Blog
The Texas Republican Party believes in UFOs but not in trans people
What are you willing to believe ?In making trans people more visible, the Republicans intend to label us as ‘fake’ and force us into the closet. This is a Republican cover-up.
The Texas GOP platform is riveting(ly bad) political reading
I could not tear myself away from it. The Texas GOP’s “Temporary Platform and Resolutions” packs in a huge amount of religious superiority, prejudice, and self-contradiction.
January 6 — and transphobia — make some people feel empowered
They enjoy the illusion that they’re the deciders. Post-2020 Trump supporters believe they have the power to decide how others already voted—and, if they don’t get their way, they’ll force it.
Toward a better epistemology: Why do we care about what we know?
A reaction to the ‘Gettier problem’. Maybe there isn’t just one definition of knowledge. Maybe every type of knowledge is related in a “family resemblance.” Some are propositions. Some aren’t.
The feeling of knowing
Steven Connor’s 2019 book ‘The Madness of Knowledge’. ‘Epistemopathy’ means the feeling of knowing. We have pleasant and unpleasant feelings associated with knowing. That’s part of why knowledge matters to us.
Turtles all the way down
Finding truth in emptiness. When we acknowledge there is no final turtle, we open ourselves to discover and live more. The turtle on which we are standing is never the last one.
We can’t prepare for this moment
‘Opening to Darkness’ by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel. What to make of this political and ecological moment, this chaos that arrives with no instructions? We can “see, collectively, in the dark.”
‘Do I want it? Life, that is.’
‘On Not Knowing‘ by Emily Ogden. What is there to hope for? Should we hope? We can work in the field, making bales of hay, but the work of the soul “never will be cut and dried.”
‘Agnotology’: The study of ignorance
Our ways of knowing can be corrupted. “We’re going to have to rethink our metaphors,” Proctor said, on persuading people away from science-denial. “We’ve got to think much more creatively.”