Tag: philosophy
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On Nationalism
Nationalism has acquired a bad reputation. To some people it means xenophobia, ethnic exclusivity or hostility to outsiders. To others it means little more than patriotism. Neither understanding is quite correct. George Orwell drew a useful distinction between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism is love of one’s country and way of life. Nationalism, by contrast, becomes…
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A Theory of Limited Foreign Policy
Introduction In my earlier essay I argued that government is not sovereign but a delegated authority. Its legitimacy derives from a limited number of functions that require collective action, including security, dispute resolution, basic infrastructure, and certain public goods supported by broad consensus. The same principles must apply to foreign policy. The mere existence of…
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A Theory of Limited, Delegated Government
First Principles 1. The individual is the primary moral unit Moral duties arise first from concrete relationships: to one’s children; to one’s parents; to one’s spouse or partner; to those with whom one has freely entered agreements. Government does not create these duties. They exist prior to government. 2. Individuals owe one another non-aggression and…
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Being Considered in Itself: A Formal Ontological Sketch
Preface This post presents a formal metaphysical paper developed over several months of reflective work. Although my background is in Religious Studies and writing rather than academic philosophy, I have attempted to articulate a clear and rigorous ontological structure beginning from the simplest possible insight: that Being must present itself in order to be intelligible.…
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The Nation as an Operating System — and Why Tolerance Is Enough
Most of my adult life has been spent inside institutions: corporations, trade unions, chapels, clubs, political parties. Each had its own rules, officers, expectations, and rituals. Each was, in effect, an interest group — a collection of individuals and families coordinating their behaviour under a shared operating system. Eventually I realised that the nation is…
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Experience, Speculation, and the Space Between
There’s a tension I’ve lived with for years: the gap between the mystical experience I actually have and the metaphysical systems I enjoy constructing. They coexist, but they don’t meet. One is lived; the other is intellectual play. My spiritual experience is modest and quiet. What I actually feel is a unitive ground of being,…
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The Thin Metaphysics of the Steely Age
Triangularism For years I carried too much metaphysical weight: hiraeth, land‑mysticism, ancestral echoes, perennial philosophy, the ache for unity and eternity. All of it stirred something in me, but none of it changed how life actually works. None of it strengthened discipline, clarified duty, or stabilised a household. It enriched thought, but didn’t improve behaviour.…
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The Philosophy of Steel
The older I get, the clearer life becomes. Not mystical, not bardic, not wrapped in ancestral fog — just clear. For years I carried a soft, atmospheric worldview: hiraeth, land‑mysticism, cultural memory, psycho‑geography, the old stories. They stirred something in me, but they didn’t guide me. They didn’t heal anything. They didn’t change how life…
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From Ontology to Political Philosophy – a category error?
It is often said that relating ontology to political philosophy is a category error. Metaphysics deals with being; political theory deals with institutions, laws, and collective decision‑making. The two domains, it is argued, should not mix. But this objection only holds if political concepts are treated as pure abstractions. My argument is that nations are…
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A Neutral‑Monist Metaphysics of Ground, Archetype, and Space‑Time
My metaphysical outlook begins with a neutral‑monist conviction: that the ultimate ground of reality is prior to any distinction between mind and matter. This ground is not a “layer” in any structured sense, because layers imply intelligibility, and intelligibility itself is already a differentiation. The ground is simply the condition from which intelligibility arises. What…
