Micah Tillman

So, to prove that I hadn’t just made up the Bizarre Ontology — but rather that it was something that people actually believe — I used the “frontispiece” from Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan.
Now, I would like to use Hobbes’ main philosophical rival, John Locke.
Locke writes (Second Treatise, Section 145):
For though in a commonwealth the members of [...]

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(Don’t you think?)
You may recall my recent discussions of the “Bizarre Ontology” that makes individuals responsible for things other people in their “group” do — even when they disagree with what those other people are doing — because it treats groups as the primary reality of which individuals are mere appendages or manifestations.
You also may [...]

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My lecture today was primarily on Descartes’ two proofs of God’s existence in Meditation III.  They’re both fascinating proofs, and thus I thought I’d share them (translated more or less into my own terms).
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First Proof
The first argument goes basically like this.
The idea of God is the idea of an infinite substance (i.e., the idea of [...]

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This is something I keep thinking about as the health care debate continues to drag on.  This is what I’ve got so far.
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Table of Contents
I. Quintads
II. Active and Passive, Fore and Aft
A. Active and Passive Rights
B. Fore and Aft Quintads
C. Active and Passive Duties
III. Transferable Duties
IV. The Coherence of Quintads
A. Two Kinds of Coherence
B. Digression [...]

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You remember last post?  The one where I said that many people hold to a “bizarre ontology” that claims, “The separate individuals you see are really just manifestations of the group, which is the reality that lies behind them and acts through them (and upon whom you act through the individuals you see)”?
Remember that one?
Okay, [...]

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While I’m on the topic of terrorism, The Wife sent me a link to this article, called “Moderate Muslims? We’re Everywhere.”
It’s by Dr. Eboo Patel, director of Interfaith Youth Core, blogger for the Washington Post, and “member of President Barack Obama Administration’s new Faith Advisory Council” (Wikipedia).
In it, Dr. Patel expresses his frustration with the [...]

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Something I’ve noticed over my four years as a teacher is the frequent use of “can not” instead of “cannot.”
“Can not” means the same as “able to not.”
“Cannot” means the same as “not able to.”
For example:
“Winstaford can not breathe for fifteen minutes without dying” = “Winstaford is able to not breathe for fifteen minutes without [...]

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[ Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6 | Pt. 7 ]
As I was wandering about the office the other day, I noticed two copies of The Intercollegiate Review sitting on a table in the waiting area.
IR is a publication of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, [...]

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I was talking to one of my students today, and the topic of existential crises (i.e., the experience of meaninglessness, [see Ecclesiastes 1, for example, or any play by Samuel Beckett, or Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl]) came up.
I thought my student was having one, you see.  And I proceeded to explain Camus’ [...]

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[ Romans 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6: Intro, 1-5, 6-11, 12-14, 15-18 ]
Romans 6:12-14 (NRSV)
12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to [...]

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