Philosophy — Tangents

Pages that don’t fit any single trunk of the vault’s philosophy but are worth keeping: surveys, author-specific analyses, and meta-rhetoric.

Links: The Four Trunks, Philosophy

What goes here

Tangents are pages that:

Survey philosophical traditions without staking a vault position (e.g., a Peikoff lecture series)
Analyze specific thinkers or commentators without fitting a trunk
Discuss meta-rhetorical or meta-debate patterns that apply to all trunks

If a page makes a specific claim that slots into one of the four trunks, it belongs in that trunk’s folder instead.

History of Philosophy — Peikoff — lecture-by-lecture analysis of Peikoff’s 50-part survey, Thales to Kant
Rudyard Lynch (Whatifalthist) — YouTube historian; Turchin/Glubb synthesizer; adds evolutionary biology and Mouse Utopia model to cycle theory
The Fallacy Fallacy — why naming a fallacy isn’t a rebuttal; meta-rhetoric applicable across all trunks
The Negative’s Easy Burden — negating is structurally cheaper than affirming; formal systems compensate for it and bloodsports debate doesn’t. The concede-relocate counter. (Was missing from this list — added 2026-09-01.)
Easy to Critique, Hard to Build — the sibling asymmetry on a different axis: a venture’s costs are enumerable in advance and its benefits are not, so evaluation-by-enumeration is biased against building. Carries the Model T case, the endogenous-adaptation claim, the scope condition set by tetraethyl lead, and the counter to a harm list.