Tag Archives: philosophy

“As Certain Also of Your Own Poets Have Said”: Greek Poetic and Philosophical Truth in Scripture and Its Implications

Executive Summary On at least three occasions, the apostle Paul quoted Greek poets, and his words, including those quotations, now stand in the inspired text. In Athens he cited two lines associated with Epimenides and Aratus (Acts 17:28). Writing to … Continue reading →

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Purpose, Not Reliability? Examining the Testimonial Line

Abstract Under current Confrontation Clause doctrine, whether a forensic analyst must testify depends on whether the analyst’s report is testimonial, and whether a report is testimonial depends chiefly on the purpose for which it was made. A laboratory report prepared … Continue reading →

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Common Seed: Panspermia, Shared Jeopardy, and the Grounds of Interspecies Compatibility in Project Hail Mary

Paper Three of the Series “The Ledger and the Covenant” Abstract Project Hail Mary supplies a physical explanation for why two species from different star systems can understand each other, cooperate, and save one another: astrophage propagates from Tau Ceti … Continue reading →

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Two in the Dark: Covenant Partnership and the Refutation of Engineered Solitude in Project Hail Mary

Paper One of the Series “The Ledger and the Covenant” Abstract Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary (2021) is built on a design decision that the novel never examines directly: the crew of the Hail Mary was to be rendered unconscious … Continue reading →

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Reputation Against Record: The Popular Archive as a Furnished Past in Need of Correction

I. The Gap Named Every case this cluster has treated so far concerns the study of a documented past — an archive of remains and records that the researcher furnishes well or badly. But there is a second archive, running … Continue reading →

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The Counterfactual as a Memory Instrument: Disciplined Alternatives as a Corrective to the Illusion of a Fated Past

I. The Instrument Named There is a use of the counterfactual that is a game and a use that is an instrument, and the two are easily confused, to the discredit of the second. The game asks what would have … Continue reading →

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Steelmanning as a Memory Discipline: The Refusal of Laundering Turned Toward an Opponent

I. Steelmanning Defined The word is recent and slightly ugly, and it names an old thing badly. To steelman a position is to furnish it in its strongest documented form — the form its own ablest advocate would recognize and … Continue reading →

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The Texture of a Past: On Knowing an Earlier Condition With Its Goods and Its Defects Both Intact

I. Texture Defined There is a way of knowing a past that is not false and is nevertheless wrong. It gets the facts it holds correctly and holds too few of them, or holds them without their weights, so that … Continue reading →

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The General Theory of Founded Memory

Abstract. This paper states the theory that the remainder of the cluster applies. An institution does not receive its founding; it furnishes one. Two furnishings are available, and only two: the founding may be held as a revered origin, or … Continue reading →

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Prolegomenon On The Furnished Past

Introduction to the Prolegomenon Every account of the past arrives already arranged. Before a single judgment is passed on the present—that it has fallen from a better time, or climbed above a worse one—a prior work has been done, quietly … Continue reading →

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