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New Business
I’m trying to knock the rust off, having turned away from writing for a while. Reality bit, and any time available to spend at a computer had to be dedicated to ‘practical’ matters: I sacrificed writing, Aztec-like, at the altar of something that might pay regular money, to keep the sun rising. I’ve been working on the system for a new business doing ‘Nitrate Vulnerable Zone’ (NVZ) compliance paperwork. read more
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AI is using my work and I think this is terrible
This isn’t a copyright thing: I don’t care very much who takes my words since the ideas are hardly mine anyway. I’ve taken all the profit I wanted from them, which can’t now be taken from me. No, I think this is terrible because AI is citing me when it should not be citing me. read more
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On Being Someone Who Has Something To Say
Being ‘someone who has something to say’ is a pre-requisite for any serious discussion. Without it, there’s a danger that anything said might be ‘mere words’. When Plato explains this requirement, he describes it as a harmony between logos and bios: your words align with your actions; your understanding is shown in your way of life. You say what you are and you are what you say. When there’s a disharmony in these things, it undermines what you say and, more importantly, who you are to say it. read more
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On the Failure of Public Philosophy
What we see today, in philosophy’s public lack of stature, is the end result of a downward slide that started 40 years ago when the balance was tipped against a certain idea of what a university is and ought to be. read more
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Reflections on ‘The Lives of Animals’
In the morning I’m on the farm as an extra pair of hands while some young cattle are being de-horned. In the afternoon I’m reading J.M. Coetzee’s ‘The Lives of Animals’ for the first time. read more
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‘Stay-At-Home Dad’
It’s not difficult to explain why so few men take on this role; relative to women, I mean. My brief experience has made it very obvious and I can and will list the reasons for you. In short, in contrast to women, a man in this situation is repeatedly made to feel like there is something wrong with him. read more
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Too Good to be Happy: A Paradox for the Good
Justice is a part of our idea of goodness, unequivocally. But having a sense of justice makes you sensitive to injustice. With this sensitivity, any injustice is liable to make such a person miserable. And there doesn’t seem to be anything good about being miserable. That seems to me to be a paradox of goodness, whereby something unequivocally bad comes from something unequivocally good. Justice is good, and happiness is good, but having a sense of justice makes us less happy. Having one good seems to deprive us of another. I wonder what the solution to this puzzle might be. read more
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What is Good Philosophy?
At any given time, philosophy is what philosophers do. Look at what philosophers do; look at the picture of success for philosophical activity as it is in this time. You might be disappointed by what you find. read more
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What is a Pseudo-Intellectual?
What is a pseudo-intellectual? This is a bad question, full of shit, but, like shit, mostly better out than in. read more
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Believed by the Wise: Socrates, Pragmatic Arguments, and Pascal’s Wager
I’ve been wrestling with an aphorism that I can’t pin down. I want to say this: ‘The wise believe what is good and true, the clever only what is proven.’ But I can’t. The tone may be right, but the content is wrong: or rather, not wrong but factually inaccurate. read more
An experiment with philosophy as a way of life
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