FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS



Is that really your back in that photo? Is it photoshopped?

Yes, it is my back, and no, it isn’t photoshopped. It is some of the best lighting I’ve ever posed in, though.



Who the hell is Halagad Ventor? Why does he look like you?

Halagad Ventor has become my Star Wars alter ego. He was originally a character introduced in the roleplaying module Domain of Evil by Jim Bambra. When I first got onto the Internet in the late 90s, I adopted his name as my AOL screenname and have used it ever since. As a joke and tribute, Joe Corroney, who often illustrates my Star Wars work, collaborated with my friend and sometimes-co-author Dan Wallace to make Halagad’s official likeness in my image.

For more details of Halagad's exploits, go here.



What is a philodoxer?

The word philodoxer was coined by the Greek philosopher Plato, who used it as a put-down. The word shares the root "philos" (meaning "love") with philosopher. However, whereas "sophia" stands for "wisdom" (making philosopher literally translate as "lover of wisdom"), "doxa" means "opinion" or "belief" (making philodoxer translate literally as "lover of opinion").

Because wisdom is regarded as representative of actual knowledge, while opinions can be held whether a person has the facts straight or not, Plato presented philodoxy as philosophy's antithesis, rooted in irrationality instead of reason. However, by the the time I was through with my formal philosophical studies, I'd come to think of the two concepts as having far more in common than most philosophers will admit. I named my columns "The Philodoxer" as an homage and jab at good ol' Plato.



What is solipsism?

Solipsism is a concept popularized after the philosopher and mathematician René Descartes "proved" in his Meditations on First Philosophy that he ("I") definitely existed because he was capable of thought, famously summarized in the phrase, "I think, therefore I am."

However, while Descartes wanted to use this conclusion as a starting point toward definitively proving the existence of God, many believed Descartes failed in his ultimate task and really only succeeded in proving that he himself existed. Ironically, the arguments Descartes used in his Meditations were taken alone to formalize an impossible yet superficially attractive concept called solipsism, which goes something like this: "If I can only prove that I exist, then obviously I am all that certainly exists." Paradoxically, if you arrive at this same conclusion and you are anyone other than Descartes, the concept becomes absurd. Or does it?

The subtitling of one of my columns as a "Solipsism Edition" is an elaboration on my "philodoxer" joke (see above).



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