North Western Winds

At TCS, Edward Fesser's essay on natural right has been followed up by Max Borders . Borders takes the view that rights do not exist as real, metaphysical entities, but are the result of agreements or "contracts." Now, Fesser has penned a response to Borders' arguments. I linked to the first Fesser essay here . I will give Fesser the floor once again tonight because I think this is an immensely important topic. We live in a world of "enlightenment" positivism run amok, where there are no shortage of highly educated, intelligent people whose main beef with realist metaphysics seems to be that it is inconvenient and therefore unnecessary (note the order of those propositions). We also live in a world in which new technologies are making the real world implications of our metaphysical propositions - of which positivism is surely one - are more and more far reaching. So I think it is increasingly important that schemes like the one Borders' outlines be g...

The Maverick Philosopher has revisited the question of theism / atheism and its relationship to the ability to do philosophical work of the higest caliber . When I first took a look at his list of the "top twenty philosophers" I immediately wanted to strike Sartre from the list for being more of a imfamous celebrity than a serious thinker, but then Bill wrote: On the score of truth, Fritz Nietzsche really falls short. For not only is there little if any philosophical truth in his writings, the poor soul denies the very existence of truth. When one studies the first seven on the list, one actually learns something about the world. But when one reads Nietzsche and (later) Wittgenstein, one learns highly original and fascinating opinions that have little or no chance of being true. One learns from them, and from some others on the list, how NOT to do philosophy. But that too is something worth knowing! I saw that about Nietschze right away, as I think one can use his criticism...

Rosie DiManno at the Toronto Star disagrees with me : the objective for Stephen Harper is not to govern with panache now, within the admittedly straitening parameters of minority rule, but to position himself such that he can secure a majority in the next election, which is apparently Job 1. Thus, to make the Tories more palatable to all those millions who preferred the Liberals and the NDP, Harper should break the presumed covenant he made with those Canadians who provided his party with its current mandate, and did so with a tapestry of support from coast to coast, leaving only Prince Edward Island unrepresented in caucus. Plus the country's three biggest cities, of course — Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver — where voters turned up their noses and rejected all Tory supplicants. This, the tall foreheads tell us, is the subtext of the election outcome — illusory power, checked by Canadian caution, translated as a warning not to boldly implement the very policies that...

In this excellent post, Liberty Corner shares his definition of what liberty is, and why liberty is not aligned with the atomizing society or with groupthink: The core of libertarianism is liberty: briefly, the negative right to be left alone - in one's person, pursuits, and property - as long as one leaves others alone. The problem with all such formulations, however, is that they gloss over two important questions: 1. What is harm and who defines it? 2. How does one ensure that one is "left alone" in a world where there are predators and parasites who will not subscribe voluntarily to a pact of mutual restraint? ... In summary: Liberty rests on an agreed definition of harm, and on an accompanying agreement to act with mutual restraint and in mutual defense. Given the variety of human wants and preferences, the price of mutual restraint and mutual defense is necessarily some loss of liberty. That is, each person must accept, and abide by, a definition of harm tha...

The future continues to look promising . As someone who can't attend expensive classes, having access to cheap, portable audio materials would be great. Se also here .

I'm heartened to see that yesterday's post on Toryism has been getting a good response. Rod Dreher , who writes for the Dallas Morning News and who's former job was being editor of National Review Online , dropped in to say something nice about it. Now Mark Shea has linked it. See also here and here .

Rebuilding Toryism Toryism at it's best, is in my estimation the best and least threatening school of democratic political thought. What? you say! What about those crazy fundamentalists? What about those heartless Libertarians? What about those oil mad Albertans? What about....? What about...? Toryism is a broad based idea, just like Liberalism, and as such it recognizes the necessity of coalition building. It needs to be a BIG tent, one that any Canadian could proudly and comfortably park themselves under. Reconciling those groups is no small feat but Toryism has the advantage of being at heart a very pragmatic idea. It might be summed up by the old saying that "old boots and old friends are best." Meaning, in other words, that in the absence of compelling evidence of a need for change, the best course is one of stewardship, consultation and incremental change of the two steps forward, one step back sort. This is hardly threatening stuff. There is a long (and dishon...

Althouse sticks up for us men folk . I do like having the smart women on my side, and willing to put up with some of our more bearable eccentricities. So... she won't mind if we enjoy these clips then: My car doesn't do this Italy's Don Cherry? This CPU is hot Curry and Rice Girl Men and women are different Make you happy tonight I saved the best one for last, of course. Seedlings has his list here , which was inspirational.

Here are two really interesting blogs. If you like NWW, I'm sure you'll enjoy these: One Cosmos , home to a very good writer with a book to flog. Analyzer , yet another philosophy Ph.D. with a great blog. Here are some philosphy jokes taken from one of the Analyzer's posts : Don't put Descartes before the horse. One day Descartes walked into a pub and ordered a coffee. The server asked him, "Do you want that with cream and sugar?" Descartes answered, "I think not", and abruptly ceased to exist. What did the pantheist say to the hot dog vendor? ... Make me one with everything. Have you heard about the dyslexic insomniac agnostic? ... He lies awake at night wondering if there is a dog. Who's the most egotistal type of person conceivable? ... A pantheistic solipsist. If you liked those you're probably a philosphy nerd just like me.

Thanks to Andrew at BBG (note the new address) for the tip to this Globe and Mail quiz designed to help you figure out what party you should support . I scored 6 for the Conservatives and 1 for the Greens. I suspect the Green tally came on the education question. The zeros on the Liberal and NDP are a little distressing. Don't you guys even want me to consider you? For any issue? Do we really need to "nationalize" everything? How do you square that with supporting diversity and dissent? And even if you did have a policy that I really liked you have zero chance with me until you at least allow MP's to vote their conscience on issues like marriage and abortion. Frankly, those two parties are a huge disappointment. Again. Btw, since every party now receives money for every vote they get, voters frustrated with their choices now have a new method of getting the parties' attention. If you're willing to spoil your ballot, you can simply write down "no ca...

Tagged! By Carlton at Upper Canada Catholic . The 'Quartet Meme" Four jobs I have had in my life: Driving instructor Book store clerk Video store clerk Paper boy Four movies I could watch over and over, and have: Master and Commander The Lord of the Rings The Mission Braveheart Four places I have lived: In my parents' house In an apartment In a larger apartment In my own house Four TV shows I love to watch: Law and Order Lost Numbers ... Um, really don't like TV very much! Four places I have been on vacation: Germany Death Valley Las Vegas Tofino (Vancouver Island) Four websites I visit daily (sorry, Canada) Althouse Mere Comments Maverick Philosopher Get Religion Four favourite foods: steak and beer coffee and chocolate french toast hamburger and mashed potatoes (it's German) Four places I would rather be right now: There's no place like home.

Great quiz. Well, I thought it was great, but then I think theology is not only interesting, but important. You scored as Chalcedon compliant . You are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you're not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. Officially approved in 451. Chalcedon compliant 100% Modalism 67% Pelagianism 33% Monophysitism 33% Monarchianism 33% Nestorianism 17% Apollanarian 0% Arianism 0% Adoptionist 0% Docetism 0% Gnosticism 0% Albigensianism 0% Socinianism 0% Donatism 0% Are you a heretic? created with QuizFarm.com

My question to readers about Mark Noll has drawn only one response thus far, but what helpful response! I've finally gotten around to reading the link Ian provided . I find the term 'Evangelical' to be frustratingly vague. It tells me very little about the beliefs of the person I am dealing with. The Wikkipeida entry wasn't much help either. This is taken from a review of Mark Noll's Is the Reformation Over? The author, Carl Trueman, a Reform churchman, is not as optimistic as Noll about the prospects for a post Reformation Church: To cut to the chase: what is evangelicalism? It is a title I myself identify with on occasion, especially when marking myself off from liberalism, another ill-defined, amorphous, transdenominational concept. But in a world where there are "evangelicals" who deny justification by faith as understood by the Protestant Reformers, who deny God's comprehensive knowledge of the future, who deny penal substitutionary atonement,...

Roger Scruton , one of my favourite British writers / philosophers, takes on Richard Dawkins' theory that 'religion is a nasty meme ': I am not entirely persuaded by this extension by analogy of genetics. The theory that ideas have a disposition to propagate themselves by appropriating energy from the brains that harbour them recalls Molière's medical expert ( Le Malade imaginaire ) who explained the fact that opium induces sleep by referring to its virtus dormitiva (the ability to cause sleep). It only begins to look like an explanation when we read back into the alleged cause the distinguishing features of the effect, by imagining ideas as entities whose existence depends, as genes and species do, on reproduction. Nevertheless, let us grant Dawkins his stab at a theory. We should still remember that not every dependent organism destroys its host. In addition to parasites there are symbionts and mutualists — invaders that either do not impede or positively amplify ...

The real, the unreal, and the disillusioned Have a look at TCS Daily , where Edward Fesser examines the metaphysical roots of today's political philosophies. Here's the introduction: Richard M. Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences , published in 1948, was among the founding documents of contemporary conservatism. The title phrase has become something of a cliché, and overuse has stripped it of the interesting meaning it once had. Nowadays most people assume that what Weaver was saying was that how we think is bound to affect how we act, and that the intellectual trends that prevail in a society will determine its moral and political character. To be sure, that was part of his meaning, but if that were all he had in mind his message would have been a pretty banal one, since no one denies that in this sense “ideas have consequences.” What is largely forgotten is that Weaver was making a play on words, and that his primary reference was to Plato’s famous Theo...

This article at Alvin Kimmel's Pontifications ties in nicely with the Peter Kreeft seminar my wife and I attended on the weekend, the one about Catholics and Evangelicals together. The text is by John L. Gresham, and the subject is historian Mark Noll's take on the Reformation today. Writes Gresham: Noll characterizes the extent of this changed relationship quite well in his closing comments where he says Evangelicals and Catholics were like Elves and Orcs to one another, but now they are more like Ents and Hobbits, not quite speaking the same language or sharing the same culture but seeing themselves more on the same side. (I find it interesting that Noll pulls these analogies, without explanation or reference, from a mythical world created by a Catholic philologist, rightly confident that both his Evangelical and Catholic readers will get his point). The Middle Earth analogy is preceded by a Lindebeckian synopsis of historic Christian divisions as various cultural linguist...

The Liberals' attack ads have resulted in several very funny parodies. This Canoe story contains several of them. Like, I'm totally not making this up. Choose your Canada, people.

The power of interpretation The donnybrook that Paul Martin wants to open up on changing the charter - and wasn't he supposed to be it's best defender, using it protect religious minorities? - seems like as good a place as any to discuss textual interpretation. Wait! This won't be boring, I promise. The way Martin and his defenders paint it, removing the notwithstanding clause removes a Damocles' sword from the rights that are in the Charter. The crude insinuation is that this will remove, once and for all, the ability of those nasty conservatives to bash minorities. This is based on the idea that a text, in this case the Charter, means exactly what it says it means and nothing else. No respectable scholar would argue that, and Martin knows it. The Charter, like any other law, has to be interpreted before it can be acted on. It's easy to overlook how important that is. You cannot safeguard the nation through a magical combination or words on a page. A sharp m...

I get mistaken for a rad trad Catholic at times, and even - this is really funny to me - as a fundamentalist. Sorry, no can do sir, as the following will attest. Rebecca and I went to see Boston College philosophy professor Peter Kreeft speak on Sunday night. I like Kreeft, but with reservations. He is a convert (from Presbyterianism, I think) and he is at times too literal in his reading of the Bible for my liking. And all of this stuff about demons and whatnot leaves me with a shrug. Professor Kreeft also really dislikes postmodernism . As for the examples he raises - Sartre, Nietzsche - I have not much use for them either. It's a mistake, however, to think that they are all that there is to postmodernism. Pope Benedict has said that he feels postmodernism is a more fertile ground for the faith than modernism, and it's not too hard to see why. Postmodernism is a leveling of the intellectual field, a recognition that science - for all it's wonders - can't accoun...

I came home from work today and saw this ad being discussed on a CTV news program. Wow, it's not as colossally dumb as the Charter amendment proposal written on a Tim's napkin , but it's close.

From The Globe and Mail's "live blog" of the debate: Brian Milner, 8:20 p.m.Finally something substantive. Mary Janigan, 8:20 p.m. Oh no. Oh no. This is insanity. He would get rid of the clause that made the whole constitutional deal possible. The notwithstanding clause was the key. Brian Milner, 8:20 p.m. Here we go. Notwithstanding. Marcus Gee, 8:21 p.m. Hang on: Is Martin saying he'd try to scrap the notwithstanding clause? That's news. Marcus Gee, 8:21 p.m. What a weird time to raise it, out of the blue during a debate. It's a Hail Mary pass. Brian Milner, 8:23 p.m. Alas, back to scandal. Marcus Gee, 8:24 p.m. Excellent off the cuff reply from Harper on the constitution. If it ain't borke, why fix it? Mary Janigan, 8:24 p.m. And harper wants to put back property rights. Which was another part of the deal made in late fall of 1981. We could spend the next five years talking constitution while the world passes us by. Marcus Gee, 8:25 p.m.Just w...

I thought the funniest part of the debate tonight was PM Paul Martin saying something like "being aboriginal causes poverty." Ok, so he mis-spoke, it was still funny coming from a guy as self righteous as Paul Martin. Martin was self righteous enough to tell BQ leader Gilles Duceppe that Quebec is not a nation but a people, "just like the Acadians." Yeah boy, that'll do wonders on the national unity file! Come to think of it, so will suggesting that we remove parliament's right to use the notwithstanding clause . Naw, that doesn't sound like an ill conceived idea hatched in desperation, the product of short term thinking. Naw, not at all. We'll spin it like this, see? We'll sell it like we're giving the people power by doing that. They'll never figure out that it actually involves ditching the sovereignty of the parliament in an effort to cling to power now. Sell the sizzle, not the steak, which happens to be swapping democracy for oli...

The Washington Post is carrying a good piece on science and religion this morning: the case for this "warfare thesis," as historians call it, was discredited decades ago. It had already largely crumbled when I was reading my childhood science books. "I do not know one historian who believes that there is a history of warfare between science and Christianity," says William Ashworth, historian of science at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The thesis was popularized in the 19th century by writers such as the first president of Cornell University, Andrew Dickson White, whose 1896 History of the Warfare of Science With Theology in Christendom is still in print and still accepted as gospel in some quarters. But many of the clashes reported by White have turned out to be fiction. Those that did occur, such as the Galileo affair, were as much (if not more) about personalities and politics as they were about beliefs. "Most people learn about Galileo, and his...

I've been tagged by this meme three times in two days, so I suppose I really must do something about it. You know who you are . Five weird things about me: I'm reasonably proficient with technology and like playing about with computers but I hate phones. I really, really hate cell phones . Why? Another wit said it well: "It rings, you jump." I don't jump for nobody. Leastways not if I can help it. I have a crazy hair on my eyebrow that grows to simply stupid lengths if I don't cut it. I dislike heights and therefore have no plans to fly. This is not open to discussion. When I was a kid my Dad used to listen to country music , and I liked this little eccentricity in him. When I was a teen I began to scorn the genre. This lasted until about two years ago (mid thirties now) and I now play it all the time when I'm driving. The old stuff makes me really nostalgic and I just like the new stuff . I look really odd when I walk the dogs. It's not ...

Look up. Look waaay up... There's an interesting post at Anal Philosopher : Many people are devoutly religious, and I respect them. I’m what William Rowe calls a “friendly” atheist. Qua atheist, I believe that there is no God (and that I’m justified in so believing); but qua friendly atheist, I believe that a person can be justified in believing in God. If you (the reader) believe that God exists and I believe that God does not exist, then one of us is right and the other wrong, since the propositions are contradictory. But even though we can’t both be right, we can both be justified in our beliefs. Truth is not justification. One can have a justified false belief just as one can have an unjustified true belief. How can both theism and atheism be justified? Easy. The world as we experience it is compatible both with God and without God. As philosophers of science would put it, belief is underdetermined by data (or experience) . There are, of course, unf...

Mark Steyn's latest is deserves the praise it's getting, so do go on and have a look . It's a bit long and there's a lot that could be said about it, but I'm just going to hone in on this little laugh-till-the-coffee-comes-up-your-nose bit: This [demographic threats to women] ought to be the left's issue. I'm a conservative--I'm not entirely on board with the Islamist program when it comes to beheading sodomites and so on, but I agree Britney Spears dresses like a slut: I'm with Mullah Omar on that one. Why then, if your big thing is feminism or abortion or gay marriage, are you so certain that the cult of tolerance will prevail once the biggest demographic in your society is cheerfully intolerant? Who, after all, are going to be the first victims of the West's collapsed birthrates? Even if one were to take the optimistic view that Europe will be able to resist the creeping imposition of Sharia currently engulfing Nigeria, it remains the case th...

Wired magazine interviews Pete Tong : WN: What do you think of Apple's adventures in music? Tong: Apple's music stuff is so simple to use, just like the Mac. iPods have changed everyone's life. It doesn't matter whether you are 7 or 70, everyone wants one. But iTunes libraries are growing so large people are outgrowing hard drive space, and using drag-and-drop to put libraries elsewhere is so archaic. I want a button to make my PowerBook speak to my main iTunes library and consolidate the collection. I get sent tracks all the time on my notebook when I'm on the move. It's kind of scary that you can have your entire collection on one or two hard drives. My 25 years of vinyl are in storage. I played a 7-inch vinyl set recently and discovered there are 18-year-olds who have never seen vinyl. ... There is genuine concern about how to stop music being passed around for free. Once you take the money out of music, it's not fair; people (artists, producers, mana...

Bloggers with great aspirations (or even aspirations of greatness) might want to check this list of ten ways to better your blog by Evan Schaeffer. These are all good, sensible ideas. My own two bits: no one ever tells you that the editorial decisions are much harder than the writing. If you didn't want to write, you wouldn't blog. The question of what to post and when comes with it and we learn as we go - learning from our own mistakes and others' successes. As much as I enjoy Althouse's frequent posting and wide range of topics I know that I simply don't have the time to do that. Even if I had a laptop there's no way I could post from work. I also admire bloggers who can challenge our comfortable assumptions and make connections that are both intriguing and sensible, not sensationalistic. Check out Liberty Corner, who tips us off to an interesting book review in the NYT and goes on to offer as much to chew on as the review - if not more . The book in quest...