The Clustering Problem How and why do properties cluster together into an object? How and why do many accidents join together to form a single substance? How do they constitute a cohesive unitary whole? The properties are separate existences yet they form clusters: what binds them together? What is the unifying glue? Why don’t they […]
Moral Rigidity We think of the morally rigid person as stiff, stern, intolerant, inflexible, old-fashioned, stubborn, and unintelligent. No one wants to be accused of being morally rigid—the Victorian prude, the stern and strict headmaster, the punitive prison warden. It’s just not nice, not cool, not lovable. But isn’t rigidity part of what morality is? […]
Al Franken and Me I was at George Soros’s wedding in 2013, a lavish affair with hundreds of people in attendance, talking to Senator Al Franken. I explained George’s favorite joke to Al: What is the difference between a Hungarian and a Rumanian? They will both sell you their mother, but the Hungarian will deliver. […]
Knowledge of Matter and Mind We don’t naturally know the nature of matter. We can’t know it just by looking. We had to figure it out over a long period of time. It wasn’t easy to discover the atomic theory. But the same is not true of the mind: here we do naturally know whereof […]
Extremism and Violence People (pundits, politicians) have been trying to figure out the origins of political violence. We are told that such violence stems not from the radical left or the radical right but from being too radical. We need more political moderation, less “radicalization”. The dictionary (OED) gives us the following for “radical”: “relating […]
Political Violence Understandably, people are anxiously and angrily discussing the causes of our current spate of political violence. Is it caused by being of one political persuasion rather than another, as it might be right-wing political ideology? Well, do right-wing people from other countries exhibit the same levels of political violence? Evidently not. Same for […]
SH in Philosophy I see that Brian Leiter is reverting to the topic of sexual harassment and the surge in female enrolment in philosophy programs, both perfectly legitimate topics. If anyone would like to hear my perspective on this subject, as one caught up in it, I invite them to contact me and I will […]
Inside Knowledge Let’s try to recover some of the insights of seventeenth century philosophy which have been obscured by twentieth century philosophy.[1] I am referring to instrumentalism, operationalism, positivism, phenomenalism, and behaviorism. I offer for your consideration the following two propositions: we don’t know the nature of matter, and we do know the nature of […]
A Religious Blog What kind of text is this—this blog? I said a while ago that it is my New Testament. That implies a religious identity, so this a religious text. It is a statement of my religion: that is, a statement of my basic beliefs, values, and life-practices. My Sermon on the Mount (or […]
Back to School It is now twelve years since I stopped teaching philosophy, after thirty-eight years of doing it. There is no back-to-school for me. That always meant stopping work on my own stuff, beginning to teach classes again, meetings and hellos. What are my feelings on the subject? Many–some good, some bad. I think […]