Ontological Rationalism Ontological rationalism is the view that the world is intrinsically intelligible.[1] Roughly, the world is intelligible if and only if it obeys laws with some kind of necessity; it is unintelligible if it is completely random, contingent, chaotic. An unintelligible world is one in which anything can happen at any time, e.g., night […]
Resignation People sometimes assume that my resignation twelve years ago was an admission of guilt. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is very naïve to think otherwise. The decision was carefully considered and took in many factors, some unrelated to the situation at hand. Chief among them was the aggravation and cost entailed […]
Kinds of Kind Kinds are of many kinds. Sortals are of many sorts. We should not assimilate one to another. Some kinds are obscurely defined. My question concerns mental kinds—what kind of kind are they? First, consider chemical and physical kinds, such as heat, water, and light. The modern theory of these is well known: […]
Intellectual Romance What is an intellectual romance? A romance of the intellect, of course; it isn’t a romance between intellectuals, as in a love affair between intellectual people. Here is a standard definition: “The connection between two people in a relationship where they share ideals, thoughts, and opinions, finding stimulation and enjoyment in each other’s […]
Colin Through the Looking Glass Now I know why I am not allowed on campus: I might enter into a (non-romantic) romantic relationship with a student and fail to report it because it would be bad for the student. It’s perfectly clear: it’s wrong to not report (non-romantic) romantic relationships even if to make such […]
De Re Consciousness of the Brain Do I have de re consciousness of my brain when I have de dicto consciousness of my mind? I speak of de reconsciousness not of de re belief or perception: the locution “conscious of” admits of a de re-de dicto ambiguity—does it mean a relation or a content? Suppose […]
Perception De Dicto and De Re Locke held that all we ever perceive of external objects is their powers and not their intrinsic qualities: we do perceive their powers to produce sensations in us, and we don’t perceive the basis of these powers in the object. This seems doubly wrong: we don’t perceive powers and […]
Origins of Intentionality What is the origin of intentionality? There are three main areas to consider: perception, thought, and language. In the twentieth century it was fashionable to take linguistic intentionality as basic; the other two are then derived from it. The classical empiricists took perceptual intentionality as basic with thought and language parasitic on […]
Alienation The OED defines “alienate” as “cause to feel isolated”; “alienation” is then “the state or experience of being alienated”. I have lived in the United States for 35 years and I am now officially alienated: I feel isolated, cut off, removed. It wasn’t always so—I used to feel integrated, joined. This is really the […]
Blog Thoughts I sometimes search this blog in order to remind myself of what I have written on such-and-such a topic. I am always surprised. I have completely forgotten about this paper or that, and I read the paper with genuine interest, as if written by someone else. I find myself entering an old-new world. […]