Three philosophical problems from Plato

If you know only a little bit about Plato, what you know is probably that he had some very silly (sounding?) ideas. For example, that he believed in Forms: thing such as Beauty, Virtue, Justice, and The Good (always capitalized in English discussions of Plato), things that are supposed to be in some mysterious sense [...]

Continue Reading »

Martin Gardner’s fideism, and related epistemological ponderings

Martin Gardner died last Saturday, provoking a round of reminiscences from the skeptical community. There’s been a fair amount of talk about Gardner’s status as the odd theist out within the skeptic movement. In a comment at Phil Plait’s blog, James Randi gave a nice, succinct explanation of Gardner’s stance (HT Massimo Pigliucci):
Martin was a [...]

Continue Reading »

Letters to Doubting Thomas (a review)

When Lukeprog posted his Ultimate Truth Seeker Challenge, I read over his reading list and saw that it was mostly books I had already read. But I put my name down anyway, because I figured the books I hadn’t read would be a good way to round out my philosophy of religion reading, and reviewing [...]

Continue Reading »

Pigliucci on accomodationism

Massimo Pigliucci has decided to weigh in on the debate over accommodationism that has been happening in the atheist blogosphere for forever now, coming down on the side of the accomodationists. Unlike Mooney and Nisbet, Pigliucci is clear that he’s interested in matters of philosophical principle, not tactics. (Mooney and Nisbet, in contrast, may well [...]

Continue Reading »

Luke’s reply

Luke Prog has replied to my comments on things he’s said about epistemology. If you want to see where this discussion goes, I’ll continue it over at his blog.

Continue Reading »

Next Page »