Category Archives: All

‘Jesus’ and NBA Legends – Can we expose the fact hidden in myth?

Any cursory look at relevant scholarship on the issue indicates that there are great differences between different versions of ‘Jesus’. This brings us to the problem of identity. Even when we grant that most likely there was a historical ‘Jesus’ — it is very difficult, maybe impossible, to establish which of our numerous references and descriptions might be accurate.

No Conflict between Science and Religion?

The touted distinction between methodological and philosophical naturalism does little to show that science and religion are compatible. The same can be said regarding the claims that “science does not disprove God,” that many scientists are also persons of faith and find belief in God compatible with their work in the sciences. None of these makes much headway in showing that the sciences are compatible with a commitment to a supernatural view of reality.

Pseudo Explanation & The Spirit of Darwin

Setting aside religious myth as useless to science, Darwin took the hard path of working out an effective, scientific explanation for life in its great variety. He spent over twenty years observing relevant natural phenomena, collecting specimens, organizing his data, and developing an empirical theory (evolution by natural selection) that effectively explains all biological phenomena.

Reply to a friend's remarks on the nature of philosophy

But the view which sees the philosopher as engaged in some esoteric type of exploration into reality distorts the work of such philosophy (traditional, non-analytic philosophy) as being some mysterious pseudo-science. This notion might have be applicable in earlier periods of western history, but not today.

Of course, this is just a gloss on one view of the function/nature of philosophy. It is misleading to the extent that it suggests there is one ‘thing’ called “philosophy” which can be assigned a specific function. There are different forms of philosophical work, one of which is the “secondary type of analysis and inquiry.”

Mad men and philosophers – Kant’s Unfortunate Legacy

Anyone who reads the continental philosophers following Kant knows that Kaufmann was correct. Many of them, primarily German and French (with some notable exceptions, e.g. Frederick. Nietzsche, Albert Camus), imitate Kant in producing the type of obscure writing that surely has caused many students headaches and sleepless nights! I give you Hegel, Heidegger, and Sartre (in his philosophical works where he imitates the Germans). Can anyone really render clear, coherent interpretations of what these people are saying?