The Age of Mystery Intellectual historians like to divide up the history of human thought into distinct periods and give them descriptive names: Antiquity, the Middle (Dark) Ages, the Early Modern Period, the Renaissance, the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment, the Romantic Period, the Age of Analysis (I invented that one). But what […]
Phenomenology of Death What is the phenomenology of death? What is it like to die? What does the final cessation of consciousness feel like? The answer is that there is no phenomenology of death, nothing it is like to die, no feeling of the end of consciousness. As Wittgenstein says, “Death is not an event […]
Immutability and Change Is change real? The question is of pre-Socratic antiquity and I probably have nothing new to say about it. Still, the truth is sufficiently strange to be worth reiterating: change is surprisingly absent from the world, more a matter of appearance than reality. Two things don’t change: particles and properties. The same […]
I am pleased to report that Cambridge Scholars Publishing has agreed to publish a volume entitled Colin McGinn’s Philosophy: Further Reflections, edited by Ken Levy. I cordially invite sundry “feminist” groups to send their letters of protest to the publisher and editor; I can promise we will have a good laugh at them.
Benefits of Cancellation Cancellation does have its upside. During the last ten years (it has been that long) I have had far more time to think, write philosophy, read (by choice), and pursue other interests. None of this would have been possible without ceasing to be a fulltime professor. This blog is one result. Not […]
Character and Consciousness It would be good to have a philosophy of character analogous to the philosophy of action or perception or emotion or thought or imagination or consciousness or the self. But we don’t. The subject hardly exists. I will take some steps to remedy that, focusing on the relationship between character and consciousness. […]
Aspects of Meaning Many theories of meaning have been propounded, each seeming to have some merit. But only one theory can be true, so some have to be rejected—or so we suppose. I will contest this. Things are more complicated, more nuanced. Among the theories defended we have: truth conditions, verification conditions, linguistic use, speaker […]
