What can we know about our thinking given that we have to use our thinking to examine our thinking? In other words, can the instrument of thinking become the object of its own instrumentality? Before you jump into a response, keep in mind that such an inquiry would require the use of the very thing [...]

I listen to NPR and I find it to be an overall evenhanded source of information about a variety of issues and events in American society. I have friends who would disagree. I chalk this difference up to the fact that my friends are situated a bit more right than I, and thus there is [...]

Occasionally I’ve had an exchange with someone who presented a fact or a series of facts while either declaring or implying that they speak for themselves. During such moments I am often reminded of an instance when Ronald Reagan misquoted John Adams by saying, “Facts are stupid things,” instead of, “Facts are stubborn things.” I [...]

When I was an undergrad studying intellectual history my whole focus was on understanding the dominant ideas of a given age, how those ideas were possibly related to one another, and how earlier ideas contributed to the development of later ideas. As I am preparing to enter into a doctorate program in history (at some [...]

Nietzsche once said, “That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts.” So, here are a few words: God, justice, love, truth, salvation, holiness, faith, and goodness, which according to Nietzsche are all signs that point to empty and dead realities. Being a Christian, I, of course, resist his assertion and [...]

In the pursuit of wisdom the heart through faith must lead understanding.

What is the meaning of color? I realize that for many this question will seem non-sensical, since color is likely to be perceived as something that just is, a phenomena that originally occurred in nature and that we replicate through various means in culture. Others, tuning into the fact that we replicate colors in culture, [...]

G. K. Chesterton was physically and literarily a man of big stature. At six feet four inches and almost three hundred pounds, and with writings that ran the range from literary and social criticism, to history and politics, to philosophy and theology, he [...]

After a long season of inactive blogging, I have relaunched my blog under a new name, with a different style, and most importantly a new emphasis. In my previous blog, “The Coyote Howls”, I was intending to focus on stories and storytelling, but I soon found myself everywhere, addressing many things and in many ways. [...]

I realize that this sounds naïve in our postmodern world, but I believe in the pursuit of truth with a capital “T”. I think I have a pretty decent grasp of the epistemological and linguistic problems that humanity faces in this pursuit, but nevertheless I think we must not abandon this enterprise. As I see [...]