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The End

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The End I believe I have run out of things to say, philosophically. I have been a professional philosopher for 52 years, long enough to say what I need to say. There had to come a time when it was all said. My most recent papers take the subject as far as I can take […]

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Hand and Foot

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Hand and Foot I have come to a chastening realization: I have been unfair to feet. In my enthusiasm to hymn hands I have neglected feet (I have even been known to deplore them).[1] Worse, I may have been prejudiced against feet (may God forgive me). For feet were there first and made hands possible. […]

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From 2012

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Home About Articles Blog Books Video Contact The Prehensionalist Manifesto July 28, 2012/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin The Prehensionist Manifesto (This document states the main tenets of the Cult of the Hand. All members of the cult are expected to conform to these principles. Formally, the cult is referred to as the Gripparian Order.) We seek […]

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Deciding Not to Hate

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Deciding Not to Hate What is forgiveness? According to a popular conception, it is deciding not to hate someone having once hated them. Is this possible? It is possible to decide not to act in a certain way towards the person in question, because actions are voluntary; but is it possible to decide not to […]

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True Identity

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True Identity The classic identity theory was advertised as an empirical (“contingent”) theory not an a priori truth. That means it could turn out to be empirically false. I will argue that it is, but another identity theory could take its place. It was always sketchy about what states of the brain are identical to […]

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Basic Particulars and the Mind

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Basic Particulars and the Mind In Individuals (1959) Peter Strawson argued that material bodies are the basic particulars from the point of view of reference. Space (or our conception of it) plays a crucial role in making determinate reference possible. Other, non-basic particulars can only be referred to derivatively upon basic particulars: for example, actions […]

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Book with Ken Levy

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Book with Ken Levy I am in the process of putting together a book to be edited by my good friend and ex-student Ken Levy compiling a collection of my essays originally published on this blog. Ken is doing most of the work (except for the writing, of course) and we envisage a book divided […]

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Nagel on Nagel

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Nagel on Nagel I would like to recommend Tom Nagel’s interview with Robert Kuhn on Closer to Truth, and not just because he is my close friend. You can easily find it on YouTube. He gives a clear, succinct, and convincing account of the thinking that led up to his beautiful work on subjective and […]

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