News from the Network, Vol. 19, No. 07

On the one hand, the so-called experts keep telling us the economy is doing great.  On the other hand, we keep hearing how individuals and families are worse off than before.  On the other, other hand, we hear about the “K-shaped economy” that explains matters . . . sort of.  On the other, other, other hand . . . forget it.  Just push for the adoption of the Economic Democracy Act so we have something positive to talk about in this news report:

Kelso v. Keynes on Money

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, many people seem to confuse God and money, as well as religion and finance.  This, in the modern age suffused with what people like Mortimer J. Adler have delicately referred to as “philosophical mistakes,” is a disaster, whether the result of Belloc’s purported accusation of “knavish imbecility,” unthinking self-interest, or deliberate and considered villainy.

JTW Podcast: Current Philosophy, Part I: Ethics and Critical Theory

 Today we begin the final series on philosophy by “Professor Dave” (who knows a lot of stuff, according to his tag line and theme song).  This three-part series covers what is happening today in the world of philosophy, and so what the Aristotelian-Thomists of the Just Third Way can expect when dialoging with others outside the JTW paradigm.  As Professor Dave says, “After studying the history of philosophy and logic for quite some time, we have finally made it to present day. What are some important topics in current philosophy? Let's begin to answer this question by first examining ethics, and something called critical theory.”:

News from the Network, Vol. 19, No. 06

What is going on in the Just Third Way and related areas around the world?  Your guess is as good as ours.  We only know what we read in the paper . . . if there are any of those left, that is.  Does anyone read newspapers anymore?  One news item we would like to see but haven’t yet is to see some country adopt: the Economic Democracy Act:

How to Understand Money

    In the introduction to one of his satiric songs written for the late, great show That Was the Week That Was (“TW3”) performed and recorded at the late, great “Hungry I” nightclub in San Francisco (the one that closed in 1970, not the strip club that replaced it . . . sort of), the late, great Tom Lehrer made the obvious and characteristic (“Seldom has any point to make except the obvious”) ironic comment that his Christmas Carol celebrated what everyone deeply and sincerely believes in: Money.  Of course, St. Paul made a similar comment in one or other of his letters to somebody or other, that love of money is the root of all evil.

JTW Podcast: Logical Fallacies, Part II: Most Commonly Used Fallacies

 This week we conclude our look at people’s favorite way of arguing today: the logical fallacy.   Again, this should be very useful for proponents of the Just Third Way — both to show them what to avoid and what to expect.  As Professor Dave says, “We just learned about formal and informal fallacies. Now it's time to go through a list of the most common types of fallacies, so that we can be familiar with as many of them as possible. These would be things like the No True Scotsman fallacy, ad populum fallacy, ad hominem, poisoning the well, genetic fallacy, begging the question, straw man fallacy, and many others. Let's see how many we can get through!”:

News from the Network, Vol. 19, No. 05

Each week we wish we could report on something fundamentally different rather than just unimportant details that reflect no genuine improvement anywhere.  Of course, we define improvement as adopting the Economic Democracy Act, but we’re hoping that something in the current situation will get people to wake up:

Faith, Reason, and Irrationality

As we have often noted on this blog, we like it when Faithful Readers send in comments or questions we can answer and use as the raw material for a posting . . . especially when the FR does most of the work him- or herself.  Today’s question-and-answer is from a Reader who is both Faithful and faithful (although not in our faith), whom we shall call “Rocky.”  And what was her (or his, as the case may be) comment or question . . . or a bit of both?  As Rocky (and maybe even Bullwinkle) said,

JTW Podcast: Logical Fallacies, Part I: Formal and Informal Fallacies

This week we take a look at people’s favorite way of arguing virtually anything: the logical fallacy.   This just might be one of the most useful series, albeit short, for proponents of the Just Third Way — both to show them what to avoid and what to expect.  As Professor Dave says, “In learning about logic, we've come to understand how an argument involves two or more premises followed by a conclusion. When the conclusion does not follow from the premises, this is an invalid argument. In such a case, a logical fallacy has been committed. This can be the case due to a faulty coherence between the premises or from external factors, but either way it just means bad reasoning. What are formal fallacies vs. informal fallacies? Let's get a better understanding of this concept.”:

News from the Network, Vol. 19, No. 04

Remember when the slogan was “It’s the economy, stupid.”  Of course, that might be interchangeable with, “It’s the stupid economy,” but the point here is the practice of the current administration to keep insisting everything is A-OK and America is Great Again might not be what will lead people to recognize the obvious solution to a problem they appear to believe doesn’t even exist: the Economic Democracy Act:

Running Out of Money?

    “You can never be too rich or too thin” (or something like that) said, uh, somebody or other . . . maybe — it’s attributed to a bunch of people few members of the public today ever heard of.  Leaving aside the “too thin” bit as a bit beyond our competence, we’ll focus on whether you can be “too rich.”  Quick answer: yes, you can be too rich, especially if no one else has any money . . . money here defined as “all things transferred in commerce.”  (That’s in Black’s Law Dictionary, at least the edition we have.)

JTW Podcast: Contemporary Logic, Part III: Current Predicate Logic

This week’s podcast continues the series on contemporary logic.  Yet again, this podcast is for informational purposes since we have no intention of ever abandoning Aristotle, but there are useful things besides information in the different schools of thought.  As Professor Dave says, “We just introduced a lot of notation in order to understand post-Fregean predicate logic. So now let's look at some concepts behind this type of logical thought so that we can compare it to earlier types of logic. In doing so we will wrap up our study of contemporary logic.”:

News from the Network, Vol. 19, No. 03

Again, this week’s news items illustrate what we think is a growing divide between reality and what the powers-that-be would like to be the case.  As the Roman poet Horace said, however, you can chase Nature — reality — out with a pitchfork, but she always comes back.  To avoid having to try and create your own reality and become more truthful (truth, after all, means conformity with reality), people need the power to become virtuous, and — as we have repeated early and often on this blog, quoting Daniel Webster — “Power naturally and necessarily follows property.”  That being the case, the obvious thing for the powers-that-be to do is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act:

Trump’s Morality and the Natural Law

It is a pillar of Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy that the natural law — knowledge of right and wrong constituting the general code of human behavior — can be known by the force and light of human reason alone.  This is because (in Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy) human beings “participate” in God’s Nature, and therefore reason the way God does, at least analogously, and in a far more limited scope.

JTW Podcast: Contemporary Logic, Part II: Current Systems and Methods

 Today, we continue the series on contemporary logic.  Again, this podcast is for informational purposes since we have no intention of ever abandoning Aristotle, but there are useful things besides information in the different schools of thought.  As Professor Dave says, “We just learned about the Fregean revolution, but we have actually adapted logic further still, so let's see what we have been doing with Frege's theory ever since. This will involve learning some new symbols and notation. Let's dive right in!”:

News from the Network, Vol. 19, No. 02

Housing costs and debt seem to be at the top of the list of concerns for many people this week.  We see that reflected in the warnings about the rising national debt of the United States and concerns about housing affordability.  Both could be solved by adopting the Economic Democracy Act, which of course could include the Homeowners Equity Corporation (HEC):

Whither Venezuela?

 After spending most of the first part of this week bemoaning the effect of AI on readin’ and ritin’ after viewing several videos on the subject — we ain’t got no information on no ’rithmetic — we decided to surrender to the machine (while reserving the right to criticize such dependency at such time as we are no longer pressed for time and can take the time to write something ourselves) and steal a summary one of the AI programs generated for a proposal the Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) put forward a number of years ago and dusted off in light of what we can euphemistically call “recent events.”

JTW Podcast: Contemporary Logic, Part I: Frege’s Revolution

Today, we get into logic.  Today’s podcast is for informational purposes since we have no intention of ever abandoning Aristotle, but there are useful things besides information in the different schools of thought.  As Professor Dave says, “When it comes to logic, there are two figures that stand head and shoulders above the rest. Aristotle defined logic and developed the field profoundly, and as such Aristotelian logic reigned supreme for over 2000 years. But eventually figures like Leibniz and Boole attempted to develop a system of logic that intertwined with a mathematical approach, an endeavor that finally came to fruition with Gottlob Frege, the second giant in logic. What was Frege’s revolution? Let’s get some more details!:

News from the Network, Vol. 19, No. 01

 Welcome to the first “News from the Network” for 2026.  Unfortunately, that’s all that’s new.  The rest — as you can see — sounds depressingly the same.  What we need is immediate adoption of the Economic Democracy Act, and when that is going to happen is anyone’s guess: