Monday, February 24, 2025

A Fictional Anti-Descartes

Descartes in his Discourse on Method (1637) argued that he could have absolute and foundational certainty of his own existence via his famous “Cogito ergo sum,”  “I think, therefore I am.” He later, in the Meditations on First Philosophy (1640), refined the argument. He decided that his existence was not a matter of therefore, that is of inference, at all. Instead, it was an immediate, indubitable realization. “I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive it.”

A recent Netflix series is to the contrary.

Friday, February 21, 2025

Has Trump Violated the Titles of Nobility Clause?

 

You may be wondering, as I am, whether President Trump’s announcement “Long live the king” with a picture of the President wearing a crown, violates  Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution.  “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States. . . .”