Identity and Difference Identity has been found problematic; difference, not so much. Identity has been judged a pseudo relation, but no one doubts that difference is a genuine relation between things. We can observe that one thing is different from another, but can we observe that a thing is identical […]
I’m Free Philosophy has saddled itself with the phrase “free will”, asking such questions as whether free will is possible, whether it is compatible with determinism (and indeterminism), and what its nature is. Is it conceivable that the phrase itself is responsible for the seeming intractability of the problem? Consider the […]
Good, Evil, and War It is easy to see how two evil states may go to war. They may have conflicting interests that they seek to settle by means of organized violence: for instance, they may have designs on each other’s territory or wealth. It is also […]
Formal Languages and Natural Languages Philosophers of language have argued over the relationship between so-called formal languages and natural languages (the kind people regularly speak). Some say formal languages supply the underlying logical form of the sentences of natural languages; some say formal languages improve on natural languages; some […]
Forced Knowledge We are schooled in various dichotomies dividing up the field of human knowledge: a priori versus a posterioriknowledge, infallible versus fallible knowledge, implicit versus explicit knowledge, innate versus acquired knowledge, basic versus derived knowledge, and so on. These are all worthy of the attention of the […]
Footnotes to Plato “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” This remark from Whitehead’s Process and Reality (Pt. II, ch. 1, sec. 1) is frequently cited, either as a tribute to Plato’s greatness or as an […]
Extended Anatomy It is customary to distinguish between an organism’s body and its environment. The environment is what exists outside the body. There is a definite boundary between the two. But how solid is this distinction? And does it matter to theoretical biology? Might there be a better way to carve things […]
Explanations of Life Suppose we encounter life forms on another planet unrelated to ours and possibly quite unlike ours. Still, there is evident adaptive complexity, so that the laws of physics and chance cannot explain what we observe. What possible explanation might be given for this complexity? How might it […]
Essentially Negative Concepts Negation is a basic and ubiquitous element of our conceptual scheme, though it is hard to say anything illuminating about it. Beyond noting that it is a unary truth function we find little to report about the nature of negation. We feel vaguely that it consists in a […]
Epistemology Personalized What is it that is justified? Not propositions: they are true or false, but it would be strange to say that a proposition is justified independently of anyone believing it to be true (or probable). Was the heliocentric theory justified before anyone had any beliefs about it? It was […]