Colors and People People come in different colors: their eyes, their skin. Colors have two interesting properties: they are contingent and they are active. Each person could have had a different color—in some possible world my eyes are brown and my skin black. And colors are active dispositions to produce color sensations—acts, in short.[1] They […]
Hi Colin We run the Brain in Vat podcast. We have aired over 200 episodes with prominent thinkers on philosophical topics. We interviewed Peter Singer on animal welfare, Stephen Cave on immortality and David Edmonds on Derek Parfit. We have also published a series of six books based on our favourite conversations. We would like to invite you to be on our show to talk about Sex in Academia. In terms of content, we ask all […]
Are All Properties Relations? For some reason, philosophers tend to prefer properties to relations: the former are deemed more real, more concrete. To the contrary, I will argue that all properties are relations; so, if relations are unreal, so is the world. Fortunately, they are not, but that is not my concern today.[1] We have […]
Are Colors Actions? We think of colors as attributes, like shapes or natural kinds: to be red is like being square or a cat—a property that something has, not an action it does. I will argue that colors are really more akin to actions than attributes. A color is an action of an object on […]
Table Tennis Story I was over at the Biltmore tennis center on Saturday, hoping to hit against the wall. As it happens, a kid’s tournament was underway and the wall was occupied by kids. I noticed one young lad who seemed particularly proficient, especially with his two-handed backhand. A friend of mine there, a coach, […]
Relational Realism There has long been a skeptical attitude towards material objects. People have doubted that they exist—from idealist philosophers, to phenomenalists, to free-thinking physicists. Some have regarded them as mental entities not material; others have identified matter with mind; others have jettisoned them in favor of energy or some such. Thus, we get anti-realism […]
Philosophy and Writing There is a strong correlation between good philosophy and good writing. Good philosophers write good prose. These are separate abilities, but they are correlated—connected, we might say. I don’t know of a good philosopher who writes ineptly. And if the writing is good, good philosophy is apt to follow. Russell is perhaps […]
The Empty Vessels That was the name of the band my brother and I formed circa 1964. I played drums, my brother Keith played rhythm guitar, Paul Taylor played lead guitar, Andrew Highley sang (with backup from Keith and Paul), and we had revolving bass players. We rehearsed in spaces around town, arranged by my […]
Beatles’ Covers The orthodox view is that the Beatles recorded covers before they came into their full powers and wrote their own songs, which made for much better records. This is completely wrong: their covers were magnificent, their originals not always that great. They should have continued to record covers throughout their career; it might […]
Mistakes and Rules Yesterday I was talking to a guy over at the tennis center; we were discussing the idea of changing the size of the service area so as to reduce the dominance of the serve. The guy, Antonio, was born in Cuba, moved to the USA at an early age, and now lives […]