Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

In reply to mlyoung57. Yes. There is a more moralized, typically left-wing way of getting to a similar downstream conclusion regarding what it is best to do in foreign affairs. But such a position probably should not be characterized as foreign-policy …

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. Even if inadvisable (and I don’t have any super-strong commitments here), isn’t arming the Ukrainians serving — in an obvious, righteous way — the cause of justice for them and justice in the world at …

In reply to sean samis. There are interviews with Chomsky on the website of Truthout. I agree with Chomsky more than I do with Mearsheimer (though their views overlap). I might write another post on Ukraine tomorrow with links from Chomsky and Ted Gale…

In reply to mlyoung57. That’s on my list to read or listen to. But I’m not really sympathetic to realism in the IR sense, so I’m not specifically sympathetic to Mearsheimer’s (or anyone else’s) realism per se. I happen to …

In reply to sean samis. (Responding to Sean) I didn’t make a categorical claim. A categorical claim is one of the form “All S are P.” I made a generalization: “center-left liberals have lost their capacity for objectivity.&#8221…

In reply to Michael Brazier. (Responding to Michael Brazier) Can the party currently being held hostage by Donald Trump really point at the Democrats as the paradigm of irrationality? I am not sure we literally put Ukraine in harm’s way. We gave …

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. “This is not the realism we are looking for.” Maybe this is: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-fareed-zakaria.html LikeLike

In reply to Michael Brazier. (Reponding to Michael Brazier) Setting aside your interpretation of why Gaza is the way it is (which I’ll ignore as irrelevant to the larger issue), I don’t really disagree with your March 2 comment. I had misun…

In reply to Stephen Boydstun. Thanks for highlighting that. I’m a great admirer of hers, and was happy to see the Times devote that much sympathetic space to her. I happened to drive through her home village, Beit ur al Fouqa, the last time I was…

In reply to Roderick T. Long. It’s not perhaps the most profound metaphor. I was referring more to the visual aspects of the yin/yang symbol, not to anything doctrinal or metaphysical. I just meant that just as the two halves of the yin/yang symb…