Indeterminacy Two types of indeterminacy have been propounded: ontological and semantic. I am referring to physics and linguistics—quantum-theoretic indeterminacy and Quine’s indeterminacy of translation. These indeterminacy theses are opposites of each other in the sense that indeterminacy of meaning presupposes determinacy of reality, while indeterminacy of physical reality contrasts with an assumed determinacy of meaning. […]
American Philosophy I take a distant, almost forensic, interest is the state of American philosophy. It is not what it was. It is nowhere near as good. It verges on the bad. All the excellent departments are in decline and soon will be mediocre at best. Once the last of the older faculty, now in […]
Against Possible Worlds The phrase “possible world” has become ubiquitous in philosophy, but it is a meaningless phrase, a linguistic monster.[1] It derives from perfectly good uses of the word “world” while departing significantly from those uses. That word can mean planets, regions, cultures, habitats, professions, hobbies, religions, and more; but it can’t mean the […]
Synthetic A Priori The traditional category consisting of knowledge of synthetic truths is supposed to comprise two types of knowledge: a priori and a posteriori. These are taken to be mutually exclusive and sharply distinct—really nothing like each other (except in both being cases of knowledge). It tends to be supposed that a priori synthetic […]
Analytic A Posteriori Three distinctions have dominated the last four hundred years of philosophy: necessary-contingent, a priori-a posteriori, analytic-synthetic. It used to be thought that these are all equivalent or at least convergent, but this was an error. It is now generally accepted that such a view faces clear counterexamples, notably the necessary a posteriori […]
Philosophy of Life I came up with the following philosophy of life as I watched the Sun rise this morning; I hope you find it as profound and apposite as I do. We live on this fucking planet, in this fucking galaxy, surrounded by these fucking people, having evolved from these fucking animals. One day […]
Is Meaning in the Head? Learned readers will recall those halcyon days of trips to Twin Earth and the outer reaches of meaning when we discovered that meaning isn’t situated in the head.[1] We learned that no meaning is an island; there are bridges of meaning linking one piece of land to another. We called […]
