Mysticism, Miracles, and Mystery How are these three categories related? Are they connected in any way? I shall say not. Mysticism is the idea centrally that there is a way of knowing about the world that transcends ordinary human knowing with the senses and intellect—a way that only some people possess and which may require […]
A Tennis Story I have been making a study of James Bond, reading the novels and watching the movies. I think I now know the Bond mind: principled, decisive, realistic, ingenious, effective, sometimes violent. I recently faced a Bond challenge over at the tennis courts, involving a shrub. I don’t think SMERSH was behind it, […]
So, the thieves claim to be acting out of moral concern! One of your books or papers would be enough for someone to feel that they had made their entire contribution to philosophy! Though, recording your ideas on your blog makes it extremely difficult for the thieves to steal them. Perhaps you could also number […]
A Causal Theory of Everything Is language caused by reality? Is meaning caused by facts? Does the environment give rise to our talk about it? I want to say yes. Language is caused by what it is about, in conjunction with other causal factors. The explanation of the characteristic features of language is the world […]
The following is a summary of a book I intend to write. I would be interested in any comments readers might have about what might be included in addition to what is described here. Skill: A Practical Philosophy Introduction: James Bond and Me Friends sometimes compare me to James Bond because of my range […]
Marathon Interview I have just completed approximately 80 hours of interviews with my Turkish associates (now friends) Ugur and Burcu Polat. The interviews take the form of detailed written questions, submitted in advance, and presented to me by Burcu (who is a neurologist) while Ugur listens. They cover all aspects of my life and work […]
Inconsistent Perception There are two aspects to our concept of perception and hence to perception: an intentional object aspect and a causal object aspect. There has to be an object you directly perceive and an object that causes your act of perceiving. To see (say) an object x is for x to be both the […]
Certainty, Causality, and Knowledge I am going to argue that our concept of knowledge is essentially contradictory. This fact is written into the history of epistemology. It lurks just below the surface. It is both surprising and predictable, given how we use the concept. Arguably, knowledge is logically impossible–conceptually, by definition. We can still usefully […]
Stereotypes We are all too familiar with stereotypes of other people—people of other races, people of other sexes, people with other accents. We are less familiar with stereotypes of other animals, but we don’t need much persuading that they exist—say, rats. But I want to ask a stranger question: do we harbor stereotypes of ourselves? […]
Possible Worlds (Again) There are many worlds: the human world, the chimp world, the dance world, the philosophical world, etc. We can quantify over them.[1] There are also possible such worlds, such as non-actual human worlds or Martian dance worlds. There is the actual human world and various possible human worlds, e.g., worlds in which […]