Aware: Dualism and the onus of proof 2 Nov 20232 Nov 2023 In which I discuss animal breath… One is often told or reads that the natural assumption of human cultures more or less universally is that humanity is composed of two parts – the body and the spirit. But I wonder if this is actually the case. There is evidence of early religions and philosophies being effectively materialistic, in that even if they allowed resurrection the body needed to be reconstituted first (e.g., Ezekiel 37, which is probably a parable for Israel itself). Qoheleth, or Ecclesiastes in the Christian tradition, is explicitly monistic: I said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show that they are but animals. For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows whether the human spirit goes upwards and the spirit of animals goes downwards to the earth? (3:18-21) To read more, subscribe Epistemology Metaphysics Philosophy
Epistemology Atheism, agnosticism and theism 6: Conclusion 26 Jul 201122 Jun 2018 Previous posts in this series: One, Two, Three, Four and Five. With all this apparatus in hand, let’s review. Every nonreligious person has a set of commitments based on the two major axes of knowledge claims and existence claims, and on the basis of what they count as contrary to theism, are one of… Read More
Philosophy My Absent Career 13: Critical mass 17 Jan 202318 Jan 2023 Having taught critical reasoning and studied the usual logic for philosophy undergrads, I felt that I had a pretty good understanding of logic and reasoning, at least without getting into modal logics and other such aberrations. Not for the first or last time I mistook confidence for competence. Neil Thomason,… Read More
Philosophy De mortuis nil nisi bonum 28 Oct 2009 Steve Fuller is crying martyr to that horrible fascist, Norman Levitt, whose terrible sin against the intellectual in the 21st century was to point out that the sort of fashionable nonsense which Fuller is so capable of is, well, nonsense. That Fuller does this in what is supposed to be… Read More