Mental Ontology and the Identity Theory The identity theory, type or token, has always sounded funny—that was its charm, its novelty. It wasn’t that we had discovered the identity by ordinary scientific means; it was a philosopher’s conceit, an audacious hypothesis. Neurophysiologists never talked this way; they limited themselves to assertions of correlation (vague, non-committal). […]
Materialism as Metaphor I think materialism is at best false and at worst meaningless. But I won’t defend these opinions here (I have elsewhere, as have others[1]). I am here to praise materialism not to bury it. If I may descend to the demotic, my view is that materialism is crap, but it is good […]
Other Minds and the Mind-Body Problem It is generally assumed that we have no problem knowing the existence and contents of our own mind, but we do have a problem knowing the existence and contents of other people’s minds. But it is a further question whether this is a necessary truth. I will argue that […]
Light Mind I have a theory that is too beautiful not to be true. I will state the theory very simply to start with just so we can get our bearings. It is this: bodies are caused by matter, and minds are caused by light. More fully, the evolutionary explanation of the structure of animal […]
Knowledge of Mind (and the Mind-Body Problem) I have the distinct feeling that the root of the mind-body problem is the nature of self-knowledge. If we could figure that out, we would be halfway to solving the problem. But that problem—the problem of what we call introspection—is deep and infuriatingly elusive. However, I think I […]
Yesterday Yesterday was an interesting day for me. It began with a table tennis match between Michael, my gardener and car-washer, and me. We have been playing a while, and he has gotten steadily better; he is now a very good player and has even beaten me on one occasion. It was extremely close yesterday, […]
Chapter 8 The End of Skill? Is it possible that skill will wither and die? Then what? For all their life-enhancing qualities, might skills disappear? Might we become a species devoid of skill? Might we be left with only the skill-free part of our nature intact? Might other animals become more skilled than we are? […]
Chapter 7 Philosophy and Skill Skill hasn’t played much of a part in the history of philosophy; one would think it doesn’t exist. Let’s rectify that omission. We can start with the explanation of action: what factors contribute to a person’s action? A standard answer is belief and desire: people act because they have desires […]
Chapter 6 Work, Leisure, and Skill Skill belongs in both work and leisure. Probably these two types of skill evolved together, as they do in animals (there are also unskilled work and unskilled leisure). Both types of skill can be enjoyed and promote human flourishing. We do jobs and we play games. Our need for […]
Chapter 5 The Value of Skill When G.E. Moore compiled his list of primary goods—pleasure, knowledge, friendship, and artistic appreciation—he didn’t include skill. He could have; he should have. Skill is a good thing. If you consult a thesaurus, you will find many rough synonyms for “skill” that are manifestly positive. We don’t say derisively […]