Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving a lecture by Zoom to a group of philosophers in Budapest. It was the first lecture I have given in over ten years (I wonder why). I spoke on the topic of personal identity, and it is true that I don’t feel like I am the same person […]
Meaningless Names If an expression has meaning, it should be possible to say what that meaning is. Meaning should not be something ineffable. Dictionaries say what meaning is—they specify the meaning of words. But they don’t contain names (or very few).[1] What would they look like if they did? They would certainly be extremely long: […]
Things I Can Do Intellectual (in descending order of competence): philosophy, psychology, economics, linguistics, biology, physics, chemistry, literature, film. Novelist and short story writer. Athletic: tennis, table tennis, squash, badminton, football, cricket, basketball, gymnastics, pole vault, discus, trampoline, swimming, diving, kayaking, surfing, windsurfing, kiteboarding, skim boarding, skiing, ice skating, bowling, knife throwing, darts, archery, weightlifting, […]
Dictionaries and Meaning Let’s stipulate that a theory of meaning is a specification of the meanings of all words, phrases, and sentences of a language.[1] If we knew that, we would know what meaning is, presumably. What form should such a theory take? I will suggest that it should take the form of a dictionary. […]
Psychological Economics Economics tells us the relationship between supply, demand, and price: the higher the supply the lower the price; the higher the demand the higher the price; the higher the price the higher the supply; the lower the price the higher the demand. But what are supply, demand, and price? If by supply we […]
Generative Economics Darwin’s theory of evolution includes two generative components: mutation and natural selection. Mutation generates genetic variants and hence phenotypes; natural selection operates on these to produce differential survival. Neither of these generative processes involves intention or intelligence. Thus we have biological novelty without intentional intelligent design. Both processes are blind and driven by […]
Philosophical Economics Economics tells us that an economic transaction involves the sale (or exchange) of “goods and services”. This phrase invites conceptual scrutiny. It is notable that an evaluative term is used to describe the commodities sold: goods are good.[1] Services also are inherently valuable: you don’t perform someone the service of executing or robbing […]
Elements of Economics Economics is aptly defined as the science of scarcity (we could say “systematic study” if “science” seems too strong). Philosophy of economics is then the philosophy of scarcity, or of the science thereof. It is in this vein that I write the present words. What, then, is scarcity? Here is a good […]
Bounds of Space The Kant-Strawson thesis is that all possible experience is spatial in character (Strawson calls it the “spatiality thesis”). That is, all appearances are spatial appearances—of extended things existing in an ordered unified Euclidian space separate from the mind. This is how experience makes things seem, even if they are not objectively (noumenally) […]
Bounds of Sense Quine once described Strawson as applying his “limpid vernacular” to the technicalities of logic (in a review of Strawson’s Introduction to Logical Theory). One might hope that he would do the same in exegesis of Kant in The Bounds of Sense. However, in that work we are treated to such tortuous locutions […]