Reading Josephus on James: On Valliant Flunking Literary Theory
History as a field is primarily dependent on literary theory (at least the kind following historical models rather than aesthetic), because most evidence relevant to reconstructing history is textual, and the most crucial category of textual evidence is works of...What Does It Mean to Call Consciousness an Illusion?
A question is being asked a lot lately: how can the most prominent position held by scientists and philosophers be that consciousness doesn’t exist? Obviously consciousness exists. It’s literally the only thing you can know with absolute 100% certainty....Rome vs. China: What Made the Difference?
It’s often asked, why did the Scientific Revolution occur only in Europe and not China? By which I shall here mean what I explain in my book The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire as the normalization of effective scientific methods across (at least literate)...Three Common Tactics of Cranks, Liars, and Trolls
You might have noticed a shift over the past few years in how I address apologists, propagandists, kooks, and various disinformation scoundrels, toward laying out not just that they are wrong (their facts are bogus; their logic is hosed), but the underlying...A Trivial Digression on the Crucifixion of Prometheus
Before the rise of Christianity, indeed even before Christianity adopted a crucifix as a symbol (which didn’t happen for at least one and probably two or three centuries after it began), there was a well-known painting in antiquity depicting the god...The Objective Value Cascade
In the movie Serenity, the crew of a spaceship far in humanity’s future discover the lost planet Miranda, where they discover a dark secret: that a government drug used on its population to make them docile and compliant, actually removed all desires of any...Doing the Math: Historicity of Jesus Edition
I am a Bayesian epistemologist. And in line with the independent findings of the philosopher of history Aviezer Tucker, I developed and applied under peer review a way to model historical reasoning with Bayes’ Theorem (method, in Proving History; application, in...How to Correctly Employ Bayesian Probabilities to Describe Historical Reasoning (Jesus Edition)
I recently did a quick forty minute debate on the historicity of Jesus with Canadian Catholic (with James Is Tired capably moderating), which was remarkably content-rich for such a truncated timeline. The overall takeaway was that Canadian Catholic wasn’t...Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? Dr. Carrier’s Third Reply
This continues the Carrier-Bali debate. See introduction, comments policy, index, and Bali’s opening statement in Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Paul Bali; after that is my first response, Bali’s first reply; my second; and...Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? Dr. Bali’s Second Reply
This continues the Carrier-Bali debate. See introduction, comments policy, and Bali’s opening statement in Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Paul Bali; and after that is my first response, Bali’s first reply; and my second. To which...Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? Dr. Carrier’s Second Reply
This continues the Carrier-Bali debate. See introduction, comments policy, and Bali’s opening statement in Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Paul Bali; as well as my first response to that In Defense of the Scientific Use of Animals, and...Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? Dr. Bali’s First Reply
This continues the Carrier-Bali debate. See introduction, comments policy, and Bali’s opening statement in Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Paul Bali; as well as my first response to that In Defense of the Scientific Use of Animals....Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? Dr. Carrier’s First Reply
This continues the Carrier-Bali debate. See introduction, comments policy, and Bali’s opening statement in Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Paul Bali. I am grateful to have a professional philosopher debating this subject and I thank Dr....Should Science Be Experimenting on Animals? A Debate with Dr. Paul Bali
Beginning today and for the next few weeks I will be engaging a formal debate here with philosopher Paul Bali on the morality of the scientific use of animals. Dr. Bali teaches philosophy at Ryerson University, in Toronto, and has taught at the University of Toronto,...Everything Is a Trolley Problem
Ah the infamous Trolley Problem. So ubiquitous, we find it meaningfully featured even in the television show The Good Place. A lot people people don’t like the Trolley Problem. Its very existence vexes them. They’d rather complain about how it supposedly...Get Dr. Carrier’s Latest!
About the Author
Richard Carrier is the author of many books and numerous articles online and in print. His avid readers span the world from Hong Kong to Poland. With a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University, he specializes in the modern philosophy of naturalism and humanism, and the origins of Christianity and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, with particular expertise in ancient philosophy, science and technology. He is also a noted defender of scientific and moral realism, Bayesian reasoning, and historical methods.
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