About Us
Who We Are
The Origins of Anti-thesis
Past history: Anti-thesis began in Paris in the 1960's
when a small group of students from different
backgrounds and nationalities, who frequented the
cheapest coffeehouses, started meeting on a regular
basis, to engage in all kinds of philosophical
discussions.
In later years, some of these individuals continued
pursuing their interest and passion for philosophy, by
organizing "philosophy salons" in different cities of
Europe and the United States.
In the Washington area, the Anti-thesis philosophy
forum has been active since 1994, with meetings
continuing to this day.
And What We Did
2024
Mar: The Meaning of Life in Early Continental and Analytic Philosophy
https://iep.utm.edu/mean-ear/
Feb: The Moral Problem, by Michael Smith
https://wrestling-with-philosophy.com/2013/11/13/the-moral-problem-michael-smith/
Jan: Bio-Semantics, among Teleological Theories of Mental Content
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/content-teleological/
2023
Dec: Believing Without Evidence is Always Morally Wrong
https://aeon.co/ideas/believing-without-evidence-is-always-morally-wrong
Nov: The Paradox of Analysis: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Paradox_of_analysis
Oct: Timothy Williamson on Two Forms of Epistemic Rationality
https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2017.24
Sep: Kant on Time - https://philosophynow.org/issues/157/Kant_on_Time
Aug: Locke on Innate Knowledge and Substance - Redux
Jul: Herding Cats and Free Will Inflation - Daniel C. Dennett (2020 APA Romanell Lecture)
Jun: Argument and Argumentation: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/argument/
May: Category Mistakes: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/category-mistakes/
Apr: Eliminative Materialism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative
Mar: Niels Bohr on Subjective vs. Objective Reality and the Uses of Religion
in a Secular World
https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/02/01/niels-bohr-science-religion/
Feb: Locke Denies Innate Knowledge
https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/lockeessay/themes/
- and Analyzes Substance
https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/lockeessay/section7/
Jan: Zeno's Paradoxes
Stanford Encyclopedia: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/
IEP: https://iep.utm.edu/zenos-paradoxes/
2022
Dec: "Calling Time", by Anthony Proctor, in Philosophy Now, issue 152
https://philosophynow.org/issues/152/Calling_Time
Nov: The Unconscious Mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_mind
Oct: Quantum Causality
https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-mischief-rewrites-the-laws-of-cause-and-effect-20210311/
Sep: Analysis in Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analysis/
Aug: To Be or Not To Be Authentic: In Defence of Authenticity as an Ethical Ideal, by Katharina Bauer
Jul: Economic Analysis of Law
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-econanalysis/
Jun:
Carruthers: There is No Such Thing as Conscious Thought
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-is-no-such-thing-as-conscious-thought/#
Smith: The Puzzle of the Unconscious
https://www.philosophytalk.org/blog/puzzle-unconscious
May: Metaphysical Explanation:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysical-explanation/
Apr: Philosophy of History: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/history/
Mar: Pierre Hadot: https://iep.utm.edu/hadot/
Feb: Hume and virtue ethics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWi7s78vQXU
Two Views on Hume's Virtues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_59K7jQndk
Jan: "On Being an Octopus", by Peter Godfrey-Smith, Boston Review, June 3, 2013
https://bostonreview.net/articles/peter-godfrey-smith-being-octopus/
2021
Dec: What is the Nature of Reality?
https://philosophynow.org/issues/61/What_Is_The_Nature_Of_Reality
Nov: R(ichard) M(ervyn) Hare: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hare/
Oct: Jerry Fodor: https://iep.utm.edu/fodor/
Sep: Ontology
"Out of Nowhere", in Aeon magazine,
https://aeon.co/essays/atomism-is-basic-emergence-explains-complexity-in-the-universe
"Ontology - Metaphysics" in the Encyclopedia Britannica:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/ontology-metaphysics
Aug: The Identity of Indiscernibles
Introduction: https://aeon.co/essays/atomism-is-basic-emergence-explains-complexity-in-the-universewatch?v=plK9qfujwyw
Summa: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-indiscernible/
Superhero Identity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_of_indiscernibles
Jul: Modal Realism: David Lewis's Argument That Possible Worlds Concretely Exist
Overview: https://philnotesblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/15/possible-worlds-david-lewis/
Argument: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/david-lewis/#6
Jun: Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett
May: Marion Talbot on Strawson on Hume on causality:
"Hume & the Necessary Connection Analysis of Causation"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8ID1OQN_hTw
Apr: "Solipsism", in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis
Mar: "Backwards Causation", https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-backwards/
Feb: "It Ain't Necessarily So," by Hilary Putnam in Mathematics, Matter, and Method: Philosophical Papers Volume 1, Second Edition (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Great Britain: 1979)
Jan: Two Studies in Consciousness
"How the Light Gets Out", by Michael Graziano
https://aeon.co/essays/how-consciousness-works-and-why-we-believe-in-ghosts
"Is Consciousness a Battle Between Your Beliefs and Perceptions?", by Hakwan Lau
https://aeon.co/ideas/is-consciousness-a-battle-between-your-beliefs-and-perceptions
2020
Dec: R. G. Collingwood on The Study of History:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collingwood/#HistScie
Nov: The Medieval Problem of Universals:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/universals-medieval/
Oct: Hannah Arendt's Theory of Judgment:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/#AreTheJud
Sep: Personal Autonomy - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/personal-autonomy/
Aug: Existentialist Aesthetics - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-existentialist/
Jul: Soren Kierkegaard - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/
Rhetoric and Aesthetics
Jun: The Philosophy of Logic
"The Philosophy of Logic", by Penelope Maddy, in The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, December 2012
May: Laws of Nature
https://www.iep.utm.edu/lawofnat/
Apr: -Cancelled-
Mar: The Differences Between Science and Philosophy
"On Science And Philosophy", by Massimo Pigliucci
"Philosophy, Science, and Everything In Between", by Massimo Pigliucci
Feb: Infinitism in Epistemology - https://www.iep.utm.edu/inf-epis/
Jan: Identity - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity/
2019
Dec: "Schopenhauer the Optimist", by Duncan Richter
Nov: Einstein's Philosophy of Science
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/
Oct: Peter S. Strawson and Paul Grice, "In Defense of a Dogma", in P. F. Strawson, Philosophical Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Sep: A Short History of Decay, by E. M. Cioran, Chapters 5 and 6
Aug: "Are Reasons Like Shampoo?" by Constantine Sandis
Jul: Things That Trouble Me: Death Freedom, The Self, Etc., by Galen Strawson, Chapter 6, “The Silliest Claim”, and Chapter 7, “Real Naturalism”
Jun: A Short History of Decay, by E. M. Cioran, Chapters 2 and 3
May: The Language of Thought Hypothesis
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/language-thought/
Apr: Things That Trouble Me: Death Freedom, The Self, Etc., by Galen Strawson,
Chapter 2, “A Fallacy of Our Age”, and Chapter 8, “The Unstoried Life”
Mar: "Ethics vs. Morals", by Anja Steinbauer, Philosophy Now
https://philosophynow.org/issues/26/Ethics_versus_Morality
Feb: Kant's Transcendental Arguments
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/
Jan: Susan Wolf - Meaning in Life and Why It Matters
2018
Dec: History of Objections to the Idea of Objectivity
https://https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/a-philosophical-perspective-on-the-myth-of-objectivity/
Nov: Process Philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/
Oct: Pritchard: Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?
http://ditext.com/prichard/mistake.html
Sep: Paul Ricoeur
https://www.iep.utm.edu/ricoeur/
Aug: The Limits of Law
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/law-limits/
July: "Moral Saints", by Susan Wolf
June: Maurice Merlau-Ponty
May: Hylomorphism
http://www.marcsandersfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/paper-Mark-Johnston.pdf
Apr: Practical Reason
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/practical-reason/
Mar: Michael Oakeshott on Rationalism in Politics
https://fee.org/articles/michael-oakeshott-on-rationalism-in-politics/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/oakeshott/
Feb: John Dewey's Moral Philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey-moral/
Jan: Introduction to -Skeptical Essays-, by Benson Mates
2017
Dec: Pragmatism
http://www.iep.utm.edu/pragmati/
Nov: Otto Neurath and Logical Empiricism
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neurath/
Oct: (Il)Logical Connectives including:
Prior: The Runabout Inference Ticket
Belnap: Tonk, Plonk, and Plink
Sep: What is Metaphysics?
What is Metaphysics Anyway?
What is Metaphysics All About?
Aug: "The Problem of Social Cost", by Ronald Coase
Jul: -ON VACATION-
Jun: Counterfactual Theories of Causation
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-counterfactual/
May: Derek Parfit: On What Matters, Volumes 1 and 2
https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/25393-on-what-matters-volumes-1-and-2/
Apr: Epistemic and Instrumental Rationality
-- Yudkowsky and Less Wrong: What do we mean by Rationality?
-- Oxford Handbook of Rationality - Introduction
Mar: Respect
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/respect/
Feb: Russell's A Free Man's Worship
http://reasonandmeaning.com/2015/12/12/summary-of-bertrand-russells-a-free-mans-worship/
Jan: The Aesthetics of Classical Music
http://www.iep.utm.edu/aest-c-l/
2016
Dec: "The Goal of Transcendental Arguments", by Barry Stroud
Nov: Supererogation
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supererogation/
Oct: Ernst Cassirer
https://https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cassirer/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/cassirer/
Sep: Law and Language
https://https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/law-language/
Aug: -ON VACATION-
Jul: Peter Unger: A Defense of Skepticism
Jun: Representationalism - Kant, Davidson, Rorty
https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/TKno/TKnoBoro.htm
May: Existential Risk and Artificial Intelligence
Cambridge, Cabs, and Copenhagen: My Route to Existential Risk - Huw Price
Apr: Virtue Epistemology
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-virtue/
Mar: Thompson Clarke: The Legacy of Skepticism
Feb: Michael Slote: The Theory of Important Criteria
Jan: Sisyphus Revisited
2015
Dec: Consequentialism
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/
Nov: Max Black on Humbug
http://www.www.ditext.com/black/humbug.html
Oct: Richard Double on Free Will
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/double/
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/double/Misdirection.html
Sep: Feyerabend's Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/feyerabe.htm
Aug: Operationalism
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/operationalism/
Jul: Isaiah Berlin: Empirical Propositions and Hypothetical Statements
June: Transcendental Arguments
http://www.iep.utm.edu/trans-ar/
May: Schopenhauer on the Futility of Existence
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Vanity_of_Existence
Apr: Nelson Goodman's Irrealism
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goodman/
Mar: Bernard Williams's ''The Makropoulos Case'' And Immortality
Feb: Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/private-language/
Jan: Authenticity
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/authenticity/
2014
Dec: Bertrand Russell on Idleness and Vagueness
Nov: Ludwig Feuerbach
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ludwig-feuerbach/
Oct: Toward A Theory of Slack
Sep: Charles G. Finney's Theology of Atonement
http://www.charlesgfinney.com/1837LTPC/lptc05_just_by_faith.htm
Aug: Two essays on the symbolic representation of time
by Edmund Leach
Jul: Frederick Turners's Sketch of Time
http://frederickturnerpoet.com/?page_id=94
Jun: Embodied Cognition
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/embodied-cognition/
May: Internalist and Externalist Justification
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-intext/
Apr: Leibniz's Influence on Kant
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-leibniz/
Mar: Leibniz and Neuroscience
Feb: Newcomb's Paradox
http://www.franzkiekeben.com/newcomb.html
Jan: "5,000 B.C.", by Raymond Smullyan
2013
Dec: Piaget and Skinner
Nov: The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analytic-synthetic/
Oct: Carneades's Distinction Between Assent and Approval
Sep: Meta-Philosophy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphilosophy
Aug: Gooding: Semantics - Understanding Assertions
Jul: Art and Classical American Philosophy
Jun: Ordinary Objects
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ordinary-objects/
May: M. H. Walsh on Historical Causation
Apr: What Could Teleological Causation Be?
http://marcsandersfoundation.com/assets/pdfs/hawthornev2.pdf
Mar: Kant and Hume on Morality
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-hume-morality/
Feb: Philosophy of Leibniz
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz/
Jan: Philosophy of History
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/history/
2012
Dec: Nagel on Death
Nov: Peirce's Semiotics
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/
Oct: Essential & Accidental Properties
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/essential-accidental/
Sep: MacTaggart Revisited
Aug: Thomas Nagel, The Last Word
Jul: MacTaggart on the Unreality of Time
http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html
Jun: Why Do Humans Reason? Mercier and Sperber
http://www.princeton.edu/~harman/Courses/PHI534-2012-13/Harman/MercierSperberWhydohumansreason.pdf
May: Quine On What There Is
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_What_There_Is
Apr: Reality: A Very Short Introduction, by Westerhoff
Mar: Thomas Nagel's The Last Word
Feb: Doubt
Jan: The Rebel, by Albert Camus
2011
Dec: "San Manuel Bueno, Martyr", by Miguel Unamuno
Nov: Walzer's Spheres of Justice, Chapter One
Oct: Chance and Randomness
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chance-randomness/
Sep: Efficient Causality
Aug: The Sceptic Way of Life (in R. J. Hankinson,
The Sceptics)
Jul: Deflationary Theories of Truth
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/
Jun: Cosmopolitanism
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/magazine/01cosmopolitan.html
May: Rigid Designators Revisited
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rigid-designators
Apr: Peter Suber - Is Philosophy Dead?
https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/endphilo.htm
Mar: William Clifford - The Ethics of Belief
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ethics_of_Belief
Feb: Leo Strauss - A critique of Political Science
http://www.archive.org/details/LeoStraussAnEpilogue
Jan: The Nature of Assertions
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/assertion/
2010
Dec: Searle on What Constitutes a Self
Nov: Bernard Williams: 9 Theses Against Ethics
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/williams-bernard/#Mor
Oct: Dedekind's Cut and the Concept of Number
Sep: Time Travel: A- and B- Time
http://tedsider.org/papers/time_travel_and_coincidence.pdf.
Aug: What is Semantics?
http://semanticsarchive.net/
Jul: Deleuze's Discussion of Hume
Jun: Can Ends be Rational?
May: Just and Unjust Wars
Apr: Kant's Theory of Evil
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57620/2/rgressis_1.pdf
Mar: The Paradox of Fire and the Self
Feb: Libertarianism
http://web.archive.org/web/20010407063531/http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~james/politics/libcrit.txt
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html
Jan: The Pre-Socratics on the Cosmos
David Graham's Explaining the Cosmos, the Ionian Program
http://press.princeton.edu/TOCs/c8303.html
2009
Dec: Forgiveness
Nov: Aquinas on Greed
Oct: Bare Particulars - Theodore Sider
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~ts65/papers/bare_particulars.pdf
Sep: The Meaning of Life - Jeffery Gordon
http://www.philosophynow.org/issue73/The_Question_of_the_Meaning_of_Life_Answerable_or_Unanswerable
Aug: The Possibility of Altruism - Thomas Nagel
Jul: The Myth of Passage - Donald Cary Williams
http://www.hist-analytic.org/WilliamsDCPassage.pdf
May: Heidegger: A Very Short Introduction
Apr & Jun: Dewey's Aesthetics
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey-aesthetics/
Mar: Spinoza's Treatise on the Emendation of the Understanding
Jan & Feb: Ernest Gellner vs. Ordinary Language Philosophy
http://www.helsinki.fi/~tuschano/writings/strange/
2008
Dec: Living Right and Living Well
Nov: Regret II
Sep & Oct: DesCartes's The Meditations
Aug: On Regret
Jun & July: Wittgenstein's Aesthetics
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-aesthetics/
May: Popper's Demarcation Problem
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#Dema
http://home.earthlink.net/~fx3opacity/id3.html
Apr: Thagard on The Development of Knowledge
http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/Articles/coherence.truth.pos.2007.pdf
Mar: Gerald Holton on Modern Science and the Intellectual Tradition
Feb: Thagard's Theory of Scientific Explanation
http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~pthagard/Articles/coherence.1998.pdf
Jan: The Nicomachean Ethics
2007
Dec: Pessimism as Philosophy
Nov: Deconstruction Revisited
Oct: Definitions of Deconstruction
Sep: Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Aug: Intuitionistic Logic
Jul: Varieties of Anti-Realism
Jun: The Best Counter-Intuitive Philosophical Arguements
May: Peirce and Skepticism: The Fixation of Belief
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fixation_of_Belief
Apr: Heraclitus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus
Mar: The Scope of Negation
Feb: Self-Deception
Jan: Counterfactuals per Nelson Goodman
2006
Dec: Aspects of Causality
Nov: Awareness II - And Free For All
Oct: Hempel's Raven Paradox
Sep: Awareness, Sentience
Aug: Consistent Theology (Philosophy of Religion)
Jul: Making a Judgement vs. Having an Opinion
Jun: Godel's Theorem and Gregory Chaitin
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf
May: Universals and Nominalism
Apr: The Problem of Universals
Mar: The Biological Basis of Consciousness
Feb: Paradoxes
Jan: Kripke's Rigid Designators
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Philosophy/faculty/neale/papers/NealeKripke.pdf
2005
Realism and Anti-Realism: Alston
Selfhood: Paul Ricoeur
Subjective vs. Objective: Thomas Nagel
Evolutionary Epistemology
Bronner on The Sorites Paradox
Albert Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus
2004
Gooding: Theories of Truth
Aesthetics: Santayana, Croce, and Wittgenstein
Following a Rule: Wittgenstein and Kripke
The Copernican Revolution
Realism and Anti-Realism: Hilary Putnam, John Searle
2003
Critchley's A Very Short Introduction to Continental Philosophy
The Principle of Insufficient Reason: Liebniz and Others
Freedom of the Will
Thomas: The List of Unanswerables
2002
Ethics -- Utilitarian and Other
Bernard Williams's Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy
Robert Nozick's Philosophical Explanations
Thomas Nagel's The View From Nowhere
Craig's A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy
2001
Free Will / Freedom
Kolakowski's Metaphysical Horror
The Golden Rule
2000
Authenticity: Charles Taylor
Aristotle: Jonathan Lear
Alistair MacIntyre's After Virtue
Skepticism
Freedom
1999
Ethics, Duty, Kant
Carneades's Distinction Between Assent and Approval
Hume on Causality
1998
Definitions: Truth, Reason, Certainty
Is It Good To Make Others Do Something Good?
1997
Friedrich Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human
Walter Kauffman's Critique of Religion and Philosophy and Without Guilt or Justice
Samuel Beckett's Endgame
Albert Camus's The Fall
Thelma Lavine's From Socrates To Sartre
1996
On Referring: Norman Malcolm
Bertrand Russell's Philosophy (1927)
Skepticism
1995
Forms of sensible intuition: Immanuel Kant
Consciousness: Daniel Dennett
Damasio's DesCartes's Error
1994
Existentialism: Necessity, Anachronisms, and Worldwide Impact
a. Sartre
b. Camus
c. Gide