Oliver Sacks on the Meaning of Life “Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.” I wish to make some comments on this passage from my late friend Oliver Sacks, which I think deserves […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]