Solipsistic Realism Berkeley had a metaphysics and epistemology that dispensed with matter; he thought this gave us a better theory of the nature of objects and also delivered us from the skepticism generated by the idea of matter. But he was not a solipsist, not by any means: he believed in multiple “finite spirits” and […]
A Disproof of Other Minds We can’t prove the existence of other minds, but can we disprove their existence? Can we construct a plausible argument that other minds don’t exist, only one’s own mind does (solipsism)? That sounds improbable and I don’t know of any attempt to do it, but philosophy is full of surprising […]
Concepts of the Physical World Here is an eloquent passage from Thomas Nagel: “The understanding of the physical world has been expanded enormously with the aid of theories and explanations that use concepts not tied to the specifically human perceptual viewpoint. Our senses provide the evidence from which we start, but the detached character of […]
Bertie’s Vocabulary I was in the mood for a Jeeves and Wooster, so I gulped down (as Bertie might say) a tale of these two coves (viz. The Inimitable Jeeves). A large part of what makes these books so amusing is Bertie’s vocabulary (as contrasted with Jeeves’s). I found myself underlining the many words he […]
Davidson at the Orange Bowl Yesterday I was over at the Biltmore watching the first rounds of the Junior Orange Bowl tennis tournament (14 and under). I couldn’t hit at the wall there because of the tournament. These kids are amazing—I couldn’t get a point off them. I sat contentedly on the bleachers with the […]
Colin, When I compare the blog writings with your books, a natural difference in level becomes clear. Your books have tight argumentation and technical density; the blog, by contrast, is deliberately freer, faster, and more polemical. This is not a weakness but a difference of genre. As I plan to organize the blog texts into […]
Dear Colin, I wanted to briefly update you on the project. I have now completed a full thematic classification of your blog and organized all the posts into six coherent volumes. I am also working on gathering the texts one by one into these volumes, and I will keep you informed as the work progresses. […]
Hate We are constantly hearing about how bad it is to hate. This is a complete misconception. The OED defines hate as “feel intense dislike for or a strong aversion towards”. The concept has nothing intrinsically to do with prejudice or violence or persecution. Hate is not somehow unethical or irrational; nor is it psychologically […]
A Bright Spot Last Saturday the world champion waveski rider Ian Macleod delivered to me the board he had designed and constructed for me (a four and a half hour drive down the coast of Florida). It was quite an occasion. I had to cancel my interview with my Turkish collaborators and friends, Burcu and […]
Causal Necessity Are causal laws necessary? Are particular causal relations necessary? It has been supposed not: either they are thoroughly contingent or at most weakly necessary (less so than logical necessity). I will put the case for the necessity view. First, they are clearly not epistemically necessary: it could have turned out that causes have […]