I’ve previously written, in reference to Ed Feser: I agree that Leprechaunology is not a great analogy for the work of Aquinas or Leibniz. But it’s easy to suggest better analogies: how about Spinozism or Hegelianism? I’d be surprised if Feser took either of those doctrines terribly seriously. The dirty little secret of philosophy is [...]
What is objective morality anyway?
Posted by Chris Hallquist on December 23, 2011
8 comments
I’m not a huge Michael Ruse fan. Scratch that, I’m not any kind of Michael Ruse fan. However, after seeing a friend criticize this for supposedly being consistent about moral realism/anti-realism, I’m starting to wonder if Ruse has a point about morality. This is because there are several different questions we could be talking about [...]
I’ll take Alvin Plantinga over John Haught any day
Posted by Chris Hallquist on December 22, 2011
4 comments
Jerry Coyne, last week: Alvin Plantinga, like John Haught, is regarded as a sophisticated and serious theologian. (Although he’s formally a Christian philosopher at the University of Notre Dame, he’s published lots of books defending God, engaging in apologetics, and so on, so there’s little doubt he qualifies as a theologian.) This made me wince. [...]
Plantinga’s inexcusable faults (review of Where The Conflict Really Lies)
Posted by Chris Hallquist on December 21, 2011
15 comments
I don’t expect Plantinga’s fans to ever totally agree with my negative assessment of Plantinga. My disagreements with them are too big. For one thing, I assume most of Plantinga’s fans think that what academic philosophers do is generally worthwhile, where as I don’t think that. But I hope that even fans of academic philosophy [...]
Speaking ill of the dead
Posted by Chris Hallquist on December 17, 2011
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I strongly recommend Glenn Greenwald on Hitchens’ death, both for what it says about Hitchens specifically and an important general point: We are all taught that it is impolite to speak ill of the dead, particularly in the immediate aftermath of someone’s death. For a private person, in a private setting, that makes perfect sense. [...]