Category Archives: Philosophy

My Principles For Understanding The World

These are my rules for life and these are my principles for decoding reality: * We live in a post-modern world. There’s no one narrative that adequately explains reality. * Personalities are usually less powerful than situations. The news media … Continue reading

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On Epistemic Black Holes. How Self-Sealing Belief Systems Develop and Evolve

Here are excerpts from a preprint of a 2023 philosophy paper: * Here’s a sample of some extremely implausible and unfounded beliefs that are endorsed by many apparently sane and rational people even in the age of modern science: the … Continue reading

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Stephen Turner and the Philosophy of the Social

Here are some highlights from this 2021 book: * Tocqueville claimed that when he visited the US in the mid-nineteenth century most people did not genuinely believe in God or in Christian dogmas. However, as most people also believed that … Continue reading

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The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (1998)

Here are some excerpts from this book sociologist Randall Collins: * The long-term tendency of an active intellectual community is to raise the level of abstraction and reflexivity. * Individuals who participate in IRs [interaction rituals] are filled with emotional … Continue reading

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Rethinking Jewish Philosophy: Beyond Particularism and Universalism

In my experience, Jewish philosophy and Jewish theology play no role in the lives of 99.9% of Jews (equivalent to the role of jurisprudence in the lives of Americans). It is rare that I recall real Jews (as opposed to … Continue reading

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