Seeing as Knowing Knowing may or may not be a type of seeing, but seeing is a type of knowing.[1] I mean this as an identity theory: seeing is knowing. Necessarily, if you see, you know, because seeing is in itself a type of knowing. The knowing isn’t something added to the seeing; it is […]
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Moral Metaphors A solid moral vocabulary would seem essential to sound moral judgement and action. Yet we are signally lacking in that regard. Our language doesn’t aid the cause of morality. Can it be revised and improved? Are we conceptually lacking in our moral attitudes? These are important questions, especially in a time of moral…moral […]
Colin: Love the piece. We resonate. MUCH busier now than ever before, even when I was running an investment banking firm with 400 employees. Our one fundamental difference is that while table tennis is but one of your many non-philosophy endeavors, it dominates mine – 3 coaching sessions per week, 2 hours per coaching session […]
Rebirth The OED defines “retirement” as “the period of one’s life after retiring from work”. But what is work? That is defined as “activity involving mental or physical effort in order to achieve a result” and “such activity as a means of earning income”. These are very different ideas; confusing them leads to misconceptions about […]
Hi Colin, FYI on a Chinese edition (!) of Minds and Bodies. Best Peter From: Emma Gier <emma.gier@oup.com> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2025 4:56 AM To: Peter Ohlin <Peter.Ohlin@oup.com> Cc: Alastair Lewis <Alastair.Lewis@oup.com>; Cara McMeekan <Cara.Mcmeekan@oup.com>; Georgina Hoare <Georgina.Hoare@oup.com>; James Sykes <James.Sykes@oup.com>; Jenny Child <Jenny.Child@oup.com>; Junan Collins <Junan.Collins@oup.com>; Sophie Goldsworthy <sophie.goldsworthy@oup.com>; Tasmin Dodson <Tasmin.Dodson@oup.com>; Jacqueline […]
Epistemological Origins What causes human (and animal) knowledge? Is it nature or God? The classical empiricists thought it was nature acting on the senses (for most knowledge anyway) not God. The classic rationalists thought it was God acting miraculously on the soul (for some knowledge anyway) not nature. Either nature implants the knowledge via experience […]
Empiricism Refashioned Historically, we can distinguish three theories of the origin of knowledge: empiricism, rationalism, and revelationism (as it may be called). The first locates the origin of knowledge in conscious sense experience, particularly vision; the second accords a significant role to innate endowment (instinct, genetics); the third regards true knowledge as emanating from an […]
Aspects of the A Priori It is now fifty years since I first tried to define a priori knowledge. I wrote a long paper on the subject in 1975 that was abbreviated to appear in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society in 1976 (“A Priori and A PosterioriKnowledge”). The basic idea was that a posteriori […]