Quantifiers and Mass Terms The usual approach to quantification focuses on quantifier words combined with count nouns, as in “All men are mortal” and “Some sheep are black”. We are told that such sentences require a paraphrase by means of variables ranging over objects (the “domain of quantification”)—“for some object x etc.”. […]
[1] I suspect some of the hostility to philosophy in certain academic circles arises from a sense that philosophy has no right to exist—that it is just an institutional holdover from earlier times. For the subject seems to persist without solving its problems and yet there is no good explanation of this fact. So the […]
Why Does Philosophy Exist? It is easy to see why most subjects exist. Geography exists because planet Earth is divided into parts that can be mapped: there are geographical facts that can be ascertained. Physics and chemistry exist because the world contains physical and chemical facts (objects, properties) that can be discovered. […]
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 […]
America: A Theory Gotten: Americans say it, the British don’t (nor do Australians and South Africans). One might suppose that Americans started saying it some time after the first British settlers landed in the New World, thus marking themselves as different from their British forebears. But this is wrong: the British were […]
[1] There is certainly something liberating and amusing about nonsense: hence the popularity of the likes of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. Nonsense has its value, its virtues. It is hard to define, but we know it when we see it. It isn’t the same as mere impossibility, but is closer to the notion of […]
Notes on Nonsense We don’t talk about nonsense enough. Let’s show it some respect. Nonsense belongs to language not reality: there are no nonsensical facts or objects or properties; there are only nonsensical words or strings thereof. Reality itself is completely…what? We have no word for the opposite of “nonsensical”—the word “sensical” […]
Dreaming and Philosophy I have an empirical hypothesis: dreaming caused philosophy. That is, it was dreaming that tipped our ancestors off to philosophical questions, and it still does. Dreaming embodies so much of what stimulates philosophical thought; it’s the cradle of philosophy. Not all of it, to be sure, philosophy being a […]
Trying: Its Scope and Limits What can we try to do and what can’t we try to do? The OED defines “try” as “to make an attempt or effort to do something”, so our question becomes what can we make an attempt to do. The following come within the scope of trying: bodily and […]
Dualities I wish to draw attention to a duality that runs through many areas of philosophy and elsewhere. It is a very abstract duality and it is not easy to find words to pin it down; yet it seems real and important. Here is a list in which the duality is apparent: volition […]