Research
History of philosophy, ethics
Publications
- Beyond the Scientific Revolution: Ian McGilchrist’s “The Matter With Things”
- Perception: I/Thou
- Review of “Stalker” by Andrei Tarkovsky
- Aligning AI and Human Morality and Purposes is Impossible
- The Misanthropy to Beat Them All (In Praise of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles)
- God – Pictures at an Exhibition
- Notes From Underground Shines a Light on The Genealogy of Morals
- Two Kinds of Sacrifice: René Girard’s Analysis of Scapegoating
- René Girard – Imitation and Life Without God
- Nietzsche – the Diabolical Saint of Acceptance
- Utilitarianism; a new kind of evil
- Mystery and Order; the right and left hemispheres
- Plato’s Cave
- Consciousness: What Is It and Where Is It Found?
- The Illogicality of Determinism
- The Illogicality of Determinism – Further Considerations
- Nostalgia
- Sam Harris; the Unconverted
- AI and the Dehumanization of Man
- Gödel’s Theorem
- The Halting Problem – there is definitively more to thinking than computation.
- Oedipus Rex in René Girard’s Violence and the Sacred
- John Locke – Quantifying Reality
- Is God Omniscient?
- The Gift – Marcel Mauss and René Girard
- Aesthetic Knowledge
- Beauty, Truth, and the Creative Act
- Are We All Selfish?
- Aristotle and Ethics
- Kant the Fanatic
- Evolution 2.0
- The Significance of “Public” in the Public Justice System
- Morality and Intuitions of Metaphysical Truths
- Christopher Hitchens is Not Great
- Philosophy and the Crisis of the Modern World
- Quantum Mechanics and Religion Revisited
- Monism vs the Trinity
- Tips for Parenting
- Plato and Love
- Nihilism in the Movies
- Can Evolutionary Biology and Naturalism Provide a Foundation for Morality?
- Descartes' Discovery of the Subject
- God the Father
- Dostoevsky: Freedom, Evil, and the Existence of God
- Orthodoxy and the Mob
- Is Life Worth Living?
- The Tragic Condition of Man
- On Teaching
- Belief vs Knowledge and Plato’s Tripartite Soul
- “Folk Psychology:” you are buying into a crazy theory if you use this term
- The Chinese Room Thought Experiment by John Searle
- Berdyaev: Why God and Personality Must be the Highest Ideal
- Form Follows Function?
- Why Don’t Nihilists Remain Silent? For mickvet
- Darwin vs Morality; trying to find a biological basis for morality.
- The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good
- The Burden of Proof
- Prisons and Punishment
- Agency and the Criminal Justice System
- Clare Graves and Spiral Dynamics
- God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good
- Taleb and Business Ethics
- Does the Concept of Metaphysical Freedom Make Sense?
- Outlandish Freedom
- Monsters of Duty: Cordwainer Smith’s Attack on Kantian Morality and the Suppression of Feeling in Scanners Live in Vain
- The Reflexive Problem in Analytic Philosophy: Illogical Logicians
- Oedipus Rex Casebook – Reading Sophocles’ Oedipus the King
- What Constitutes “Genius”? Beyond IQ and the Importance of Creative Individualism
- Annihilation: A Failed Sci-Fi Adaptation of René Girard
- Can Medieval Wisdom Cure Modern Insanity? A Review of Rémi Brague’s “Curing Mad Truths”
- Realism is Needed for Moral Intuitions to Function Properly
- Creation by Inhibition, Withdrawal, and Forgetting
- Social Psychologists’ Attack on Intuition and Expertise
- The Religious Instinct: Fact, Fiction, and Plato
- Epistemic Nihilism Leaves Only Brute Force
- Ex Machina: A Story of Chaste Love Murdered by the Ending
- The Determinists Strike Back: A Social Media Dialogue
- The Metaphysical Status of Preferences: In Defense of Free Will
- Debating a Determinist: A Philosopher and Blogger Dialogue on Determinism, Free Will, and Philosophy
- A Philosopher and Blogger Debate Determinism Once More!
- Determinism and the Good Life Are Incompatible
- Nihilism, Ethics, and the Trolley Car Dilemma
- Is Evolutionary Psychology Immoral?
- Plato’s Gorgias Is Still Worth Reading
- Brain Lateralization and the Limits of Kant’s Moral Theory
- The Reprehensible Peter Singer
- Why Don’t We Just Get Smarter and Smarter?
- Babies and Morality: Death to the Blank Slate
- Morality as Cosmically Real
- Robert Sapolsky is Determined to be Wrong
- If God is Good, Why Does He Allow Pain and Suffering? (Moral Lessons from Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles)
- Bread Alone
- An Introduction to the Thought of Owen Barfield
Education
- Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Cincinnati, 1996
- BA, Philosophy and English; MA (hons), University of Canterbury, 1990