The anthropic principle of winning the lottery:
“Wow. How incredible that you actually won the lottery.” “There’s nothing incredible about it. After all, how could I be standing here having won the lottery had I not won… Read more »
Author Archives: dissidentrealist
Steven Pinker’s explanation of how we make decisions does not explain how we make decisions
“I believe that decisions are made by neurophysiological processes in the brain,” says Steven Pinker. No. Processes don’t make decisions. People make decisions. And they make decisions for reasons. And… Read more »
Critical theory is utterly suffused with Marxism
This is from an interview with Michel Foucault in the mid-1970s: Interviewer: You seem to have kept your distance from Marx and Marxism; this was a reproach that was being… Read more »
This is what ontological gerrymandering looks like
My “gender identity” is the subjective view I hold about my “gender,” which is the range of expressions I exhibit of my “gender identity,” and the objective existence of my… Read more »
Our sense perceptions must be generally reliable
Claiming that my sense perceptions can deceive me implies that they are at least generally reliable. Else how would I know I was deceived? The concept of being deceived by… Read more »
Abortion: cause for cognitive dissonance
Last year a pregnant woman was run over and killed by a truck in Chicago. Doctors detected a fetal heartbeat and delivered the baby. According to pro-choice ideology, the mother… Read more »
Radical skepticism plus libertarianism is a disaster for two main reasons
1. Radical skepticism is false. 2. It is impossible to achieve a stable social order without reference to a common, objective reality that exists independent of the subjects who comprise… Read more »
Is the fact/value dichotomy itself a fact or a value?
If it is a fact then it cannot function as the source of a normative claim. After all, you can’t get an ought from an is. So the adherent of… Read more »
Is morality possible on materialism?
At first glance it may seem silly to assert that you can’t believe murder is wrong unless you believe in God. But that’s not the right question. If we are… Read more »
CS Lewis on subjectivism
Keep in mind we are far deeper down the hole than we were in CS Lewis’s day. In 2020 subjectivism is firmly established as the reigning public philosophy, and you… Read more »