"If courts don’t have to defend their decisions, then they’re just acts of will, of power."—Adam Liptak, "Missing From Supreme Court’s Election Cases: Reasons for Its Rulings." The New York Times. October 26, 2020. At base, Legal Realism, when you get past all the philosophical talk about natural science, is simple, "The law is what … Continue reading When Reality Leads to Legal Realism
Tag: philosophy
Anything Can Go – Interview With Paul Feyerabend in English
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUtzWMh1fro A quote from Paul Feyerabend's Stanford Encyclopedia page, quoted this bit: "One of my motives for writing Against Method was to free people from the tyranny of philosophical obfuscators and abstract concepts such as “truth”, “reality”, or “objectivity”, which narrow people’s vision and ways of being in the world. Formulating what I thought were … Continue reading Anything Can Go – Interview With Paul Feyerabend in English
Sorites Paradox: Grain by Grain
The puzzle can be expressed as an argument most simply using modus ponens:P1. 1 grain of wheat does not make a heap.P2. 1 grain doesn’t make a heap, then 2 grains don’t.P3. If 2 grains don’t make a heap, then 3 grains don’t.Pn. …C. If 999,999 grains don’t make a heap, then 1 million grains … Continue reading Sorites Paradox: Grain by Grain
Books I’d Like to Read in 2021
A short fiction where I pretend to you, dear reader, that I am still capable of reading more than a book a week. Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel M. IngramFool on the Hill by Mark SargentThe Omnibus Homo Sacer by Giorgio AgambenCargill Falls by William Lychack [x]Black Imagination by Natasha Marin … Continue reading Books I’d Like to Read in 2021
Exhibit A for Legal Realism: I’m Not in Washington Defense
"'Defendants maintain that because the state constitution defines Washington’s northern boundary in relevant part as the 49th parallel, the State does not have jurisdiction to prosecute them for crimes committed south of the international border between the United States and Canada, but north of the 49th parallel as currently located.'Perhaps not wanting to create 'a … Continue reading Exhibit A for Legal Realism: I’m Not in Washington Defense
Mary’s Room
"The questions raised by ‘Mary’s Room’ – including whether anything about experience transcends physical facts – remain some of the most perennial and unsettled in philosophy, even if Jackson himself actually reversed his position, concluding that the experience of colour vision does indeed correspond to a brain state, albeit one we don’t yet fully understand."—TED-Ed, … Continue reading Mary’s Room
Risk Defines Love
https://vimeo.com/391470213 Love, true love, makes possible what was previously impossible. "In this short film from the UK director William Williamson, [French philosopher Alain] Badiou argues that today’s approach to relationships, with its consumerist tendency to focus on choice and compatibility, and the ingrained refrain to move on when things aren’t easy, means that we need … Continue reading Risk Defines Love
Introduction to Immanuel Kant
"The basic value in Kant’s ethics is that of human dignity – the rational nature in persons as end in itself. A person is a being for whose sake we should act, and that has an unconditional claim on us. This is the source of what Kant calls a categorical imperative: a ground for action … Continue reading Introduction to Immanuel Kant
Everything in Life is a Gamble…
The Philosopher Redefining Equality | The New Yorker
"'People now have the freedom to have crosscutting identities in different domains. At church, I’m one thing. At work, I’m something else. I’m something else at home, or with my friends. The ability not to have an identity that one carries from sphere to sphere but, rather, to be able to slip in and adopt … Continue reading The Philosopher Redefining Equality | The New Yorker
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