Entries by Colin McGinn

Conceptual Schemes

                                                      Conceptual Schemes     There has been much debate about whether different groups of people diverge in their conceptual schemes (according to some criterion of identity for conceptual schemes). But it has not been questioned that each group has a single conceptual scheme, still less that an individual has one and […]

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Attributes of the Self

Attributes of the Self     I say that I think and I say that I weigh 150 lbs: I ascribe mental and physical characteristics to myself. But there is a significant asymmetry in what I mean by these attributions: when I say that I weigh 150 lbs I am saying that my body weighs […]

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Appearance Without Reality

                                                Appearance Without Reality     Is it possible for everything to be an appearance? Might there be nothing in the world but appearances? Granted, there may be many appearances for which there is no corresponding reality (of the kind that we normally suppose), but could this be universally true? Is the pure-appearance world […]

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Anti-Referentialism

    Anti-Referentialism     I introduce the neologism of the title to refer (!) to a particular type of philosophical position—namely, one which contests whether a particular class of expressions is genuinely referential. It is supposed that there is apparent reference for the class in question but the position denies that such apparent reference […]

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Anti-Realism Refuted

                                            Anti-Realism Refuted     How would we talk if anti-realism were true and we knew it to be true? We would talk as if it were true, presumably. For example, we would utter hypothetical statements about sense-experience, not categorical statements about material objects, assuming we knew phenomenalism to be […]

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Alien Skepticism

            Alien Skepticism       Suppose you are brought up to believe that you are a brain in a vat supervised by intelligent machines. Long ago humans abandoned their frail bodies for a safer life as a detached brain (it had something to do with global warming—bodies getting too hot and […]

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A Quick Argument for Property Realism

                                      A Quick Argument for Property Realism     Property realism is the view that objects instantiate properties independently of mind or language. A standard argument for this view is that objects could have properties in the absence of mind and language. The anti-realist about properties must deny this, and sometimes he is sanguine […]

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A Multimodal Theory of Film Experience

    A Multimodal Theory of Film Experience     Films come in many varieties, and they have changed significantly since their inception. There are comedies and dramas, horror flicks and science fiction, love stories and Biblical epics, dance movies and action movies, cartoons and crime thrillers. Some films are short and some are long. […]

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