Tom Woods joins me for a great discussion about Catholicism, papal authority, and his story of becoming an independent intellectual entrepreneur.    Was the Catholic Church really an anti-intellectual, anti-science organization throughout history, or is that simply a myth?   Does the truth stand apart from what the Pope declares? Can the Pope be wrong?   These questions and lots more.

Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

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 the romantic story of tuna fish in a vending machine.

 

Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

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.com/subscribe

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 episode: the only things that exist are simple substances. There aren’t actually any composite objects, though we act like there are for easy navigation in the world.

Get full access to Steve Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

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 Patterson's Substack at stevepatterson.substack.com/subscribe

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