Continuum Philosophical Insight
Philosophical Consulting and Education
My lack of blog entries lately is not due to lack of desire or effort; only a lack of time. Projects and request always seem to stack up all at once. That said, I do have some exciting things coming up soon and others on the horizon. First, I am nearing completion on a short …
In an article published some years ago, Fr. Joseph Koterski, SJ, made several salient points about the need for, despite the confusion about, authority in any society (2002: "Defending Authority" in Grasso and Hunt, eds., A Moral Enterprise: Essays in Honor of Francis Canavan, 107-25). Most especially, as he noted, are the need and the confusion experienced in academia …
Continue reading "Quo Vadis, Academe? Wisdom & the Ivory Tower"
Aquinas—unlike some others of his time, before his time, and even after his time—did not always underestimate the potency of non-human animals’ estimative capacity by reducing it to “instinct”: that is, to an inborn, unchanging, “pre-programmed” routine of how to deal with environmental factors. As we know now, in an endeavor accelerated by the investigative …
This phrase--"thinking beyond academia"--was written by a friend and colleague of mine in the context of working on a joint (forthcoming) project of ours, and specifically in reference to what I am attempting to do professionally. I have since taken it up as a kind of tagline: Continuum Philosophical Insight is thinking beyond academia. With rare …
Mention “logic” around the typical university today and you are likely to educe a variety of thoughts in your audience: perhaps something having to do with computer programming: loops, if, else, then statements, and so on; perhaps something to do with “postgenderist” ideology railing against the “illogic” of the political “right-wing”; maybe a very dry …
Continue reading "Scholastic Retrieve [2] – Philosophical Science: Necessity of Logic"
In Defense of Monoamory, or Why Open Relationships aren’t for Anyone Most human thinking is determined not by free investigation of beings, let alone of being, but by the ephemeral vogue. This is true no less in philosophy than in more popular culture; only, within the ivoried walls of the academy, sophisticated language routinely obscures …
A review of Kate Manne’s Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (Oxford University Press: New York, 2018). “So maybe the thing to say,” to the apathetic, indifferent masses perniciously ignorant about the misogyny prevailing in our culture, Manne writes near the end of her book (page 290, to be precise), “somewhat reluctantly is—fuck ‘em, in …
Continue reading "Semantic Activism in the Service of Ideology"
What is a habit? Hearing the term, we think of: addictions (cigarettes, heroin, cocaine, masturbation), tendencies (leaning to the left in our chairs, putting one’s head in the right hand when bored, looking inappropriately at people we find attractive), or patterns (coffee in the morning, television in the evening, hygiene before bed). In every habit, …
