Consciousness and the Fetus The brain grows gradually in the fetus, going through various stages of development. This development is now well mapped out embryologically. But nothing is known about the inner consciousness that accompanies this brain growth. It is reasonable to believe that it goes from simple to complex, primitive to sophisticated—how could it […]
Causal and Logical Relations Is this an untenable dualism? Are the two relations really that distinct? Isn’t one a special case of the other? The OED defines “cause” as “a person or thing that gives rise to an action, phenomenon, or condition” and “reasonable grounds for a belief or action” (notice it doesn’t say “event”). […]
Ringo and the Philosophers I was watching a TV special featuring Ringo Starr. He sang and played the drums a bit. It was quite nice in a low-key kind of way. My constant thought was: why is Ringo so limited? He’s a good drummer, but why is his technique so primitive (I’ve never heard him […]
Perception and Propositions In order to have a theory of the origins of knowledge one needs an account of the origins of the proposition, i.e., propositional thought. How do we come to grasp propositions? It is notable that empiricists don’t venture an answer; they stick to the origins of concepts (“ideas”). They vaguely suppose that […]
Third Best Philosopher Ever I have suggested, tentatively, that Bertrand Russell is the second-best philosopher ever, but it would be nice to say who gets the bronze medal. Reflecting more on my admiration of Russell, I came to a melancholy conclusion: the only philosophical work of his that I really like is The Problems of […]
American Shrinkage The American shield is down, Europe is on its own, isolationism is back, protectionism is preferred, xenophobia is rampant, paranoia prevails. This is the new world order under Trump. Europe will have to save Ukraine, if anything can. Canada hates America. France, Germany, and Great Britain have had it with the American government. […]
Quitting Ken Levy’s case reminds me of my own case of twelve years ago. I resigned from the university I worked at because I did not want to spend thousands of dollars and a lot of time engaged in a legal action to keep my job in a place I no longer wanted to work. […]
Intelligence and Politics Have you noticed how bad people are at talking about politics? Of course you have. Why? Is it because they are riddled with prejudice, brainwashed, of low IQ, uneducated, mentally lazy? I don’t think so; I think it’s because politics is hard. It’s just so complicated, so all-encompassing, so full of uncertainty. […]
Empathy and Racism I want to discuss a sensitive topic: the cause(s) of racism. I will not discuss all aspects of what is doubtless a complex phenomenon, especially virulent, violent, institutional racism; I will discuss a specific universal non-malicious cause of racism. And by racism I will mean lack of empathy for people of races […]
How Many Mind-Body Problems? We tend to speak in the singular about the mind-body problem: the mind-body problem. But is that realistic? Couldn’t there be many mind-body problems depending on what aspect of the mind we are considering? They may not present the same problem or have the same solution. How many life-matter problems are […]