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Bill Vallicella
A recovering academician, I taught philosophy at various universities in the USA and abroad before abandoning a tenured position to live the eremitic life of the independent philosopher in the Sonoran desert.
Interests: Everything. <em>Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto.</em> from Terentius. "I am a man: I consider nothing human foreign to me." Nothing human, but also nothing nonhuman.
Recent Activity
Holes and Their Mode of Being
Written 1 August 2012; edited and reviewed 19 March 2021. ................................ Consider a particular hole H in a piece of Swiss cheese. H is not nothing. It has properties. It has, for example, a shape: it is circular. The circular hole has a definite radius, diameter, and circumference. It has... Continue reading
Posted Mar 19, 2021 at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical
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About Whataboutism
(Written 21 November 2018. Edits added.) What's with all the contemporary noise about 'whataboutism'? Example 1. A lefty complains, "Trump is a liar!" A conservative responds, "What about Hillary and Bill and Obama? Are they not liars too?" Example 2. A pro-lifer argues that killing the prenatal is immoral and... Continue reading
Posted Apr 3, 2020 at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical
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A Relativist Cannot Rationally Object to the Imposition of One's Values on Others
(Written 11 September 2016) The following argument is sometimes heard. "Because values are relative, it is wrong to impose one's values on others." But if values are relative, and among my values is the value of instructing others in the right way to live, then surely I am justified in... Continue reading
Posted Jan 18, 2020 at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical
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Being as the Apotheosis of the Copula: Frege's Dialogue with Pünjer on Existence
Posted Nov 9, 2019 at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical
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Potentiality and the Substance View of Persons
(Written 20 July 2015) I suspect that Vlastimil V's (neo-scholastic) understanding of potentiality is similar to the one provided by Matthew Lu in Potentiality Rightly Understood: The substance view of persons holds that every human being either has the potential to manifest any and all properties essential to personhood or... Continue reading
Posted Oct 17, 2019 at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical
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Why Did Thomas Aquinas Leave his Summa Theologiae Unfinished?
(Written Christmas Eve, 2017) Our frenetic and hyperkinetic way of life these days makes it difficult to take seriously religion and what is essential to it, namely, the belief in what William James calls an Unseen Order. Our communications technology in particular is binding us ever tighter within the human... Continue reading
Posted Oct 9, 2019 at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical
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The Dictionary Fallacy
What I will call the Dictionary Fallacy is the fallacy of thinking that certain philosophical questions can be answered by consulting dictionaries. The philosophical questions I have in mind are those of the form What is X? or What is the nature of X? High on the list: What is... Continue reading
Posted May 30, 2019 at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical
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