01.01.17 There are plenty of reasons to read Tolstoy’s masterpiece (or “masterwar” – get it?) It is, by all accounts, one of the greatest books ever written. so it is very likely to

I wrote this essay in 2007, on the cusp of 2008, for Mere Orthodoxy.com. However, the reflections are relevant in this present context, so I re-post them here. The essay reflects my interests

If you haven’t read the Yale Report, it is very good. I spent this morning adapting this text to HTML as well as PDF, so now you can read it on your phone,

File this under “Things That Shouldn’t Be Surprising.” A recent study by the Education Endowment Foundation found that disadvantaged kids perform better in STEM fields after 2 years of studying philosophy. 3,000 school

I just finished teaching my first businesss ethics philosophy course. The Oxford textbook was fairly good but one subject it did not cover was apologies. What do we do, as professionals, when we

If you just finished a philosophy course this fall, you might be wondering what to read next. Here’s some recommendations: These are good, accessible yet challenging classics. Laozi, The Tao Te Ching Plato,

Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether be likes it or not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must

Introduction Not everything is political. Only some things are political. This is true because society is not merely the State. While some people tend to lump all social interaction together under the heading

A chilling, declassified report shows that the FBI suspected bin Laden was planning to hijacked planes, and attack the US: FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country

All is not lost in America. We are deeply divided as a nation but we also have common ground. Do not lose heart and do not lose hope. We may yet see justice

Glowing Fish: A dialogue between two friends A: There are no such things as glowing fish. B: But I saw a glowing fish, so they must exist. A: You can’t have one seen

How do we influence each other’s beliefs and actions? Suppose with me that there are three categories: 
 Force. Soft coercion. Argument. Force consists of any form of coercion: legal coercion via the

So if this story turns out to be false I’ll be mad at Santa. I cried all day, and my wife cried too when I relayed it to her. We hoped, we cried,

Those of us who put our faith in reason do not mind listening to speakers who are wrong. We enjoy hearing alternate points of view, even if we don’t get a chance to

“Verily verily, I say to you, there will come a time when every interesting quotation will be ascribed to me. Do not believe it.” -Albert Einstein Much like the piano song “Fur Elise”

Apparently not. Paul Fussell said class is alive and well in the US. Even you, gentle reader, cannot affirm that there are no classes at the same moment as calling some people low-class

Lucas liked Rogue One. I’m keeping my expectations low because the trailers don’t excite me as much as I hoped. Worst case scenario, Lucas approval might mean that Rogue One somehow resembles Episode

_Main_cast.JPG) A statement from Gilbert Keith Chesterton about the logic of randomness. Taken from The Innocence of Father Brown, “The Blue Cross”. The only context needed is that the great detective Valentin is

I love English. Sure, English is impossibly inconsistant on the surface, but its rules are there – they are deep and hidden. Rather than saying English is nonsensical, its safer to say that

Google (Alphabet) admits that it does not understand the conservative worldview. That’s good. Alphabet was correctly criticized for its biased political coverage this election season. If Alphabet or anyone really wants to understand

It’s been about a year since Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out. While we wait for Rogue One, it’s a good time to reflect. When Episode VII first came out, I watched

Is the media crying wolf about Trump? The case that they are. Detractors and supporters need to (a) create a list of win conditions and fail conditions that they can use to be

The inimitable Helmut Norpath correctly predicted election results. Here are his reflections.

I teach 5 classes at two universities in Kentucky. So, after reading a lot about students on campus feeling terrible or unsafe after a Trump election victory, I decided to do my own

CNBC’s Michelle Castillo reports that large and small media outlets are already fretting about the end of record-breaking ratings when the election cycle is over. Interest (and anxiety) in the election drama has

It’s seven days out from the election. So it’s time to go on the record with last minute predictions. Who will win the White House? President Hillary Clinton? It seems pretty obvious to

My dissertation is finished and in with the committee. Here’s a video of me finishing the work and sending it off. The defense is scheduled for 4 November 2016, which is this Friday.

I met a therapist in town and told her I teach philosophy. “I do intellectual therapy”, I said. She laughed, “How’s that?” “Cultivating our minds is essential to mental health.” I responded. “Yes,

Peter Kreeft is a hero of mine not only for his funny lectures and crystal clear arguments but for making philosophy accessible. His new book coming out promises to be a winner. It’s

Rhetoric is not essentially bad. In fact, rhetoric is inevitable. You cannot say anything – even anything true, or scientific, or factual – without packaging it in words. And all words have “spin.”

I just finished watching the whole (first) season of Man in the High Castle with my wife. A few quick thoughts: Premise. The premise is awesome. It’s Philip K. Dick, so that is

In October 2015, I stopped cutting my beard. The reason, of course, is that hair is the organ of extrasensory perception, duh. I told Lindsay I would grow it out until the dissertation

A philosophical puzzle for you: Set up: Alan and Alex believe P. Bettie and Bob believe Q. All four of them examine their beliefs through rational reflection. Results: Alan cannot justify P, but

People sometimes ask me “are there any philosophers alive today?” On the one hand, I totally get it. They are asking whether there is a modern day Plato or Socrates or Aquinas. On

If you are at all concerned about the growing threat to online security, consider Proton Mail. I’ve been using their secure, Swiss-based email system for a couple of months now to communicate with

I have a recommendation – and a warning. The recommendation:Buy and watch the Star Wars Episode VII Special Features. You can wait for a DVD/Blueray to ship to you or they are available

Father Andrew Cuneo is the rector of St. Katherine Orthodox Church in Encinitas, CA. He is a scholar of the literature of C.S. Lewis and taught literature at another St. Katherine – this

Turns out Trump did not mock that reporter’s disability. Sure, Trump has lots of flaws, but it seems this one was made up by the outrage machine. Trump mocked a reporter for backing

If you or anyone you know is taking a philosophy course this fall, this might be a useful resource. The Philosophy Portal is a site aimed at explaining, in my own view, (a)

An empty email inbox is the Holy Grail of today’s creative class. My inbox piles up during the semester in the fall and spring, and receives a thorough purge every Summer and Winter

I feel so proud. Someone on the internet disagrees with me. Some of you know I self-published a book 4 years ago. Mostly friends and family have read it, but I do get

From whom? From everyone equally? No. First, demand excellence from yourself. Second, demand excellence from your students, employees, children, or anyone else in your care. Third, from everyone else, don’t worry so much

The news cycle the last year has followed a pattern like this: Trump says or does something, the media presents his statement or action as horrifically bad. Some criticize Trump and some criticize

If you are a Inklings geek like I am, Signum University is an exciting place I’ve been reading about. They not only have an online school called “Mythgard”, the mere name of which

One of my goals after college graduation was to read the complete works of Plato. The “big red book”, as it was affectionately known in my honors program, included spurious works that were

I’ve created a repository with my basic files to format academic papers, including dissertations. Mine is a philosophy dissertation, but this should work for any work in humanities. Writing a dissertation is hard;

There is a new fault line in town – the free speech fault line. Liberals and conservatives who are pro-free speech get along rather well; and both tussle with anti-free-speech advocates who think

Since I started doing my website with Jekyll, I’ve started writing everything in Markdown – papers, journals, syllabi, and of course web pages. Markdown is a Babelfish in that it can speak any

One of the philosophical topics I’m interested in is physicalism. Physicalism is “the thesis that everything is physical.” A recurring notion in physicalist literature is that the cosmos is causally closed and that

One of the best conversations/interviews I’ve ever seen between a white liberal and a black conservative. They discuss race, welfare, free speech, and more. If you have a simple narrative about race and

This is my first time watching a Comic Book Girl video, but everything she says about the new Ghostbusters seems reasonable to me. Also, that hair. Disclaimers: (a) I haven’t seen the new

It’s summertime now, so caffeine addicts like myself sometimes don’t want a steamy cup of joe. We’d rather enjoy a cool, refreshing glass of iced coffee. Why not make your own? Starbucks be

I know Bernie Sanders is, like, done for as a presidential candidate. But the Bern isn’t going away anytime soon. Bernie is like the Left’s Ron Paul. He ran on a message. He

Did you know? – Mr. Clever invented the first iPhone. It’s a clock that tells time and does other clever things.

As an academic and a writer, I enjoy exploring new software and workflow processes. Nothing is wrong with using Microsoft Word or Apple Pages; at the end of the day, you just need

When discussing C. S. Lewis one day, I realized I have only anecdotal information on his influence. I wonder: How many Christians became or remained Christians, in part, because of C. S. Lewis?

Most people I talk to have never heard of the Singularity. The concept of a singularity is an absolutely unique, unprecedented event: the Big Bang, the emergence of the first living organism in

Here’s a short story I wrote some years ago for the Fourth of July. It is a fictional dialogue between a history teacher (father) and student (son) on what makes America… American. With

If you are like most people alive today, you believe ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ This is what I was taught. No one ever told me that (in view of

Al Qaeda’s Inspire Guide instructs jihadis to target white Americans They say: “Most of the individuals present at pulse nightclub were Latino. We recommend – And Allah knows best – that it is

Are you getting just one side of the story? If you only read the news on Facebook, Twitter, the answer is certainly yes.1 Even if you get your news anywhere online, you might

How do you manage your time? When you stop to think about it, there are only (24 * 7=)168 hours in a week. If you sleep 8 hours a night or so that’s

“The problem is to get [people] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as

This is the kind of thing the Orlando Gunman listened to just this month. From their spokesman, ISIS has a message to its soldiers in Europe and America. About 4 weeks ago. It’s

The EU wants to crack down on online terrorism. Great! But their new code is the wrong way about it. Here’s five reasons why should you reject Facebook/YouTube/Twitter/EU’s new Orwellian speech restrictions. Hate

Monday, May 16th, my university began hosting a “Boot Camp” writing retreat. We have a private dorm room on campus, unlimited snacks (both healthy and unhealthy snacks, woo hoo!), an endless supply of

If you click the first blue link on any Wikipedia article (that is not in parentheses), it will take you to another article. If you click the first blue link there, it will

Walt Whitman's Beard Ever wanted to grow a beard? Don’t know how? Follow this easy three step guide. 1. Be Born a Male. This is the first and in many ways the easiest

Episode I When he fixes the shield of the royal starship of the woman whose children will save the galaxy. When he disables Anakin’s autopilot. Episode II When he saves Anakin and Padme

You may know someone who supports a candidate you dislike. You may know someone who supports a candidate you can’t imagine any sane person supporting. This chart helps to explain, as sympathetically as

The original Fragments of Heraclitus are powerful and puzzling. No one is sure of the original or meaning. No one is sure of the original order, context, and complete set. Hence, any presentation

The following is the undergraduate thesis of Josh Lawman The argument Mr. Lawmen develops is that mathematics needs to be taught to children in a new way – a way that is effective,