Biography of Nabokov I have just finished reading the first volume of Brain Boyd’s magisterial (there is no other word) biography of Nabokov. At 500 pages it covers only his years in Russia and other European countries. I have never felt so steeped in the great man, and I have been seriously steeped. I now […]
Inside the Baseline Most serious tennis players start their practice session with a few minutes of mini-tennis, i.e., hitting the ball softly within the service area. This gets you used to controlling the ball. I like to supplement this with what I call aggressive mini-tennis: hitting the ball as fast as you can within the […]
Morality, Relativism, and Supervenience I find it hard to believe that the point I am about to make has not been made before, so I state that it must have been. If so, this may serve as a welcome repetition, for the point is a good one. It is that moral supervenience and moral relativism […]
Is Stupidity Innate? This is a question people are too polite to raise. We can just about ask whether intelligence is innate, wholly or partly, but please don’t ask whether some people are born stupid! Can it be responsibly maintained that some people are condemned by their genes to a life of stupidity? And here […]
Law and Morality In a morally ideal society, there are no laws. Everyone does what they should out of the goodness of their heart not fear of legal consequences. The whole apparatus of law does not exist—police, courts, lawyers, prisons, etc. It sounds wonderful: no one steals, murders, rapes, cheats on their taxes, speeds, or […]
Romantic Overtures We really need to get tougher on romance, especially at universities. As things stand, people can make romantic overtures to other people and face no consequences. They can even make declarations of love and get away with it! This can lead to all sorts of discomfort and loss of focus on one’s studies, […]
No Reply I recently wrote to the University of Miami philosophy department asking when, if ever, the ban on my visiting the campus would be lifted (I live five minutes from there). I also asked what the reason for the ban was. I got no reply. Then I wrote offering to make a donation to […]
Bad Bunny I was looking forward to the half-time performance from Bad Bunny (less so the Superbowl itself). In the event my response was divided: I approved of it politically and personally (many of my best friends are Latin) and I really wanted to like the music more, but Latin music has little appeal for […]
Can Dogs Talk? I watched a very interesting documentary last night on PBS about whether dogs can talk. Of course, they do talk—they talk dog. There could be an interesting documentary on whether humans can talk…dog language. They might to a limited degree, but not as well as dogs. But the documentary was about whether […]
Possible Language Semantics The theory of meaning is supposed to concern the semantics of our language: in virtue of what does human language have the meaning it has? But do all possible languages share the same semantics? Might a semantic theory that is incorrect for our language correctly describe the semantics of some alien language? If […]