A member asked a few days ago whether anyone really held the event-to-event view of causality. Two unfortunate examples of it appeared the same day (4/4/24) on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal. “Ideology, ‘Information’ and the New Censorship” counter-attacked recent attacks on free speech. The author deals with a supreme court Justice’s hypothetical question about what could be said on social media: Suppose someone started posting about a new teen challenge that involved teens jumping out of windows at increasing elevations. . . . Kids all over the country start doing ..read more

  Re: Member’s post 52106 of 3/9/24 Member wrote:         The difference between a constitutional republic and a democracy is in the charter or constitution that protects the individual’s right to life and liberty against the whims of a majority. Some claim that the U.S. is a Representative Democracy in that the government is elected by citizens. From my myopic point of view, it seems that we have a little bit of both, but we can’t seem to get the concept correct.   That’s because one needs to use the right method of concept formation. The ..read more

  http://home/hbladmin/hbletter.com_EMPTY ..read more

  February 2nd was Randsday. As the creator of that holiday, I set up Randsday.com and put the following text on it. February 2nd is the birthday of Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Ayn Rand developed and defended Objectivism, a philosophy that advocates “rational selfishness.” To celebrate Randsday, you do something not done on any other holiday: you give yourself a present. Randsday is for getting that longed-for luxury you ordinarily would not buy for yourself. Or for doing that long-postponed, self-pampering activity you cannot seem to fit into your ..read more

  How many years, or how many decades are the Fox newscasters going to refer to the “crisis” on our borders? I guess as long as there’s a fear of foreigners to cater to. There can’t be a “crisis” that goes on for at least 10 years, as this one has (in 2014, a “crisis” was officially declared by government). One site breathlessly reports that 169 people on terrorist watch lists were spotted and/or apprehended. The same site reports 3.1 million “encounters.” But the two facts are not put together: 169 of the “encounters” is 1 in 20,000. So, conservatives want to stifle the lives of ..read more

  I belatedly listened to Bari Weiss’ November 17th talk to the Federalist Society. Others on HBL have found fault with it, but those flaws are of no consequence compared to the two extraordinary virtues of the talk. But there is a prefatory virtue: she gives us a benchmark for the decline of Western civilization. After 9/11, everyone in America was on the right side. There was an outpouring of American flags and genuine patriotism.  People and government officials around the civilized world said things like, “We’re all Americans now.” People woke up to a new (to them) menaci ..read more

  Many people find it hard to comprehend the widespread approval being showered upon Hamas. How, they wonder, can the perpetrators of unspeakable atrocities, captured on video for all to see, elicit the sympathy of tens or hundreds of thousands in the civilized West? Isn’t the evil of Hamas—and all its Palestinian supporters—indisputable? Certainly, a growing anti-Semitism is at work. But the more fundamental explanation is the one provided by a schoolteacher in Atlanta, as reported in the Nov. 5 NY Times (“Across the Echo Chamber, a Quiet Conversation About War and Race”). She po ..read more

  In ITOE and elsewhere, AR makes a point whose significance is massive, but is not easily available: Man is neither infallible nor omniscient; if he were, a discipline such as epistemology—the theory of knowledge—would not be necessary nor possible: his knowledge would be automatic, unquestionable and total. It’s easy to see why fallibility—the possibility of error—gives rise to the need for standards. One needs a way of distinguishing correct from incorrect conclusions. But what is non-omniscience doing there? Omniscience, after all, is just a dreamed-up attribute of a ..read more

  “Miami Is Booming But Population Falls” is the (ungrammatical) headline in a front-page story of the August 1st Wall St. Journal. It opens thus: Miami, a global hot spot with ambitions to be a business and financial hub, is driving away more residents than it is attracting. Why? The reporters proceed to tell you: Surging housing costs . . . Home prices in Miami have soared 53% since June 2020 . . . And we know what causes that, right? Landlord greed. The reporters don’t say that directly, but here’s how they elaborate: “The median asking rent has increased by 27% s ..read more

  Here’s the updated slides for my OCON ’23 presentation on the philosophy of mathematics: Saving Math from Plato ..read more