Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

In reply to butimbeautiful. Over a decade ago, I started what I wanted to be a book on this topic. But as often happens in my life, I was derailed by events. I wrote a paper, gave it a few times, revised it, then got lost in reading and complications, …

As if on cue, there’s a guest essay by Thomas Meaney in today’s New York Times echoing much of what I said here. But I said it first! LikeLike

I used to work long ago for a government department that was trying to lure girls into traditionally masculine apprenticeships. We produced a booklet showcasing all the great female electricians, etc, and then came the question of who to put on the cov…

In reply to mlyoung57. What’s so stupid about Stephens’s argument is that on the one hand, he wants to show the Chinese there are no limits to what we’re prepared to do for Ukraine; on the other hand, he can’t endorse the idea o…

The question for China is what our limits (and equally importantly our capabilities) are, as far as defending Taiwan goes. All that is needed to deter is enough doubt that we would not go to the mat (and defeat China or cause it too much pain). Sure, t…

A more obvious version of the argument of my PAW letter now belatedly occurs to me: According to both Judaism and Islam, God is childless. Yet God is omniscient and prescriptively infallible. So parenthood can neither be a necessary condition of knowle…