The purpose of this article is to point out where my fellow rationalists are being dogmatic, in particular, with regard to Austrian Economics. Philosophers like Hans-Hermann Hoppe tend to drop the "ceteris paribus" condition, turning true-but-neutered claims into false-and-dogmatic ones. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
This week's interview is with Jeff Tucker. We're talking about how capitalism fits into the bigger picture. Libertarians tend to assume that everybody values the creation of wealth, and therefore free markets are important. But why make this assumption? Perhaps free markets create wealth at the cost of personal or spiritual impoverishment. What to think about this objection? We also address the staggering beauty and complexity of free markets, illustrated in proper Jeff Tucker style: by telling ...
Few things are as intuitively obvious, yet philosophically challenging, as the existence of free will. There’s a fashionable critique of free will that says, “The very concept of free will is incoherent; therefore, it obviously doesn’t exist.” This article does not make the case for or against the existence of free will. Instead, it defends its conceptual coherence. Free will is not a nonsensical idea, and it might exist. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.c...
This article was inspired by a life-size replica of the crucifixion within a church in Bergen, Norway. The church service was pointless, but the replica sparked some valuable thoughts about love and hate. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
This narrated article is about using the Rubik's Cube as an analogy for philosophic paradoxes and problem-solving. There are no unsolvable scrambles... Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
Is a “whole” really something greater than the sum of its parts? Or, is a “whole” identical to the sum of its parts? Dr. Andrew Brenner joins me for a fun conversation about mereology - the study of parts and wholes. While it might seem like an esoteric topic, it’s actually central to metaphysics, and the conclusions have implications on things as varied as the philosophy of mind, personal identity, and even the philosophy of mathematics and geometry. Both Dr. Brenner and I agreed in this episod...
Zeno's paradoxes are some of the most famous. Most modern philosophers simply dismiss them as "resolved" because of calculus. However, that's a logical mistake. Calculus actually does not resolve Zeno's paradoxes. What resolves them is a base-unit of physical reality. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
I am joined again by Ryan Charles to discuss the current state of the Bitcoin Cash network. After the failure of the Segwit2x proposal to scale Bitcoin, a significant percentage of early adopters have moved onto the Bitcoin Cash network, and progress is happening fast. In fact, as of this interview, I've decided to only support Bitcoin Cash addresses for my work, and I've decided to write my next book on Bitcoin, called "The First Fork: From Bitcoin to Bitcoin Cash." Get full access to Steve Pat...
This is a narrated article from the 2016 campaign season. I was inspired by the rhetoric of Bernie Sanders to create some satire... Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
Imagine it's the late evening in Atlanta, and a small white woman is walking to her car in a parking lot. A black man she didn't see before walks up behind her. She gets nervous and feels like she might be in danger. She holds onto her purse a little more tightly. Is this a clear case of racism? Is it simply rational behavior? If it's racism, is it a moral problem? TK Coleman joins me to discuss these types of situations in Part Two of our conversation on race and colorblindness. Is it really po...
This is a narration of an article I wrote when the US Supreme Court made their famous ruling on gay marriage. When you step back and view the big picture, the whole situation is bizarre. Humans, themselves, are bizarre, as are their political structures. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
TK Coleman joins me for another excellent conversation about race. This week, we focus on the concept of "colorblindness." Is it possible to be colorblind, or is that naive? Can we recognize differences among groups, while still judging every individual according to their own character? Is white supremacism a fundamental feature of white people's minds - so much, that they cannot spot it within themselves? Is the reason that so many people deny being racist is because of a lack of self-awareness...
Poker can teach us something profound about philosophy. Specifically, it can teach us about the relationship between theory and data, knowledge and experience, and the ancient debate between rationalists and empiricists. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
This week I’m joined by Dr. Bryan Caplan to discuss his new book, “The Case Against Education.” We cover the signaling model of education, whether college is always a good idea, and we got into an interesting conversation about doing interdisciplinary work - something very relevant to my own project. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe...
This is Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Graham Priest. We talk about the history of logic and the great revisions that took place around the turn of the 20th century. When logic met math, both disciplines changed, for better or worse. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
My conversation with Dr. Graham Priest, who is best known for his defense of dialetheism - the idea that some contradictions are true. We talk about logic, metaphysics, the relationship between the two, and focus on the liar's paradox in particular. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
This is my breakdown of David Chalmers' interview on the Closer to Truth Series - about metaphysics and ontology. Are there entities in the world, or is there just stuff? Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0QPWQR5f9Q Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
If animals can suffer, does that make it immoral to eat meat? I'm joined again by Dr. Mike Huemer to help me answer this question. He has recently released a series of four dialogues on the topic, which address many of the issues we talk about in this episode. Also covered: free will, empathy, and whether the nutritional value of meat changes our ethical judgments. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe...
Does objective truth exist? Thaddeus Russell joins me for part two of our discussion about postmodernism. In this episode, we focus on the philosophy of truth. Can we know anything about the world? Can we know anything about our minds? Are the laws of logic objective or just a convention of language? Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe...
I am joined by Dr. Thaddeus Russell to talk about postmodernism. With the popularity of people like Jordan Peterson, who vocally criticize postmodernism, Thaddeus thinks most of the criticism is misplaced. We also have a great conversation about love, religion, and people's motivation for their actions. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe...
Season 2 is here! The show starts up again with a fantastic interview with Dr. Bernardo Kastrup about idealism. I've spent a lot of time arguing against physicalism and for a kind of "reluctant dualist" worldview, but I've not explained my position on idealism. So, I brought Dr. Kastrup on the show to give his case that only mental stuff exists . Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe...
I need to take a break from Patterson in Pursuit to focus on health and writing. I can't wait to return. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
Consciousness is a hard phenomenon to explain in any worldview. We seem to be able to intentionally change the content of our experience. How is that possible? Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
Who determines whether an individual or group has the right to govern themselves? At what point does secession become legitimate? How many people need to get together in order to secede? I try to tackle some of these questions while giving my perspective on the imminent Catalonia independence referendum. I am unabashedly in favor of secession - all the way down to the individual. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe...
Language is ambiguous. If you want to communicate effectively, you must understand that different people have different meanings for the same words. Far too many rationalists waste their time arguing for objective definitions, instead of stating their intended meaning for words. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe
Can the whole be greater than the sum of its parts? Does consciousness require that we split the world between mind and body? Can free will exist in a naturalistic worldview? Dr. David Kelley joins me on this episode to give his Objectivist perspective on these questions. As Dr. Kelley explains, many ideas in Objectivism are heavily influenced by Aristotelian thinking. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe...
Many thinkers are more concern with how their ideas look, rather than how accurate they are. They want to appear intelligent, rather than have true beliefs. I call them the "fashionable thinkers," and this is my rant against them. I've noticed many common traits among fashionable thinkers. Have you? Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe...
Do we see reality as it is? Or, are we stuck inside our own mental representations of the world? My guest this week is Dr. Donald Hoffman, who believes that there's a 0% chance that we accurately perceive the world. He believes that mental phenomena - consciousness, experience, qualia - is the real stuff that makes up the world, not physical objects. Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe...
It's tempting to dismiss anybody who claims they've been abducted by aliens or seen Bigfoot in the forest. However, simple dismissal might not be the most rational response. Extreme cases can actually help us understand the relationship between the mind and the world? What exactly do these people see/experience, and how can we know? Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe...
Part four of my conversation about race with TK Coleman. In this episode, we talk about the intersection of race, politics, and economics in America. It's impossible to understand how the world works without understanding economics, and once you grasp the fundamentals, economics will change your worldview - especially your political theory. TK understands economics and has a political solution that everybody should be able to agree on. We don't have to argue about the extent of racism anymore; w...
