Muddy Waters Causation is one of those philosophical topics that drive you up the wall. As soon as you start to think about it you draw a complete blank. As Hume observes: “There are no ideas, which occur in metaphysics, more obscure or uncertain, than those of power,force, energy, or necessary connexion” […]
Years ago I went to a concert by Buddy Rich. It began with the lights down and Buddy playing a drum roll–nothing surprising there. When the lights came up it was revealed that he was playing it with only his left hand! Much amazement from the audience. In the intervening years (about 45) I have […]
The blacklisting of me continues, irrational and foul though it be. When will Americans ever learn?
Seeing Sensations It has been generally accepted that you can’t know what a sensation is like without experiencing it yourself. No experience of pain, no understanding of pain; no seeing of red, no knowing what seeing of red is. Possessing the concept requires instantiating what it is a concept of. This […]
I am tired of hearing people say, as if it were uncontroversial, that they are “Humeans” about laws and causation, where they mean to defend the “regularity theory”. That was not Hume’s view, as has been amply demonstrated. They are claiming the authority of a great philosopher for a position he did not hold (in […]
Have I mentioned that I have taken up harmonica? It’s a very enjoyable instrument. Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson are my heroes. I even play harmonica in a band, specializing in Hoochie Coochie Man and Long Train Running (the harp solo is extremely difficult to play). In the percussion department I have started doing […]
Can There Be Subjective Facts? I invite you, intrepid reader, to accompany me on a journey into the heart of darkness—into a region of utter obscurity. It will test us both, but it should be worth the effort, including the bouts of sickness and insanity. No, it won’t be that […]
A Model of Language Acquisition Psycholinguists report that the child “internalizes” the grammar of his or her native language. Beginning with an innate schema of universal grammar (UG), the child hears the speech of adults and somehow extracts the rules that govern the particular language in question. That heard language is external […]
What the Mind Does: Internalization and Externalization The concepts of internalization and externalization are found with some frequency in psychology. It is said that the child internalizes the surrounding culture, including moral and social norms (the same can be said of an adult transplanted into a hitherto alien culture). It is also […]
Let’s imagine a society in which sex is not binary–not at all binary. People differ in respect of sex in the way they differ in respect of height–by degree. Thus gamete size is a matter of degree (not the small and large gametes we see as things are); breast development is by degree for everyone; […]