Meetings Larry David’s “My Dinner with Adolf” brings up an important point. Bill Maher met Donald Trump for dinner at the White House: was he wrong to do so? The meeting was justified by invoking the principle that it is a good idea to meet with people with whom you disagree. Surely, we should be […]
Consciousness, Language, and Mystery The human intellect is confronted by two great mysteries: the mystery of consciousness and the mystery of language.[1] I am not here concerned to argue for the mysterian position in either area, still less to try to remove the mystery; my aim is to compare the two mysteries. I am engaged […]
Is the Problem of Consciousness Hard? I will suggest that in one sense it is and in another sense it isn’t. We have heard it said that consciousness is very hard, but here I want to emphasize the positive—it isn’t really that hard.[1] The two senses may be described as “objective” and “subjective” (or “subject-relative”). […]
Gang Deportations So far, the deportations to El Salvador have scooped up only Latino men (so far as we know). No women gang members or affiliates thereof have been similarly deported, or non-Latino gang members. But what about criminal gangs of other ethnicities and nationalities? Does the current administration intend to deport female (suspected) criminals […]
Philosophy at the University We are depressingly familiar with the argument that philosophy should not be taught in universities because it has no economic payoff. No goods and services result from it. You can’t make an honest living from it. We shouldn’t use public resources to finance such a useless study. By all means pursue […]
How to Study Philosophy I have two proposals for the curriculum, which I believe would have salutary effects. The first is that philosophy should be studied only after studying a science, or concurrently with studying a science. Oxford has no pure philosophy degree; you have to study it with another subject, generally scientific—economics (also politics), […]
Crime and Punishment I keep on hearing the same refrain from people on the left and the right: deport criminals! Send them back here they came from! The motive is clearly to protect law-abiding citizens from further crimes, and that is not a silly idea. Some are even extending this policy to “homegrown” criminals. But […]
Table Tennis Reinvented I am able to report on the results of changing the service rules. I drew chalk lines on a regular table tennis table, one line twelve inches from the end of the table, the other twenty-four inches. This produced two possible service areas, one smaller than the other. I played with two […]
Classical Conditioning There is something puzzling and not quite believable about Pavlov and his dogs. The dogs instinctively salivate to the sight and smell of food—this is an inborn reflex reaction. The claim is that if you sound a bell a number of times at the same time as presenting food you will get the […]
Causality and Perception The causal theory of perception states that it is necessary condition of perceiving an object that the object causes the perception of it. The theory is very plausible, given the counterexamples to a theory without such a causal condition. If the object is causally cut off from the sense impression, we get […]