Colin McGinn
  • Home
  • About
  • Articles
  • Blog
  • Books
  • Video
  • Contact
  • Click to open the search input field Click to open the search input field Search
  • Menu Menu

Blog

Existence and Non-Existence

January 13, 2024/4 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Existence and Non-Existence We have puzzled over the nature of existence and the nature of non-existence, but we don’t ask how these two categories relate to each other. Does one entail the other? Not in the sense that if something exists then it doesn’t exist, and vice versa, but in the sense that if one […]

Read more
0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2024-01-13 12:57:082024-01-13 12:57:08Existence and Non-Existence

Metaphysical Meaning

January 13, 2024/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Metaphysical Meaning The positivists declared metaphysical sentences meaningless. This required them to be able to identify a metaphysical sentence. But how could they do that if such sentences literally have no meaning? It could not be by recognizing them as meaningless, though that is certainly an intelligible mental act, because many sentences are meaningless without […]

Read more
0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2024-01-13 12:19:572024-01-13 12:19:57Metaphysical Meaning

Metaphysical Cravings

January 13, 2024/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Metaphysical Cravings The soul craves metaphysics.[1] The thinking self wants to think about metaphysical questions. Why do they attract us so? I believe it is because we know (clearly and distinctly) that we are thinking beings: we are directly aware of ourselves as thinking beings. Not necessarily infallibly aware, but aware enough that we don’t […]

Read more
0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2024-01-13 12:03:522024-01-13 12:03:52Metaphysical Cravings

A Taxonomy of Reference

January 11, 2024/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

A Taxonomy of Reference Wittgenstein would say that reference comes in many varieties, like sentences; the concept of reference is a family resemblance concept. We should be wary of the urge to assimilate, unify; we should respect the multiplicity (his word) of reference, like the multiplicity of language games. Gareth Evans called his book The […]

Read more
0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2024-01-11 14:25:512024-01-11 14:25:51A Taxonomy of Reference

Why Do We Imagine?

January 9, 2024/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Why Do We Imagine? If we ask why humans perceive and remember, the answer is not far to seek: for the same reason many animals, particularly mammals, perceive and remember, viz. these are obviously useful traits to possess. They enable the reception and storage of information. There is no evolutionary puzzle about the existence of […]

Read more
0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2024-01-09 14:37:152024-01-09 14:37:15Why Do We Imagine?

Why Do We Think?

January 8, 2024/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Why Do We Think? Intelligent thought (cleverness, creativity, insight) is not common in the animal world. Intelligence without thought, and thought without intelligence, are more common, but the combination is rare. That may seem odd, given that intelligent thought is such a dandy adaptation (it can get you to the moon and back)—why isn’t it […]

Read more
0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2024-01-08 12:39:592024-01-08 12:40:42Why Do We Think?

Why Do We Speak?

January 6, 2024/5 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Why Do We Speak? As has often been remarked, language is a rare biological accomplishment. It is not spread widely across the animal world and took billions of years to evolve. I am referring here to communicative speech not the cognitive machinery that underlies human linguistic competence (which may be directed more towards the use […]

Read more
0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2024-01-06 13:00:462024-01-06 13:00:46Why Do We Speak?

Skepticism and Time

January 2, 2024/11 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Skepticism and Time We can’t be certain the ordinary world of material objects exists: we might be brains in a vat or perpetually dreaming. We can’t be certain that space exists, at least in the form we think of it, for the same reasons. But what about time? We are familiar with skepticism with respect […]

Read more
0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2024-01-02 12:26:452024-01-02 12:26:45Skepticism and Time

Anthropocentric Physical Empiricism

December 30, 2023/3 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Anthropocentric Physical Empiricism Empiricism is the doctrine that all knowledge derives from something called “experience”. Alternatively, all (non-trivial) knowledge comes from the senses. Knowledge is ultimately reducible to “impressions” or “sense data” originating in the human sense organs. In some forms it takes on a metaphysical cast: all of realityderives from experience and is reducible […]

Read more
0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2023-12-30 13:23:362023-12-30 13:23:36Anthropocentric Physical Empiricism

Knife Throwing

December 29, 2023/6 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Colin McGinn

Knife Throwing I have been working on my knife throwing recently. It’s not a mainstream sport perhaps, but it has its own charm. I heard someone the other day describe it as “like darts but more macho”; indeed, but it is more than that. It is technically more difficult to stick the knife in the […]

Read more
0 0 Colin McGinn Colin McGinn2023-12-29 13:42:452023-12-29 13:42:45Knife Throwing
Page 58 of 181«‹5657585960›»

Categories

  • Biology
  • Meaning
  • Mind
  • Philosophy
  • Science
  • Skepticism
  • Sport
  • Uncategorized
  • Zoology

Archives

  • January 2026
  • December 2025
  • November 2025
  • October 2025
  • September 2025
  • August 2025
  • July 2025
  • June 2025
  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • June 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • September 2009
  • May 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007

© 2020 Copyright - Colin Mcginn - Enfold WordPress Theme by Kriesi
  • Link to Facebook
Scroll to top Scroll to top Scroll to top