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Warning: This is some wacky stuff. Spinoza’s Spin on Modes Primer The chair I’m sitting on is a mode of God, the one and only substance. Yup it is. So I guess in a way I’m sitting on God. “King of the castle! King of the castle!”. But wait, I’m also a mode […]
Read More Sub-atomic Stir-Fry and the Indivisibility of Spinoza’s GodIs Morality Self-Evident? Preamble Up until now we have just taken it on faith that Kant is right in that the supreme principle of morality is the Categorical Imperative (CI) in its various incarnations (i.e., formulation of universalization, of natural law, and of humanity as an end). Now Kant begins his argument for why […]
Read More What Can We Know About Morality from the Concept of Freedom?Due to overwhelming reader demand here is part 3 of “Dueling with Dualism”… Quick Review I know most of you have memorized most of Spinoza’s philosophy but for the few of you who haven’t and would like to be brought up to speed, here’s what we’ve covered so far: The grand argument that Spinoza […]
Read More Dueling with Dualism Part 3: The Leibniz Challenge and The Nature of GodWelcome back all you crazy Spinoza fans! In the introduction entry I made on Spinoza I laid out the definitions of the key terms–substance, primary attribute, and mode–I will be using to discuss Spinoza’s arguments. Before I go any further, I’m just going to be really honest and say that sometimes with metaphysics I […]
Read More Everything is One! Dueling with Dualism Part 2Intro “I don’t do that because I have morals“. Whenever I hear that I want to reply, “Yeah? So do I; and my morality tells me that it is good to strangle people who say stupid things”. My evidence is purely anecdotal but it seems every time I here this it’s from a […]
Read More The Moral Law, God, and Helping Little Old Ladies Across the StreetHi everyone, once again thank you for visiting my humble blog. Knowing that a handful of people read this is very helpful in inspiring me to write. Before I continue and discuss Kant I’d like to share with you an experience I had. Obviously, I have a natural affinity to philosophy generally but sometimes I […]
Read More Kant Vs LibertariansIs The Fundamental Level of Reality Divided into Mind and Body? Or Are Mind and Body Two Aspects of an Even More Fundamental Reality? The answer to this question is the key distinction between Descartes and Spinoza. Lets unpack the two positions: In the Dualist view (Descartes) anything that exists is either an extended […]
Read More Dueling with Dualism Part 1Rambling Intro (As Usual) Ok, out with the Descartes, and in with the Spinoza. I want to see if I can start to break down a little bit of Spinoza’s metaphysics a) to see if I understand it and b) to help satiate my readers’ voracious appetite for 17th Century metaphysics. As usual […]
Read More Meet SpinozaIt’s probably because there’s an exam next week, but quite a few students come in for my office hours for the logic class that I TA. For those of you who aren’t familiar with doing formal logic proofs they are mechanical, at least at the basic level. Think of it as math. You have […]
Read More How to Teach Formal Logic in TexasPreamble Lets do a quick and dirty summary of where we are so far in Kant’s argument regarding obligations to act morally when we know what the correct moral action is. When we left off Kant had made the case that some things are ends in themselves; in ordinary language we say that some […]
Read More Do I Have to Do What I Know Is Right? (Part 2)
Wrestling with Philosophy 