Blog
What we can learn about Helen Joyce in two sentences
That second paragraph on the book jacket of ‘Trans’. Whose feelings matter? It’s a premise of Helen Joyce’s book ‘Trans’ that cisgender people’s feelings matter the most. It’s right there on the book jacket.
On the 3rd anniversary of J.K. Rowling’s pledge for trans rights
She ‘would’ have marched with us, but when? Her supporters insist she can’t be transphobic, citing her tweet: ‘I’d march with you…’ Well, her tweet is three years old today. She hasn’t marched.
I’m disappointed in the ‘Witch Trials’
J.K. Rowling’s image-polishing podcast doesn’t grapple with the real problem. When someone accuses Rowling of transphobia, her team’s refrain is: When has she ever been transphobic? At this point, I hear it as a running joke.
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.
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.”