Knowledge, Memory, and Time We have knowledge of the past, the present, and the future—or we think we do anyway. That makes three types of knowledge, classified according to time. But when you think about it you see that there is really only one type of knowledge: knowledge of the past. [1] Knowledge […]
Fact and Value It seems to be commonly assumed that fact and value belong to separate categories: facts are not values and values are not facts. We might call this Humean dualism. The two categories are held to be exclusive and exhaustive. But is the dualism really so clear-cut? First, there is the […]
Is Existence Possible? I am going to consider an argument for the conclusion that existence is not possible. Not that we don’t know that anything exists, or that nothing in fact exists, but that existence is impossible: it could not be that anything exists. This is, to put it mildly, a startling […]
Knowledge of Things In chapter 5 of The Problems of Philosophy (“Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description”) Russell writes: “Knowledge of things, when it is of the kind we call knowledge by acquaintance, is essentially simpler than any knowledge of truths, and logically independent of knowledge of truths, though it would […]
Wavelength and Color We are told that wavelength determines color. But what does “determine” mean here? It is not in doubt that the wavelength of incoming light causes the perception of a specific color, though we should note that it only does so in conjunction with non-trivial facts about the perceiver’s eyes and […]
Puzzles of Color The mantis shrimp challenges philosophical reflection. This little crustacean is reputed to have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom. Mounted on stalks, these eyes can move independently and rotate freely; it has between 12 and 16 photoreceptors compared to the human 3. It can see into what is […]
I have been writing songs lately, so I thought I’d share this one with you: think of it as sung in Country and Western style. The Ballad of Dolores Haze He broke my heart But you broke my life He was a creature of art You were a monster equipped with a […]
Partial Skepticism The solipsist is a partial skeptic: he doubts the existence of other beings, sentient or otherwise, but he doesn’t doubt his own existence. He might go on positively to affirm that nothing exists but himself. He favors one object over all others. What is the analogue of this for the material […]
Stereotypes Wittgenstein warned against the “craving for generality”: the mistaken desire to find uniformity where there is only diversity. Thus philosophers are apt to suppose that all words are names, all sentences are assertions, and all states of mind are experiential—despite a heterogeneity that is evident to unbiased inspection. In a word, […]
Ignorance and Solipsism Is it possible to refute solipsism-of-the-moment? Is it possible to show that there must be more to the world than oneself and one’s current state of consciousness? The standard approach has been to assert that certain propositions about the world beyond consciousness are indubitable—say, the proposition that I have […]