sophistry
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On the Univocal and the Analogical
A Philosophical Happy Hour investigating the principles and aims of language through univocal and analogical predication. What is the meaning or the significance of a word? This question may operate on two levels: first, concerning a specific word’s meaning—“tree” or “justice”, “fruit” or “truth”; or, second, concerning the relationship between meaning in general and words…
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What Makes a Thinker Worth Exploring?
A Philosophical Happy Hour asking why (or whether) we should read some thinkers over others, explore some ideas before the rest, and take some philosophers more seriously than others. A question surfaces again and again in philosophical discussion, sometimes with impatience: why do certain thinkers keep returning? Why are Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas,…
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How to Read Philosophy
Among the texts we pick up to read, some few will shape our thoughts and therefore our beliefs in ways much more profound than others. “No one opens a book on algebra with anxiety”, writes Brand Blanshard in his Philosophical Style, “as to whether the author is going to treat the binomial theorem roughly, or…