I’ve just finished re-reading Jane Austen’s Emma, which I first read while studying it for A-level in 1967. It’s a sparkling and thoroughly enjoyable novel, full of moral wisdom. But I was struck by something I have not heard commented on: Mr. Knightley confesses to Emma that he first fell in love with her when she […]
A Plea for Persuasion Jane Austen’s sixth and final novel is entitled Persuasion. There is a reason it is so entitled—it deals with the role of persuasion in human life (as exemplified in Anne Eliot being persuaded against her better judgment not to marry Captain Wentworth). But we might see the […]
The Non-Existence of Lolita The novel Lolitatakes for granted the existence of Lolita—or does it? Is she real? There is no doubt that Dolores Haze, a twelve-year-old American schoolgirl, is real: but isLolitareal? To answer this question we must first investigate the category of the nymphet: is there such a thing as a nymphet? Early […]
Feeling the Brain You can feel your heart. It beats perceptibly in your chest. Before you ever knew what a heart was you could feel it in there. When you learned about its anatomy and physiology you had no trouble recognizing the thing you knew about before: you didn’t doubt […]
A Plurality of Selves 1.Human beings are persons or selves and they have a specific nature: they have a certain type of psychology and a certain type of biological make-up. Not all possible sentient beings share this nature. For instance, humans have personal memories, consciousness, self-reflection, rationality, and a brain with two hemispheres that is […]
Injustice Injustice directed towards an individual creates a specific psychological response. This response includes anger at the perpetrator, moral indignation, resentment, a sense of futility, a desire for revenge, disillusionment, and general malaise. It can shape a person’s entire life, and destroy his or her wellbeing permanently. The injustice can be of two […]
Causation and Motion Consider a universe containing just two objects, A and B (suppose they are tennis balls). They are moving relatively to each other at 30mph and are a million miles apart. Conventional opinion has it that it is arbitrary to declare one at rest and the other in motion; we […]
Double Intentionality Brentano taught us to ask after the reference of a mental state: mental states are always “about” something, “directed at” something. They are not sealed off from the world but engaged with it. They are relational not intrinsic. This intentionality distinguishes them from merely physical states, which are not […]
I found out yesterday that my book Philosophical Provocations was chosen for discussion at the Center for Cosnciousness Studies at Moscow State University. I can’t imagine that happening today in America. So Russia is more rational and academically free than America. Isn’t this downright embarrassing?
Analysis of Matter What is the general nature of concepts of matter? How are such concepts to be analyzed? Is there a general nature or only a plurality of concept-types? Ryle wrote a book called The Concept of Mind(note the uniqueness implied by “the”), arguing that mental concepts are generally dispositional in […]