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.
I don’t know how many professional philosophers read this blog, and hence how widely read my writing of the last ten years is, but I expect the answer is “Not much”. I wish to put it on record that I think this is a grievous mistake. My exclusion from professional philosophy in America over the […]
Quantifiers Deconstructed How should we interpret the quantifiers of the predicate calculus? Here is one suggestion: “Ex(Fx)” should be read “There exists an individual, call it x, such that Fx”.[1] There is an obvious problem with this: it commits a use-mention fallacy. The first occurrence of “x” should be in quotation marks so that the […]
Truth, Lies, and the Internet Two things compete for control over our beliefs: facts and falsehoods. That is, people form beliefs sometimes as a result of facts—in which case their beliefs are true—and sometimes as a result of lies they have been told—in which case their beliefs are false. The factual falsehood of lies is […]