Value Realism and Metaphysical Mystery Probably the central question in ethical theory, and the most difficult, is whether value is objective. Is pain, for example, intrinsically bad or is this just how we describe it? Was pain bad before there was anyone around to think it bad? If pain is objectively bad, what kind of […]
Existentialist Ethics and Value Realism By “existentialist ethics” I mean ethical theories according to which ethical precepts or principles are determined by the moral agent’s acts of choice and have no basis in objective reality. They are imposed not encountered, invented not discovered, projected not detected, endogenous not exogenous, subjective not objective, human not extra-human, […]
Four Women I have just read Benjamin Lipscomb’s The Women Are Up to Something and found it an interesting and readable book. I met Elizabeth Anscombe and knew Philippa Foot and admired Iris Murdoch from afar. There seems to be a subtext to the book that is never explicitly stated, namely that it was their […]
Necessity and Time What is the connection between necessity and time? Time is not usually mentioned in discussions of necessity, but it is easy to see that the two notions are logically connected. If a proposition is necessary, then it is true at all times. In fact, it is necessarily true at all times: it […]
Notes on Creativity It is a curious fact that creativity is both extremely common and also very rare. Everyone has it to a marked degree, but it is not given to everyone to be markedly creative. It is both easy and difficult, effortless and effortful. How can this be? The areas in which it is […]
Philosophical Speech Acts What is characteristic of the philosophical speech act? Here again I will divide the question into three parts corresponding to the locutionary, the illocutionary, and the perlocutionary.[1] First, what is the locutionary meaning of the philosophical speech act—what kind of proposition does it express? Is it a report of fact, a presentation […]
Scientific Speech Acts How do scientific acts of speech differ from other kinds, say political? In analyzing speech acts Austin distinguished “locutionary meaning”, “illocutionary force”, and “perlocutionary effect”: how do these categories manifest themselves in the speech of scientists? Locutionary meaning pertains to the propositional content of speech acts irrespective of the communicative intentions of […]
Science Philosophy How exactly should Scientific Language Philosophy proceed? First, it need not be the whole of philosophy: we can still discuss traditional philosophical problems that may have nothing to do with science or any discipline distinct from philosophy itself. Second, it is not the same as philosophy of science as this phrase is normally […]
Scientific Language Philosophy We are familiar with Ordinary Language Philosophy, an Oxford product of the 1950s (perhaps partly derived from Wittgenstein in Cambridge). This approach has been criticized for its neglect of science, as if common sense is sufficient for a modern style of philosophy. But what about a different kind of linguistic turn—towards scientific […]
I have just finished reading Mark Rowe’s Austin, a 660 page study of the eponymous philosopher. It is a superb book in every way: exhaustively researched, insightful, expert on both the Second World War and British philosophy, and exceptionally well written. I hope it is widely read both within philosophy and by outsiders.