Patterson in Pursuit

Is the Trump phenomenon reactionary? Is it a cultural movement? What do conservatives think about Trump? I'm joined by the distinguished Dr. Harvey Mansfield, who has been teaching political philosophy at Harvard for more than 50 years. He has a distinctive conservative voice, and he shares his analysis of the 2016 election. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack....

I have basic questions about Christian theology - What is God? Who is Jesus? What's the connection between humans and God? What does it mean to be "saved"? Does Christianity imply dualism? To find answers, I spoke with the theologian Dr. Ian McFarland at the University of Cambridge in England. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

Where are the meaningful boundaries in reality? If there are none - if boundaries are a construction of the mind - then there is no difference between "self" and "not-self", or between "the perceiver" and "the perceived". In this way, mystics claim that "all is one". It's a beautiful idea, though I don't think it's quite accurate. Regardless, it needs to be rationally defended and grappled with. G...

It's no secret that I'm a curmudgeon. My rule of thumb is that "everybody is wrong about everything all the time." However, this extreme skepticism might be a methodological mistake. To challenge me, I'm joined by T.K. Coleman, who is one of the most positive thinkers around. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

  Slavery was an injustice. Nobody disputes that. However, it's not clear that reparations will correct the injustice. In my view, reparations have rhetorical power, but they will not fix the problem. In fact, they will cause additional injustice. Reparations are theft in the present to pay for theft in the past.  Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscri...

The world of ideas is moving past academia. We're in the midst of it. More and more people are realizing that the "experts" aren't as knowledgeable as they've been told - and that formal credentialing doesn't guarantee you a job upon graduation. The community of dissatisfied intellectuals is growing, and I want to be part of it. Let's build the community that we'd like to see. Get full access to S...

Not all certainly true propositions are logically necessary. I discovered this several years ago while laying in bed, thinking about steak.  Who said philosophy should be confined to a classroom? Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

Is the brain a computer? Do machines calculate the same way humans do? Can artificial intelligence ever be conscious? What does it even mean to be "intelligent"? To help me answer these questions, I spoke with Dr. Bram van Heuveln of RPI. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

Statistical anomalies: are they divine, or merely coincidental? One-in-a-million events are consistent with two mutually exclusive theories - so how to choose between them? Questions like this throw us inescapably into the world of philosophy and theoretical reasoning.  Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

Breakdown of John Searle's philosophy of mind. His own resolution to the mind/body problem is called "biological naturalism".   In my analysis, Searle is a closet dualist - even if he despises the title.  Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

Religious people have a certain quality that I've noticed over the years. It isn't about their beliefs. It isn't about their methods for reasoning. It's about something else: their commitment to the truth as they perceive it. If that's true, then religiosity isn't a bad thing itself. In fact, if it's coupled with philosophy and critical reasoning, it's something to admire. Get full access to Steve...

"The truth is that there is no truth". That roughly summarizes postmodern philosophy.  To my mind, this is an elementary error. It is a self-evident contradiction. However, I admit that I'm biased towards logic and rationality.  To help me understand postmodernism better, I am joined by Dr. Stephen Hicks, who explains the history and ideas of postmodern philosophy. Get full access to Steve Patters...

Progressives are masters of indignation. But before talking about how things "should be", it seems wise to first understand how things actually are. Worldviews not guided by economics are inaccurate at best, and dangerous at worst. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

For nearly a century, the concept of "infinite sets" has rested at the foundations of modern mathematics. I have a tough time grasping this concept, so I asked Dr. Daniel Isaacson of Oxford University to help me out. We cover two definitions for infinity, discuss the metaphysics of mathematics, and cover some basic "intuitionist" concepts. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatt...

I've always been fascinated by so-called "crazy" people. Why do they believe what they believe? Could they be right? What if I'm the crazy person, while they are the sane ones? Perhaps they only appear crazy to me because my mind is broken? After worrying about these ideas for years, I've settled on an answer. There is only one objective standard for sanity: logic. Get full access to Steve Patters...

The mind-body problem has been discussed for thousands of years. Does consciousness require the supernatural?  Dr. John Searle emphatically says no. He's known for his own resolution to the mind-body problem, called "biological naturalism", and that's what we discuss today. It fits somewhere between eliminative physicalism and dualism. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterso...

We cannot overlook the boundaries of our concepts. If our concepts are fuzzy, then our thinking will be fuzzy. Continuums present a serious logical challenge to many ideas. As far as I can tell, the best way to overcome the problems of continuums is to eliminate them altogether. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

Breaking down my interview with Dr. Bruce Cain of Stanford University. He and I both agree that more democracy isn't always a good thing - but we disagree about everything else. We go from talking about the foundations for democracy to examining the foundations of all government - and inevitably end up talking about anarchism. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substac...

Is logic just a Western convention? Do other cultures have other logics?  No and no. Logic is the inescapable rules of existence, and those rules do not depend on our conception or understanding of them. They are presupposed by every thought and every proposition. I didn't invent the laws of logic, but I've discovered them, along with many other philosophers throughout history. Get full access to...

An increasing amount of "experts" do not seem to understand the basics of their field. Economics is no exception. To understand the world, I am convinced one must understand economics - and you have to start with the basic concepts. If the basics are wrong, your analysis will be foundationally flawed. I'm joined by Dr. Donald Boudreaux, who writes a lot about the basics, and we cover some of the i...

When two people disagree, their ideas are not automatically equally plausible. Some ideas are superior than others.  Proposition X is not equally reasonable as proposition Y simply because they are both propositions. I call this an "abstraction error", and you see it everywhere in the world of ideas. Cultures, ideas, political theories, epistemologies - we cannot evaluate them in the abstract. We...

Democracy is almost universally seen as a good thing, but it has serious drawbacks. Is there any alternative to democracy? Are there any constraints on democracy? Is there any recourse a minority has when a majority wants to oppress them? What makes democracy - and government in general - legitimate? To help me answer these questions in political theory, I'm joined by Dr. Bruce Cain of Stanford Un...

"You've just got to have faith!"  I heard that a million times growing up, and it never sat well with me. Once I understood the methodological error of faith, the world of rational analysis opened up for me. If you value the truth, there is no room for beliefs without reason. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

Physicalism does not escape from absurd conclusions.  Indeed, many physicalists have found a new kind of spirituality by understanding the implications of hard-determinism. If humans are essentially part of the universe, and humans are becoming aware of the universe, then - in a very real sense - the universe is in the process of becoming aware of itself. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Subst...

What is logic? Can something be true and false at the same time? Can we ever have perfect certainty? Those are some of the epistemological questions I asked the philosopher Dr. Timothy Williamson of Oxford University. We also dove into the metaphysics of concepts and mathematics - and here we had the greatest disagreement. Do concepts have any existence outside of our conception of them? He says y...