In this interview, I ask Gnostic Media’s Jan Irvin about his thoughts on a variety of issues. However, our interview morphed into a debate on issues of metaphysics which Irvin thinks I deceived him into. Listeners and readers of my material know I frequently have no problem challenging opponents to a debate, so why I would need to trap him is ridiculous. Regardless, my questions were classic philosophical questions revolving around whether foundationalist empirical epistemology is justifiable. I believe it is not, and when Irvin, who supports it, asks for examples, I gave two: Aristotle’s transcendental argument for the principle of non-contradiction and Godel’s Incompleteness Theorum against Bertrand Russell. The point was to show that tabula rasa empiricism cannot be a foundation for any metaphysics, and the way that an immaterial, invariant logical or conceptual entity is “proven” or “verified” is not the same as other types of empirical objects. Listeners can judge whether I was unfair to him in the interview, especially given the fact that I let him talk most of the time. Irvin assumes that I don’t understand the trivium and logic, when the very question I ask him is the heart of logic itself.  Regardless, I don’t recommend Jan or his work.

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