Big Bang Metaphysics   Metaphysics typically deals with the universe as it now exists: material objects, space, time, mind, moral values, and so on. But it wasn’t always like that: at the time of the big bang it was very different and didn’t include any of those things. Shouldn’t there also be a […]

  Is the World Vague?   Either the world is intrinsically vague or our words and concepts are but the world is not. We say that “bald” is a vague predicate and bald is a vague concept. We don’t mean they are vague as such—that the predicate is a vague linguistic entity and the concept […]

    Is Gravity a Mystery?   Gravity was certainly viewed as a mystery upon its introduction into the learned world, on account of its action-at-a-distance powers. How can one body affect another across great distances without any connecting medium? But that is not the aspect of gravity I want to focus on; my concern […]

    Organs and Organisms   At first sight the distinction between organs and organisms looks clear and principled: an organism is an individual animal or plant while an organ is a functional part of an organism. An organ functions on behalf of an organism while an organism functions only on behalf of itself. But […]