For my relationship to American philosopher Sidney Hook (1902-1989), see this 2018 post. For my effort to sell off my library, see this, this, this, and this.
I’d love to sell them as a set
Hook as Author
From Hegel to Marx (1971 [1936])
The Hero in History (1967 [1943])
Education for Modern Man (1946)
Marx and the Marxists: The Ambiguous Legacy (1955)
Common Sense and the Fifth Amendment (1957)
The Quest for Being (1961)
The Paradoxes of Freedom (1962)
The Fail-Safe Fallacy (1963)
Political Power and Personal Freedom (1965 [1959])
Academic Freedom and Academic Anarchy (1970)
Philosophy and Public Policy (1980)
Hook as Contributor and Editor
Determinism and Freedom in the Age of Modern Science (1958) (Blanshard, Munitz, et al.)
American Philosophers at Work: The Philosophic Scene in the United States (1956) Blanshard, Black, Carnap, Nagel, Sellars, Stace, et al.
Bill Vallicella, a friend and philosophical sparring partner of two decades, recently discussed another thinker’s argument from design to God.[1] Since my interest lies in biblical rather than “classical” theism, I will not engage with the argument itself or his discussion of it. Instead, I want to examine the presuppositions of philosophical theology general and a thesis of Bill’s in particular.
The presupposition of philosophical theology is that it is licit for a human being to suspend his knowledge of יהוה (Yahweh)—the God of the Bible—in order to explore the limits of philosophical inquiry with respect to God’s existence. From time to time, Bill revisits his thesis that there are no rationally compelling (“knock-down”) arguments for or against any metaphysical position. He did so again in his recent post, providing an opportunity for me to restate my position.
I was reminded of an essay I reposted in 2023, which first appeared on my old site twenty years earlier. In it, I critique “Dogmatic Uncertainty” by the British libertarian classicist and novelist Sean Gabb.[2] Both Gabb and Bill implicitly rely on the contrast between δόξα (doxa) and ἐπιστήμη (epistēmē)—that is, between “mere” opinion and certain knowledge. I presume that Bill, an expert in argumentation, has not ruled out the possibility that we are within our rights to claim ἐπιστήμη about God without supporting argumentation. But if I make that claim, am I being necessarily “dogmatic” in the pejorative sense? Continue reading “On dogma and dogmatism”
Yesterday I put my set of Durant’s The Story of Civilization up for offer. I said “you may expect more posts like this one in the near future.” The near future has arrived.
Here’s what Frederick Copleston‘s classic A History of Philosophy, a 15-volume paperback set, looks like on one of my library’s shelves. They’re clean and in great shape. Here’s the Wiki entry.
To repeat part of yesterday’s post, please “do your research about what this set is going for elsewhere and then, if interested, make inquiry. If we come to terms, I will lovingly wrap and package them, which are in very good condition (clean, no handwriting, no underlining, no highlighting) and [take] the box to the post office; you’ll have them in about a week. (Those of you who know that these are not idle words are free to leave testimonials to that effect below.)”
One of this blog’s first posts was a tribute to Will Durant, the author (and beginning with Volume VII, co-author with wife Ariel) of The Story of Civilization.[1] I regret never having made the time to peruse every page of this series, unique in its high literary and esthetic quality, which more than compensates for the shortcomings that specialists have found reason to complain about. I no longer believe that the prospect of luxuriating in these volumes can compete with the urgent tasks that demand my attention.
I must part with these eleven tomes (1975 edition), pictured above, as I must with so many other books, asking something in return from visitors who have benefitted from what they’ve found on this site. Scholars who are still in their book-accumulation stage are my preferred customers for the contents of my library. So, do your research about what this set is going for elsewhere and then, if interested, make inquiry. If we come to terms, I will lovingly wrap and package them, which are in very good condition (clean, no handwriting, no underlining, no highlighting) and wheel the box to the post office; you’ll have them in about a week. (Those of you who know that these are not idle words are free to leave testimonials to that effect below.)
As I must accelerate the book-liquidation phase I’m in, you may expect more posts like this one in the near future.
Thank you for considering this offer. Whatever you think of it, at least have a(nother) look at that old post; it’s not half-bad.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump hold a Gaza Strip crisis press conference, February 4, 2025
Ethnic cleansing is the explicit goal of Islamists regarding Palestine: they seek to make it judenrein in the clinical, Nazi sense of the term. To that end, Hamas—one faction of that demonic movement, composed largely of Palestinian Arabs—unleashed an orgy of sadistic, fiendish slaughter on October 7, 2023. That day, they murdered 1,200 Israelis—Jewish Palestinians living and celebrating near Gaza—without mercy, sparing neither women nor children, not even infants, whether in or ex utero. Another 250 they abducted, holding them as bargaining chips to secure the release of hundreds of Islamist fiends imprisoned in Israel so that they can resume their genocidal operations.
Israel responded to this enormity by purging Gaza of Hamas, in course of doing so rendering it virtually uninhabitable. In the aftermath of this devastation, President Trump has proposed a humane but temporary refuge for Gaza’s beleaguered civilians—an alternative to the ruin that defines the enclave. No one, least of all Trump, has advocated forcible expulsion or barring the return of those who accept the offer. The goal has never been to make Gaza araberrein (frei von Arabern), any more than it has ever been Israel’s aim so to render the Jewish state. Rather, Israel and the civilized world—against whom the Islamists have declared war—have insisted upon a Gaza that is terrorfrei (frei von Terror).
A Palestinian woman holds her daughter as she walks past the rubble of houses destroyed during the Israeli military offensive, Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, July 10, 2024. (Reuters Photo)
Trump’s proposal is a humanitarian response to the wreckage wrought by October 7—the Islamist attempt to render all of Palestine judenrein. If successful, he will not be making Israel safe again, but safe, period—or at least as safe as any nation can be this side of God’s manifest Kingdom.[1] For this, he deserves not calumny, but recognition as one of the Righteous Among the Nations (חסידי אומות העולם, Chasidei Umot HaOlam).
Note
[1] That’s when Ezekiel’s prophecy (and so many other prophecies about ingathered and restored Israel) will be fulfilled: “After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell SAFELY all of them.” Ezekiel 38:8 (emphasis added). Dwelling safely has never characterized the life of Israelis since the founding of their secular state in 1948 (which fulfilled no biblical prophecy).
King Cyrus/Donald Trump Jewish Temple Mount Half Shekel Israel Coin מחצית השקל (machatzit hashekel).
For my relationship to American philosopher Sidney Hook (1902-1989), see this 2018 post. For my effort to sell off my library, see this, this, this, and this.
Yesterday I put my set of 
One of this blog’s first posts was a tribute to Will Durant, the author (and beginning with Volume VII, co-author with wife Ariel) of The Story of Civilization.[1] I regret never having made the time to peruse every page of this series, unique in its high literary and esthetic quality, which more than compensates for the shortcomings that specialists have found reason to complain about. I no longer believe that the prospect of luxuriating in these volumes can compete with the urgent tasks that demand my attention.
