26 Nov 2018 by Do Central Banks Serve the People? sheds a critical light on the actions of central banks in the wake of the 2007 financial crisis. Using the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of England as examples, we show how they have stretched their mandate beyond their traditional tasks of price stability and financial stability. This short introduction to the book summarizes the argument that the expanded role of central banks has three serious drawbacks. First, central banks acted without factoring in the foreseeable negative side-effects of their crisis respons ..read more

The following is a guest blog post by Katharina Nieswandt, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University in Montreal. Why are only about one third of academic philosophers women? Mainly because only about one third of students who either enroll in the undergraduate major or stay after introductory classes are women.  I.e., at least in North America, the main pipeline leak occurs at the first stage of a potential academic career.  Retention within the university system thereafter is probably proportionate, except for a significant drop at the step from associate to full pr ..read more

In November, 2018 CBC’s ‘The National’ offered a segment during which opponents and supporters of President Donald Trump were interviewed. The interviewer asked a Trump supporter about the issue of lying. Wasn’t it true that Trump frequently lies:  how did this man reconcile his support with that phenomenon? The supporter replied ‘all politicians lie.’  I found this response puzzling. What did he mean?  That all politicians lie all the time? That all politicians lie frequently? That all politicians lie sometimes? One can ponder the logical possibilities.  ..read more

08 Dec 2021 by The main aim of my book is to provide both a new interpretation of Descartes’s substance dualism and a new defence of substance dualism called “emergent creationist substance dualism.” According to this view, the mind is a nonphysical substance (created and maintained by God), which cannot begin to think without a well-disposed body. While the mind does not directly come from the body, the mind can be said to emerge from the body in the sense that it cannot be created by God independently from a suitable physical categorical basis. The textual basis for this interpretation can p ..read more