ellauri080.html on line 605: The shipwrecked castaways desperately want to leave the remote island, and various opportunities frequently present themselves, but always fail, usually due to some bumbling error committed by Gilligan. Sometimes this would result in Gilligan saving the others from some unforeseen flaw in their plan.
ellauri096.html on line 92: W. V. Quine insists that the student’s elimination argument is only a reductio ad absurdum of the supposition that the student knows that the announcement is true (rather than a reductio of the announcement itself). He accepts this epistemic reductio but rejects the metaphysical reductio. Given the student’s ignorance of the announcement, Quine concludes that a test on any day would be unforeseen.
ellauri100.html on line 321: What does that have to do with my final rejection of “liberalism” and turn toward libertarianism? When government intervenes in economic and social affairs, its interventions are based on crude “measures of effectiveness” (e.g., eliminating poverty and racial discrimination) without considering the intricacies of economic and social interactions. Governmental interventions are — and will always be — blunt instruments, the use of which will have unforeseen, unintended, and strongly negative consequences (e.g., the cycle of dependency on welfare, the inhibition of growth-producing capital investments). I then began to doubt the wisdom of having any more government than is necessary to protect me and my fellow Americans from foreign and domestic predators. My later experiences in the private sector and as a government contractor confirmed my view that professors, politicians, and bureaucrats who presume to interfere in the workings of the economy are naïve, power-hungry, or (usually) both. Oh I hated those M.I.T. professors. So smug, thought they knew everything.
ellauri375.html on line 487: Not exactly. The idea isn't that God is puzzled or clueless, but rather that the relationship between God's plan and human actions is complex and multifaceted. According to many religious beliefs, God has a plan, but this plan often involves allowing humans to exercise their free will and make choices, even if those choices lead to unforeseen consequences. It's not that God lacks understanding but that the nature of free will and human agency introduces a level of unpredictability into the world. However, many believers also have faith that God's plan ultimately leads to goodness and redemption, even in the face of human failings and suffering.
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