Persuasion and Imagination in Philosophy Persuasion clearly plays a large role in philosophical practice. We do it by means of logical argument based upon generally accepted premises; we don’t tend to marshal new evidence. In consequence of this we encounter a good deal of refutation, or at least resistance and rejection. We try to persuade […]
Linguistic Structures We are familiar with the three levels of linguistic structure: semantic, syntactic, and phonetic. But what is the relation between them? What determines what? Take the semantic and syntactic levels: does semantics determine syntax or syntax determine semantics? Which came first? Which is basic? Did meaning exist first and then grammar supervene on […]
Is Philosophy Erotic? Plato certainly thought so: the Symposium is all about sex and philosophy, Eros and Logos. He believed that the two things are deeply intertwined but that the connection is obscure. This is another iteration of the mind-body problem: the erotic body and the intellectual mind. Plato thought that the connection indubitably exists […]
Thoughtless Language We normally suppose that adding language to an animal mind would enrich it, but might this be the opposite of the truth? Might language subtract from the mind? Might language act like a prison of thought rather than opening up new vistas? Might a cat or dog have a richer mental life than […]
Sexual Ethics What would a sex-based normative ethics look like? It would make the concepts of sex and procreation the central concepts of ethics not the concepts of happiness or duty, as in utilitarianism and deontology. If those theories recommend maximizing happiness and duty-obedience, then sexual ethics would recommend maximizing sex. I rush to add […]
An Argument Against Panpsychism Panpsychism holds that elementary particles have mentality, attenuated perhaps, but capable of yielding consciousness as we know it. Yet particles don’t generally instantiate many properties—mass, charge, spin, motion, and that’s about it. So, if they also instantiate mental properties, these too must be few in number—say, three or four (or maybe […]
What is it Like to be Gay? Answer: I don’t know, and neither do you if you are a straight man. For I have never had the desires or experiences of a gay man; I therefore don’t know what it is like to have such desires or experiences. The case is just like the bat […]
Sex and Maturity There is a strange medical condition that we have to endure or cope with that other animals are not afflicted by. We are all affected by it and take it for granted, but it is unnatural to the point of cruelty. I refer to the age at which puberty occurs. It comes […]
On Perception, Belief, and Knowledge Consciousness gets defined as there being something it is like. This isn’t a classical analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, but it manages to elucidate what consciousness is (more or less); it captures the concept intuitively, if gnomically. In that spirit, I define knowledge as the world impinging […]
Sex and Dualism According to classical dualism, what we call a person consists of two separate substances, a mind and a body, the latter material and extended, the former immaterial and unextended. Each can survive the other; they have different essences. But this implies that when you have sex with someone, you are having sex […]