Buying a Language I want to learn a language, say Spanish, but I can’t be bothered to do it the old-fashioned way, so I decide to buy it (expensive but labor-saving). I go to the language store (Lang-Mart, right next to the Chinese supermarket). I am told that I can buy either a grammar chip […]
Drummers In a typical four-piece band you have two guitarists, a bassist, and a drummer; the lead vocalist usually has one or two back-up singers. It isn’t easy to manage with one guitarist; you need a dedicated rhythm guitarist. There are never two bassists and very rarely two drummers. There is certainly no need for […]
Chinese Rooms and Linguistic Knowledge John Searle’s Chinese room argument shows that it’s possible to be able to form meaningful sentences in a foreign language without knowing that language. That is, you can know the grammatical rules of a language without knowing the lexicon—what the individual words mean and refer to. Suppose you wanted to […]
A List I will make a list so that you can see that I’m not exaggerating. Intellectual. Philosophy: all areas, technical and popular. Science: psychology, biology, economics, physics. Literature: Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Nabokov, etc. Writing: novels, short stories, poetry, songs (rock, ballads, blues, pop). Sports. Tennis, table tennis, squash, badminton, gymnastics, pole vault, discus, basketball, […]
By a Long Chalk The phrase originates in keeping scores by making chalk marks. I remember Professor John Cohen, head of the psychology department at Manchester University when I was a student there (1968-72), writing to me and saying that my M.A. thesis on innate ideas was “the best M.A. thesis I have ever read […]
Epistemic Necessity and the Good The connection between metaphysical necessity and the Good is speculative and questionable, though there are signs of affinity.[1] But the connection between epistemic necessity and the Good is immediate and easy to discern: it goes via certainty. If a given proposition is epistemically necessary, it is certain: I am certain […]
Necessity and Change Necessary facts don’t change. The table never changes from wood to plastic or metal: it is necessarily made of wood so can’t become made of plastic or metal. The number 3 is necessarily odd so can’t change into an even number. But the table can change its location or color and the […]
A Story About John Searle In 1984 John Searle gave the Reith lectures in England. This was a big deal and quite an honor. I was asked by the BBC to join a small panel commenting on these lectures. After the program was recorded, we went to a boozy lunch set up by the Beeb. […]
Jennifer Hudin sent me this. Yes, actually, but I found a problem, I think, in John’s account of social ontology. I’m not sure anything theoretical rides on it, but it is a puzzle nonetheless. Everyone present agreed. I will polish the notes up for you. I was happy with the talk. I managed to […]
Attention and Knowledge In chapter XI (“Attention”) of The Principles of Psychology William James makes the point that the empiricists completely omit the contribution of attention in the generation knowledge. The reason is that attention possesses “a degree of reactive spontaneity” that breaks through the “circle of pure receptivity which constitutes ‘experience’” (402). Instead, he […]