and actions will impose a role on objects that bring them into existence as a part of the common end of *the good*, and will give them a natural place in the hiearchy of being, oriented toward that good. Without that common end, all ends are disparate and irreconcilable, because every individual not only *has* his own ends, but *is* his own end. This, in turn, makes impossible the social negotiation necessary for the construction of social objects. The end result is what we see in the popular culture today: wars of will and caprice. Social hierarchies formed haphazardly around a debased notion of power (some of us would call that evil), rather than a collective aspiration toward the common end of *the good* (some of us would call that God).
+Social objects are "really real", but only insofar as they are the result of a *meaningful* construction process, and *meaningful* construction is only possible when man is capable of discovering and orienting himself toward *the good*. Thus oriented, his intentions and actions will impose a role on objects that bring them into existence as a part of the common end of *the good*, and will give them a natural place in the hiearchy of being, oriented toward that good. Without that common end, all ends are disparate and irreconcilable, because every individual not only *has* his own ends, but *is* his own end. This, in turn, makes impossible the social negotiation necessary for the construction of social objects. The end result is what we see in the popular culture today: wars of will and caprice. Social hierarchies formed haphazardly around a debased notion of power (some of us would call that evil), rather than a collective aspiration toward the common end of *the good* (some of us would call that God).

content/post/stefan-molyneux-and-the-definition-of-love.md

@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ Thinking about these assertions (and much of the context around them, when they
 
 ### Apetizer: Virtue and The Good
 
-Before we get into the definition itself, I want to raise a preface concern. Stefan seems to muddle the distinction between between virtue and *the good*. He keeps talking about the pursuit of *virtue*, when he really seems to mean the pursuit of *the good*. But it’s not entirely clear, because he uses the term “virtue” in a number of different senses.
+Before we get into the definition itself, I want to raise a preface concern. Stefan seems to muddle the distinction between virtue and *the good*. He keeps talking about the pursuit of *virtue*, when he really seems to mean the pursuit of *the good*. But it’s not entirely clear, because he uses the term “virtue” in a number of different senses.
 
 Stefan argues that people want to see themselves as virtuous and they do this by either pursuing the good opinion of “the mob”, or by pursuing self-love. Those who pursue the opinion of “the mob”, according to Stefan, are pursuing self-hatred, since they surrender their moral autonomy to others. For those who pursue self-love, however (and since love is an involuntary response to virtue) it is really virtue they pursue.
 

content/post/the-euthyphro-expansion-pack.md

@@ -300,7 +300,7 @@ And, without further ado, I present to you: the Euthyphro Expansion Pack:
 
 > Abd: Absolutely. But what does this have to do with Justice?
 
-> Soc: My anonymous friend, because you have helped me so greatly, I will gladly share what I know with you: In the same way as the triangle is the shadow of the Tetrahedron, the soul I have constructed, and the the image of justice within it, is a mere shadow! The true soul, and the image of true justice within it, has four aspects, not three!
+> Soc: My anonymous friend, because you have helped me so greatly, I will gladly share what I know with you: In the same way as the triangle is the shadow of the Tetrahedron, the soul I have constructed, and the image of justice within it, is a mere shadow! The true soul, and the image of true justice within it, has four aspects, not three!
 
 > In addition to Spirit, Appetite, and Reasoning, there is a fourth aspect. The aspect that is shared with the gods. The aspect that looks upward, not in the way that the Reasoning does, but toward the gods. The virtue that tempers it is Reverence or Piety. In the same way that Wisdom tempers the Reasoning aspect. The vice that corrupts this aspect is Vaingloriousness or Impiety, in the same way that Pride corrupts the Reasoning aspect. It is the third horse harnessed to the chariot of the soul. We shall call this aspect “Faith”.
 
@@ -336,4 +336,4 @@ Plato, Socrates, And The Dialogues, Professor Michael Sugrue
 
 Mathpages.com
 
-```[Imported from exitingthecave.com on 28 November 2021```
+```[Imported from exitingthecave.com on 28 November 2021```

content/post/the-four-boxes.md

@@ -23,6 +23,6 @@ The originator of this metaphor was a Senator of South Carolina in 1830. He and
 
 I think the United States was hovering somewhere between soap box and ballot box until very recently. But given the sorry state of broadcast and print media, and the heavy-handed censoriousness and china-pandering of the social media giants, it's pretty clear that there won't be a soap box anymore, by the end of Joe Biden's "presidency".
 
-And now, given what we've seen take place over the last seven days, I think it's crystal clear that the the "ballot box" option is fading into nostalgia as well. So, given the political parties' willingness to engage in open censorship, and the their brazen willingness to fuck with the electoral process, it seems clear that we are transitioning into jury box territory.
+And now, given what we've seen take place over the last seven days, I think it's crystal clear that the "ballot box" option is fading into nostalgia as well. So, given the political parties' willingness to engage in open censorship, and their brazen willingness to fuck with the electoral process, it seems clear that we are transitioning into jury box territory.
 
 If Donald Trump's challenges come to nothing (and I suspect they will), then we are headed for a very bumpy decade. I hope your children are field trained on the AR-15, because they're going to need it.

content/post/the-irrationalist.md

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ draft: false
 
 Sam Harris, {{< abstab title="in his latest podcast," url="https://samharris.org/podcasts/174-life-mind/" >}} gives his listeners a special treat late in the episode. He hounds Richard Dawkins into submitting to a mindfulness meditation, and we get to spend nearly 15 minutes listening to Harris guide us and his guest through it, while waiting for Dawkins to finally ask Harris "what was the point of that?". 
 
-What is remarkable about this whole segment, is the sales pitch that Harris has to offer Dawkins, in order to cow him into doing it. Through it, Harris essentially admits to a view of the universe that is fundamentally irrational. There are aspects of reality that are inaccessible to the rational mind, Harris insists. There are states of transcendence that require the surrender of the conscious self, and the quieting of the thinking mind, in order to to achieve them. Finally, he tells us, the most skeptical of us must imbibe hallucinogenic and psychotropic chemicals in order to disengage the critical faculties and "take the first step". 
+What is remarkable about this whole segment, is the sales pitch that Harris has to offer Dawkins, in order to cow him into doing it. Through it, Harris essentially admits to a view of the universe that is fundamentally irrational. There are aspects of reality that are inaccessible to the rational mind, Harris insists. There are states of transcendence that require the surrender of the conscious self, and the quieting of the thinking mind, to achieve them. Finally, he tells us, the most skeptical of us must imbibe hallucinogenic and psychotropic chemicals in order to disengage the critical faculties and "take the first step". 
 
 My point here, is not to question the sanity of these methods, or even the metaphysics. My point is also not to question the morality of drug-induced altered states. Rather, it is to point out an incredibly glaring inconsistency in Harris' narrative about himself, and the nature of the universe. On the one hand, he is adamant in his atheism and almost dogmatic in his commitment to the idea that such things as truth, goodness, and beauty can be arrived at entirely through reason and science -- and that religious dogmas asserting views of these things are fundamentally wrong, because of their inherent irrationality. 
 

content/post/the-justice-of-market-outcomes.md

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ In any given exchange market (whether free or otherwise), goods and services are
 
 Broadly speaking, there are two sense of justice that underlie discussions of the market and its moral character. The first, is the sense of the “right ordering” of the universe and its contents. This could be thought of as the Platonic sense of justice[^1], wherein individuals are incomplete component parts of a harmonious whole into which they fit. By their particular properties, individuals are sorted into a hierarchy of roles that are deserving of certain benefits and obliged to certain duties. The just society, on this view, is one in which all men properly assume the role they’ve been assigned on account of their properties, and carry out duties and receive benefits according to the divine justice that imposed the right order in the first place. Thus, any benefit received or duty executed that violated this preordained order, would constitute an undeserved outcome, which would be unjust by definition. The second sense of justice is found in the character of particular relations between individuals. On this conception, the hierarchy one finds oneself a part of is less important than the awareness of the value present in any given exchange between oneself and others. This sense of justice could be thought of as roughly Aristotelian[^2]; what matters is correct proportion of reciprocity in exchange. The just relationship is one in which participants owe to each other roughly equal proportions of good or evil, to the extent that they have received the same. In such a regime, an “undeserved outcome” would be any exchange in which the outcome of the exchange resulted in an imbalanced ratio of cost and benefit. If the numerator and denominator of the ratio representing the reciprocity involved in the exchange did not resolve to 1, an injustice has occurred, and in such a situation, both parties will have experienced an undeserved outcome: one will have benefited undeservedly, the other, suffered undeservedly.
 
-F.A . Hayek[^3] denies that the first sense of justice could be legitimate. He argues from a strictly descriptive view of social organization. He says that any attempt to attribute a moral valence to one particular ordering of society over another would be incoherent because there could be no sense in which any given pattern is “right” or “wrong”. Think of a flock of starlings, swirling and shifting in various shapes and formations across an evening sky. At best, all we could do is describe the collective shape and patterns of motion mathematically. We might even be able to predict their patterns, given enough information about the biology of starlings, and the physics of flight. But what we could not reasonably say, is that any given location in the sky, any given distribution of birds, or any given pattern of flight of the flock, is the “correct” one. This is a problem as old as Plato’s dialogues. To what are we referring, when we declare any particular ordering of society (or any particular distribution of goods in the market) to be just or unjust? How could this be anything other than an an arbitrary preference (thus, lacking the moral authority to justify the imposition of force against anyone in order to impose it)? Resolving the Parmenidean problem is beyond the scope of this essay, but it does provide enough justification to call into question the coherence of justice as a correctly “patterned distribution” (of men or goods or both). Hayek’s criticism of this first sense of justice is evocative of Robert Nozick[^4]. However, it is a much stronger claim than Nozick’s. He also rejected “patterned distributions”, but not on Humean grounds. Rather, Nozick takes the moral valence of the principles of liberty and equality as John Rawls presents them in his Theory of Justice, but points to an inconsistency present in Rawls’ theory, as a result of assigning these values. Rawls holds liberty up, on the one hand, as a “lexical” principle against which all other principles are to be subordinated. On the other hand, he thinks that forced redistributions (antithetical to liberty) are justifiable in order to satisfy the patterned distributions mandated by the limits of his Difference Principle. Rawls never sufficiently reconciles this tension, and the best his defenders can offer is to say that practical limitations at the boundaries of any principle will necessarily require the principle to be sacrificed sometimes. This is hardly consolation, when the principle in question is itself liberty. So, even if we could argue that Hayek was making too strong a claim, it still seems that the first sense of justice is untenable from the point of view of Nozick.
+F.A . Hayek[^3] denies that the first sense of justice could be legitimate. He argues from a strictly descriptive view of social organization. He says that any attempt to attribute a moral valence to one particular ordering of society over another would be incoherent because there could be no sense in which any given pattern is “right” or “wrong”. Think of a flock of starlings, swirling and shifting in various shapes and formations across an evening sky. At best, all we could do is describe the collective shape and patterns of motion mathematically. We might even be able to predict their patterns, given enough information about the biology of starlings, and the physics of flight. But what we could not reasonably say, is that any given location in the sky, any given distribution of birds, or any given pattern of flight of the flock, is the “correct” one. This is a problem as old as Plato’s dialogues. To what are we referring, when we declare any particular ordering of society (or any particular distribution of goods in the market) to be just or unjust? How could this be anything other than an arbitrary preference (thus, lacking the moral authority to justify the imposition of force against anyone in order to impose it)? Resolving the Parmenidean problem is beyond the scope of this essay, but it does provide enough justification to call into question the coherence of justice as a correctly “patterned distribution” (of men or goods or both). Hayek’s criticism of this first sense of justice is evocative of Robert Nozick[^4]. However, it is a much stronger claim than Nozick’s. He also rejected “patterned distributions”, but not on Humean grounds. Rather, Nozick takes the moral valence of the principles of liberty and equality as John Rawls presents them in his Theory of Justice, but points to an inconsistency present in Rawls’ theory, as a result of assigning these values. Rawls holds liberty up, on the one hand, as a “lexical” principle against which all other principles are to be subordinated. On the other hand, he thinks that forced redistributions (antithetical to liberty) are justifiable in order to satisfy the patterned distributions mandated by the limits of his Difference Principle. Rawls never sufficiently reconciles this tension, and the best his defenders can offer is to say that practical limitations at the boundaries of any principle will necessarily require the principle to be sacrificed sometimes. This is hardly consolation, when the principle in question is itself liberty. So, even if we could argue that Hayek was making too strong a claim, it still seems that the first sense of justice is untenable from the point of view of Nozick.
 
 The first sense of justice having been collapsed for lack coherence, we are thus left with the second sense of justice as a sort of balance of accounts between individuals. Here, we diverge from Aristotle in that the right proportions are not determined relative to an official judgment of contributions made to the public weal (as in, for example, the case of the honour earned by an Athenian juryman or soldier), but rather relative to a spontaneously emergent attribution of material value, determined dynamically, Hayek (and Adam Smith) argues, by the aggregate expression of the preferences of large numbers of individuals acting freely in the market. In simple terms, this means that if I decide I want a new pair of sneakers, I must be willing to pay a price somewhere in the range of prices set by the various competitors offering sneakers for sale. The exchange of a satisfactory pair of sneakers for the requisite sum of money, is a just market outcome, insofar as both parties are satisfied with the value received during the exchange. It is clear from this simple illustration that an undeserved outcome would be nearly synonymous with an unjust outcome, because there could be no situation in which one party believed his half of a bargain was undeserved, without it also constituting an obviously unjust imbalance of accounts – for example, if I had stolen the sneakers, or if the retailer had taken my payment and then refused to provide the shoes. On this view, it is difficult to see how any undeserved outcomes could be considered just. As Hayek puts it in Law, Legislation, and Liberty, “competitive prices arrived at without fraud, monopoly, and violence, are all that justice require[s]… it is only ‘the way in which competition is carried out, not its results, that can be judged just or unjust…” (pg. 236) Even in cases of charity, gift-giving, and inheritance, there is an exchange of value taking place. So, even if the kinds of value differ, it could be argued that the partners in the exchange have at least judged the values traded of like degree. All undeserved outcomes, then, would seem to already fall under the rubric of criminal activity: theft, fraud, or property destruction, which are obviously unjust.
 

content/post/the-one,-the-many,-and-the-liberal.md

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ Encyclopedia Britannica give us a slightly more refined specification, as a "*po
 
 >  "Liberalism... [is defined as] a self-conscious ideology of self-determination resting upon the assumption that the individual human intelligence is autonomous and that the progress of civilisation derives from the use of this autonomous intelligence in the efforts of humanity to survive and live the good life..." ~ Max Savelle, "Is Liberalism Dead?", November 1957
 
-So, now we have a more or less clear understanding of what Liberalism is, and to what end Liberalism is supposed to be the means. The end is the freedom to define for oneself what *the good life* amounts to, and the the method is the placement of the individual beyond the reach of either a judging or constraining authority. Liberalism, then, is purported to be useful for achieving human freedom as against an obstructing authority, and the question of the weekend is whether or not the method of individualism is no longer useful for achieving that end.
+So, now we have a more or less clear understanding of what Liberalism is, and to what end Liberalism is supposed to be the means. The end is the freedom to define for oneself what *the good life* amounts to, and the method is the placement of the individual beyond the reach of either a judging or constraining authority. Liberalism, then, is purported to be useful for achieving human freedom as against an obstructing authority, and the question of the weekend is whether or not the method of individualism is no longer useful for achieving that end.
 
 But once again, I am vexed by new questions. In the first place, why should the individual be treated as the focal point of analysis in politics? What makes the individual a reasonable unit of analysis, given the myriad of other options? Some will say, well, because it is the frame that best enables the expansion of freedom. Then I will ask my second question: freedom... *to do what*? *And, to what end*? What considerations ought I account for, when deciding how to act and which ends to pursue in those actions? Without reference or appeal to some common standard of truth, what could it even mean to "define the good life for oneself"? Or, am I to take the Oxford Learner's Dictionary as an advice column, and just do whatever comes to mind, simply because everyone has to "respect" it (whatever the action)?
 
@@ -29,9 +29,9 @@ If, on the other hand, we wish to back away from these sorts of absolutes, and w
 
 ### Plato And Divine Order
 
-Plato's dialogue The Parmenides is an account of an exchange between Socrates' and the great Greek master, Parmenides. Socrates was in his early career at the time, and sought to impress the elder with his theory of The Forms. Parmenides, of course, handed Socrates a big basket of embarrassing failures and sent him on his way. The point here, is not to re-adjudicate the Theory of Forms, but to posit an answer as to why this dialogue was written in the first place.
+Plato's dialogue The Parmenides is an account of an exchange between Socrates' and the great Greek master, Parmenides. Socrates was in his early career at the time, and sought to impress the elder with his theory of The Forms. Parmenides, of course, handed Socrates a big basket of embarrassing failures and sent him on his way. The point here, is not to re-adjudicate theory of Forms, but to posit an answer as to why this dialogue was written in the first place.
 
-Some scholars will tell you it is because Plato was beginning to question the doctrine of the Forms. Others, that he wanted to demonstrate that the dialectic could go in both directions. I think, however, that Plato spent his life grappling with the puzzle that Parmenides had left behind, and the Theory of Forms was just his way of trying to come to terms with the problem. Dialogues like the Timaeus are obvious examples of his speculative romps in search of a metaphysics that reconciled The One with The Many.
+Some scholars will tell you it is because Plato was beginning to question the doctrine of the Forms. Others, that he wanted to demonstrate that the dialectic could go in both directions. I think, however, that Plato spent his life grappling with the puzzle that Parmenides had left behind, and theory of Forms was just his way of trying to come to terms with the problem. Dialogues like the Timaeus are obvious examples of his speculative romps in search of a metaphysics that reconciled The One with The Many.
 
 Plato's best and most relevant attempt at this reconciliation is not the Timaeus or the Parmenides, but The Republic. In book two, at the outset of the investigation into Justice, Plato  gives us an exchange between Adiemantus and Socrates, that is clearly telegraphing the desire to reconcile The One and The Many:
 
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ Here, we also see a reconfiguration of the Platonic model of the soul. Rather th
 
 The Platonic sense of the soul being entrapped by the body, is an analogy of the individual being duty-bound by his role within the polis. For Aristotle, however, there is an upturning of the explanation of man's purpose in terms of his placement within the city, by explaining the city in terms of it's function in the perfection of the man. For Plato, the polis is the ruling principle, because it is the exemplar of ideal order to which man must conform for the sake of the good itself. But, for Aristotle, the polis is the ruling principle of the individuals that constitute it, because it is the organ that seeks the summum bonum for all the parts, individually.
 
-Thus, political philosophy for the ancient Greeks was the discipline (or science) of discerning the nature of justice from the order of the universe, and providing a method by which statesmen and politicians could pronounce that order in a way befitting of the customs and practices of the day. A process not dissimilar to a theocratic rule, except that the theos was discerned by means of reason, rather than by revelation.
+Thus, political philosophy for the ancient Greeks was the discipline (or science) of discerning the nature of justice from the order of the universe, and providing a method by which statesmen and politicians could pronounce that order in a way befitting of the customs and practices of the day. A process not dissimilar to a theocratic rule, except that theos was discerned by means of reason, rather than by revelation.
 
 Eventually, the neo-Platonists, and then the Christians after them, reoriented the *summum bonum* once again, from the mere earthly excellence of Aristotle, to a *telos* that amounts to absolute reunion with the Godhead, in an attempt to reassert The One over the many polei with which Aristotle had left them grappling. To do this, they couple both reason and revelation together in a kind of cooperative venture. As Aquinas put it, we were to understand what could be by nature, and grace would take us the rest of the way.
 

content/post/the-parable-of-the-invisible-gardener.md

@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ Flew explains the parable, thusly:
 
 In other words, the believer was making a distinction without a real difference. Or, to put Flew's claim even more plainly, if there is no real difference in the material reality of an invisible gardener, and an imaginary gardiner, then the believer hasn't made any kind of intelligible claim at all. Logical Positivists like Ayer, would have recognized this immediately as a kind of verification standard. There must be *something* in the material world we can point to, to say, "this is a garden tended by an invisible gardener", or "this is not a garden tended by an invisible gardener". If there isn't, the Positivist will insist, then the claim itself is meaningless. 
 
-If the believer could posit a predictive theory about gardens tended by invisible gardeners (or about invisible gardeners themselves), then it would simply be a matter of setting up an experiment that showed those conditions inhering in a situation where an invisible gardener can be shown to be *not* present, in order to falsify the claim. If none of our experiments were successful, then the claim that certain gardens were tended by invisible gardeners would at least be tentatively true (on inductive grounds). This is why Flew includes details like the electric fence and the hunting dogs in the parable. These are rudimentary attempts at *confirmination* of the believer's claim (the corrollory of falsification). 
+If the believer could posit a predictive theory about gardens tended by invisible gardeners (or about invisible gardeners themselves), then it would simply be a matter of setting up an experiment that showed those conditions inhering in a situation where an invisible gardener can be shown to be *not* present, in order to falsify the claim. If none of our experiments were successful, then the claim that certain gardens were tended by invisible gardeners would at least be tentatively true (on inductive grounds). This is why Flew includes details like the electric fence and the hunting dogs in the parable. These are rudimentary attempts at *confirmination* of the believer's claim (the corollary of falsification). 
 
 Flew's allegory has some potency. For decades, it was treated with a great deal of reverence because the idea of falsification (made famous by Popper, but applied first by the Positivists) lay at the heart of the scientific method, and that method had yielded enormously significant results in the decades leading up to 1955. What's more, if what the believer asserts is indeed a claim about some particular *phenomenon in the material world*, then he does have an issue to contend with. How would he account, for example, for Paul's conversion experience on the road to Damascus, or for a paucity of records of Pilate's encounter with Christ in the Easter narrative? Joshua at Jericho? Noah and the flood? Mary's Assumption into heaven? Or, indeed, Christ's resurrection?  
 
@@ -37,12 +37,12 @@ Any one of these things would falsify most of the fundamental claims of Judeo-Ch
 
 But there is a further layer to this onion I have not yet explored. Namely, that the premise of the parable is fundamentally flawed. The believer and the skeptic are arguing over the existince of some particular being who, conceivably, could be subjected to an empirical test. But, this is to equate God and his action in the world, with a finite particular being, as if God were Anatheia, and the explorers had stumbled across the Garden of the Hesperides. 
 
-This is a common mistake among the materialists and empiricists. According to serious believers and theologians, God is not a supernatural gardener. He is the ultimate source of the fabric of reality itself. He is the ultimate ground out of which such finite things as gardens and gardeners arise. He is the the intellect that gives gardens and gardeners their pattern, and the will that gives gardens and gardeners the purpose toward which they are motivated. If Anatheia or the Garden of the Hespirides did exist, he would be the source of them both. Being the source of all material, and the source of all patterns of being that all material can inhabit, there can be no empirical test that proves or disproves his existence, because such a test would require presupposing what it is we are trying to prove. Any test attempting to prove the source of reality itself, would require us to be ouside of reality. In order to do that, we would have to make ourselves into the God we are trying to falsify. 
+This is a common mistake among the materialists and empiricists. According to serious believers and theologians, God is not a supernatural gardener. He is the ultimate source of the fabric of reality itself. He is the ultimate ground out of which such finite things as gardens and gardeners arise. He is the intellect that gives gardens and gardeners their pattern, and the will that gives gardens and gardeners the purpose toward which they are motivated. If Anatheia or the Garden of the Hespirides did exist, he would be the source of them both. Being the source of all material, and the source of all patterns of being that all material can inhabit, there can be no empirical test that proves or disproves his existence, because such a test would require presupposing what it is we are trying to prove. Any test attempting to prove the source of reality itself, would require us to be ouside of reality. In order to do that, we would have to make ourselves into the God we are trying to falsify. 
 
 But, even if we take the parable at its face, there is still a problem with falsification, and this again gets to the way the parable is framed. What if we were to invert Flew's original parable? What would the implications be? [John Frame](http://www.frame-poythress.org/god-and-biblical-language-transcendence-and-immanence/) has actually already done this for us:
 
 > Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. A man was there, pulling weeds, applying fertilizer, trimming branches. The man turned to the explorers and introduced himself as the royal gardener. One explorer shook his hand and exchanged pleasantries. The other ignored the gardener and turned away: “There can be no gardener in this part of the jungle,” he said; “this must be some trick. Someone is trying to discredit our previous findings.” They pitch camp. Every day the gardener arrives, tends the plot. Soon the plot is bursting with perfectly arranged blooms. “He’s only doing it because we’re here-to fool us into thinking this is a royal garden.” The gardener takes them to a royal palace, introduces the explorers to a score of officials who verify the gardener’s status. Then the skeptic tries a last resort: “Our senses are deceiving us. There is no gardener, no blooms, no palace, no officials. It’s still a hoax!” Finally the believer despairs: “But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does this mirage, as you call it, differ from a real gardener?”
 
-What is immediately obvious from this inversion, is that it is possible to take any set of facts, and apply a story to them that is unfalsifiable. But, that doesn't make the story *untrue*. At worst, it makes the the truth of the story uncertain, if we assume only an empirical test could adjudicate the truth. But what test could be applied in this inverted scenario? The sceptic has rejected anything we might take as reasonably trustworthy. Given the circumstances, the evidence available, and what the two have observed in the clearing and at the palace, it makes a great deal more sense to accept the claims of the gardener and the guards, than to assume they're in some sort of elaborate Matrix-like hallucination. 
+What is immediately obvious from this inversion, is that it is possible to take any set of facts, and apply a story to them that is unfalsifiable. But, that doesn't make the story *untrue*. At worst, it makes the truth of the story uncertain, if we assume only an empirical test could adjudicate the truth. But what test could be applied in this inverted scenario? The sceptic has rejected anything we might take as reasonably trustworthy. Given the circumstances, the evidence available, and what the two have observed in the clearing and at the palace, it makes a great deal more sense to accept the claims of the gardener and the guards, than to assume they're in some sort of elaborate Matrix-like hallucination. 
 
-Where this applies to a belief in the existence of God, or in his love for his creation, Flew is sticking his fingers in his ears and insisting its all a hoax, like the skeptic in this inversion. Given what we have available to us in experience, reason, intuition, history, and the story of Christianity, it simply makes much more sense to accept it as true, than to assume that all of humanity is trapped in some sort of elaborate Matrix-like hallucination. 
+Where this applies to a belief in the existence of God, or in his love for his creation, Flew is sticking his fingers in his ears and insisting its all a hoax, like the skeptic in this inversion. Given what we have available to us in experience, reason, intuition, history, and the story of Christianity, it simply makes much more sense to accept it as true, than to assume that all of humanity is trapped in some sort of elaborate Matrix-like hallucination. 

content/post/the-platonism-of-aristotle.md

@@ -31,4 +31,4 @@ This is for my friends here, who wonder how it is that I can claim that Plato an
 
 > Like other Academics, Aristotle was not expected to hold the same views as Plato. The fact that he developed positions different from, or even critical of, Plato's, did not make him less of a Platonist. On the contrary, Aristotle may well have seen himself as remaining faithful to Plato's spirit of philosophical inquiry, which arguably was the essential element of Academic membership. In fact, Aristotle is much nearer to Plato in spirit, and increasingly so as he progresses in his career, than the early Academics.6 His decision to have his own circle of students may have been motivated by his different ideas about how Plato's philosophy was to be continued. We know that Aristotle disagreed with the views of Speusippus and Xenocrates.7 Perhaps he also disliked their efforts to systematize Plato's philosophy, which changed considerably the intellectual climate in the Academy. It is tempting to surmise that it was in reaction against this climate that Aristotle decided to have his own students when he came back to Athens from Macedonia (in 335)…
 
-> ...The only report which claims that Aristotle started his own school with the aim to oppose Plato comes from a man of manifestly aggressive temperament and as such quite unreliable. This is Aristotle's student Aristoxenus, who, as has been seen (Introd., s. 4, pp. 40-1), argued that Aristotle had founded the Lyceum while Plato was still alive in a spirit of spitefulness against him.12 Being himself a Pythagorean,13 Aristoxenus was generally hostile to Plato in favour of Pythagoras oras (frs. 61-68W).14 He showed bitterness also against Socrates (frs. 51-60W) and even against Aristotle; he is attested to have insulted Aristotle's memory when he was not appointed head of the Lyceum (fr. I W). Aristoxenus' claim about Aristotle's departure from Plato's school apparently was meant to suggest that Plato was not worthy of respect and to praise Aristotle for leaving his school. Given its polemical purpose, Aristoxenus' view lacks credibility and already in antiquity was distrusted; the historian Philochorus (c. 340-260) argued that it was a fabrication)’...
+> ...The only report which claims that Aristotle started his own school with the aim to oppose Plato comes from a man of manifestly aggressive temperament and as such quite unreliable. This is Aristotle's student Aristoxenus, who, as has been seen (Introd., s. 4, pp. 40-1), argued that Aristotle had founded the Lyceum while Plato was still alive in a spirit of spitefulness against him.12 Being himself a Pythagorean,13 Aristoxenus was generally hostile to Plato in favour of Pythagoras (frs. 61-68W).14 He showed bitterness also against Socrates (frs. 51-60W) and even against Aristotle; he is attested to have insulted Aristotle's memory when he was not appointed head of the Lyceum (fr. I W). Aristoxenus' claim about Aristotle's departure from Plato's school apparently was meant to suggest that Plato was not worthy of respect and to praise Aristotle for leaving his school. Given its polemical purpose, Aristoxenus' view lacks credibility and already in antiquity was distrusted; the historian Philochorus (c. 340-260) argued that it was a fabrication)’...

content/post/the-platonism-of-the-categorical-imperative.md

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ The difference between these two might seem insignificant on the surface, but th
 
 Kant rightly recognized the lack of ultimate *necessity* in these laws, and goes on about it at length in the Groundwork. He does this, because he needs his *moral law* to be something that is ultimately good, and that *could not have been otherwise*. In order to arrive at this, Kant has to borrow the notion of a telos for man from Aristotle. As with Aristotle, Kant chooses *reason* as the basis for that telos. But unlike Aristotle, Kant insists that the reason he has in mind is not the reason Aristotle wants us to accept. Aristotle’s reason would have us pursuing material ends that satisfy the conditions of living. For Kant, this is unacceptable. He makes a distinction between the rational mind of contingency, and the faculty of pure reason capable of discerning the absolutes of *moral law*, in the same way that Socrates would have us contemplating the Forms, in *Republic* or *Phaedrus*. The former is the basis for what Kant regards as “hypothetical imperatives”. These sorts of imperatives, he argues, can be of only relative or instrumental value, because they arise out of the contingency of circumstances and the temporal calculations of cost and benefit. For Kant, such imperatives could not constitute *moral* imperatives because they lack the constancy and objectivity of a mathematical equation or a geometric expression; in other words, the kind of truth that is true everywhere, at all times, and applicable to all rational beings – a_universal_ truth, of the kind envisioned in Plato’s description of the Form of The Good.
 
-Intuitively, the ascendence into Platonic idealism may seem like a good idea. After all, why would we call a rule that only applied circumstantially a “moral rule”? Wouldn’t that simply be a convention, or a preference? Indeed, for Kant, the universal law of the Categorical Imperative is not derived from natural law, in the way that Newton’s laws of thermodynamics, for instance, are derived by inferring them from the behavior of matter. Rather, the Categorical Imperative is derived from the *moral law* which is accessible only by means of the faculty of “pure reason”, as an entirely contemplative exercise. Kant goes so far with this concept as to suggest that there may be no acceptable method for justifying the Categorical Imperative itself by any exemplary application of the self-same principle:
+Intuitively, the ascendance into Platonic idealism may seem like a good idea. After all, why would we call a rule that only applied circumstantially a “moral rule”? Wouldn’t that simply be a convention, or a preference? Indeed, for Kant, the universal law of the Categorical Imperative is not derived from natural law, in the way that Newton’s laws of thermodynamics, for instance, are derived by inferring them from the behavior of matter. Rather, the Categorical Imperative is derived from the *moral law* which is accessible only by means of the faculty of “pure reason”, as an entirely contemplative exercise. Kant goes so far with this concept as to suggest that there may be no acceptable method for justifying the Categorical Imperative itself by any exemplary application of the self-same principle:
 
 > “…how could laws of the determination of the will be regarded as laws of the determination of the will of rational beings generally… if they were merely empirical and did not take their origin wholly **a priori** from pure but practical reason? Nor could anything be more fatal to morality than that we should wish to derive it from examples. For every example of it that is set before me must be first itself tested by principles of morality, whether it is worthy to serve as an **original** example… but by no means can it authoritatively furnish the conception of morality… imitation finds no place at all in morality, and examples serve only for encouragement… they can never authorize us to set aside the true original which lies only in reason…”
 

content/post/the-sorites-paradox-some-doubtful-thoughts.md

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ It has been asked how, if at all, one might resolve the Sorites paradox. I am no
 
 The first response might simply be to reject the first premise of the argument. In other words, simply deny that a man with 10 hairs is in fact bald, or that 100 grains of sand is in fact a heap. In essence, this would render vague predicates useless at best, meaningless at worst, since no predicate that allows for a vague border case would be permitted to apply to anything. There is one way in which we might stretch this into plausibility, but I will address the other responses first, before returning to this in the conclusion.
 
-The second response is to set some arbitrary boundary. This means selecting one one among the indefinite number of secondary premises beyond which all others will be false. For example, we might say that thirty-thousand and one grains of sand is the boundary below which we no longer regard a collection of grains to be a heap. At first glance, this approach might seem plausible. After all, we do this frequently in practice: setting the legal drinking age, or the number of credit-hours required to count as a ‘full-time’ student, for example. However, there are two core problems with this. First, from the context of the formal argument, there is no good reason to reject any of the subsequent conditional statements, and there appears to be no means by which we could discover a reason. The implicit *modus ponens* of the conditional compels us to accept them all. Second, as Wright ([Vagueness, 1997](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vagueness-Reader-Bradford-Rosanna-Keefe/dp/0262611457)) pointed out, vague predicates are inherently coarse by virtue of their intended use. So attempts to impose some sort of specificity would destroy their meaning.
+The second response is to set some arbitrary boundary. This means selecting one among the indefinite number of secondary premises beyond which all others will be false. For example, we might say that thirty-thousand and one grains of sand is the boundary below which we no longer regard a collection of grains to be a heap. At first glance, this approach might seem plausible. After all, we do this frequently in practice: setting the legal drinking age, or the number of credit-hours required to count as a ‘full-time’ student, for example. However, there are two core problems with this. First, from the context of the formal argument, there is no good reason to reject any of the subsequent conditional statements, and there appears to be no means by which we could discover a reason. The implicit *modus ponens* of the conditional compels us to accept them all. Second, as Wright ([Vagueness, 1997](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vagueness-Reader-Bradford-Rosanna-Keefe/dp/0262611457)) pointed out, vague predicates are inherently coarse by virtue of their intended use. So attempts to impose some sort of specificity would destroy their meaning.
 
 The next approach would be to attempt to define a knowledge gap within some middle range of propositions between the edge false and edge true statements. On one interpretation of the idea, we could use a three-value logic, in evaluating the propositions. At some point, starting with grain one, the proposition ‘this is a heap’ would cease being false, and would instead be valued ‘unknown’ or ‘undefined’. Later, the unknown state would transition to true, once we’ve reached the next threshold. This would make it possible to judge the argument invalid, since any number of its premises were neither true nor false. However, this seems to be attempting to win on a technicality, and it suffers from the same problem as the arbitrary boundary solution, in that we have no real way of determining when the states should change.
 

content/post/the-struggle-between-public-and-private.md

@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ What’s especially bizarre about this change, is that it has not been forced up
 
 Why am I saying all this? Am I just being hyperbolic? Is this just another case of “elderly luddite hates those kids and their new-fangled gadgets”? Perhaps. But I don’t think so. You see, even with the rise of 24×7 cable television, you could always still *turn it off*. But that’s not possible anymore. The ubiquity of internet-connected devices means you cannot escape being noticed, or being forced to notice others, anywhere you go. Whether, by your own cell phone, or a street camera, or an ATM, or another person with a cell phone or laptop, the internet *is never really off*, even if we wanted it to be. But we don’t, do we? The gormless geniuses at these giant tech firms have managed to hack human psychology to the point that almost nobody can withstand the craving to be consumed by this omniscient devouring beast. What does this mean for mankind? What are the implications? The consequences? The prognosis for the future?
 
-### A bleak future?
+### A bleak future
 
 While reading a recent article in Areo magazine, I stumbled across a quote from Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty, which expresses a very similar concern as I have been outlining so far:
 
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ In addition to venerating the rule of law with this quote, the author of the art
 
 Even intimate partner relationships are not immune to this encroachment. As dating, childcare, relationship advice, and other once private aspects of life have moved online, thick boundaries between individual and group have radically blurred. With the help of the effectiveness of feminist attacks on family and gender roles, one can clearly see the relationship of private coupling grounded in social bonding, love, and personal preference, being transformed (distorted?) into a political union grounded in overt estimations of social cache, income parity, and pragmatism (in a sense, feminism is restoring the old feudal custom of political marriages of convenience, under the guise of progressive justice). When these new unions fail, the private ritual of dissolution is no longer the common habit. Now, there is a very public trial, in which at least one party must be shamed and demoted in the public space — sometimes even to the point of criminal punishment (see, for example, the bevy of stories coming from universities, in which men are constantly thrown onto a pyre for their failure to maintain favor with a woman). Gone is the notion of a mutual private feeling of love and respect, shared between equals in the eyes of God. In its place, we are erecting a framework of hierarchical public justice, in which coupled participants must continuously compete for top spot.
 
-I am here reminded of the Kate Hepburn movie, “The Lion in Winter”, in which the entire family of Henry and Elenor of Aquitaine is engaged in a tortuous, self-destructive struggle to the death with each other, for access to Henry’s crown. The film portrays the drama as though it were a complex web of private familial entanglements, cursed only by the psychology of its participants. But, the tensions present are all about the political power struggle of Medieval England — an aging English King, his French competitor, his wife’s control of the Aquitaine, and his three jealous sons, all vying for the throne — and how that power struggle had infected and utterly diseased all the personal relationships. The political sphere had so interleaved itself into the private relationships, that they were virtually indistinguishable. Even Henry’s mistress mingles amongst the family openly, in an attempt to garner her own influence over the crown.
+I am here reminded of the Kate Hepburn movie, “The Lion in Winter”, in which the entire family of Henry and Eleanor of Aquitaine is engaged in a tortuous, self-destructive struggle to the death with each other, for access to Henry’s crown. The film portrays the drama as though it were a complex web of private familial entanglements, cursed only by the psychology of its participants. But, the tensions present are all about the political power struggle of Medieval England — an aging English King, his French competitor, his wife’s control of the Aquitaine, and his three jealous sons, all vying for the throne — and how that power struggle had infected and utterly diseased all the personal relationships. The political sphere had so interleaved itself into the private relationships, that they were virtually indistinguishable. Even Henry’s mistress mingles amongst the family openly, in an attempt to garner her own influence over the crown.
 
 Second-wave feminists have a favorite slogan: *The personal is the political*. The argument behind this bromide is precisely that there is (or should be) no such thing as a private sphere of life – that every choice you make, by virtue of its source in political values and its implications for political life, is necessarily a political choice whether you want it to be or not. This is why many of them, at least in the 1970’s, made conscious decisions to live *as if* they were lesbians, even if they weren’t. The idea being that female empowerment means liberation from the patriarchy, and liberation from the patriarchy means rejecting the biological imperative to couple with a man for the sake of reproduction. This act presages the modern-day political struggle with the recently coined “transgender” movement. There’s is also an effort to rebel against the biological, in an effort to achieve some unspecified emancipation. In any case, the feminism of the 1970’s took the stereotype of Victorian England, with its feminine “private” domain and masculine “public” domain, to be the template of the patriarchy. Reading twentieth-century sensibilities backward into history, they imagined Victorians must have viewed the masculine “public” domain as the more “superior” or “important” of the two, and reacted against that — not by questioning their own interpretation of Victorian England through a Deridian lens of “false hierarchy”, but by committing themselves to the obliteration of the “less superior” private domain, and the total colonization of the “more superior” public domain, so that, in the end, there can be no space in society where a woman might be rendered “unimportant”. The advent of the internet has provided them a massive set of weapons with which to wage that war.
 
@@ -47,11 +47,11 @@ George Orwell seems to have sensed this assault, as well. In his well-worn novel
 
 This passage also clearly predicts the consequences of intermingling private and public, as I have outlined above. The open landscape of love and preference are gone, and in its wake, all that is left is the closed loop of fear and force. Orwell pessimistically crafts the story in such a way that Smith’s desire for a private life is his Achille’s Heel. His relationship with Julia turns out to be a trap, and even his attempt to recede into his own mind is rendered vain. In the end, for Orwell, this struggle between the public and the private can only end inevitably in the destruction of the private. He may have a point.
 
-By saturating all of life with a public, political character, and eliminating any sense of private, apolitical, personal interaction, we’re effectively destroying the avenues for creative problem-solving, for the proliferation of choice, for the possibility of negotiation and trade, and for the mitigation of problems of hierarchy (ironically), and primarily, for the possibility of virtue. The public, political sphere is necessarily a realm of diminishing binaries, of rigid hierarchy, of threats of force, and “necessary evils”. Feminism, and other neo- and anti-Enlightenment movements have made a Frankenstein out of the most decrepit body parts of Hobbes, Rousseau, Marx and Nietzsche by commandeering the very “patriarchal” structures they decry, distorting them into a shape they cannot take, and using their distorted forms to attempt to grind our natural, private impulses out of us, in pursuit of a more perfect reality. They have resumed the task of Socrates and Augustine, of bringing about God’s kingdom on Earth, and from where I’m sitting, it looks to me like they are forging yet another hell we’ll all have to suffer through. Returning to Orwell, I think O’Brien summarizes the end-game quite chillingly:
+By saturating all of life with a public, political character, and eliminating any sense of private, apolitical, personal interaction, we’re effectively destroying the avenues for creative problem-solving, for the proliferation of choice, for the possibility of negotiation and trade, and for the mitigation of problems of hierarchy (ironically), and primarily, for the possibility of virtue. The public, political sphere is necessarily a realm of diminishing binaries, of rigid hierarchy, of threats of force, and “necessary evils”. Feminism, and other neo-Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment movements have made a Frankenstein out of the most decrepit body parts of Hobbes, Rousseau, Marx and Nietzsche by commandeering the very “patriarchal” structures they decry, distorting them into a shape they cannot take, and using their distorted forms to attempt to grind our natural, private impulses out of us, in pursuit of a more perfect reality. They have resumed the task of Socrates and Augustine, of bringing about God’s kingdom on Earth, and from where I’m sitting, it looks to me like they are forging yet another hell we’ll all have to suffer through. Returning to Orwell, I think O’Brien summarizes the end-game quite chillingly:
 
 > …The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love and justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy — everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty toward the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no employment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless…
 
-### Conclusion: what do we do about it?
+### Conclusion: what is to be done about it
 
 Is O’Brien right? Is this ultimately where we are headed? I imagine it must have seemed so, to careful observers like Orwell, in the 1940’s. And, as I’ve outlined so far, the remainder of the twentieth century seems to have validated him. I don’t lay the cause of this erosion entirely at the feet of technology. I think it has simply functioned as a tool for increasing the speed of a change already underway. The question is, can we turn it against that change? Can we use this tool for good, rather than evil? There are few signs today, that we can.
 

content/post/the-world-in-1967.md

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ However, 1967 itself is a pretty fascinating year. Quite a bit of upheaval and c
 
 #### Detroit Riots
 
-For example, did you know that a massive race-riot occurred in Detroit, in mid-July of 1967? Here's a photo of the Michigan National Guard, patrolling a street in which all the shops are on fire. Loook familiar?
+For example, did you know that a massive race-riot occurred in Detroit, in mid-July of 1967? Here's a photo of the Michigan National Guard, patrolling a street in which all the shops are on fire. Look familiar?
 
 {{< fluid_imgs "detroit-riots|img/michigan-national-guardsman.jpg|Detroit Riots 1967" >}}
 
@@ -32,13 +32,13 @@ Human nature being as it is, turmoil and conflict are nearly ubiquitous and cont
 
 #### Israel
 
-Taking Israel first, I'm talking about the famous Six Day War. This is a war that should never even have happened. A clown show car crash of paraonoid Soviet meddling and the megalomaniacal ambitions of Abdul Nassir, exploded in an orgy of Arab self-immolation at the hands of the barely twenty-year-old Israeli Defense Forces. I don't know enough about geopolitics to comment competently on the event. However, the documentary I've embedded here seems to offer an even-handed analysis of the situation. Of keen interest to my sensibilities: the difference between the international attitude toward Israel in 1967, and it's attitude toward Israel in 2021 during the Palestinian bombing raid. I think we've taken a much darker turn for the the worse, since 1967.
+Taking Israel first, I'm talking about the famous Six Day War. This is a war that should never even have happened. A clown show car crash of paraonoid Soviet meddling and the megalomaniacal ambitions of Abdul Nassir, exploded in an orgy of Arab self-immolation at the hands of the barely twenty-year-old Israeli Defense Forces. I don't know enough about geopolitics to comment competently on the event. However, the documentary I've embedded here seems to offer an even-handed analysis of the situation. Of keen interest to my sensibilities: the difference between the international attitude toward Israel in 1967, and it's attitude toward Israel in 2021 during the Palestinian bombing raid. I think we've taken a much darker turn for the worse, since 1967.
 
 {{< youtube pvisd4N3tZI >}}
 
 #### Viet Nam
 
-The second big issue is Viet Nam. It is said that 1967 was a year of "[big battles](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/opinion/1967-the-era-of-big-battles-in-vietnam.html)", "[pivots](https://www.stripes.com/special-reports/vietnam-stories/1967/)", and "[escalations](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/03/the-vietnam-war-part-i-early-years-and-escalation/389054/)". Maybe all of that is true; maybe none of it. There's so much mythology built up around this war, that its hard to say what's real or not about it, anymore. I was six years old when Nixon signed the Paris peace accords, and just shy of 8 years old when Saigon fell to the communists. Since then, the mainstream narrative has been relentless self-flagellation and self-loathing. But the reality on the ground wasn't as monolithically shame-ridden as the media would like to think. Anti-war protests satisfy the media's own communist sympathies. So, that's what one must digest on a regular basis, if one merely skims the surface. But if you dig deep enough, you can occasionally find evidence that Americans still thought of themselves and their country as fundamentally good, despite its flaws. Here, for example, is a photo of a pro-troop rally in Wakefield, Mass. in the fall of 1967 (right in the midst of all those anti-War protests going on at Berkely, and in New York, Boston, and Chicago):
+The second big issue is Viet Nam. It is said that 1967 was a year of "[big battles](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/opinion/1967-the-era-of-big-battles-in-vietnam.html)", "[pivots](https://www.stripes.com/special-reports/vietnam-stories/1967/)", and "[escalations](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/03/the-vietnam-war-part-i-early-years-and-escalation/389054/)". Maybe all of that is true; maybe none of it. There's so much mythology built up around this war, that its hard to say what's real or not about it, anymore. I was six years old when Nixon signed the Paris peace accords, and just shy of 8 years old when Saigon fell to the communists. Since then, the mainstream narrative has been relentless self-flagellation and self-loathing. But the reality on the ground wasn't as monolithically shame-ridden as the media would like to think. Anti-war protests satisfy the media's own communist sympathies. So, that's what one must digest on a regular basis, if one merely skims the surface. But if you dig deep enough, you can occasionally find evidence that Americans still thought of themselves and their country as fundamentally good, despite its flaws. Here, for example, is a photo of a pro-troop rally in Wakefield, Mass. in the fall of 1967 (right in the midst of all those anti-War protests going on at Berkeley, and in New York, Boston, and Chicago):
 
 {{< fluid_imgs "pro-troop-demo|img/pro-soldier-demo-1967.jpg|Pro-military Demonstration 1967" >}}