Monthly Archives: July 2015

Hospitals and Bodies

NewYorkPresbyterian-Cornell.jpgNewYork–Presbyterian Hospital in New York City

In the last few weeks I have spent a lot of time visiting hospitals. There is something about being in a hospital, even as a mere visitor, which transports you to a different world. Continue reading Hospitals and Bodies

Will Transhumanism Lead to Greater Freedom?

A friend emailed me to argue that transhumanists should create realities where beings are free if free will doesn’t currently exist, or realities where beings are freer if humans currently possess some modicum of free will. In short, he was claiming that a goal of transhumanism should to create freer beings. Continue reading Will Transhumanism Lead to Greater Freedom?

Evolution and Philosophy: Things I Learned From Richard J. Blackwell

Some books authored by Richard Blackwell:

Science, Religion and Authority: Lessons from the Galileo Affair ;

Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible ;

Behind the Scenes at Galileo’s Trial: Including the First English Translation of Melchior Inchofer’s Tractatus syllepticus

Giordano Bruno: Cause, Principle and Unity: And Essays on Magic (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy)

Discovery in the Physical Sciences

Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics

Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics

A Bibliography of the Philosophy of Science, 1945-1981

(Update –  Professor Blackwell died on October 10, 2021, at age 92. Here is an obituary with a photograph.)

Richard J. Blackwell directed my doctoral dissertation at St. Louis University and later wrote the Foreword, “Piaget as a Philosopher,” for my book, Piaget’s Conception of Evolution. Continue reading Evolution and Philosophy: Things I Learned From Richard J. Blackwell

Evolution and Ethics

Darwin's finches by Gould.jpg
I have been interested in the above topic since taking a wonderful graduate seminar in the subject about 30 years ago Continue reading Evolution and Ethics

Michael Shermer’s The Science of Good and Evil: Summary of Chapter 7 & 8

Chap 7 – How We Are Immoral: Right and Wrong and How to Tell the Difference

181-185 – There are at least two additional problems with theistic ethics: Continue reading Michael Shermer’s The Science of Good and Evil: Summary of Chapter 7 & 8