Polytropy

This post is based on recent readings, often on or through Twitter, especially of

• Lilith Saintcrow on “Domestic abusers, white supremacists, and religious bigots”;

• C. S. Lewis on gulling the educated, and objectivity as a dubious value;

• Marilynne Robinson on consensus as concealing the objectively true;

• Neil deGrasse Tyson on objectivity as a good value;

• Plato on seeming wise, without being so;

• Mark Vernon on imagination in William Blake;

• whoever wrote an “Open Letter Concerning Transphobia in Philosophy,” signed by many professional philosophers;

• Kathleen Stock, the subject of the “Open Letter”;

• Agnes Callard on how philosophers shouldn’t be signing petitions;

• Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, on the incoherence of the notion of gender identity;

• Aaden Friday, on what’s wrong with Reilly-Cooper and other such women;

• Brian Earp, on declaring pronouns;

• John Steinbeck, on being a man;

• Christa Peterson, on what gender identity might be.

I have edited and augmented this essay since originally posting it on January 9, 2021; the current version is from January 19.

Continue reading →