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Dr. William Vallicella’s long-running Maverick Philosopher blog explores questions of metaphysics, religion, politics, and culture. In this interview we discuss his relation to the Roman Catholic faith of his youth, his idea of what philosophy is all about, the concept of God, the utility of meditation, blogging, and his views on faith and reason. As always, he is interesting, direct, controversial, and charming in a manly sort of way.
Bill’s normally strong and resonant baritone voice sounds a little tired here, because he and I had talked for probably five hours the day before, and something like six hours on the day of the interview – before the interview started!
I also recorded some of our conversation on the gorgeous desert hike he took me on (this is Bill in his hiking attire, near the start of our hike) and I hope to present some of this in coming months.
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Links for this episode:
- Maverick Philosopher blog
- Dr. William Vallicella @ Wikipedia
- Dr. Vallicella’s “Divine Simplicity” at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Monterey Pop Festival (more)
- Yuri Gagarin
- the Flying Spaghetti monster
- papal infallibility as declared at Vatican I
- Franz Brentano
- transubstantiation
- F.H. Bradley
- Incarnation
- Trinity: SEP, IEP
- D. Z. Phillips
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
- eliminative materialism about the mental
- Søren Kierkegaard
- fideism
- the desert fathers
- the Burmese meditation posture and others
- This week’s thinking music is “Readers! Do you read?” by Chris Zabriskie.
Thanks for the comments, Randal! “I didn’t quite get to the positive side of what he is” I would describe him, and I don’t think he’d object too much, as a seeker, philosopher, and (to some degree) a Platonist. Definitely not a naturalist, I would say that he is ambivalent between monotheism and what I call Ultimism – belief in an ultimate reality which is not a self (so, not a god). But I think he would say that he believes in God, or at least accepts or hopes for the existence of God. His view is along the lines of “classical theism,” but he’s not committed to that whole wad of medieval claims. I value his friendship and his thoughts.
Interesting episode, as always. I couldn’t help but wonder how Vallicella’s former departmental colleagues (the mush-heads and bigots) would describe him!
The best moment is where Vallicella claims that meditation is significantly more challenging than writing a journal article. I’d agree with that. But I suspect that is in significant part a matter of one’s aptitude.
Vallicella stated that he isn’t a practicing Catholic. But I didn’t quite get to the positive side of what he is, apart from a maverick philosopher who loves the desert south-west.
Anyway, for some reason I now have a strange desire to drive a Volkswagen van to Sonoma, AZ while listening to The Doors. Break on through to the other side…
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