Official Website for Amitabha Palmer
Introduction For a while, I’ve had the idea of writing short posts presenting right wing and conservative ideas as charitably as possible. There’s a tendency on both sides of the culture wars to oversimplify and straw man (person?) the opposition. I fall prey to this just as much as the next person but in an […]
Read More Gender, Sex, and Transgender DebatesIntroductionExistentialism can be summarized in one phrase, “existence precedes essence.” But what does this mean? Pre-existentialism, philosophical systems presumed Man had an essence. To understand what that means consider a chair. Chairs don’t just randomly pop into existence…no sir! Before they are created someone or something has to have a concept of what a chair […]
Read More Doing What Feels Right and Sartre’s ExistentialismIntroductionBefore reading this, I suggest reading my post from yesterday since most of what I talk about here relates to it (and I end up retracting most of what I said).‘The arrogance of ignorance’ is one of my favorite phrases. I’m not sure of its origins but I heard it first from Dr. Steven Novella. […]
Read More Day 3: Psychological Jade and The Arrogance of IgnoranceOverview A central idea in democracy is that in voting for what the community should do, each individual gets to express their preference for one thing over another. If individual preferences don’t all align then sometimes there will be a puzzle about what the community should do–assuming policy decisions are ideally supposed to represent the […]
Read More Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem: Summary and ExplanationIntroductionThe major debate in ethics is whether there are objective moral facts. There are a variety of defenses and objections to either position. Those who say there are objective moral facts are called “realists” while those who deny realism are called anti-realists or nihilists (there are actually more positions such as constructivists and non-cognitivists but […]
Read More Review and Summary of "Ethics and Observation" by HarmonHey guys, Here’s a video I made to help my students understand Divine Command theory and the Euthyphro dilemma: https://plotagon.com/12834
Read More Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Dilemma (Video)I’ve talked about Gettier before and much of what I say here will overlap with what I’ve already said. It turns out I’m much more comfortable lecturing on something if I write about it the night before. Hopefully this won’t always be the case ‘cuz it takes up a lot of time… Why Should You […]
Read More Gettier RevisitedSo, I’ve been experimenting with a new way to explain major philosophical concepts and issues by video and dialogue (aka, Socratic method). I think dialogue is a much more intuitive way of understanding things. I’m not able to embed the video but here’s the link. Let me know what you think:https://plotagon.com/12235
Read More Cultural Relativism Vs Moral ObjectivismMill would might respond to Arnold one of 2 ways. First, he might say that while pain might sometimes be an instrumental good, it is not a good in itself (unlike pleasure). Therefore, pain cannot be pleasure. Second, he might respond that Arnold is confused. He seems to be saying that, for him, growing is […]
Read More Mill: On UtilitarianismIntroductionIn the previous posts we looked at argument schemes that are typically employed in factual matters: generalizations, polls, general causal reasoning, particular causal reasoning, and the argument from ignorance. In this next section we’ll look at common argument schemes used in normative (i.e., having to do with values) arguments. Check. it. aus…Slippery-Slope ArgumentA slippery slope […]
Read More Critical Thinking: The Slippery Slope Argument, Argument from Analogy, the Argument from Design, and Gay Marriage.
Wrestling with Philosophy 