Right. I shouldn't generalize. There are thoughtful believers. Seemingly fewer than there used to be.

Quine, Kripke, Lewis.

Communists and Nazis didn't need religion. They had ideology to play that role. Both are cases of fixed ideas displacing thought.

Here is metaphysics.

And here is metaphysics.

Therefore, metaphysics is real.

Pragmatists are mistaken in discounting metaphysics. The value of a metaphysical theory lies in its utility as a framework for explaining other things. Some of those frameworks afford better explanations than others. Make what you will of the IBE.

Just arrived

Philosophers doing something?

When my wife and I started a family, one of my philosophy professors at UC Davis in the 90s quipped that having a child is a rational thing to do after the fact. Expect you will appreciate that.

Something from Self Constitution? Love that book.

The Rand disciples sometimes show up at Philosophy conferences in the book rooms. Nobody talks to them.

Facts are what is the case, to paraphrase Wittgenstein. Theories are explanatory frameworks. A theory can be truthful when it generates true explanations reliably (as does evolutionary theory). But the facts are what is out there. Our claims beliefs and theories are true when they correspond to that

New here myself. I've been chair of Philosophy at Bellevue College for a good while. Generalist with active interest in meta ethics, philosophy of love, and epistemology. Bog at commons.bellevuecollege.edu/wrussellpayne/