InvoSpec

by Hiram R. Diaz III It’s well known that some of the Lord Jesus’ harshest criticisms were those leveled against the Pharisees. This is because the Pharisees, on the one hand, made it their job to convince others of their belief in, as well as their practice of, Scriptural truth. Yet, on the other hand, the Pharisees lived in a way that demonstrated they didn’t really believe Scriptural truth. The greatest example of their disbelief in Scriptural truth was their rejection of the Lord Jesus as Messiah. As Christ explains to them –If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.1Christ contrasts their behavior – viz. their rejection of Jesus as Messiah – with their profession of faith – viz. belief in, as well as strict adherence to, Scriptural truth. Jesus makes it clear that one’s profession of faith entails logical/doctrinal and behavioral consequences.Consider, moreover, Christ’s parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30. In th…

by Hiram R. Diaz III
Reading through Hegeltoday, I came across the philosopher’s beliefs on insanity. I was, for lack of a better word, triggered by what I read. I wasn’t offended by Hegel’s theory of insanity, but his belief that there can be anything in reality that is meaningless. Given that Hegel’s entire philosophical edifice rests upon the assumption that the “All” is by necessity comprised of all that historically preceded it’s formation, it seems to follow that Hegel cannot legitimately call any thing – be it an event, object, property, relation, etc – meaningless. For at the very least, what is eliminated through the dialectical process of history can be meaningfully identified as contradiction, and contradiction, for Hegel, is the driving force of the dialectical process. Raymond Plant explains that
For Hegel philosophy…has to be historical. Given that the nature of the human mind and its development …

by Hiram R. Diaz IIISo I've been kind of quiet online lately, but I haven't been absent. I'm working on a number of different projects - aesthetic and theological - that have required more direct engagement with ideas and texts with which I'm only relatively familiar. Here's a quick breakdown of what I've been working on - 1. Reacquainting myself with the philosophy of Hegel, in order to become better equipped at articulating how CRT & Social Justice Warriorism are built on conceptions of the self, society, morality, history, and theology thought up by White male Europeans.ReadingFritzman, J.M. Hegel (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014), 224pp.
Needler, Martin. C. Identity, Interest, and Ideology: An Introduction to Politics (London: Praeger Publishers, 1996), 256pp.
Miscellaneous academic articles.
2. Studying axiology.
3. Researching philosophical trends correlative to the developing early church.
4. Creating music for another album to b…

by Hiram R. Diaz III
In this post, we will be looking at the fallacy du jour being used in most covid-19 discussions, namely the fallacy of equivocation. According to the Texas State Department of Philosophy, The fallacy of equivocation occurs when a key term or phrase in an argument is used in an ambiguous way, with one meaning in one portion of the argument and then another meaning in another portion of the argument.1 Here is a humorous example that is frequently used in logic textbooks – Hot dogs are better than nothing. Nothing is better than steak. Therefore, hot dogs are better than steak. We can retranslate the argument as follows – Having hot dogs is better than not having food to eat. Steak is qualitatively better than all other foods. Therefore, having hot dogs is qualitatively superior to all other foods. The argument underscores the necessity of disambiguation, as does the following, more serious, ex…

by Hiram R. Diaz III
If you’ve been paying attention to the prophets of the faux-pocalypse, then you’re probably aware of their collectivist moral exhortations. These exhortations not only echo the aggressive “Mao era”-style fear sloganeering of current day Communist China (see here) intended to manipulate the public into compliance with draconian social control measures, they are also examples of the appeal to pity. The appeal to pity, or argumentum ad misericordiam, is a logical fallacy in which …pity or a related emotion such as sympathy or compassion is appealed to for the sake of getting a conclusion accepted.1 This fallacy is usually employed when one cannot logically justify his conclusion. Consider the following hypothetical scenario:
Person A: Did you know that the official COVID-19 story is probably not true? COVID-19 did not come from an infected bat or pangolin,2 …