Blog
What is a Bible?
You already know, and you already know what a woman is too. We don’t have to keep asking what ‘transgender’ essentially is, nor what ‘woman’ or ‘man’ essentially are. There is no essence. But we know what they are.
‘Radical gender theory’ is itself a social construct
The people who’re making it up do not have good intentions. This isn’t a serious intellectual project. There’s no scholarly substance. Chris Rufo just wants to organize the right-wing to make noise and hurt LGBTQ people.
The right wing wants to stop adults from being trans
Knowles: ‘You have to ban transgenderism entirely’. Michael Knowles wants to ban people from being transgender. His ‘love’ for the Kansas bathroom bill is because it ‘aggressive[ly]’ excludes trans people.
What do we talk about when we talk about vaccines?
The 2014 book ‘On Immunity’ by Eula Biss. ‘On Immunity’ reflects on the human immune system and on vaccination. There are broad philosophical implications: balance, safety, interdependence.
3 things I learned from ‘The Disordered Cosmos’
Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s 2021 book on physics and identity. Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein shares meta-insights about how science and society can prevent us from asking questions and obtaining insights. Who’s included?
Does Moll Flanders know whether her mother is cheerful?
The Gettier problem in Daniel Defoe’s novel. Moll’s justified true belief (“My mother was a mighty cheerful, good-humoured old woman”) wasn’t knowledge. The novelist put an irony there.
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.