Martin Amis and Me I first met Martin Amis in the late 1970s. We were the same height and build, though he had a wider mouth. Of course, I had read several of his father’s novels. At this time, I had read Martin’s The Rachel Papers, Dead Babies, and Success (which I particularly liked), and […]
False Knowledge Is it true that all knowledge is knowledge of truths? Does the concept of knowledge entail that the proposition known is a true proposition? Certainly, we have been schooled to think so; and the idea is far from preposterous. But is the propositional content of the knowledge literally, universally, and necessarily true? We […]
Experience and Naïve Realism Is there anything in sense experience that indicates the falsity of naive realism? For example, is there anything in sense experience that informs us that objects are not objectively colored? Or is it a matter of science and conceptual reflection? Do we know that naïve realism is false just by being […]
Descriptions and Names The distinction between names and descriptions is not as sharp as we tend to suppose. We are prone to think that names are purely denotative (tags, labels) and descriptions are purely connotative (attributional, predicational), but actually the two overlap. If you favor a description theory of names, you are still up to […]
Nabokovian Mysterianism I came across the following passage in Brian Boyd’s weighty biography of Nabokov: “Space, time, the two prime mysteries. The transformation of nothing into something cannot be conceived by the human mind.”[1]Two points stand out here. First, he regards space and time as the two prime mysteries—not consciousness and free will, say. That […]
Descriptions in Disguise One might have thought that the description theory of names had been bashed enough; I propose to bash it some more. It hasn’t been bashed from every angle; indeed, it positively invites further bashing, given its audacity. The theory is quite disrespectful to names, insinuating that descriptions are the superior semantic citizen. […]
Most influential Philosopher I will restrict this question to recent philosophers. It not an easy question, because influence is hard to measure or estimate; and it varies over time, sometimes quite dramatically. It is certainly not me, not by a long chalk. There are the usual suspects, whom I do not need to mention. After […]
Breeding and Evolution The most obvious theory of animal existence is one I have never heard mentioned. The standard theories are (i) that a divine being created all the species independently and (ii) that the existing species all evolved by natural selection from earlier species with no rational agency involved. We now know that the […]
Not So Naïve Realism We are usually faced with a binary choice between naive realism and sense-data theories, as if naive realism had only one strength or type. But really there is a spectrum of positions aptly so described, according to their degree of naivety. The strongest type—the most naïve—says that the objects of perception […]
Bertrand Russell and Me When I was young, I idolized Bertrand Russell—I idolized the man. It was largely because of him that I fled psychology into the arms of philosophy. But I am not the same kind of philosopher as Russell: my interests are different and always have been. I find his interests somewhat chilly […]