The Sun and the Good In the Republic Plato offers the “Simile of the Sun”, comparing the Good to the Sun. The analogy has prima facieappeal, but what Plato does with it is far from obvious or even intelligible.[1] He writes: “Then what gives the objects of knowledge their truth and the […]
Meaning, Use, and Existentialism Wittgenstein writes in the Philosophical Investigations: “How can he know how he is to continue a pattern by himself—whatever instruction you give him?—Well, how do I know?—If that means ‘Have I reasons?’ the answer is: my reasons will soon give out. And then I shall act, without reasons.” […]
Skepticism and Existence The usual forms of skepticism emphasize existence: we don’t know that external objects exist, or that other minds exist. We might be brains in a vat and none of the objects of perception really exist, or the bodies we observe do not contain existing minds. These types of skepticism […]
Is Referring Opaque? If I refer to Hesperus with “Hesperus” am I also referring to Phosphorus? If I refer to Clark Kent with “Clark Kent” am I also referring to Superman? Suppose I disbelieve that Hesperus is Phosphorus and that Clark Kent is Superman: is it still true that I am referring […]
Consciousness and the Cogito I think it is fair to report that people take the Cogito to reflect something important about consciousness, thinking, and the existence of the self. Roughly, they take it to demonstrate (or purport to demonstrate) that conscious thinking entails personal existence: if you know that you consciously think, […]
[1] Of course, to say that dreams have an emotion-regulating function is not to say that they have no other function—they might be multi-functional. They might aid in memory retention or help with cognitive tasks or allow us to blow off steam or provide a space for adaptive simulation or even provide sexual release. There […]
Emotion Management It is striking how much of human life is devoted to emotion management. Among the more obvious manifestations of this are psychiatry, psychotherapy, drug taking, shopping, hot baths, and taking a brisk walk. We are forever trying to calm ourselves down, recover from an emotion-laden incident, cope with a crisis, […]
[1] It’s hard to find a good analogy for the co-evolution of emotion and dreaming, but the idea of adaptations and counter-adaptations is surely familiar enough. Adopting a bipedal gait will require compensating adaptations to deal with issues of balance, for example. In fact virtually every adaptation will require some counter-adaptation to deal with unintended […]
Dreams and Emotion It is widely agreed that dreams are a mystery, or rather dreaming is. Why do we and other animals dream—what purpose does it serve? And why do we dream about some things and not others? Dreams seem pointless, even disruptive: why did nature install the ability to have them? […]
Strange Ignorance Imagine coming across a tribe with the following peculiar epistemic deficit: they are strangely ignorant of ordinary familiar things like animals, people, mountains, and other objects in the environment. They don’t know whether cats and dogs are both animals, they don’t know whether mountains are convex or concave, they don’t […]