Conversation with Larry Chapp
I discuss my recent book The Decomposition of Man with Larry Chapp and Rodney Howsare on Dr. Chapp’s podcast.
Philosophy
Remembering the Right: I discuss Paul Elmer More
I discuss the American New Humanist critic and idiosyncratic Christian apologist on the Chronicles Magazine podcast.
My Youtube videos
Some kind soul has put together a Youtube collection of interviews and talks I’ve given.
Remembering Augusto Del Noce
What does an idiosyncratic Italian philosopher mean for us in America today? At Chronicles Magazine I discuss Augusto Del Noce.
Remembering Paul Elmer More
I discuss “New Humanist” literary critic and Christian apologist Paul Elmer More in the December issue of Chronicles Magazine.
Merton’s “Unspeakable”
A correspondent sent me the following passages from Raids on the Unspeakable by Thomas Merton:
… More ...The Unspeakable. What is this? Surely, an eschatological image. It is the void that we encounter, you and I, underlying the announced programs, the good intentions, the unexampled and universal aspirations for the best of all possible worlds. It is
Existence as violence
A correspondent referred me to a post by a “progressive Christian” blogger as a sign of a new frontier in inclusiveness. The post picked up on another blogger’s claim that “the self is inherently violent.” The example used was blogging, which involves self-assertion that comes at the expense of other bloggers. So it seems that … More ...
From scientism to PC
Conservatively-minded people who favor the scientific outlook to the exclusion of other sources of knowledge point out that PC, the insistence that human differences don’t exist or don’t matter or shouldn’t be allowed to matter, is anti-scientific.
That’s true, of course. It’s also true though that scientism—the view that knowledge is not knowledge unless it’s … More ...
How to live in accordance with reason?
The mathematician and architectural theorist Nikos Salingaros has written a useful account of “seven tactics for denying the truth”: Cognitive Dissonance and Non-adaptive Architecture. (PDF here.)
It’s a good summary of how people maintain their views when they don’t have an argument and don’t want to change what they think. In many cases—like … More ...
Addendum for inquiring minds
A note related to my recent entry on homosexuality:
Modernity is marked by rejection of knowledge as contemplation in favor of knowledge as technology—to use philosophical jargon, by rejection of essence and formal and final cause in favor of efficient and material cause. It’s all about using things to get what we want. The result … More ...