Questions About Consciousness and the Brain I think it would be a good idea to investigate relations between consciousness and the brain that are not usually investigated. I don’t say these investigations are feasible, now or in the future, but the idea of them is worth pondering; they reveal how little we really know about […]
My Left Arm Apparently, I have done the three things most likely to damage my right arm: drumming, kayaking, and tennis. All involve repetitive motions with the hand held high, and I have done a lot of each. In addition, my neck surgery caused some nerve damage to my right arm. My left arm, however, […]
Two Reviews Kerry McKenzie’s laughable, ignorant, foolish review of Colin McGinn’s Basic Structures of Reality (2011) could only have been published by Mind because she is a woman of junior rank. She clearly had never read the book she was reviewing, given how wide of the mark her observations are. She is completely out […]
Metaphysical Taxonomy What are the most fundamental kinds of things in nature? What are the ultimate natural kinds? A glance at the history of human thought reveals three recurring suggestions: mathematical, material, and mental—the three M’s. Some thinkers have picked one category as basic: Pythagoras picked mathematics, Hobbes picked matter, Berkeley picked mind—along with countless […]
Is Immaterialism the True Materialism? I will argue for a position that may strike readers as willfully paradoxical—that immaterialism is closer to the spirit of materialism than materialism is. That is, what is officially called “materialism” violates the essence of what is distinctive about the philosophical position so named, and that the doctrine called “immaterialism” […]
