Bald Eagles and Religion Religion is typically composed of beliefs, emotions, and practices. These are logically detachable. In particular, existential beliefs in respect of supernatural entities are not necessary to the existence of religious emotions and practices. In fact, they can undermine such emotions and practices if they are wildly implausible or rebarbative. If people […]
Anger and Lust Anger is closely related to hatred. The OED gives us “strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility” for “anger”. For “hate” we have “intense dislike; strong aversion”. Hatred typically begins in anger at a perceived wrong; anger becomes hatred. It isn’t exactly the same as anger: there can be hatred without anger […]
Darwinian Theology Suppose we marry zoolatry with modern evolutionary science: what kind of offspring do we get? Are the two compatible or do we get only sterility? I think they are perfectly compatible and that we deliver an attractive baby; indeed, something with considerable power—scientifically and spiritually. We get a Darwinian religion, a science of […]
Beastly Religion I was watching a documentary about insects last night (Bugs that Rule the World). I was interested to discover that bugs are big in Japan, particularly butterflies, fireflies, and stag beetles (kids have them as pets). Butterflies are prized for their beauty, elegance, and otherworldliness. The attitude is vaguely religious (actually not so […]
Explicable Knowledge Suppose I don’t know where my phone is; it could be in a number of places in the house. I look around and find it on top of my desk, thereby coming to know that my phone is on my desk. This is a paradigm case of perceptual knowledge—knowledge by means of the […]
Good False Theories In what does the goodness of false philosophical theories consist? How can a theory be good and yet false? To be good a theory must have certain attributes: clarity, simplicity, interestingness, the ability to solve problems, integration with other theories, and explanatory power. Generally, it avoids mystery and provides a reduction of […]
False Good Ideas There should be a category of false good ideas: ideas that are clever and appealing but clearly false. These ideas will tend to catch on despite their obvious falsity, because they appear to solve problems. Most of philosophy is made up of these ideas; they might be said to constitute the subject. […]
Blind Sight I am not concerned with the empirical facts about so-called blindsight; I shall take them as given. I am interested in the question of description—how should these cases be described? My question is conceptual. The first thing I want to say is that “blindsight” is a contradictory expression: it is not possible to […]
Can I Prove that I Exist? The Cogito purports to be a proof that I exist. It is supposed to establish the proposition that I exist. But this is a funny kind of proof for a simple reason: it only proves my existence to me. I cannot use it to prove my existence to you, […]
Paradoxical Paradoxes Paradoxes exist. Paradoxes belong either to the world or to our thought about the world. They cannot belong to the world, because reality cannot be intrinsically paradoxical. They cannot belong to our thought about the world, because then we would be able to alter our thought to avoid them (they cannot be intrinsic […]