Sam Harris: The Unconverted
René Girard argues that all the great tales are conversion stories; the sinner redeemed. This is why Dostoevsky novels are ultimately uplifting. As someone commented,…
Richard Cocks
Aesthetic Knowledge
Aesthetic subjectivism, or “relativism,” is the view that beauty is solely in the eye of the beholder. The term “relativism” is sometimes used to indicate…
Consciousness: What is it, and Where is it Found?
It is a common-place assumption that brains generate consciousness. The fact that brain damage, drug use, sleep deprivation, etc., impair thinking seems to confirm the brain’s generative capacity….
Globalism, Don Juan and the Perennial Philosophy
The perennial philosophy involves the notion that there are certain metaphysical truths that transcend any particular culture: that there is essentially just one wisdom tradition…
Is Western Civilization Misogynistic?
Resentment combines hatred and love/desire. Self-hatred and dissatisfaction often leads to imagining that someone else has it better and to resentfully desiring to be that…
Introduction and Welcome to the 2017 Symposium of the Sydney Traditionalist Forum
“It’s been fourteen days since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump” – that was how we intended to commence our introduction to this latest…
2017 Symposium – Richard Cocks
Philosophy and The Crisis of the Modern World To find a way out of the current confusions and rifts in modern Western societies, and for…
René Girard – Imitation and Life Without God
In preparation for teaching a literature course in the 1950s, René Girard reread some of the classic novels. In the process he realized that the…
The Illogicality of Physicalism – A Response to Cocks
In a series of essays at SydneyTrads and The Orthosphere, Prof. Richard Cocks has developed a fascinating account of the “illogicality of determinism.”1 It’s refreshing…
The Illogicality of Determinism – Further Considerations
In “The Illogicality of Determinism” (The Orthosphere, 19 March 2016) I point out the absurdity and contradictions of arguing for determinism.¹ The sheer pointlessness of…