The Concept of Language What is language? What does the word “language” mean? What does it refer to? We can distinguish two sorts of answer: performance-centered and competence-centered. Alternatively, utterance-centered and cognition-centered: answers that stress the actual use of language in speech and answers that focus on the internal mechanisms and structures that […]
Human Uniqueness The recent discovery of yet another extinct hominid species (Homo longi) raises a deeply puzzling question: Why are we still here? Evidently there were a number of hominid species co-existing with us on the planet only a few hundred thousand years ago, but now there is only Homo sapiens left. All […]
Mysticism and Philosophy The word “mysticism” has a variety of meanings, but the one of interest to us now is “vague or ill defined religious or spiritual belief, especially as associated with a belief in the occult” (OED). This definition itself contains some vague or ill-defined words, notably “religious”, “spiritual”, and “occult”. […]
This footnote belongs at the end of the paper just posted. [1] Possibly a more intimate acquaintance with universals would lessen the mystical impact of Plato’s theory, by which Russell was clearly affected. The aura of the mystical and supernatural might not survive an up-close look at these elusive creatures. Ignorance tends to breed superstition. […]
Thinking About Universals In chapter IX of The Problems of Philosophy (1912) Russell makes a good case for the existence of universals in a roughly platonic sense. He ends with these stirring words: “The world of universals, therefore, may also be described as the world of being. The world of being is […]
Predication and Instantiation Predication is one thing, instantiation another. Predication involves language (and maybe thought), but instantiation relates objects and properties. The subject-predicate relation is not the object-property relation. The subject of a sentence is clearly not the same as the predicate: it sits in a different part of the sentence and […]
A Problem For Direct Reference According to the theory of direct reference, the meaning of a name (and possibly an indexical expression) is the object that is its reference—typically an ordinary concrete object. The weak version of the theory says that this object is at least part of the meaning of the name; […]
Naming and Memory Two theories of naming have dominated recent discussion: the description theory and the causal chain theory. But there could be others: descriptive fitting and causal connection are not the only conceivable relations that might underlie the naming relation. Earlier theorists might have suggested that a resemblance relation is the […]
The Virtuous Lie Kant held that all lying is wrong, even when the consequences of telling the truth are terrible. Most people have disagreed: sometimes lying is the right thing to do in cases in which truth telling would have bad consequences (e.g. the Nazis looking for the fleeing Jewish girl). The idea […]
Emotions Emotions are consequent upon desire and belief not freestanding mental episodes. The subject has certain desires, such as the desire to stay safe, and also certain beliefs, such as the belief that a looming animal is dangerous, and the result is fear directed at the animal in question. It is hard to […]