Ross Douthats Op-ed The Future of Gay Marriage discusses Dan Savages call for Open Marriage . Savages suggestion that we legitimate infidelity poses the following question for Sophisticated Americans: If the Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage as heterosexual is . . . . Continue Reading »
Freddie has written a post that forces me into the odd position of defending Sam Harris; the crux of which is the claim that once we accept the human mind as being a contingent accident of evolution, we necessarily must abandon any faith in the intellectual edifices constructed by such minds: For . . . . Continue Reading »
Via Julian , I see that Yglesias has spun a narrative : For the past 65-70 yearsand especially for the past 30 years since the end of the civil rights argumentAmerican politics has been dominated by controversy over the size and scope of the welfare state. Today, that argument is . . . . Continue Reading »
I want to sidestep the brief, silly article running in Esquire about the increasing number of “kaleidoscopically shifting arrangements” we honor with the name family, but I also want to use it to frame what I think ought to emerge as a new vein to be mined in the sometimes . . . . Continue Reading »
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. John 1:1,2. Following Edith Stein in her discussion of Essential and Eternal Being we see that all meaningful existents are enclosed by the divine . . . . Continue Reading »
Peter’s review of Avatar is a must-read: Avatar isn’t much a movie: Instead, Cameron’s cooked up a derivative, overlong pastiche of anti-corporate clichés and quasi-mystical eco-nonsense. It’s not that the film’s politics make it bad, it’s that . . . . Continue Reading »
Always illuminating, Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. is a philosopher/priest who like Justin the Martyr might find wisdom in Eric Voegelin’s comment that “ . . . Christianity is not an alternative to philosophy, it is philosophy itself in its state of perfection; the history of the . . . . Continue Reading »
Longtime readers know of my obsession with mathematical beauty, so it should come as no surprise to find me hopping up and down most eagerly and pointing you towards Matthew Milliner’s very immodest proposal in Public Discourse. My only quibble with the article is that the proportion of . . . . Continue Reading »
This term I have been teaching Ancient & Mediaeval Political Theory, a course that is crosslisted between the philosophy and political science departments at Redeemer. Yesterday we heard two fine student presentations on Thomas Aquinas’ writings on the virtues (Summa Theologica Ia-IIae, qq. . . . . Continue Reading »
There I was, quietly chuckling over Bryan Caplan and Robin Hanson’s back and forth (and forth ) on the reasonableness of cryonics, when somebody decided to bring Derek Parfit into things . Says Julian: In reality, our ordinary way of talking about this leads to a serious mistake that Robin . . . . Continue Reading »