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Philosophical Philosophy

December 5, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

    Philosophical Philosophy   Philosophy takes place within a social, political, and intellectual context. There is a surrounding culture or environment. Religion, morality, the arts, the sciences, war, peace, a general optimism or pessimism—all these factors impinge on the way philosophy is practiced during a particular historical period. The factors can vary over time, […]

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0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2020-12-05 16:40:152020-12-05 22:44:42Philosophical Philosophy

The Puzzle of Empiricism

December 5, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

  The Puzzle of Empiricism   Even the most ardent opponent of empiricist epistemology will concede that it is not wholly wrong. It may be that much knowledge is not based on experience, and it is no doubt true that knowledge requires more than mere experience, but surely it is undeniable that some knowledge comes […]

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0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2020-12-05 16:38:112020-12-05 22:46:04The Puzzle of Empiricism

The Lure of Elimination

December 5, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

    The Lure of Elimination   I don’t despise eliminative positions in philosophy. I think they show something important about philosophical problems—that they can drive us to eliminative extremes. The term “eliminativist” is usually applied in the philosophy of mind and in psychology: it is the idea that the mind does not exist, that […]

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0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2020-12-05 16:36:032020-12-05 22:47:09The Lure of Elimination

The Futility of Reduction

December 5, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

    The Futility of Reduction   The idea of reduction is rampant in contemporary philosophy, particularly in relation to the mind. Thus we hear talk of reductive materialism or reductive behaviorism, or of reductionism about the mental. Likewise, though less frequently, we have reductive views of the moral or even the physical (as with […]

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0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2020-12-05 16:33:592020-12-05 22:48:15The Futility of Reduction

An Argument for Nothing

December 5, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

    An Argument for Nothing   The philosopher with no name maintains, fittingly, that nothing is real. In pre-Socratic style, he proclaims, “All is nothing”. He is a total eliminativist (going by the code name TE). We could call him a “nothingist”: everything is nothing, according to the nothingist.  [1] Not for him Being and […]

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0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2020-12-05 16:31:442020-12-05 16:31:44An Argument for Nothing

Economic Altruism

December 5, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

    Economic Altruism   No less an authority than Pope Francis has this to say: “Feverish consumerism breaks the bonds of belonging. It causes us to focus on our self-preservation and makes us anxious”. Why consumerism should “break the bonds of belonging” (whatever quite that means) is not made clear: why should buying stuff […]

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0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2020-12-05 16:22:582020-12-08 09:54:53Economic Altruism

Disease and Belief

December 5, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

    Disease and Belief   Are there any diseases of the belief system? Apparently there are: they have names like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. These diseases (OED: “a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant”) cause the sufferer to form false and irrational beliefs, sometimes whole belief systems we label […]

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0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2020-12-05 16:16:552020-12-05 16:16:55Disease and Belief

Democracy and Autocracy

November 10, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Democracy and Autocracy I will have a go at a question bequeathed to us by Plato—the question of whether democracy has a tendency to devolve into autocracy. In democracy people have an equal say in political decisions—each person’s voice must be heard. This means that each person’s wishes are given equal weight. But there are […]

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0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2020-11-10 12:30:012020-11-10 15:30:36Democracy and Autocracy

Yes and No

November 10, 2020/2 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Yes and No The words “yes” and “no” are among the most familiar words of the English language, perpetually tripping off the tongue. But what do they mean—what kind of meaning do they have? They don’t have sense and reference: there is nothing they denote and there is no mode of presentation attached to them. […]

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0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2020-11-10 12:06:332020-11-10 12:06:36Yes and No

Metaphysical Necessity

November 6, 2020/1 Comment/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Metaphysical Necessity We appear to have (at least) two concepts of necessity, usually known as epistemic necessity and metaphysical necessity. Epistemic necessity concerns what could turn out to be the case—what might be true “for all we know”; it correlates with certainty (the Cogito is an epistemic necessity). Metaphysical necessity concerns what could really be the case—how […]

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0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2020-11-06 19:18:102020-11-06 19:18:14Metaphysical Necessity
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