Introductory Notes for Various Kinds of Reader
The topics of metaphysics and mysticism may attract (or repel) a wide variety of people from all walks of life who bring with them a wide range of skills and abilities. In this post I make some targeted introductory remarks to various potential interest groups.
In Pursuit of the Inconceivable: Extract from the Introduction
This extract from the book conveys something of its style and approach, and also provides some background and context for my blog posts and newsletter. .
Aristotle, Nagarjuna and the Law of Non-Contradiction in Buddhist Philosophy
Is Buddhist doctrine ‘illogical’? Some scholars hold this view, but here I argue that this view is an error caused by a misunderstanding of dialectical logic and Aristotle’s ‘laws of thought’. .
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Ingredient
Episode I
A Puzzle in the Paper
It is a late autumn Sunday morning. At 221B Baker Street Mrs Hudson has lit the fire and cleared away the breakfast things. Holmes and Watson are comfortably settled in their armchairs reading the papers.
“I say Holmes, have you seen this piece in the Times about consciousness?”….
The Continuum East and West
This essay examines the relationship between mysticism, for which Buddhism’s Middle Way doctrine would serve here as a defining example, and what, for want of better word, we call ‘Western’ philosophy. The issue here is their very different descriptions of the space-time continuum.
Is Metaphysics a Waste of Time?
The view that metaphysics is a waste of time is common in philosophy. Here I debunk this idea by responding to one of the most poorly informed and misleading indictments of the subject I have ever come across.