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kennypearce.bsky.social
Kenny Pearce
@kennypearce.bsky.social
2.5K followers 1.1K following 420 posts
I read old books & am confused about God.

Philosophy prof (currently James Madison University, formerly Trinity College Dublin).

Latest book: http://bit.ly/2QrnJxl

Latest paper: http://bit.ly/3XsAire
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kennypearce.bsky.social
Kenny Pearce @kennypearce.bsky.social · 16d
Direct link to my chapter, if your library has access: bit.ly/3XsAire
George Berkeley (1685–1753) on Obedience and Natural Law | 8 | Christi
George Berkeley (1685–1753) was a philosopher and Church of Ireland bishop. His 1712 work Passive Obedience develops a novel theory of natural law and its
bit.ly
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
joelherman.bsky.social
The Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society has a new website that is well-worth checking out for details of the annual conference, journal, and news of the inaugural ECR bursary, which was awarded to @mzukovs.bsky.social. The next bursary will be announced shortly.

www.ecis.ie/news-events/
News and Events
www.ecis.ie
December 16, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
bmoralproject.bsky.social
Welcome to the Bluesky account of the ERC BMoral Project! We’ll share project updates, news, and events here. Thanks for following. #ERCResearch #UCD #HistoryofPhilosophy #PhilSky
November 14, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
neohempelian.bsky.social
A student just sent me this…

Might have to design a course on the logic of counterfactuals just to get more mileage from this!
Ebenezer Scrooge sitting in his chair late at night trembling. Caption reads, “I am the ghost of Christmas Future Imperfect Conditional”, said the spirit. “I bring news of what would have been going to happen if you were not to have been going to change your ways.”
December 11, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
thomasdcarroll.bsky.social
Sure, there are many angles one could take in linking the two. Here’s one way that I took in an article from several years ago

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Wittgenstein and the Xunzi on the Clarification of Language - Dao
Broadly speaking, language is part of a social activity in both Wittgenstein and Xunzi 荀子, and for both clarification of language is central to their philosophical projects; the goal of this article i...
link.springer.com
December 5, 2025 at 4:09 AM
kennypearce.bsky.social
Working on the section on religious practice for my 50 Puzzles book this week I found myself writing about how Xunzi and Wittgenstein might respond to this article by Helen De Cruz: www.jstor.org/stable/45128.... I wish Helen was here to see it.
ETIOLOGICAL CHALLENGES TO RELIGIOUS PRACTICES on JSTOR
Helen De Cruz, ETIOLOGICAL CHALLENGES TO RELIGIOUS PRACTICES, American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 4 (OCTOBER 2018), pp. 329-340
www.jstor.org
December 3, 2025 at 5:25 PM
kennypearce.bsky.social
Received my author copy today!
www.routledge.com/Christianity...
Book cover Table of contents Table of contents Table of contents
December 1, 2025 at 5:14 PM
kennypearce.bsky.social
The later sections of this very short book by Matthew Benton (www.cambridge.org/us/universit...) provides a great discussion of some themes I’m often harping on:
1. There’s a big difference between KNOWING GOD and KNOWING THAT GOD EXISTS.
Knowledge and God | Cambridge University Press & Assessment
www.cambridge.org
November 30, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
philosophymark.bsky.social
I'm a philosopher interested in how our understanding of what it is to be a person can shape our understanding of the dynamics of interpersonal relationships and conflict of all kinds. Looking for new ways to connect three years after quitting X.
#FirstDayOnBluesky
November 17, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
chanda.blacksky.app
The part where they threatened to break a judge’s car windows should be a bigger story … they feel comfortable treating judges this way, which means they are being told that they can do literally anything to nearly everyone
November 21, 2025 at 4:53 PM
kennypearce.bsky.social
"Christianity is not a body of propositions...[It] is, rather, a way of life that is thoroughly practical. It is dedicated to engaging God...a central aim of the Christian life is not to theorize about God but to know God."
-Terence Cuneo

place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphil...
Ritual Knowledge
By Terence Cuneo, Published on 10/01/14
place.asburyseminary.edu
November 15, 2025 at 7:55 PM
kennypearce.bsky.social
This was nice to see today.
www.pdcnet.org/philtheol/co...
#philosophy #c18
Online First: November 7, 2025 Philosophy & Theology ISSN 0890-2461 DOI: 10.5840/philtheol2025113187 Which Language of Nature for Berkeley’s God? Laura Berchielli Clermont Auvergne University 1. Pearce and Turbayne Two commentators have emphasized the centrality of linguistic struc- ture to Berkeley’s philosophy and each has dedicated a book to this notion. They are, respectively, Colin Turbayne’s The Myth of Metaphor (first published in 1962, then revised in 1970) and Kenneth Pearce’s Language and the Structure of Berkeley’s World (2017).
November 14, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
freedom.press
Police and judges need a refresher on the First Amendment.

Kansas’ Marion County just provided the syllabus — the expensive way.
Kansas county pays $3M for forgetting the First Amendment
Marion County cops got their First Amendment lesson the hard way. Police elsewhere should take note
freedom.press
November 12, 2025 at 4:43 PM
kennypearce.bsky.social
www.christianitytoday.com/2025/11/nazi...
The Church Better Start Taking Nazification Seriously - Christianity Today
Tucker Carlson hosted neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes on his podcast. The stakes are high for American Christians.
www.christianitytoday.com
November 6, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
zachweinersmith.bsky.social
So, I get several scam emails like this a day, but there's something special about a man wanting to write articles about casinos and sports betting whose fake name is Robert Poverty.
November 5, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
250yearsagonews.bsky.social
Oct. 26, 1775: The chancellor, masters and scholars of Oxford University address King George III to declare their “utter abhorrence” of the “seditious proceedings, by which some of your Majesty's American subjects” are resisting royal authority. The chancellor happens to Prime Minister Lord North.
Oxford North
October 26, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
zachweinersmith.bsky.social
Full solution to all of ethics here: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/ethics-8
#smbc
October 23, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
Kant on Righteous Spinoza, and some Adam Smith
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
Kant on Righteous Spinoza, and some Adam Smith
Last Friday I attended a fascinating paper by Shterna S.
open.substack.com
October 22, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
Just received from a colleague: looks like Penn is going to join the universities refusing the extortionary Trump "compact". I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win
screenshot of an email saying: "To the Penn Community: For 285 years, Penn has been anchored and guided by continuous self-improvement, using education as a ladder for opportunity, and advancing discoveries that serve our community, our nation, and the world. Since receiving the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education on October 1, I have sought input from faculty, alumni, trustees, students, staff and others who care deeply about Penn. The goal was to ensure that our response reflected our values and the perspectives of our broad community. Earlier today, I informed the U.S. Department of Education that Penn respectfully declines to sign the proposed Compact. As requested, we also provided focused feedback highlighting areas of existing alignment as well as substantive concerns. At Penn, we are committed to merit-based achievement and accountability. The long-standing partnership between American higher education and the federal government has greatly benefited society and our nation. Shared goals and investment in talent and ideas will turn possibility into progress. I am grateful to the Penn community for your thoughtful input and for what you bring to our University and our missions every day. Sincerely, J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD President University of Pennsylvania"
October 16, 2025 at 5:11 PM
kennypearce.bsky.social
Step 1: refuse to draw any distinction between "phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking".

#philosophy #c17
Tips Learn how to turn ideas into images.
October 16, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
pedsortho.bsky.social
Please remember that the disgust people have over Christopher Columbus is not based on some modern, 21st century “woke” ideology, but rather on contemporaneous accounts of atrocities that make many modern genocides appear quaint in comparison.

Below, are the accounts of Bartlomé de las Casas.
But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had in-vested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death. The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed. After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died. While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants. Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides... they ceased to pro-create. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and fam-ished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desper-ation.... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk ... and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fer-tile... was depopulated... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write....
October 13, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
paulkelleher.net
Editorial Manager account created
unenthusiast.com Marjorie James Keenan @unenthusiast.com · Oct 12
In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

rm -rf ~/
hammancheez.bsky.social hammancheez @hammancheez.bsky.social · Oct 12
"The chancellor approved it"
October 12, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Reposted by Kenny Pearce
apnews.com
Pope Leo XIV has blasted how wealthy people live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while the poor suffer. In his first teaching document Thursday, Leo confirms that he is in perfect lockstep with Pope Francis on matters of social injustice.
Pope Leo blasts economy that marginalizes poor while wealthy live in bubble of luxury
Pope Leo XIV has blasted how wealthy people live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while the poor suffer.
bit.ly
October 9, 2025 at 12:00 PM
kennypearce.bsky.social
Children's literature in the 'news': theonion.com/u-s-military...
U.S. Military Carries Out Strike On Scuffy The Tugboat
ARLINGTON, VA—Saying the Pentagon had acted swiftly on an insider tip about the vessel having a “big adventure” planned, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed Tuesday that the U.S. military had car...
theonion.com
October 8, 2025 at 5:30 PM
kennypearce.bsky.social
Lovely write-up about great things happening in my department!
www.jmu.edu/news/cal/202...
www.jmu.edu
October 8, 2025 at 5:29 PM