Cosmic Consciousness There was a time when none of the matter of the universe was caught up in consciousness—the time at which not even animal life had evolved. There were no brains, no minds, and no consciousness–just insentient stuff. But now some quantity of matter is caught up in […]
Consciousness and the Atomic Bomb The atomic bomb was invented and produced because the Allies feared that Germany was on the brink of developing just such a bomb. After World War II a cold war between Russia and America led to the proliferation of atomic weapons and their increased destructive power. […]
Conceptual Schemes There has been much debate about whether different groups of people diverge in their conceptual schemes (according to some criterion of identity for conceptual schemes). But it has not been questioned that each group has a single conceptual scheme, still less that an individual has one and […]
Attributes of the Self I say that I think and I say that I weigh 150 lbs: I ascribe mental and physical characteristics to myself. But there is a significant asymmetry in what I mean by these attributions: when I say that I weigh 150 lbs I am saying that my body weighs […]
Appearance Without Reality Is it possible for everything to be an appearance? Might there be nothing in the world but appearances? Granted, there may be many appearances for which there is no corresponding reality (of the kind that we normally suppose), but could this be universally true? Is the pure-appearance world […]
Anti-Referentialism I introduce the neologism of the title to refer (!) to a particular type of philosophical position—namely, one which contests whether a particular class of expressions is genuinely referential. It is supposed that there is apparent reference for the class in question but the position denies that such apparent reference […]
Anti-Realism Refuted How would we talk if anti-realism were true and we knew it to be true? We would talk as if it were true, presumably. For example, we would utter hypothetical statements about sense-experience, not categorical statements about material objects, assuming we knew phenomenalism to be […]
Alien Skepticism Suppose you are brought up to believe that you are a brain in a vat supervised by intelligent machines. Long ago humans abandoned their frail bodies for a safer life as a detached brain (it had something to do with global warming—bodies getting too hot and […]
A Quick Argument for Property Realism Property realism is the view that objects instantiate properties independently of mind or language. A standard argument for this view is that objects could have properties in the absence of mind and language. The anti-realist about properties must deny this, and sometimes he is sanguine […]
A Multimodal Theory of Film Experience Films come in many varieties, and they have changed significantly since their inception. There are comedies and dramas, horror flicks and science fiction, love stories and Biblical epics, dance movies and action movies, cartoons and crime thrillers. Some films are short and some are long. […]