Kinsella On Liberty

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 300. This is my appearance on Keith Knight’s Youtube show “Don’t Tread on Anyone” (Sept. 17, 2020), discussing a hodge-podge of issues. We talked previously in 2017. Youtube embedded below.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 299. https://youtu.be/ULLKItpCiBA This is my appearance on the Law of Liberty Podcast, #7 (Sept. 12, 2020). From their shownotes: "In this episode, we were honored to have a long conversation with Stephan Kinsella! Stephan is a patent attorney and libertarian legal theorist. His website is https://stephankinsella.com/ and you can find him on Twitter @NSKinsella - We suggest for all of our listeners to check out his work! We hit a lot of different topics in this conversation, some new and others which we've talked about in previous episodes. If you like the show, give us a follow @LawOfLibertyPod, @HoffFunk, and @StrattyD The opening music we used is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otD-XbAhMbU"

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 298. This was my appearance on We Are Libertarians, host Chris Spangle, Ep. 457, part of their "Path to Libertarianism" series. From their shownotes: "Chris Spangle speaks to scholar Stephan Kinsella about his path from Objectivism to anarcho-capitalism, why intellectual property laws conflict with property rights, and gives an excellent overview of Austrian Economics."

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 297. This is my appearance on Guy Swann's Bitcoin Audible podcast, Chat#46. From his shownotes: Stephan Kinsella joins us today for a fascinating discussion on the morality and concept of property in the digital age. Is it possible to own Bitcoin? Do we legally own it, or are we simply the ones in control via the rules of the Bitcoin system?

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 296. This is an appearance on Timo Virkkala's LocoFoco Netcast. We had a rambling discussion about libertarianism etc. (see my previous episode with him at KOL291 | LocoFoco–NOT talking about “legal positivism”). https://soundcloud.com/locofoco-net/my-peeps-stephan-kinsella-on-todays-libertarians-1 Update: Youtube version:

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 295. This is my appearance on Jimmy Song's podcast Bitcoin Fixes This (ep. 7). Bitcoin Fixes This #7: Intellectual Property Stephan Kinsella is a patent attorney, Austrian economist and author of Against Intellectual Property. We talk about IP law’s monarchist origins and how it’s a tool for monopoly. Stephan also tells us about how information is not the same thing as physical property and how IP and Bitcoin both suffer from labor theories of value.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 294. This is my appearance on the Burning Boots podcast, ep. 53. We had lots of fun. From their shownotes: We have Stephan Kinsella on this week to hang out and joke around then we get into some more thought provoking topics and questions for him from the listener mailbag! He's one of the most prominent Hoppeans around right now and frankly we found him to be a little under-educated for our prestigious intellectual podcast, but hopefully you can forgive him anyway. Follow him, read him, listen to his podcast, and definitely listen to his debates because they usually rock. Before we bring Kinsella on though, we take about 30 minutes to talk about the state of Kenosha and the collapse in general and Davie tells us about how the doctor that cut his balls off might secretly be based. Burning Question for this week: Can property be implicitly abandoned? Outro song this week (chosen by Stephan) is The Eagle Has Landed by Saxon

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 293. This is my discussion with my old friend and colleague, patent lawyer Steve Mendelsohn, about faith and free will and related issues, some of which are discussed in his book Shallow Draughts: Faith in the Absence of Free Will (2017) (PDF of this book and his most recent one posted here [Shallow Draughts] and here [Sequitur] with his permission). (Steve and I worked as patent lawyer associates together from about 1994-96 or so in Schnader Harrison in Philly.) Yes, yes, I know I normally talk only about libertarian legal theory, or, mostly, IP, and try to avoid discoursing about topics I don't think I'm an expert on ... like faith, concept formation, knowledge theory, free will, compatibilism, and the like, but, hey, what the hell. Caveat listener! Related: Shallow Draughts: Faith in the Absence of Free Will (2017; pdf) and Sequitur (2020; pdf) Mendelsohn, Kosher Vestiges Steve Mendelsohn: The God of Death and the Death of God Steve Mendelsohn, Law School Asshole Patent Lawyer Mostly Agrees With Me KOL471 | “What Is Property? And What Is Not? — Part 1," Capitalism & Morality (Vancouver) (see in particular text at note 3: "In society, others’ free will introduces the risk of interference with possession, necessitating property rights to protect it. [Note: I do not mean to imply here there is free will in the causal sense, but it’s too complicated to get into in such a talk, and not necessary either. 3. My friend Steve Mendelsohn, the “law school asshole” mentioned above–he and I have disagreed before on free will. See KOL293 | Faith and Free Will, with Steve Mendelsohn. I have not talked in detail about free will, but have mentioned it here and there: Peikoff on Copyright, Michael Jackson; Memories of Meeting Rothbard in 1994; Remembering Tibor Machan, Libertarian Mentor and Friend: Reflections on a Giant, the section “Free Will/Downward Causation”. Re the current talk, Steve commented to me: “Apparently I listened too long because I got to the part where you imply that free will exists. So sad.” My response: “Basically as I have tried and failed to explain, I’m a dualist and think have different realms of phenomenon to understand and different concepts and terminology appropriate to each—to causal world and the teleological world. If and insofar as we find it useful or indeed unavoidable to understand and characterize our and other humans actions as purposive, that is as action, not mere behavior, aimed at achieving “chosen” or selected ends, then there is no other vocabulary to use than to describe the action as one where we choose our means and ends. But this “choice” is the way we conceive of and describe human action, th way we characterize it in a teleological sense. It does not mean that there is “free will” in the causal sense. But it’s hard to explain which is why I use shorthand. Similar when talking about natural law or natural rights I will sometimes refer to ‘God” as a placeholder concept even though there is no real “God.” It’s just language.] Peikoff on Copyright, Michael Jackson Memories of Meeting Rothbard in 1994 Remembering Tibor Machan, Libertarian Mentor and Friend: Reflections on a Giant, the section "Free Will/Downward Causation" Ayn Rand on Free Will David Kelley lecture on Free Will, Foundations of Knowledge lecture series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8qeaxNl7jE&list=PLnHOyZsmJrozETJ9zzryDhW0kliZkbIsu&index=5 It is obvious that "genuine free will" in a causal sense is impossible. Randians are diehard monists so try to force it into this monism by some handwaving legerdemain about how the "locus" is on the choice to focus blah blah blah. At least Kelley admits that to have "genuine"… — Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) November 28, 2025 Update: Re the upcoming PFS talk by David Dürr (Switzerland): “On Freedom of the Will,” I had these comments to Hoppe: I am curious to see what he will say. I am also skeptical of free will in the causal sense, since it seems to presuppose downward causation, which seems to me to be as irrational and spooky as quantum action at a distance, which Einstein himself rejected. And yet in the teleological realm there must be choice as it's a component of action. So this is the dilemma. I know there are some libertarian arguments that try show free will is apriori true--by Rand and others, maybe Rothbard--to the effect that you cannot deny free will because it is presupposed in arguments where you are trying to persuade others that free does not exist—since you presuppose they are free to (choose to) change their minds if they agree with your arguments. There is some subtle error in this reasoning, I think. For genuine apriori—necessarily true—truths, they are of the form that the denial is contradictory since the proposition denied is assumed to be true in the attempt to deny it. E.g. we cannot conceive of a world that does not exist, or without causality. But we can conceive of a mechanistic world where intelligent humans emerge who experience an illusion of volition but are wrong that it is real, because they are conflating the teleological-praxeological realm with the causal realm, just as logical positivists and monists do. There have been some so-called "compatibilists" who attempt to square the circle, e.g. Daniel Denniet, but they all fail as far as I can tell since they are too monist. This is similar to the way most atheists' arguments against God are weak because they come from an empiricist and logical positivist stance. They are all too scientistic and unaware of dualism and praxeology. So I have thought the apparent dilemma, an antinomy, really, can be solved best by a type of dualism inspired by Mises's—in which we recognize that choice is an ineluctable component of action in praxeological-teleological analysis--an unavoidable assumption. It is part of the conceptual language we must employ in characterizing other humans as actors (teleological realm) instead of mere behavers (causal realm). I think you (Hoppe) hint at something similar in ESAM--where you writes: But if one can learn from experience in as yet unknown ways, then one admittedly cannot know at any given time what one will know at a later time and, accordingly, how one will act on the basis of this knowledge. One can only reconstruct the causes of one’s actions after the event, as one can explain one’s knowledge only after one already possesses it. Indeed, no scientific advance could ever alter the fact that one must regard one’s knowledge and actions as unpredictable on the basis of constantly operating causes. One might hold this conception of freedom to be an illusion. And one might well be correct from the point of view of a scientist with cognitive powers substantially superior to any human intelligence, or from the point of view of God. But we are not God, and even if our freedom is illusory from His standpoint and our actions follow a predictable path, for us this is a necessary and unavoidable illusion. [The Economics and Ethics of Private Property] I think this basically is the solution to the dilemma: a Hoppean-Misesian type of dualistic approach like this. Hoppe's reply: "The central error of the determinists is that on their own terms they cannot claim their theory to be true or false. True or false, right or wrong do not exist. But talking about this very question shows demonstrates that it DOES." My reply: I agree with you we have to assume choice because we must understand others as choosing actors. As long as we understand that this applies to the understanding of humans as actors, in the praxeological-teleological realm, and doesn't have any implications for "spooky" causal notions of downward causation etc., ... in other words, adopting a type of dualist approach is inescapable if one wants to regard others as actors and to understand their actions, motives, purposes, and so on. This is what modern logical positivists and empiricists are unable to do; they are stuck with monism. Update: See discussion of free will as an assumption behind some arguments in quantum physics (which I have always been skeptical of). https://youtu.be/2kxoq5UzAEQ?si=sfZHqS28SVEsQlND&t=360 Here she discusses Gerard 't Hooft, The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (2016) and his idea about an ontological wave function. Hunh. *** Grok Summary: Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Faith and Free Will with Steve Mendelsohn - Show Notes Introduction and Guest Background 0:02 - 2:10 In this episode of the Kinsella on Liberty podcast, host Stephan Kinsella interviews Steve Mendelsohn, an old friend and patent lawyer colleague from Philadelphia. Kinsella introduces the episode as a rare direct interview, one of only a few among his 300+ episodes, which typically feature rebroadcasts of his appearances on other shows. Mendelsohn, a mentor to Kinsella during their time at the Schnader law firm in 1994, joins from his home in the peaceful suburbs of Philadelphia, specifically near Narberth. The conversation begins with a light discussion about Mendelsohn’s current situation, including his limited visits to his office due to remote work trends post-March 2020. Remote Work and Office Space Changes 1:14 - 2:10 Mendelsohn discusses how his law firm is adapting to remote work, with their office lease expiring and plans for a smaller downtown footprint. He explains that the central Philadelphia location remains necessary due to the geographical distribution of staff and lawyers across the region. The conversation touches on the phrase “it is what it is,” with Kinsella noting its recent use by Michelle Obama, setting a casual tone before diving into the main topic. Introduction to the Main Topic: Faith and Free Will 2:10 - 3:44 Kinsella outlines the episode’s focus on faith and free will,

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 292. This was my appearance recently on a Brazilian podcast. I believe they are adding subtitles in Portuguese. For now, here is the audio, and the current version of the youtube video is below. Their shownotes (roughly translated): "Visconde de Mauá Study Group The Libertarian Study Group of Fortaleza, Visconde de Mauá, is pleased to present a lecture with another of the great names of Libertarianism in the world, the Author and lawyer Stephan Kinsella. At this event, we discussed ideas about what it means to be a libertarian and its practical application in everyday life. Kinsella is the author of an extensive work on libertarianism including the works: Estoppel: A New Justification for Individual Rights, New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Theories of Law and What is Libertarianism. which have become essential works for understanding libertarianism, especially in their application in law, these works are extremely relevant!" Youtube below:

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 291. This is my interview by (really: discussion with) my old friend and underappreciated stalwart libertarian thinker and writer Timo Virkkala. This is one of the early episodes of his new podcast, LocoFoco, and were were apparently going to talk about legal positivism and perhaps argumentation ethics, but we got detoured onto tangents for almost two hours, about a variety of issues--covid, riding dirt bikes, and so on. Good guy. Very smart. Underappreciated. Check out his new podcast, LocoFoco. https://soundcloud.com/locofoco-net/not-talking-about-legal-positivism-with-stephan-kinsella Update: the raw feed was a video skype, which Timo edited for his podcast. The raw video is posted below, in which you can briefly see my new poodle puppy Bella Kinsella: