Analetheism

A community is typically thought to arise on the basis of shared values . But the American community has a different basis, namely, an agreed-on method of arbitrating discrepant values. Of course here too there must be the shared value of resolving discrepant values by an agreed-on method ... or some more basic shared value or values that support this system, such as mutual respect of persons, who naturally hold a diversity of opinions and desires, or a shared desire for minimizing violence. Finally, to dot the “i”s, let us stipulate that the agreement is reached noncoercively and without deception, and also that the agreed-on method of resolution is the same (noncoercive and nondeceptive) by default, while allowing for the use of force (police powers) under agreed-on conditions (legislated crimes, unruly behavior of a deranged nature, insurrection, etc.).

A friend of mine is fond of telling others about a particular example of my quirkiness. One day when visiting me he asked why I had a box of Kleenex positioned at a particular location. I proceeded to explain my reason. Actually I gave him three reasons, since – by some trinitarian mechanism – I seem usually to have three reasons for whatever I have a reason for doing. But the quirkiness he is pointing out is that I have a(t least one) reason for everything I do … from the trivial (like placement of a Kleenex box) to the “momentous” (for example, why I chose to retire when I did).                 (Was my friend equally quirky for inquiring why the Kleenex box was located where it was?)                 And the reason he delights in doing this (if he has only one reason) is to point out the irony (or contradiction? and hence … irratio...

When I am writing I require (desire) complete uninterruption. There are just too many things my mind must juggle when I am writing, for me to countenance any diversion of attention. I must also be able to concentrate when I am solving the innumerable problems of word choice and the like. I also need (desire) uninterruption in the long term. Thus, without the prospect of an unbroken sequence of days and weeks and months to work on a book project, there is no point to my even starting. (It is not quite that strict, since if the progress is steady, I can usually break off for a whole day now and then, or could do so on a regular basis, for example, on Saturdays. But two days would be stretching it.) By both chance and design my life has become very suitable for this M.O. For example I have no responsibilities to any other human being or institution, having (by good luck) had the opportunity to retire early, which I (by design, that is, intentionally) seized; and (by bad luck) I find mys...

The cliché portrait of a madman is the person in an asylum who claims to be (and presumably believes he is) Napoleon. The salient feature of these asylum Napoleons is that no matter what obvious refutation of their claim you throw at them, they have a ready response. For example, if you point out that Napoleon died in 1821 and it is now 2021, they will say that in fact what happened was that Napoleon was seized by agents who left a similar-looking body dressed in his clothes in his place, then froze him, the real Napoleon, for two hundred years, and have now revived him in his new palace (the asylum) two centuries later.               It is clear that any particular argument for his not being Napoleon could be countered in this way. The crowning touch, however, is that the faux Napoleon is able to construct an entire world out of such counterfacts, such that they all cohere as logically as do the facts of the actual world. Th...

What is love? Some would say that love is elicited by something that we rate very positively. You would not say you love Beethoven if you did not rate his music highly, or at least the experience of listening to it; and a person would not be your beloved if you did not think him or her the epitome of beauty or kindness or some other sterling and perhaps unique quality. Others would say that if you aren’t prepared to sacrifice yourself for the other, or some such thing, it’s not love.              The latter are moralists. But both are moralists in the broad sense of assuming that everything has a definition, and hence they expect my opening question to have an answer. I believe, however, that any kind of moralism is anathema to love. There are many kinds of love and all are fully love, it seems to me.              What prompts me now to write about love nevertheless, and even ask the quest...

Human beings are rational beings, yes. But what does this mean? It is natural to assume that it means something good: that we are logical in our thinking and hence feeling and behavior. But clearly human beings are far from rational in this sense. Just read a book like Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow or Jonathan Haight’s The Righteous Mind to become disabused of that rosy view. I propose instead, therefore, that the primary meaning of our being rational is simply that we are always prepared to give reasons for our beliefs and feelings and actions. But those reasons can be good or bad ones, that is, logical or illogical. (They can also be good or bad based on the truth or plausibility or falseness or implausibility of the premises. Indeed sometimes people simply lie in their arguments.) A compromise view would be that we are capable of giving and accepting good reasons, even though mostly or often we don’t. This seems OK to me as a secondary meaning, but primarily, it see...

When I hear my neighbor’s leaf-blower, I wonder: What manner of beast is this? I don’t mean the beast that is roaring, but the beast that is using the blower. What kind of mind can motivate spending money to buy a gas-guzzling, noise- and other-polluting, obesity- and laziness-inducing machine, when simple raking is superior in all respects?  The same goes for littering. What kind of mind would motivate tossing the wrapper of a cheeseburger into the street or road when out walking or driving?  But then, what kind of mind would motivate buying a cheeseburger to begin with, when equally tasty and healthier plant-based alternatives that involve much less animal cruelty and killing are known to be available?  And how can people smoke? How can so many people not vote? Etc. ad inf.  These phenomena seem unfathomable to me. That is my feeling when I encounter them, anyway. Of course a little effort does enable me to fathom them to some degree. There are several main...