Is Language a Practical Capacity It is sometimes said, with an air of obvious truth, that mastery of one’s native language is a practical capacity.[1] The suggestion sounds reasonable enough, even somewhat illuminating: we do useful things with words, perform tasks, achieve stuff; we don’t speak just to broadcast propositions into the atmosphere. This is […]
Einstein and Wittgenstein In Philosophical Remarks, composed in the late 1920s, Wittgenstein several times enunciates a verificationist principle, which was not present in the Tractatus. It is plausible that the Vienna Circle, with whom Wittgenstein met several times during this period, derived the verifiability theory of meaning from these interactions with him (not from the […]
Memory and Expectation How do memory and expectation differ? For example, I might remember going to the shops yesterday and expect to go to the shops tomorrow—how do these states of mind differ? They concern the same state of affairs, but they are evidently not the same; we never confuse one with the other (“Am […]
Eliminating Common Sense Russell said that ordinary language contains the metaphysics of the Stone Age. Wittgenstein says that philosophy leaves everything as it is. Both were wrong. Ordinary language contains no metaphysics at all, ancient or modern; and advanced philosophy does not leave primitive philosophy alone. The bore in the bar telling you “his philosophy” […]
Common Sense and Philosophy Philosophers often assume that there is something called common sense, or commonsense belief, with which their theories may agree or disagree. This gives rise to the idea that there is such a thing as commonsense philosophy, or anti-commonsense philosophy. I think this is a mistake for a number of reasons. The […]
Awfulness Have you noticed how awful everything has become? Pop music is awful, movies are awful, most TV is awful, novels are awful, the New York Review of Books is awful, the universities are awful (students, administrators, professors), politicians are really awful, comedy is awful, art is awful, academic philosophy is awful, world politics is […]
Qualities of Mind Galileo, Descartes and Locke divided the physical world into primary and secondary qualities, thus carving out a place for the science of physics (the study of the primary qualities of matter). But they said nothing about the primary and secondary qualities of the mind, in the hope of carving out a place […]
Primary and Secondary Values It has been suggested that moral values can be compared to secondary qualities, thus aligning them with human-centered attributes.[1] To be good or right is to be disposed to elicit attitudes of approval from observers—that kind of thing. I will propose something different: the whole apparatus of primary and secondary qualities […]
Knowledge of Primary and Secondary Qualities We normally think we know the shapes and colors of things: I know, for example, that the cup in front of me is cylindrical and blue. But reflection casts doubt on this commonsense assumption, in two ways. First, there is the question of whether I really know that the […]
Wing Surfing Yesterday I went wing surfing for the second time with my friend Eddy in his boat. We were in Biscayne Bay, far out but in shallow water, virtually alone. I was using an inflatable paddle board and a 4.5 meter wing, which also had to be inflated (it’s a work-out). Despite my familiarity […]