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. […]
The Unconscious Body We are thought to have an unconscious mind, or minds. The idea is that we have two minds (or more) only one of which are we conscious of. We are aware of one mind but not of the other; hence, we know what is going on in the conscious mind but not […]
Mechanism, Mystery, and Miracle Locke thought that the external world is a mystery: we know there is such a world, but we don’t and can’t know how it works or what it’s like. Physics is a mysterious science (Newton agreed). But he didn’t think the mind is a mystery, specifically knowledge: he thought he knew […]
Belief and Religion It is possible to be religious and not believe in God, or gods: you just need to have religious practices but not theistic ontology. Atheistic religion is not a contradiction in terms. But can you be a theist and not be religious? That seems a more difficult undertaking: surely if you believe […]
I thought readers would be interested in this. Dear Colin McGinn, I have been following your work for many years with deep admiration and intellectual curiosity. Your profound contributions to philosophy—particularly in the areas of philosophy of mind, consciousness, and epistemology—have significantly shaped my own intellectual path. Not only your ideas, but also the clarity […]
Animal Dreams I have a close relationship with my pet parakeet Eloise. She likes to climb on my fingers and be enveloped in my hand; we play together every day. We are friends, companions. At night I carry her cage (with two other birds) to my study where I place it in a high place […]
L.A. I am worried that the presence of the military will provoke a confrontation in which protesters are killed. This will be a terrible tragedy, the end of human decency in America, and will deter any future protests. I can’t help wondering if that is the plan.