Existence and Consciousness The idealist sees an essential connection between existence and consciousness: there is no existence where there is no consciousness. Can we make anything of this thought? Suppose an otherwise empty region of space contains an instance of consciousness, say an experience or thought; then we can rightly […]
In the history of philosophy materialism and idealism are regularly opposed to each other: they are conceived as rival metaphysical systems. Each is thought to have its appeal, with oscillation between them, but it is assumed that you cannot be both. They are logically incompatible doctrines. The world is either completely material or it is […]
Wittgenstein concludes his famous section in Philosophical Investigations on games (66) with these words: “we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail”. This he opposes to the idea that games have a single characteristic that defines them. He follows up this discussion by saying, “I can […]
According to Locke, colors are nothing but powers in objects to produce ideas in our minds. He writes: “What I have said concerning colours and smells, may be understood also of tastes, and sounds, and other the like sensible qualities; which, whatever reality we by mistake, attribute to them, are in truth nothing in the […]
Causation implies laws. A singular causal statement entails a general causal statement. If a caused b, we know that events like a will cause events like b. Thus universality is built into causation—the particular implies the universal.[1] This puts causation in a very special class of relations: it is not generally true that a singular […]
If materialism were true, we should be able to know about matter by introspection; but we don’t, so it isn’t. For materialism is a theory of the nature of mind—what constitutes mental states—and so we ought to know this nature by knowing about the things that have it; but we don’t. If it is the […]
A reasonable expectation of moral philosophy would be that it should identify the good and then characterize it in such a way that doing good is irresistible, or at least desirable. A reasonable expectation of epistemology would be that it should say what knowledge is and then propose an effective method for achieving it. A […]
Today I read this sentence in the book review section of the New York Times: “An interesting , sciencey explanation of the Y chromosome in all it’s vagary and confusion, and the strange trip through the behaviors of the life span of the males of many species.” This is from Mark Morris in By the […]
Intelligibility The concept of intelligibility is often used by philosophers but not often analyzed. The OED gives this simple definition of “intelligible”: “able to be understood”, but it follows that up with a definition proper to philosophy: “able to be understood only by the intellect”. The intellect is the faculty […]
Our Unified Universe Imagine a universe in which mind, matter and mathematics all exist but stand in no interesting relation with each other. Minds don’t know any mathematics, mathematics has no application to matter (or mind), and mind and matter have no causal interaction or even correlation with each other. The […]