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# Colin McGinn

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## Posts

- [Description, Analysis, Explanation, and Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/description-analysis-explanation-and-philosophy/) - Description, Analysis, Explanation, and Philosophy I invite you to indulge with me in some loose reflections on the nature of philosophy. There will be no test or harsh judgment. We are doing this as friends at a kind of philosopher’s party. We can take the brakes off for a while. There are three kinds of
- [Universal Prescriptivism](https://colinmcginn.net/universal-prescriptivism/) - Universal Prescriptivism It used to be held that there are two types of speech act: descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive speech acts state facts; prescriptive speech acts recommend acts. The fact-act dichotomy underlies the description-prescription dichotomy. I think this is completely wrong: there is no such thing as a descriptive speech act in the intended sense,
- [Is it Epistemically Possible that the Mind is Reducible to the Brain?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-it-epistemically-possible-that-the-mind-is-reducible-to-the-brain/) - Is it Epistemically Possible that the Mind is Reducible to the Brain? Might it turn out that the mind can be reduced to the brain? Are we now under an illusion of irreducibility that could be rectified in the future? The answer I want to give is yes and no. Let’s be specific: might it
- [Body Mentalism](https://colinmcginn.net/body-mentalism/) - Body Mentalism We are all too familiar with attempts to describe the mind in terms of the body, the better to integrate the two. Behaviorism and materialism spring to mind (in both senses). These attempts are seldom if ever convincing, at first glance or after many glances. They seem to put the mind where it
- [Physicalisms](https://colinmcginn.net/physicalisms/) - Physicalisms The word “physicalism” covers a multitude of sins: it is vague, honorific, and deeply mysterious. What does it mean? Don’t say it means “what physicists do”—that is completely circular and uninformative. Also, physics varies from one physicist to another: whose physics do we mean? Do we mean Descartes’ physics, centering around the notions of
- [Happy 250th!](https://colinmcginn.net/happy-250th/) - Happy 250th! And so, America reaches its two hundred and fiftieth birthday, a milestone event (as some wit remarked). As nations go, that is about the early teen years (England is about 80 now). It seems uncertain of itself, neither one thing nor the other, wondering who it is. It has a toddler for president,
- [Football Mania](https://colinmcginn.net/football-mania/) - Football Mania I have been enjoying the World Cup these last couple of weeks, apart from the horrendous English accents of some of the commentators (one of whom insists on calling it the World Kep). I have been impressed by the level of skill exhibited, even by England, but especially by Congo. But what really
- [A well-read page](https://colinmcginn.net/a-well-read-page/)
- [Law and Nature](https://colinmcginn.net/law-and-nature/) - Laws and Nature When Newton brought all motion under a single set of laws, he changed our view of nature. Now nature was uniform, seamless, of a piece. These laws were mathematical, so nature was mathematical. The natural kind corresponding to these laws was a mathematical kind. Mass, force, and velocity were mathematical kinds, definable
- [Biology and Physics](https://colinmcginn.net/biology-and-physics/) - Biology and Physics Biology and physics are very different types of science, but why is this—and is it remediable? Are they essentially different, or is it just a historical contingency? Physics as we have it is highly mathematical, consisting of strict mathematically formulated fundamental laws, expressed as equations; biology is not very mathematical, employs loose
- [Rigidity and Necessity](https://colinmcginn.net/rigidity-and-necessity/) - Rigidity and Necessity The idea of rigid designation was one of Kripke’s best ideas in Naming and Necessity, but he didn’t explore it in much depth. I will rectify that omission, putting rigidity in its proper place. It will turn out to be both more familiar and less well understood than we have been led
- [The Subjective Mind(-View)](https://colinmcginn.net/the-subjective-mind-view/) - The Subjective Mind(-View) How subjective is our view of the mind, our own and other’s? How much are we skewed and limited by our given viewing faculties and conceptual resources? We have a view of the physical world—a picture, a conception—and we can ask how subjective it is, i.e., how dependent on our peculiar sensory
- [Ontology of Psychology](https://colinmcginn.net/ontology-of-psychology/) - Ontology of Psychology Every subject has its basic ontology—its preferred subject matter, the things it takes to exist, what it is committed to. In physics it is macroscopic bodies, particles, and fields (including forces); in astronomy it is stars, planets, and black holes; in chemistry it is molecules and chemical reactions; in biology it is
- [Philosophy of Learning](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-of-learning/) - Philosophy of Learning In philosophy we study perception, knowledge, belief, memory, and reasoning—but not so much learning. In psychology learning is central, but in philosophy it is peripheral at best (perhaps part of philosophy of education). I propose to make some programmatic remarks about learning as a philosophical topic (I happen to have a strong
- [Ana Navarro and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/ana-navarro-and-me/) - Ana Navarro and Me Last Saturday, I by chance ran into Ana Navarro in Milams supermarket in Miami. She doesn’t know me from Adam. I said hello to her and we had a pleasant conversation in the aisles there. She was as charming and delightful as you would expect. It turns out she lives near
- [Skeptical Solutions to the Mind Problem](https://colinmcginn.net/skeptical-solutions-and-the-mind-problem/) - Skeptical Solutions to the Mind Problem Early thinkers had a body problem: what is body? What is the stuff we call “matter”? The pre-Socratics had a go at answering this question: matter is water, or variations on the four elements (earth, fire, water, and air). More advanced thinkers proposed invisible atoms, or spatial extension, or
- [Do Animals Have an Inner Child?](https://colinmcginn.net/do-animals-have-an-inner-child/) - Do Animals Have an Inner Child? Nowadays it is commonly accepted that humans have an inner child. The idea is natural enough: the personality and experiences of the young child stick in the mind in later years, shaping later life. They don’t just disappear at an appointed age, discarded like clothes that no longer fit.
- [Philosophy of Popularity](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-of-popularity/) - Philosophy of Popularity Are there any concepts for which a skeptical theory (solution) is obviously correct? Consider popularity: what is it to be popular? Suppose someone thinks that popularity is defined by a specific observable quality of a person such as good looks (suitably defined). They might even think that popularity is defined by having
- [Family Resemblance and Skeptical Solutions](https://colinmcginn.net/family-resemblance-and-skeptical-solutions/) - Family Resemblances and Skeptical Solutions We all remember Wittgenstein’s famous sections on games and family resemblance; I won’t repeat them. The point I want to make is that they can be construed as providing a skeptical solution to a skeptical problem. Not that Wittgenstein saw them this way; on the contrary, he had no notion
- [Existence, Consciousness, and Skeptical Solutions](https://colinmcginn.net/existence-consciousness-and-skeptical-solutions/) - Existence, Consciousness, and Skeptical Solutions There are straight solutions and skeptical solutions, skeptical paradoxes and skeptical arguments. They need not all take the same form; they just need to be cases in which something we uncritically assumed comes into doubt and is rescued by lowering theoretical expectations. X isn’t really the kind of thing you
- [Why I Publish Here](https://colinmcginn.net/why-i-publish-here/) - Why I Publish Here The reasons are pretty obvious. First, I have been academically cancelled, so I find it difficult these days to get my work published in the usual places. Second, and equally important, the form of my recent writing is not standard academic form: it is concise, reference-free, and straight to the point.
- [Philosophical Superiority](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophical-superiority/) - Philosophical Superiority It has come to my attention (AI told me) that many people out there think it was very arrogant (and deluded) of me to claim superiority to the great dead philosophers. Such people (if they exist) have got hold of the wrong end of the stick: my statement, properly understood, is trivially true,
- [Mathematical Ethics](https://colinmcginn.net/mathematical-ethics/) - Mathematical Ethics You might not think that ethics is a very mathematical subject, unlike (say) physics. But we do have the felicific calculus which purports to quantify the rightness of an action according to the amount of happiness (pleasure) produced by it. The quantified variables include intensity, duration, extent, and correlated pain. And this idea
- [Philosophy of...](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-of/) - Philosophy of… I wish to point out an oddity in the way a typical philosophy curriculum is structured, which calls for revision. We normally distinguish the philosophy of mind from the philosophy of psychology: the former deals directly with the mind, the latter with the science of psychology (it is about that science). Philosophy of
- [Metaphysics of Shape and Color](https://colinmcginn.net/metaphysics-of-shape-and-color/) - Metaphysics of Shape and Color How many shapes are there in the universe, and how many colors? A standard answer is infinitely many in both cases. This answer is not incorrect, but it doesn’t go deep enough. Metaphysically, we want to know how many irreducible shapes and colors there are. As a matter of basic
- [In His Own Write](https://colinmcginn.net/in-his-own-write/) - In His Own Right I just re-read John Lennon’s book In His Own Write, which I won as the English prize at my school in Blackpool. I last read it at age sixteen, sixty years ago. It consists of short stories composed of malapropisms and invented words. I still found it as clever and funny
- [A Proof of Platonism](https://colinmcginn.net/a-proof-of-platonism/) - A Proof of Platonism I am going to prove that the universal whiteness is not identical to the class of white things. The proof is similar to the well-known proof that pain is not identical to C-fiber firing.[1] Thus: I can think of whiteness apart from the class of actual white things; I can conceive
- [Car Evolution](https://colinmcginn.net/car-evolution/) - Car Evolution Suppose a particular car is designed and built. No other car is created. The car is then copied by technicians multiple times over many years, say one thousand. Errors in the copying are sometimes made, resulting in a car slightly different from the original. Suppose a million new cars are built, so many
- [Office Vacation](https://colinmcginn.net/office-vacation/) - Office Vacation I remember the day, fourteen years ago, when I vacated my office. The university had given me a short deadline to get this done, so I requested an extension. They denied my request (without explanation) and told me they would charge me for every day I went over the announced date. I therefore
- [Evolution by Nutritional Selection](https://colinmcginn.net/evolution-by-nutritional-selection/) - Evolution by Nutritional Selection Animals need food. They cannot survive and reproduce without it. They therefore have adaptations that ensure that enough food is consumed: traits that enable them to find food and consume it. This is not selfishly confined to the individual animal; animals also procure food for their young, often going without themselves.
- [For Unemotional Ethics](https://colinmcginn.net/for-unemotional-ethics/) - For Unemotional Ethics It is often said that ethics (morality) is concerned with the passions not the intellect. It is about feelings not knowledge, desires not beliefs. Hence, ethical non-cognitivism. On the other hand, subjects like physics, mathematics, and philosophy are cognitive pursuits, quite removed from emotion. Ethics is motivating, so it needs passionate motive
- [Counterfactual Empiricism](https://colinmcginn.net/counterfactual-empiricism/) - Counterfactual Empiricism Classical empiricism is the doctrine that all knowledge is knowledge of impressions: you know what, and only what, you have perceived with your senses. This doctrine runs into trouble with things you know but have not perceived—concepts of the unperceived. It would appear to imply that you can’t have concepts of, and knowledge
- [The Problem of Psychology](https://colinmcginn.net/the-problem-of-psychology/) - The Problem of Psychology Everyone knows that psychology is a difficult subject, especially psychologists. But why? Why isn’t it as advanced as physics and chemistry, or even biology? The mind has been around for a long time and so have our cognitive faculties (though less time), and it’s not as if we are not curious
- [Existence Explained](https://colinmcginn.net/existence-explained/) - Existence Explained Probably the most infuriating question in philosophy is the nature of existence. I have racked my brains over it lo these many years and come up with nothing.[1] Now at last I think I have found the solution, and it’s not what you would think. It fits the facts. So, right here, right
- [Do Events Exist?](https://colinmcginn.net/do-events-exist/) - Do Events Exist? We have become accustomed to the idea of an “ontology of events”, either as a total world ontology or as part of our ontology. Are events all there is (no objects or substances), or are they just a part of what there is? Events exist—we think. Donald Davidson was a great proponent
- [Causal Reality](https://colinmcginn.net/causal-reality/) - Causal Reality Consider Michelangelo’s statue of David: heavy, large, made of marble, beautifully shaped. Aristotle would say that it consists of matter and form—its composition and shape. According to him, these are both causes of the statue—material cause and formal cause. Together, they make the statue what it is; they cause it to be what
- [Song Therapy](https://colinmcginn.net/song-therapy/) - Song Therapy The therapeutic power of music is well-attested (see Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia). But we don’t hear much about song specifically—that is, singing. With no scientific basis whatsoever, I am going to assert that singing is therapeutic (and I will brook no dissent). Oddly enough, I think this is particularly true for the vocally challenged.
- [An Identity Theory of Causality](https://colinmcginn.net/an-identity-theory-of-causality/) - An Identity Theory of Causation Let causal dualism be the doctrine that cause and effect are separate things, one following the other in time: first the cause, then the effect.[1] There is no overlap between the two; they are quite distinct events. The short circuit caused the fire: one event (or state of affairs) caused
- [Science and Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/science-and-philosophy-2/) - Science and Philosophy Many scientists have got it into their head that the purpose of philosophy is to help them with their science. They then complain that it isn’t much help, if any. The complaint would be reasonable if their assumption were correct. But it isn’t. Philosophy is a different subject entirely. Their attitude is
- [Identity, Causality, and Caterpillars](https://colinmcginn.net/identity-causality-and-caterpillars/) - Identity, Causality, and Caterpillars Suppose you don’t know the true relationship between caterpillars and butterflies: you don’t know that the former turn into the latter by metamorphosis. You notice the two are often found in the same vicinity, but you don’t know that they are really the same organism at different stages of its life.
- [Dolphin Phenomenology](https://colinmcginn.net/dolphin-phenomenology/) - Dolphin Phenomenology Dolphins have a highly sophisticated echolocation sense as well as high intelligence (and amazing motor abilities).[1] They can spot the location of fish buried under sand on the sea floor using this sense. They insert their snouts in the appropriate place and dig out the fish. What is going on in their minds?
- [Identity and Causality](https://colinmcginn.net/identity-and-causality/) - Identity and Causality It is generally supposed that an object cannot cause itself; causation only holds between distinct things. I will question this orthodoxy. The argument will take the form of nudging intuitions in the direction of the target thesis. The claim will be that every object causes itself (among other things); every object is
- [Is Logic Revisable?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-logic-revisable/) - Is Logic Revisable? What does this question mean? Does it mean to ask whether our current logical systems are in principle revisable? Or is it asking whether logical reality itself is revisable? Presumably not the latter: truth (reality, facts) isn’t revisable, only beliefs are. Unless we mean to be asking whether logical reality can be
- [The Non-Cognitive Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/the-non-cognitive-mind/) - The Non-Cognitive Mind The so-called cognitive mind is said to be subject to the representational theory of mind (RTM).[1] This theory has a number of elements chief among which is that thoughts have compositional structure—roughly, their conceptual content mirrors the compositionality of language. That means that they have propositional content—the kind of content that sentences
- [Hand Fish](https://colinmcginn.net/hand-fish/) - Hand fish I was watching a truly splendid documentary on the oceans last night on Netflix, produced by the Obamas and narrated by Barack Obama. I thoroughly recommend it. Barack does an excellent job, though not quite at the level of David Attenborough and Morgan Freeman (otherwise known as the Voices of Nature). Anyway, I
- [Fodor's RTM](https://colinmcginn.net/fodors-rtm/) - Fodor’s RTM Here is a telling passage in Hume Variations written by my old friend and fellow mysterian Jerry Fodor: “For a number of interlocking reasons, it remains fully plausible that cognitive processes are constituted by causal interactions among mental representations, that is, among semantically evaluable particulars. Either that, or we really are entirely in
- [Do Bats Know What it is Like to be Human?](https://colinmcginn.net/do-bats-know-what-it-is-like-to-be-human/) - Do Bats Know What it is Like to be Human? One answer would be that we don’t know whether they do or can know what it’s like to be human, because of the problem of bat other minds. That is a boring answer and, I think, incorrect; in any case, I will ignore it. We
- [A Fortiori](https://colinmcginn.net/a-fortiori/) - A Fortiori I noticed with mounting irritation that Jerry Fodor keeps using the Latin phrase “a fortiori” to mean “it follows that” in Hume Variations. It doesn’t mean that; it means “with stronger reason” (look it up). The correct construction is “it follows a fortiori that p”. You can’t say “a fortiori a fortiori”—as if
- [Asleep and Awake](https://colinmcginn.net/asleep-and-awake/) - Asleep and Awake Listen, do you want to know a secret? The government has been withholding it from us. When we are asleep, we are awake, and when we are awake, we are asleep. We have been bamboozled into thinking that in sleep we are not awake and when awake not asleep. Sheer propaganda and
- [Two-Handed Tennis](https://colinmcginn.net/two-handed-tennis/) - Two-handed Tennis There I was on the court, as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then I noticed that the guy on the next court was playing two-handed, as I do. It turned out that the guy I was playing with, Robert, knew the guy and introduced me. We belonged to a rare breed, on
- [John Lennon and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/john-lennon-and-me/) - John Lennon and Me John Lennon was assassinated near where I used to live. I used to live at West End Avenue and 73rd Street in Manhattan. The Dakota is on 72nd Street and Central Park West. I would walk by it all the time and always thought of him. The memorial to him is
- [Truth as Consistency](https://colinmcginn.net/truth-as-consistency/) - Truth as Consistency I will present a new theory of truth. It can be stated thus: for a proposition to be true is for it to be consistent with reality.[1] For “snow is white” to be true is for it to be consistent with the fact that snow is white; “snow is black” is not
- [Counterfactuals](https://colinmcginn.net/counterfactuals/) - Counterfactuals In a world with less gravity, the birds would be huge. In a world with more gravity, only insects would fly. In a world with more light and plant predators, plants would have consciousness and advanced intelligence. In a world with greater water resistance, whales would be small. In a colder world, there would
- [Beatle Genius](https://colinmcginn.net/beatle-genius/) - Beatle Genius Big news: I have changed my opinion of the genius of the Beatles. I used to think that John and Paul were the true geniuses, with George and Ringo excellent but not at the same genius level. I now think that is wrong: George and Ringo were geniuses too! We need to distinguish
- [More on Skateboarding](https://colinmcginn.net/more-on-skateboarding/) - More on Skateboarding Yesterday’s New York Times carried an article about skateboarding, in the business section of all places. I read it with interest. It was all about skateboarding in middle age. The author passionately described his sessions in a Costco parking lot. The emphasis was on bonding with his middle-aged buddies, learning tricks and
- [Fodor on Concept Possession](https://colinmcginn.net/fodor-on-concept-possession/) - Fodor on Concept Possession Jerry Fodor holds that to possess a concept is to be able to think about its referent—and that’s all. He asks, rhetorically, “So what’s wrong with identifying having a concept C with being able to think about Cs as such?” (21: italics all his, for some reason.) Later we read: “To
- [Empiricist Psychology](https://colinmcginn.net/empiricist-psychology/) - Empiricist Psychology Let empiricism be the doctrine that all knowledge of the external concrete world derives from interactions with that world and only from such interactions. There is no knowledge of this world deriving from pure reason, tradition, God, the genes, or language. Super-empiricism is the doctrine that all knowledge derives from interactions with the
- [Philosophy and AI](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-and-ai/) - Philosophy and AI I think AI will be good for philosophy (if the philosophers don’t ruin it first, a big if). The reason is obvious: AI is no good at philosophy, at least as AI now exists. But it is good at many other things: white-collar jobs, routine teaching, performing calculations, storing information, providing quick
- [John Lennon's Mother](https://colinmcginn.net/john-lennons-mother/) - John Lennon’s Mother I recently came across John Lennon’s song “Mother”. It begins with a doleful slow church bell sound, as at a funeral, repeated four times. Then he abruptly comes in with a loud and angry “Mother!” followed by these words: “You had me, but I never had you. I wanted you, you didn’t
- [Entanglement Epistemology](https://colinmcginn.net/entanglement-epistemology/) - Entanglement Epistemology Is there any alternative to empiricism and rationalism—experience and reason, impressions and innate ideas?[1] In particular, do we need to have experiences of everything we know? Can empirical knowledge (as opposed to the a priori kind) be constituted by anything other than sense impressions of the thing known? One might hope so, because
- [Fodor on Mystery](https://colinmcginn.net/fodor-on-mystery/) - Fodor on Mystery This is Jerry Fodor in Hume Variations (2003): “Thinking, intentionality, concept possession, and concept individuation really are deeply mysterious, and they really can’t be allowed indefinitely to take in each other’s wash. The hardness of understanding intentionality and thought isn’t, these days, as widely advertised as the hardness of understanding consciousness, but
- [Wow text](https://colinmcginn.net/wow-text/)
- [Cognitive Psychologies](https://colinmcginn.net/cognitive-psychologies/) - Cognitive Psychologies Epistemologists distinguish a priori and a posteriori knowledge, thus establishing a grand dichotomy—an undeniable dualism. But this duality is composed of a plurality of cognitive faculties: vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch (as well introspection and proprioception). Traditionally, we are said to have five senses, each operating differently; these differences are not trivial,
- [Faculty Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/faculty-knowledge/) - Faculty Knowledge Empiricists and rationalists agree that we have a number of cognitive faculties: the five senses plus whatever else is needed to account for the totality of human knowledge (mathematics, ethics, etc.). But how do we know this—how do we know, for example, that the visual faculty exists? The empiricists and rationalists never discuss
- [Chapter Nine](https://colinmcginn.net/chapter-nine/) - Chapter Nine Things didn’t quite work out the way she expected. As she slept the night before she was due to return home, a sinister plot unfolded. A group of highly trained Yellow Caps scaled the hotel wall and entered her room silently and kidnapped her. They slipped a specially designed kidnapping bag over her
- [Chapter Five](https://colinmcginn.net/chapter-five/) - Chapter Five You might not have thought that Amber and Tang Wurlitzer had a lot in common, but Tang didn’t see it that way. She had all these problems with people and things: advertisements, supermarket chickens, news programs, history, politics, prisons. But Tang never had a problem with anyone: it was his job not to
- [Chapter Three](https://colinmcginn.net/chapter-three/) - Chapter Three And so it was established to the highest scientific standards: Amber was suffering from ETS. She had a badness-detector inside her rigged to her esophagus. The news spread quickly, as all medical news will: it was initially reported in a medical magazine by none other than Dr. Denise Evelyn Daniloff. The article caused
- [Chapter Eight](https://colinmcginn.net/chapter-eight/) - Chapter Eight Amber was nearing the end of her twelfth year on planet Earth when word came from the United Federation of Independent States (UFIS—pronounced You fizz). They had a top-level mission for her to perform, if she would be so kind. This was not a word you could ignore, since UFIS represented all the
- [Chapter Ten](https://colinmcginn.net/chapter-ten/) - Chapter Ten And indeed, Amber was never the same again. The sickness had left her, never to return. At last, she was cured. She became a normal girl with normal reactions. She vomited only when she had eaten something that disagreed with her or because of a tummy bug. Back at school she blended in.
- [Chapter Seven](https://colinmcginn.net/chapter-seven/) - Chapter Seven One day the Minister for Justice paid her a visit. He said he needed her help in a matter of great importance. He had a careful way of speaking, as if each word could be a lasso to trip him up. He seldom uttered a sentence without saying it over in his mind
- [Chapter Six](https://colinmcginn.net/chapter-six/) - Chapter Six Predictably, a cult formed around her name—the “Amberists”. Their agenda? To root out evil wherever it was found. They were fanatically anti-evil, and Amber was their tool. They tried to imitate her: they would consume heaps of bad food and then go out to confront evil in all its forms. This never worked
- [Chapter Four](https://colinmcginn.net/chapter-four/) - Chapter Four Several years went by, relatively uneventfully. Amber grew accustomed to her affliction, her special talent. She learned how to manage it, as best she could. She even returned to school. She was permitted to keep mainly to herself. The playground was decreed off-limits. Fortunately, people tended to steer clear of her, for obvious
- [Chapter Two](https://colinmcginn.net/chapter-two/) - Chapter Two That business with the cards was only the beginning of Amber’s illness. She had it bad. Her illness was wicked. It could strike at any moment: in the car, in the playground, watching TV. It could even happen while she slept. She might wake up with a soiled pillow if she had a
- [THE LITTLE SICK GIRL](https://colinmcginn.net/the-little-sick-girl/) - THE LITTLE SICK GIRL[1] Chapter One Not very long ago, under a bright quarter moon, a little girl was born. The moon blinked as her round bald head popped out from inside her mother, and a purplish pale light came over the night sky. The wind stopped its gossiping for a moment. Even space
- [Human Morality](https://colinmcginn.net/human-morality/) - Human Morality Humans have an elaborate moral system, but animals don’t. We have all sorts of moral rules and think about right and wrong constantly, but animals hardly give it a moment’s thought. We are the moral (naked) ape. This fact is commonly taken to show that we are superior to animals, morally superior. They
- [Categories of Intentionality](https://colinmcginn.net/categories-of-intentionality/) - Categories of Intentionality It’s time to get serious about intentionality. I mean we need to develop a systematic taxonomy of it—a classificatory scheme. And we need to include the whole it, not just this or that type. We also need to clean up and systematize the terminology, because the word “intentionality” hinders comprehension: it has
- [Philosophers and Novelists](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophers-and-novelists/) - Philosophers and Novelists Some professional novelists are amateur philosophers (too numerous to list). There are many philosophical novels. The same goes for poets, playwrights, and short story writers (also song writers). Fiction has room for philosophy. But there are very few professional philosophers who are amateur novelists (or professional ones). Philosophers seldom write fiction on
- [Ideal Languages](https://colinmcginn.net/ideal-languages/) - Ideal Languages Logic-minded philosophers have lamented the logical ineptitude of natural languages like English. They have recommended improvements based on formal systems. They have tried to approximate to an ideal language—one free of all logical defect. Others have decried these revisions and declared natural languages fine as they are; they have preferred descriptive philosophy of
- [Mysterian News](https://colinmcginn.net/mysterian-news/) - Mysterian News I notice in today’s NY Times (May 10, 2026) that Ross Douthat mentions the word “mysterian” in his weekly column, expressing sympathy with the doctrine so named. He doesn’t say anything worth reading (as usual), but the article is indicative of the wider intellectual culture; the inset contains the words “The nature of
- [Natural Worlds](https://colinmcginn.net/natural-worlds/) - Natural Worlds Sir David Attenborough, great naturalist and celebrated TV presenter, an indisputable “national treasure”, likes to use the phrase “the natural world”.[1] I have no objection to this usage in its place (but see below), but I think the phrase deserves scrutiny (and he is not the only one who uses it). What does
- [How Many Earths?](https://colinmcginn.net/how-many-earths/) - How Many Earths? Let’s start with a couple of thought experiments.[1] Suppose there is a certain planet that has been around for a billion years; call it Janet. Not much has changed in it during this time and it has received no bombardments from abroad. Then one day it is subjected to an intense heat
- [A Philosophy of Nature](https://colinmcginn.net/a-philosophy-of-nature/) - A Philosophy of Nature It would be nice to give a general description of nature that brings out its essential attributes; not of this or that aspect or department of nature, but the whole thing.[1] What is the general form of the natural world? When people speak of nature in this vein, they mean the
- [Botanical Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/botanical-philosophy/) - Botanical Philosophy Botany is more philosophically interesting than we like to think. Gradually, animals have found their way onto the philosophical curriculum; now it is time for plants to take their rightful place. Plants are puzzling; they pose hard problems. There are botanical mysteries. Plants compose about 98% of the earth’s biomass; animals the remaining
- [Some Ideas on Logic](https://colinmcginn.net/some-ideas-on-logic/) - المخاطبات- العدد 14- أفريل 2015 AL-MUKHATABAT ISSN 1737-6432 Numéro-Issue 14 Avril-April SOME IDEAS ON LOGIC Colin MCGINN (Auteur indépendant) (1) Inverted Logic Abstract. It is argued that classical logics are not the only genuinely logical systems. In addition to modal logic, deontic logic, epistemic logic, and other recognized systems, we must make room for a
- [Distribution of Readers](https://colinmcginn.net/8345-2/) - Country Sessions Engagement Revenue United States 643 93.6% $0.00 United Kingdom 282 92.2% $0.00 Germany 73 95.9% $0.00 Romania 68 97.1% $0.00 France 60 75.0% $0.00 Sweden 51 94.1% $0.00 Australia 40 90.0% $0.00 Canada 19 84.2% $0.00 Chile 15 100.0% $0.00 Italy 13 100.0% $0.00 Load More Devices BrowserOSSize View Full Report Browser Sessions
- [Best Blog](https://colinmcginn.net/best-blog/) - Best Blog Why is this the best philosophy blog out there? For one thing, you get it for free; you don’t pay a penny for it (and I don’t make a penny). But that is a common property of blogs—why is this one the best? Because it has the best content: the best written, the
- [Colors and People](https://colinmcginn.net/colors-and-people/) - Colors and People People come in different colors: their eyes, their skin. Colors have two interesting properties: they are contingent and they are active. Each person could have had a different color—in some possible world my eyes are brown and my skin black. And colors are active dispositions to produce color sensations—acts, in short.[1] They
- [Invitation from South Africa](https://colinmcginn.net/invitation-from-south-africa/) - Hi Colin We run the Brain in Vat podcast. We have aired over 200 episodes with prominent thinkers on philosophical topics. We interviewed Peter Singer on animal welfare, Stephen Cave on immortality and David Edmonds on Derek Parfit. We have also published a series of six books based on our favourite conversations. We would like to invite you to be on our show to talk about Sex in Academia. In terms of content, we ask all
- [Are All Properties Relations?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-all-properties-relations/) - Are All Properties Relations? For some reason, philosophers tend to prefer properties to relations: the former are deemed more real, more concrete. To the contrary, I will argue that all properties are relations; so, if relations are unreal, so is the world. Fortunately, they are not, but that is not my concern today.[1] We have
- [Are Colors Actions?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-colors-actions/) - Are Colors Actions? We think of colors as attributes, like shapes or natural kinds: to be red is like being square or a cat—a property that something has, not an action it does. I will argue that colors are really more akin to actions than attributes. A color is an action of an object on
- [Relational Realism](https://colinmcginn.net/relational-realism/) - Relational Realism There has long been a skeptical attitude towards material objects. People have doubted that they exist—from idealist philosophers, to phenomenalists, to free-thinking physicists. Some have regarded them as mental entities not material; others have identified matter with mind; others have jettisoned them in favor of energy or some such. Thus, we get anti-realism
- [Table Tennis Story](https://colinmcginn.net/table-tennis-story/) - Table Tennis Story I was over at the Biltmore tennis center on Saturday, hoping to hit against the wall. As it happens, a kid’s tournament was underway and the wall was occupied by kids. I noticed one young lad who seemed particularly proficient, especially with his two-handed backhand. A friend of mine there, a coach,
- [Philosophy and Writing](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-and-writing/) - Philosophy and Writing There is a strong correlation between good philosophy and good writing. Good philosophers write good prose. These are separate abilities, but they are correlated—connected, we might say. I don’t know of a good philosopher who writes ineptly. And if the writing is good, good philosophy is apt to follow. Russell is perhaps
- [The Empty Vessels](https://colinmcginn.net/the-empty-vessels/) - The Empty Vessels That was the name of the band my brother and I formed circa 1964. I played drums, my brother Keith played rhythm guitar, Paul Taylor played lead guitar, Andrew Highley sang (with backup from Keith and Paul), and we had revolving bass players. We rehearsed in spaces around town, arranged by my
- [Beatles' Covers](https://colinmcginn.net/beatles-covers/) - Beatles’ Covers The orthodox view is that the Beatles recorded covers before they came into their full powers and wrote their own songs, which made for much better records. This is completely wrong: their covers were magnificent, their originals not always that great. They should have continued to record covers throughout their career; it might
- [Mistakes and Rules](https://colinmcginn.net/mistakes-and-rules/) - Mistakes and Rules Yesterday I was talking to a guy over at the tennis center; we were discussing the idea of changing the size of the service area so as to reduce the dominance of the serve. The guy, Antonio, was born in Cuba, moved to the USA at an early age, and now lives
- [Dark Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/dark-mind-2/) - Dark Mind It is a melancholy thought that one’s internal organs live out their life in complete darkness.[1] They never see the light of day or feel the warmth of the sun upon them. Sunlight is unknown to them; no photons reach their surface. The brain is only centimeters from the sun-bathed head but it
- [Solutionism](https://colinmcginn.net/solutionism/) - Solutionism I will define solutionism as the doctrine that all philosophical problems have solutions that are in principle available to us. It is the opposite of mysterianism. It characterizes an attitude or mindset with respect to the problems of philosophy—the solubility attitude or assumption. It deserves to be called an ideology. I can best explain
- [Philosophy Summarized](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-summarized/) - Philosophy Summarized Philosophy is a human construction with a human history, like art and politics. It has origins, antecedents, revolutions, and counterrevolutions. It evolves. I am going to describe this history from Descartes to the present day. The brush will be broad but hard-edged. It is all about Descartes and reactions to him. He had
- [Intellectual Impact](https://colinmcginn.net/intellectual-impact/) - Intellectual Impact I am interested in the intellectual impact of this blog on the minds of its readers (who range from all over the world). What is it doing to your minds? I ask this as an educational psychologist manque. What you get here is a barrage of subversive thought, relative to received opinion, though
- [Womanly Men](https://colinmcginn.net/womanly-men/) - Womanly Men I have argued that all men are biologically women to some degree, because of pregnancy and child rearing.[1]This should have implications for psychology: male psychology should include a female psychological component. Do we see any sign of that? We can certainly imagine a species much like us except that the males are psychologically
- [Existentialist Metaphysics](https://colinmcginn.net/existentialist-metaphysics/) - Existentialist Metaphysics I won’t attempt to explain, let alone justify, the existentialist philosophy laid out in Sartre’s Being and Nothingness; I will simply presuppose it. My concern is with the metaphysics that goes along with it (which Sartre completely ignores).[1] We have the in-itself and the for-itself. The in-itself is what it is; the for-itself
- [Incompatible Minds](https://colinmcginn.net/incompatible-minds/) - Incompatible Minds It is generally supposed that dualism is at least logically consistent, if riddled with other difficulties. There is no incompatibility between having both a mind and a body; a single thing (a person) could be both material and immaterial. One doesn’t rule out the other; you don’t contradict yourself if you say that
- [Circles of Being](https://colinmcginn.net/circles-of-being/) - Circles of Being Let’s take analytical philosophy to a place it has never been before—into the heart of darkness. We have been up sunlit rivers into low-lying bush (necessary and sufficient conditions etc.), but now we must venture into the depths of the jungle to seek out new life and new forms, the basic structures
- [Is Philosophy an Ethical Subject?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-philosophy-an-ethical-subject/) - Is Philosophy an Ethical Subject? To hear it from Plato, you would think so. The ultimate form is The Good and we are admonished to seek it. We should search for beauty, truth, and goodness; this is our duty, our solemn obligation. Happiness will inevitably result. We should (morally) avoid the seductions of art and
- [Are Women Men?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-women-men/) - Are Women Men? The answer is a categorical no, but the question is interesting in itself. Men are women, but women are not men.[1] To establish this, we need to know the essence of men or male organisms generally. The essence of maleness is depositing sperm in the female body and not containing the resulting
- [Are Men Women?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-men-women/) - Are Men Women? I mean this question literally: are men really women? Are they deep down, biologically, women in disguise—and a thin disguise at that? When you meet a man are you actually meeting a woman? I will give a quick proof that they are: men have nipples; anyone with nipples is a woman; therefore,
- [On Imagination, Belief, and Action](https://colinmcginn.net/on-imagination-belief-and-action/) - On Imagination, Belief, and Action I was reminded recently of the importance of my book Mindsight (2004), because it brings the imagination into the center of the philosophy of mind.[1] In that book I make the point that belief presupposes imagination (chapter 10): for you can’t believe something without entertaining it first—imagining the state of
- [Action Explanation](https://colinmcginn.net/action-explanation/) - Action Explanation The orthodox view of action explanation goes as follows: a desire combines with a belief to cause a bodily movement; citing these explains the action in question.[1] I desire a beer and I believe that moving my body into the kitchen will get me a beer, and these together cause me to act
- [Imagination and Free Will](https://colinmcginn.net/imagination-and-free-will/) - Imagination and Free Will Discussions of free will typically focus on bodily action, trivial or momentous. Is such action compatible with determinism? Is it free in the ordinary compatibilist sense? But that is not the only kind of action that can be described as free: there are also acts of the imagination. About this kind
- [On Trump, Nukes, and Satan](https://colinmcginn.net/on-trump-nukes-and-satan/) - On Trump, Nukes, and Satan The reason Trump gives for his war and threat of annihilation is that the Iranians are “sick” and “disturbed” people, i.e., insane. This is why they must never have a nuclear weapon, though other countries may, some of which are antagonistic towards us. The thought is that the Iranians are
- [Agency and Imagination](https://colinmcginn.net/agency-and-imagination/) - Agency and Imagination The topics of agency and imagination are generally treated separately in contemporary philosophy, but they are closely connected. Imagination is implicated in agency and agency is part of imagination. This is not difficult to see: we often imagine what we intend to do, and imagining is an act in its own right.
- [Skateboards](https://colinmcginn.net/skateboards/) - Sent from my iPhoneSent from my iPhone
- [Sexual Enticement in Academia (a Fable)](https://colinmcginn.net/sexual-enticement-in-academia-a-fable/) - Sexual Enticement in Academia (a Fable) Let’s consider a hypothetical case (I emphasize hypothetical). Suppose we live in a society in which a certain problem is perceived to exist in the universities—the problem of sexual enticement. The problem arises when a student, male or female, entices a professor, male or female, into a sexual relationship
- [Minimalism and Maximalism in Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/minimalism-and-maximalism-in-philosophy/) - Minimalism and Maximalism in Philosophy There are two broad tendencies in philosophy, which I will label minimalism and maximalism. Minimalism tends to minimize the number of entities and kinds in the world; maximalism tends to maximize them. The few versus the many. Occam’s razor characterizes the former tendency; the latter has no established metaphor, so
- [Instruments](https://colinmcginn.net/instruments/) - Sent from my iPhone Sent from my iPhone Sent from my iPhone Sent from my iPhone
- [Levels of Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/levels-of-philosophy/) - Levels of Philosophy Tennis players talk about their level. Some players play at a higher level than others: their abilities exceed those of others. In this vein we may speak of a player as at a different level from his potential rivals—a cut above, in a different class or league. We might even say that
- [Alien Mouth Science](https://colinmcginn.net/alien-mouth-science/) - Alien Mouth Science “How was your expedition to planet Earth?” “Oh, it was quite interesting. We gathered some fascinating specimens. One was a strange species that talks with the same organ it eats with”. “Wow. How is that possible? How do they talk while they are eating?” “They don’t. They have to alternate. It’s quite
- [PTSD](https://colinmcginn.net/ptsd/) - PTSD I am 76 and I suffer from PTSD. In fact, I have two doses of it. One is medical: cancer and its treatment, dating from 2023. The other is psychological, dating from 2013, and concerns my departure from the University of Miami. I have no wish to discuss either situation and indeed generally avoid
- [Persuasion and Imagination in Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/persuasion-and-imagination-in-philosophy/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/linguistic-structures/) - 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?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-philosophy-erotic/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/thoughtless-language/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/sexual-ethics/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/an-argument-against-panpsychism/) - 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?](https://colinmcginn.net/what-is-it-like-to-be-gay/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/sex-and-maturity/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/on-perception-belief-and-knowledge/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/sex-and-dualism/) - 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
- [Sex and God](https://colinmcginn.net/sex-and-god/) - Sex and God There has always been the feeling that there is some sort of tension between sex and God, as if sex were not quite his thing. He turns a blind eye to it, even though he is supposed to have created it. You definitely don’t have sex in church—that would be sinful. It
- [Jannik Sinner and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/jannik-sinner-and-me/) - Jannik Sinner and Me Last Thursday I went to the Miami Open, as I have done many times before. It was hard to get to, crowded, hot, expensive, and you had to wait forever to get into a court. I vowed not to come again—better to stay home and watch it on TV. I was
- [Sexual Logic](https://colinmcginn.net/sexual-logic/) - Sexual Logic Can we give a sexual account of logical operations? That may sound like a quixotic project, though an enticing one—stimulating, seductive. Quixotic is the word: as in, can’t be done. How could logic be sex? Sancho Panza would warn against it; it’s like that knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who
- [Philosophy Sexualized](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-sexualized/) - Philosophy Sexualized The basic fact of biology is reproduction; everything is centered around it. Animals live to reproduce. Reproduction is brought about by means of sex, in nearly all cases. The urge to reproduce is probably the strongest force in biology; it is the gravity of life, only a lot stronger. Prior to reproductive age,
- [Sex and Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/sex-and-philosophy/) - Sex and Philosophy Is philosophy a sexy subject? That is my question, but I won’t get to it for a while. First, we must talk about biology and psychology. It is a little-known fact that Charles Darwin put sex at the heart of biology. I don’t mean people didn’t know sex existed before Darwin, in
- [The Sexual Gene](https://colinmcginn.net/the-sexual-gene/) - The Sexual Gene We know the gene is a selfish little thing, but it is also a sexual little thing. Gene survival depends on a gene’s ability to navigate sexual reproduction: the better it is at having sex (conducing to it), the more likely it is to survive into the future, possibly for millions of
- [Common Knowledge and Sex](https://colinmcginn.net/common-knowledge-and-sex/) - Common Knowledge and Sex There is knowledge and there is common knowledge. Common knowledge is the situation in which A knows that B knows and B knows that A knows that B knows, etc. It is a fairly complex form of knowledge. Where does it come from? In what circumstances did it first arise? What
- [Susan Haack Etc.](https://colinmcginn.net/susan-haack-etc/) - Susan Haack Etc. I recently learned that Susan Haack has just died. During my six years in the University of Miami philosophy department I never once set eyes on her. Nor did I have any communication with her. I did email her when I arrived to suggest a meeting, but got no reply. I was
- [Amatory Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/amatory-knowledge/) - Amatory Knowledge We have heard a lot about different kinds of knowledge in epistemology courses; I want to add a new kind of knowledge and explore its contours and characteristics. I call it “amatory knowledge”, which belongs to the family including carnal knowledge, erotic knowledge, sexual knowledge, sensual knowledge, libidinal knowledge, romantic knowledge, and marital
- [Four Strong Women](https://colinmcginn.net/four-strong-women/) - Four Strong Women We have recently heard four strong women speaking their truth: Kristi Noem, Karoline Leavitt, Pam Bondi, and Jeanine Pirro. And it has been quite a spectacle: angry, self-righteous, denunciatory, and defamatory. They have confidently proclaimed what they evidently believe—the trouble is that it has been false, illogical, unjust, and vicious. Yet they
- [Consciousness and Mental Representation](https://colinmcginn.net/consciousness-and-mental-representation/) - Consciousness and Mental Representation There is a language of thought, or so they say (and think).[1] When you think you are speaking inwardly (or perhaps hearing inwardly): there is a code with symbols, a syntax, a semantics. The words in this code combine like words in spoken languages. To think is to say in the
- [Edward St Aubyn and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/edward-st-aubyn-and-me/) - Edward St Aubyn and Me I met Edward St Aubyn, author of the Patrick Melrose Trilogy, at a conference on consciousness in Tucson about twenty years ago. He was writing a book centering on the problem of consciousness. Tall, handsome, witty, refined—I took to him immediately. We became friends. I came to know him as
- [Astronomical Perception](https://colinmcginn.net/astronomical-perception/) - Astronomical Perception I don’t think anyone would seriously argue that we see stars just as they are. They look to us like small pinpoints of light not massive physical bodies, and they were conceived as such in earlier times. If there were a dome over the earth with apertures in it and a conflagration behind,
- [Martin Amis and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/martin-amis-and-me/) - Martin Amis and Me I first met Martin Amis in the late 1970s. We were the same height and build, though he had a wider mouth. Of course, I had read several of his father’s novels. At this time, I had read Martin’s The Rachel Papers, Dead Babies, and Success (which I particularly liked), and
- [False Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/false-knowledge/) - False Knowledge Is it true that all knowledge is knowledge of truths? Does the concept of knowledge entail that the proposition known is a true proposition? Certainly, we have been schooled to think so; and the idea is far from preposterous. But is the propositional content of the knowledge literally, universally, and necessarily true? We
- [Experience and Naive Realism](https://colinmcginn.net/experience-and-naive-realism/) - Experience and Naïve Realism Is there anything in sense experience that indicates the falsity of naive realism? For example, is there anything in sense experience that informs us that objects are not objectively colored? Or is it a matter of science and conceptual reflection? Do we know that naïve realism is false just by being
- [Descriptions and Names](https://colinmcginn.net/descriptions-and-names/) - Descriptions and Names The distinction between names and descriptions is not as sharp as we tend to suppose. We are prone to think that names are purely denotative (tags, labels) and descriptions are purely connotative (attributional, predicational), but actually the two overlap. If you favor a description theory of names, you are still up to
- [Descriptions in Disguise](https://colinmcginn.net/descriptions-in-disguise/) - Descriptions in Disguise One might have thought that the description theory of names had been bashed enough; I propose to bash it some more. It hasn’t been bashed from every angle; indeed, it positively invites further bashing, given its audacity. The theory is quite disrespectful to names, insinuating that descriptions are the superior semantic citizen.
- [Nabokovian Mysterianism](https://colinmcginn.net/nabokovian-mysterianism/) - Nabokovian Mysterianism I came across the following passage in Brian Boyd’s weighty biography of Nabokov: “Space, time, the two prime mysteries. The transformation of nothing into something cannot be conceived by the human mind.”[1]Two points stand out here. First, he regards space and time as the two prime mysteries—not consciousness and free will, say. That
- [Most Influential Philosopher](https://colinmcginn.net/most-influential-philosopher/) - Most influential Philosopher I will restrict this question to recent philosophers. It not an easy question, because influence is hard to measure or estimate; and it varies over time, sometimes quite dramatically. It is certainly not me, not by a long chalk. There are the usual suspects, whom I do not need to mention. After
- [My Honest Views](https://colinmcginn.net/my-honest-views/) - My Honest Views I think David Lewis was off his rocker, I think Donald Davidson was far too impressed by elementary logic and decision theory, I think Willard Quine was a mediocre logician with some philosophical side-interests, I think Daniel Dennett never understood philosophy, I think Michael Dummett was a dimwit outside of his narrow
- [Breeding and Evolution](https://colinmcginn.net/breeding-and-evolution/) - Breeding and Evolution The most obvious theory of animal existence is one I have never heard mentioned. The standard theories are (i) that a divine being created all the species independently and (ii) that the existing species all evolved by natural selection from earlier species with no rational agency involved. We now know that the
- [Not So Naive Realism](https://colinmcginn.net/not-so-naive-realism/) - Not So Naïve Realism We are usually faced with a binary choice between naive realism and sense-data theories, as if naive realism had only one strength or type. But really there is a spectrum of positions aptly so described, according to their degree of naivety. The strongest type—the most naïve—says that the objects of perception
- [Bertrand Russell and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/bertrand-russell-and-me/) - Bertrand Russell and Me When I was young, I idolized Bertrand Russell—I idolized the man. It was largely because of him that I fled psychology into the arms of philosophy. But I am not the same kind of philosopher as Russell: my interests are different and always have been. I find his interests somewhat chilly
- [Tennis with Lolita and Eddy](https://colinmcginn.net/tennis-with-lolita-and-eddy/) - Tennis with Lolita and Eddy I was playing tennis with my friend Eddy yesterday, as I have done thousands of times before. We were at the Coral Gables Country Club (which is less tony than it sounds). It was a clear crisp sunny day, which is unusual for Miami (humid, hot). We were virtually alone
- [My Honest Views II](https://colinmcginn.net/my-honest-views-ii/) - My Honest Views II I see that my innocuous post “My Honest Views” has rubbed some people up the wrong way. I confess I find this very amusing. Clearly, my little poem was meant as partly tongue-in-cheek and set to trap the unwary reader (I made a large catch). I notice that people don’t seem
- [Folk Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/folk-philosophy/) - Folk Philosophy Is there such a thing as folk philosophy? We have heard of folk physics and folk psychology, but does philosophy have a folk version? Is there a determinate philosophy held by ordinary blokes (and blokettes)? Such a philosophy would have to be common to all (normal) human beings, part of human nature, possibly
- [Malcolm Budd](https://colinmcginn.net/malcolm-budd/) - Malcolm Budd I just found out that Malcolm Budd has died. He was my colleague and close friend at UCL when we were both there (1974-85). We had lunch and tea together every work day, sometimes breakfast. He was a person of enormous intelligence, rock-solid integrity, and great personal charm (humorous, handsome, generous). He was
- [Deception, Mimicry, and Meaning](https://colinmcginn.net/deception-mimicry-and-meaning/) - Deception, Mimicry, and Meaning If mimicry lies somewhere in the evolutionary history of meaning,[1] and mimicry involves deception, then deception is at the heart of meaning. Language is custom-made for lying. Speech has lying in its DNA, literally. The octopus can change its color and texture to mimic its environment to an uncanny degree, the
- [Favorites](https://colinmcginn.net/favorites/) - Favorites Philosophy is difficult, a demanding mistress. I state the obvious. Who do I think responded best to its rigors? My top three are Thomas Nagel, Michael Ayers, and Bernard Suits—each in their different ways. They each managed to scale a high tree, swim in deep water, breathe a finer air. I won’t here summarize
- [A New Theory of Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/a-new-theory-of-knowledge/) - A New Theory of Knowledge Knowledge is the conscious impingement of the world on the soul. I don’t think we can do better than this after all these years: it captures the essence. Knowledge is the (conscious) impingement of the world on the soul. These are its conceptual ingredients. Forget true justified belief, or acquaintance,
- [007](https://colinmcginn.net/007-2/) - 007 Beautiful Bond-girl to Bond: “So, 007, what is your name?” Bond: “Bond, James Bond”. Girl: “Ah, James Bond”. Bond: “No, Bond James-Bond”. Girl: “I see. Hello Mr. James-Bond. Or should I call you Bond?”. Bond: “Bond would be fine. And what is your name?” Girl: “Pussy, Pussy Galore”. Bond: “Interesting—Pussy Galore”. Girl: “No, it
- [Biography of Nabokov](https://colinmcginn.net/biography-of-nabokov/) - Biography of Nabokov I have just finished reading the first volume of Brain Boyd’s magisterial (there is no other word) biography of Nabokov. At 500 pages it covers only his years in Russia and other European countries. I have never felt so steeped in the great man, and I have been seriously steeped. I now
- [Is Stupidity Innate?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-stupidity-innate/) - Is Stupidity Innate? This is a question people are too polite to raise. We can just about ask whether intelligence is innate, wholly or partly, but please don’t ask whether some people are born stupid! Can it be responsibly maintained that some people are condemned by their genes to a life of stupidity? And here
- [Inside the Baseline](https://colinmcginn.net/inside-the-baseline/) - Inside the Baseline Most serious tennis players start their practice session with a few minutes of mini-tennis, i.e., hitting the ball softly within the service area. This gets you used to controlling the ball. I like to supplement this with what I call aggressive mini-tennis: hitting the ball as fast as you can within the
- [Morality, Relativism, and Supervenience](https://colinmcginn.net/morality-relativism-and-supervenience/) - Morality, Relativism, and Supervenience I find it hard to believe that the point I am about to make has not been made before, so I state that it must have been. If so, this may serve as a welcome repetition, for the point is a good one. It is that moral supervenience and moral relativism
- [Law and Morality](https://colinmcginn.net/law-and-morality/) - Law and Morality In a morally ideal society, there are no laws. Everyone does what they should out of the goodness of their heart not fear of legal consequences. The whole apparatus of law does not exist—police, courts, lawyers, prisons, etc. It sounds wonderful: no one steals, murders, rapes, cheats on their taxes, speeds, or
- [Romantic Overtures](https://colinmcginn.net/romantic-overtures/) - Romantic Overtures We really need to get tougher on romance, especially at universities. As things stand, people can make romantic overtures to other people and face no consequences. They can even make declarations of love and get away with it! This can lead to all sorts of discomfort and loss of focus on one’s studies,
- [No Reply](https://colinmcginn.net/no-reply/) - No Reply I recently wrote to the University of Miami philosophy department asking when, if ever, the ban on my visiting the campus would be lifted (I live five minutes from there). I also asked what the reason for the ban was. I got no reply. Then I wrote offering to make a donation to
- [Bad Bunny](https://colinmcginn.net/bad-bunny/) - Bad Bunny I was looking forward to the half-time performance from Bad Bunny (less so the Superbowl itself). In the event my response was divided: I approved of it politically and personally (many of my best friends are Latin) and I really wanted to like the music more, but Latin music has little appeal for
- [Can Dogs Talk?](https://colinmcginn.net/can-dogs-talk/) - Can Dogs Talk? I watched a very interesting documentary last night on PBS about whether dogs can talk. Of course, they do talk—they talk dog. There could be an interesting documentary on whether humans can talk…dog language. They might to a limited degree, but not as well as dogs. But the documentary was about whether
- [Possible Language Semantics](https://colinmcginn.net/possible-language-semantics/) - Possible Language Semantics The theory of meaning is supposed to concern the semantics of our language: in virtue of what does human language have the meaning it has? But do all possible languages share the same semantics? Might a semantic theory that is incorrect for our language correctly describe the semantics of some alien language? If
- [Meaning Explained (Finally)](https://colinmcginn.net/meaning-explained-finally/) - Meaning Explained (Finally) It’s really very strange that we can’t say what meaning is. Surely, we know what we mean! Meaning is a mental act and we know our mental acts, don’t we? Yet all attempts hitherto have foundered, often embarrassingly so. Mental images, sensations, definite descriptions, objects in the world, rules of use, behavioral
- [Portrait](https://colinmcginn.net/portrait/)
- [Bad Patches](https://colinmcginn.net/bad-patches-3/) - A page from my first (unpublished) novel, written circa 1984--punk existentialist as someone once described it. Sent from my iPhone
- [Ethics, Epistemology, and Metaphysics](https://colinmcginn.net/ethics-epistemology-and-metaphysics-2/) - Ethics, Epistemology, and Metaphysics Ethics, as currently conceived and taught, is divided into three parts: metaethics, ethical theory (normative ethics), and practical ethics. This seems like a sensible division. Metaethics deals with issues concerning the status of moral discourse, what values ultimately consist in, how ethics is known (if it is), whether values are subjective
- [Consciousness and the Origin of Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/consciousness-and-the-origin-of-philosophy/) - Consciousness and the Origin of Philosophy What causes philosophy—the subject—to exist? I shall argue that consciousness is what causes philosophy to exist, or rather consciousness-in-the-world. The consciousness-world nexus is the origin of philosophy. It isn’t the world by itself or consciousness by itself; it’s the situation of consciousness in the world, or the situation of
- [Text](https://colinmcginn.net/text/)
- [Oliver Sacks' Fabrications](https://colinmcginn.net/oliver-sacks-fabrications/) - Oliver Sacks’ Fabrications I have just come across an article by Rachel Aviv in the December 15 edition of the New Yorker about Oliver Sacks’ dubious case histories, especially in Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Apparently, Sacks acknowledged that he made things up in his private journals, to which
- [Book Reviewer Released](https://colinmcginn.net/book-reviewer-released/) - Book Reviewer Released I am a recovering book reviewer. I used to do it all the time; now not so much, if at all. It started when I was twenty-two in Manchester, England, when I wrote a couple of reviews for the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology at the request of Wolfe Mays,
- [A Brief History of Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/a-brief-history-of-knowledge/) - A Brief History of Knowledge I will continue here what I started earlier, dwelling on the later stages of the growth of human knowledge.[1]The overall sequence is as follows. First, we have bodily sensations such as pain, pleasure, hot and cold: these may be construed as themselves instances of knowledge of the body, or we
- [Are Space and Time Identical?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-space-and-time-identical/) - Are Space and Time Identical? I wish someone would get to the bottom of space and time, because for the life of me I can’t. They reduce me to tears, intellectually (personally, I find them congenial companions). But I think I can ask some intelligible questions about them (at least I think I can). On
- [Coyne on McGinn](https://colinmcginn.net/coyne-on-mcginn/) - Coyne on McGinn I will reply to Jerry Coyne’s comments (January 23rd, 2026) on my blog post “A (Really) Brief History of Knowledge”. I will keep this as brief and factual as possible without restating his criticisms. 1.I am not just a philosopher of mind but have written on many philosophical subjects. I was also
- [Spatial Logic](https://colinmcginn.net/spatial-logic/) - Spatial Logic Does logic have a real essence, and what might it be? And what exactly is logic? These are not easy questions; they invite us to dig deep. First, what is real essence? The paradigms are material substances and animal species: gold and tigers being the favorite examples. I won’t rehash all this; I
- [Logic and Space](https://colinmcginn.net/logic-and-space/) - Logic and Space There is a gleam in the eye of this metaphysician, or a glimmer of a gleam. Might logic be derivable from space? Then we would have a metaphysics based solely on space (assuming time can be regarded as a dimension of space).[1] By “logic” I don’t just mean the logical systems studied
- [On What It's Like](https://colinmcginn.net/on-what-its-like/) - On What It’s Like It has become orthodox to state the mind-body problem using the locution “what it’s like”. Consciousness is defined as there being something it’s like. Pain is conscious because there is something it’s like to be in pain (it feels a certain way). I will argue that this is neither necessary nor
- [Reduction Redux](https://colinmcginn.net/reduction-redux/) - Reduction Redux I have been too harsh on reductionism; it really isn’t such a bad thing, correctly understood. It all depends on the kind of reduction. Materialist reduction has given it a bad name, because it is just not plausible (as typically formulated anyway). The OED defines “reduce” as “make or become smaller or less
- [Sensible](https://colinmcginn.net/sensible/) - Hi Colin: Happy New Year! As you know, I’m a fan of your blogs, save them all. Two I find especially relevant for the Landscape of Consciousness, as they are original and insightful, and encourage new ways of thinking. I took each of the blogs and framed them in Landscape style, using your words as
- [Living Landscape of Consciousness](https://colinmcginn.net/living-landscape-of-consciousness/) - Explore Berggruen Prize Essays Theories Maps Implications Landscape Explore Ask AI Home / Materialism / Phylogenetic/Evolutionary / McGinn’s Living Consciousness McGinn’s Living Consciousness Elementary consciousness does not exist in all things, but it does exist in all organic things. The mind is confined to animate things. There are traces of it in all living tissue,
- [Landscape of Consciousness](https://colinmcginn.net/landscape-of-consciousness/) - Explore Berggruen Prize Essays Theories Maps Implications Landscape Explore Ask AI Home / Materialism / Relational / McGinn’s Brain Perception McGinn’s Brain Perception Consciousness is perceiving your own brain. This isn’t because all consciousness is a brain state; it’s because all consciousness is brain perception. Consciousness is brain awareness—awareness of the brain. All consciousness
- [Brain Perception](https://colinmcginn.net/brain-perception/) - Brain Perception I am going to adumbrate a new theory, quite an eye-stinging one. It says that you perceive your own brain. To be more specific, pain is the perception of C-fibers firing. It isn’t C-fibers firing itself but the perception of that.[1] The relation between pain and C-fibers is like that between seeing a
- [A (Really) Brief History of Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/a-really-brief-history-of-knowledge/) - A (Really) Brief History of Knowledge This is a big subject—a long story—but I will keep it short, brevity being the soul of wisdom. We all know those books about the history of this or that area of human knowledge: physics, astronomy, mathematics, psychology (not so much biology). They are quite engaging, partly because they
- [Knowledge and Time](https://colinmcginn.net/knowledge-and-time/) - Knowledge and Time I shall make some remarks about a topic neglected by epistemologists—the relationship between knowledge and time, particularly future time. The relationship is not simple or easily grasped; there is a reason for the neglect. I will try to keep it as uncontroversial as possible; this is to be preliminary groundwork. Truisms not
- [My Sins](https://colinmcginn.net/my-sins/) - My Sins Come Christmas time, a man might be forgiven for dwelling on his sins and showing remorse. In that spirit I find myself reflecting on my past misdeeds, and it turns out there are many. For there have been many occasions on which I have formed warm and friendly relationships with students that I
- [An Answer to the Skeptic](https://colinmcginn.net/an-answer-to-the-skeptic/) - An Answer to the Skeptic Skepticism gains traction from the true justified belief theory of knowledge, because it can be argued that our beliefs are seldom if ever justified. But that is just one theory, not a datum. What if we adopt another type of theory? I observe, to begin with, that other types of
- [Augustine and Wittgenstein](https://colinmcginn.net/augustine-and-wittgenstein/) - Augustine and Wittgenstein Wittgenstein opens the Philosophical Investigations with a quotation from Saint Augustine (in Latin). He then comments: “These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language. It is this: the individual words in language name objects—sentences are combinations of such names. In this picture of
- [Space, Time, and Logic](https://colinmcginn.net/space-time-and-logic/) - Space, Time, and Logic Philosophy needs a metaphysical vision. Humbly (and pretentiously), I will provide one. As far as I know, it has no predecessor, though echoes of other theories will be apparent. Neither does it have a name: it might be called “Logical Spatio-Temporalism” (LST), or just “Spatialism” because space is central to it.
- [Nabokov and Music](https://colinmcginn.net/nabokov-and-music/) - Nabokov and Music It is well known that Nabokov didn’t like music: “Music, I regret to say, affects me merely as an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds.” But he doesn’t say why. The affliction didn’t run in his family and his son was an opera singer. Moreover, as has been remarked, his
- [Bernard Williams and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/bernard-williams-and-me/) - Bernard Williams and Me One day, over twenty years ago, I ran into Bernard Williams in the corridor at NYU. He remarked: “The thing about you, Colin, is that you think you’ve either solved the problems of philosophy or they can’t be solved at all”. I paused for less than a second and replied, “I
- [Games and Meaning](https://colinmcginn.net/games-and-meaning/) - Games and Meaning Imagine a philosopher, call him LW for short, with a lifelong interest in games. In his youth he writes a book called The Logical Structure of Games. As the name suggests, the book gives an analysis of the formal structure of games—a theory of the a priori essence of games which purports
- [A Law of Subjectivity and Objectivity](https://colinmcginn.net/a-law-of-subjectivity-and-objectivity/) - A Law of Subjectivity and Objectivity Things can be subjective or objective, and so can conceptions of things. The former distinction pertains to types of objects and concerns their proximity to the mind: are they explicitly mental or at any rate mind-dependent? In this use, we say that color is subjective but shape is not.
- [Reflexes](https://colinmcginn.net/reflexes/) - This is from Bill Reagan: I thoroughly enjoyed Colin McGinn’s post on Reflexes because it is a solid, concise work on the subject, with dabs of humour throughout. I am keeping it close-by as a reference for my own project on instincts, and guide to what the body is capable of doing to protect our
- [Accents](https://colinmcginn.net/accents/) - Accents Nowadays people recommend speaking in the same accent you were brought up to speak, whatever that may be, in the interests of linguistic diversity. I disagree. I myself first spoke in a Geordie accent, because I was born in Newcastle; my parents spoke Geordie their whole life. My family moved to Gillingham Kent when
- [Objective Truth](https://colinmcginn.net/objective-truth/) - Objective Truth We can take subjective and objective views of the same facts: we can conceive of the object by reference to ourselves (“the object I am seeing now”) or by abstracting away from our specific characteristics and thinking from no particular point of view (“the planet next to planet Earth”).[1] This general point applies
- [Davidson at the Orange Bowl](https://colinmcginn.net/davidson-at-the-orange-bowl/) - 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
- [2026](https://colinmcginn.net/2026-2/) - 2026 I may as well make my predictions for the coming year, for what they are worth (sixpence perhaps). I think collective insanity will continue to increase, particularly on the right but also on the left. The descent into savagery will continue (just look at Abby Phillip’s nightly show). I think Me Too will suffer
- [Locating Meaning](https://colinmcginn.net/locating-meaning/) - Locating Meaning Where is meaning? Where is it located? This is a good question, because not easy to answer; maybe answering it would give us some idea of the nature of meaning. Is it in the external world, or in the mind (conscious or unconscious), or in the soul (immaterial substance), or in the body
- [Trump's Christmas](https://colinmcginn.net/trumps-christmas/) - Trump’s Christmas Yesterday was a holiday—from Trump. Nothing on the news about hm. No one killed or deported or insulted or demeaned or defamed. It was a welcome relief. But it set me wondering: when will he re-name Christmas “Trump Christmas”? When will he monetize it? He clearly envies Santa his popularity and there is
- [Lolita's Tennis](https://colinmcginn.net/lolitas-tennis/) - Lolita’s Tennis I make it a habit (a ritual) to (re-)read a chapter of Lolita every Christmas day. Yesterday was no exception; I chose chapter 20, in which Lolita’s tennis game is lovingly described. Here we are told of “the indescribable itch of rapture that her tennis game produced in me—the teasing delirious feeling of
- [Brain Belief](https://colinmcginn.net/brain-belief/) - Brain Belief We have beliefs about our mind, but do we have beliefs about our brain?[1] That is, do we have beliefs about our brain without knowing anything about our brain? To be more precise, we have de dicto beliefs about our mind, but do we also have de re beliefs about our brain? If
- [Administrative Expertise](https://colinmcginn.net/administrative-expertise/) - Administrative Expertise I never fail to be impressed by university administrators. They are so wise, so knowledgeable, so insightful, so virtuous. And all without any formal training. Not only do they know about a wide range of academic subjects, they are experts in interpersonal relations—psychology, psychiatry, the ways of the human heart. They are also
- [Abby and Jasmine](https://colinmcginn.net/abby-and-jasmine/) - Abby and Jasmine Who are the two most fearsome people in today’s politics? Abby Phillip and Jasmine Crockett. And what do they have in common? Oh yes, intelligence.
- [Christmas](https://colinmcginn.net/christmas/) - Christmas Speaking personally, there is not much about Christmas I like. I am not conventionally religious, still less Christian, so that angle carries little appeal for me. It is also quite exclusionary to dwell on this aspect, given that many people are not Christian and it is meant to be a holiday for anyone who
- [Why I am an Atheist](https://colinmcginn.net/why-i-am-an-atheist/) - What is the state of belief of an atheist? An atheist is often defined as someone who does not believe in God. It is quite true that an atheist does not believe in God, but that is insufficient to define the state of belief of an atheist. A tree or a rock or a lizard
- [Living Consciousness](https://colinmcginn.net/living-consciousness/) - Living Consciousness Panpsychism is the doctrine that elements of mind exist in all physical things, down to atoms and their constituents. And yet we don’t see inanimate things tending towards mentality, despite their alleged quota of it. The mind is confined to animate things. Why should this be? A hypothesis suggests itself: elementary consciousness does
- [A Great Speech](https://colinmcginn.net/a-great-speech/) - A Great Speech I gave a great speech last night, possibly one of the greatest. Forceful, tough, commanding respect. I shouted it all the way through at full volume and top speed. No one else has ever given such a powerful speech. I would give it A+++. It shows what great shape I am in.
- [Hand Work](https://colinmcginn.net/hand-work/) - Hand Work I just had occasion to revisit my 2014 book Prehension: The Hand and the Emergence of Humanity (it is the topic of episode 8 of the long-form interview I am recording with my Turkish collaborators). I found myself rather impressed by it. It is really a science book with some philosophy thrown in.
- [Balls](https://colinmcginn.net/balls/) - Balls I was over at the Biltmore yesterday hitting as usual. The under 14 Orange Bowl was winding down. Two girls were playing table tennis with a tennis ball. I had a brief conversation with one of them who said it was hard. This set me thinking. When I got home, I ferreted out some
- [Solipsistic Realism](https://colinmcginn.net/solipsistic-realism/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/a-disproof-of-other-minds/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/concepts-of-the-physical-world/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/berties-vocabulary/) - 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
- [Blog Books Again](https://colinmcginn.net/blog-books-again/) - 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
- [Blog Books](https://colinmcginn.net/blog-books/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/hate/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/a-bright-spot/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/causal-necessity/) - 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
- [Experiential Economics](https://colinmcginn.net/experiential-economics/) - Experiential Economics What are the laws of economics really about? We know they concern supply and demand, but supply and demand of what? The orthodox answer is “goods and services”—material things in effect. A consumer consumes material things (services also involve material things, including actions). When the demand for certain material things is high prices
- [The Hemingway](https://colinmcginn.net/the-hemingway/) - The Hemingway I was walking along the coastal road of Cozumel enjoying the view when I came upon a place called The Hemingway, a kind of restaurant and bar on the water’s edge. Intrigued, I went in. It was eight in the morning and the place was empty. A waiter greeted me and I asked
- [On Meaning, Mathematics, and Space](https://colinmcginn.net/on-meaning-mathematics-and-space/) - On Meaning, Mathematics, and Space It has been held that a good amount of philosophy revolves around a clash or competition between subjective and objective conceptions of things.[1] For present purposes we can understand this contrast as consisting in an opposition between conceptions of things from a personal (first-person) point of view and conceptions of
- [Curious](https://colinmcginn.net/curious/) - Curious I wrote the notes for the previous four pieces on objective and subjective in Cozumel, a beautiful island with a limpid sea surrounding it. Would that they were as clear as that water! I am curious whether readers find them unusually difficult or as clear as Cozumel.
- [Ethical Socialism](https://colinmcginn.net/ethical-socialism/) - Ethical Socialism I posed the problem of the indispensability of ethics, remarking that no ethical theory I know of has a solution to it.[1] It seems that we prize ethics above even prudence, logic, and sanity; we can’t live without it. This is puzzling—surely, you don’t have to be good to be happy! Acting ethically
- [A Program Delineated](https://colinmcginn.net/a-program-delineated-2/) - A Program Delineated I laid out the general form of a philosophical program in “Philosophy of Objective and Subjective”; here I will enumerate some instances of how this program might be pursued. Please don’t expect much beyond the suggestive and superficial, indeed list-like. The main aim will be to identify the possible subjective basis of
- [Philosophy of Objective and Subjective](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-of-objective-and-subjective-2/) - Philosophy of Objective and Subjective If concepts divide into the objective and the subjective, it should be possible to conduct a survey of them and assign them accordingly. We should be able to group and rank them according to their objective or subjective character. This would be an exercise in conceptual analysis—not analysis into components
- [A Paradox of Objectivity and Subjectivity](https://colinmcginn.net/a-paradox-of-objectivity-and-subjectivity-2/) - A Paradox of Objectivity and Subjectivity We normally suppose that our thoughts concern an objective world. We are capable of thinking about things outside the mind. There is a mind-independent world and we can make cognitive contact with that world by deploying our concepts. I can form conceptions of things that exist outside my mind.
- [Objective and Subjective Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/objective-and-subjective-knowledge-2/) - Objective and Subjective Knowledge We must first make a firm distinction between objective and subjective facts, on the one hand, and objective and subjective conceptions of facts, on the other.[1] That is, we must distinguish the application of these terms to the world (objects, properties) from their application to mental representations of the world (perceptions,
- [Brain Specialization and Cognitive Closure](https://colinmcginn.net/brain-specialization-and-cognitive-closure/) - Brain Specialization and Cognitive Closure Is the human brain intellectually limited? How limited might it be? Is it also limited emotionally and athletically and artistically? Suppose we ask the same question about the parts of the brain, the various functional structures gathered into a single brain—are they limited? For example, can the visual cortex perform
- [Humanistic Zoology](https://colinmcginn.net/humanistic-zoology/) - It is possible to describe humankind in the objective terms favored by orthodox zoology and biology. You can describe the human being in scrupulously behavioral terms, stressing his anatomy, physiology, and evolution. It can be quite illuminating to do so, and not untrue. For example, you can describe human sexuality this way (Desmond Morris does
- [Ethical Life](https://colinmcginn.net/ethical-life/) - Ethical Life Here is an interesting fact about the ethical life: it is not optional. Any satisfactory ethical theory ought to explain this fact, and I’m not sure any do. It isn’t a life-style choice, or a personal preference, or even a vocation; it’s non-negotiable. You have to be moral—no ifs, ands, and buts. You
- [The Fidelity Theory of Truth](https://colinmcginn.net/the-fidelity-theory-of-truth/) - The Fidelity Theory of Truth We are accustomed to deflationary accounts of truth according to which there isn’t much of interest to say about the concept—it’s just a way to avoid repetition, a convenient shorthand, and strictly redundant. We are also accustomed to rigorous technical definitions, geared to formal languages, in
- [Mind and Substance](https://colinmcginn.net/mind-and-substance/) - Mind and Substance A materialist like Hobbes would say that the soul is a material substance. This proposition has two parts: material and substance. What does the first part mean, or what does an avowed materialist mean by it? Presumably, that the mind is extended in space, solid, corpuscular, has a weight, and is perceptible
- [AI](https://colinmcginn.net/ai/) - I just came across this. It must be AI generated. Some of it is quite funny. Overall, not bad. Affirmations Guide. Career For Women For Men Lifestyle About Us Affirmation Generator Inspired By Colin Mcginn Famous Quotes and Affirmations Colin Mcginn Famous Quotes and Affirmations Table
- [Meaning and Reality](https://colinmcginn.net/meaning-and-reality/) - Meaning and Reality I am going to drill right into the heart of twentieth-century analytical philosophy, which includes its antecedents going back at least to the seventeenth century. This will be a major operation: the body of philosophy will be laid open on the operating table. I will not be pussyfooting around. The question is
- [Comment from Robert Kuhn](https://colinmcginn.net/comment-from-robert-kuhn/) - This is in regard to my "Meaning and Reality". Great piece, Colin; I read and save them all. Are you planning a book of ~75-100 of these? New Scientist feature on Landscape of Consciousness, just published online, magazine forthcoming. Web: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2498968-what-350-different-theories-of-consciousness-reveal-about-reality/ Magazine: attached. Warm regards, Robert From me: I’d love to publish a collection
- [Hospital Punctuation](https://colinmcginn.net/hospital-punctuation/) - Hospital Grammar I went to the hospital yesterday for my yearly check-up with my head and neck surgeon, Dr. Civantos. I waited awhile reading The Naked Ape. Eventually he came in and remarked how well I looked (this is good to hear from a cancer doctor). He had operated on me for twelve hours over
- [Our Generations](https://colinmcginn.net/our-generations/) - Our Generations I’m going to be talking about them. Yesterday I was hitting against the wall, as I do nearly every day. I was hitting pretty good, despite what people might say who want to put us down. I wasn’t hoping I would die before I get old. Next to me a young lad was
- [Existence and Essence](https://colinmcginn.net/existence-and-essence/) - Existence and Essence Essence is usually defined in terms of existence: an essential property is one without which the object could not exist. For example, water couldn’t exist without being H2O and Aristotle couldn’t exist without being human. A contingent or accidental property is one that is not required for the object’s existence—for example, water
- [My Left Hand](https://colinmcginn.net/my-left-hand/) - My Left Hand Readers will want to know how my left hand is doing these days. Thanks for asking. It’s a very interesting question. My left hand is in a period of transition. Its knife throwing ability is making steady progress—getting harder and faster all the time (though still sometimes missing). It keeps on surprising
- [Becoming and Identity](https://colinmcginn.net/becoming-and-identity/) - Becoming and Identity What is the relationship between the acorn and the tree it becomes? They look very different and one is much bigger than the other. An acorn isn’t a tree and a tree isn’t an acorn. Yet some maintain an identity between them: acorn and tree are literally one and the same (numerically).
- [Insult](https://colinmcginn.net/insult/) - From me to Jennifer Hudin: I feel I haven’t insulted American philosophers enough. Perhaps we should do a joint insult. Colin Her reply: Would love to insult American Philosophers. I was planning to do so at the memorial. And you are right. It is American philosophers who are the worst offenders. Jennifer I edited
- [Bread Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/bread-philosophy/) - Bread Philosophy What do fire, metamorphosis, and bread have on common? Transformation. One thing becomes another thing—a better thing. Potential is unlocked; the hidden is made manifest. Nature performs miracles. Water becomes wine. Bread is made from just water and flour aided by a transformative agent (yeast). Every culture has it, but it was a
- [Existence, Essence, and Time](https://colinmcginn.net/existence-essence-and-time/) - Existence, Essence, and Time The traditional view was that essence precedes existence: things have essences before they come to exist. This makes sense if the thing in question is designed: the designer has its essence in mind before he makes it, e.g., a carpenter making a table. It also makes sense if there is no
- [Thumb Fretting](https://colinmcginn.net/thumb-fretting/) - Thumb Fretting As dedicated readers know, I am all about the hand. Lately, my left hand has been impressing me mightily: it has been throwing knives with confidence and panache; it has really come into its own on the tennis backhand; and its fingers have been performing nimbly on the guitar. Even my left baby
- [Psychology of Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/psychology-of-philosophy/) - Psychology of Philosophy Probably every field of study has its own distinctive type of psychology. A certain type of mind will be drawn to a particular subject. It is not difficult to see how this pairing proceeds. If you are interested in people, you will naturally be drawn to psychology; not so if you are
- [Elvis, Paul, and Mick](https://colinmcginn.net/elvis-paul-and-mick/) - Elvis, Paul, and Mick Some bands achieve considerable success but without mega-success. Elvis and the Beatles created worldwide mania (and hysteria); the Who and the Troggs did not. True, Elvis and the Beatles were supremely talented and enormously productive, but their success exceeds such attributes. Why? The Stones are an intermediate case: large success but
- [The Part Problem](https://colinmcginn.net/the-part-problem/) - The Part Problem People talk about the mind-brain problem, but that is strictly inaccurate. The problem isn’t about how the brain as a whole produces consciousness; it’s about how some of it does. It isn’t about how the brain differs from other bodily organs; it’s about how certain parts of it do. The various parts
- [Searle on Mind and Brain](https://colinmcginn.net/searle-on-mind-and-brain/) - Searle on Mind and Brain Searle maintained that the mind is a higher-level property of the brain, not a separate substance. There is only the physical world with higher- and lower-level descriptions. This is his solution to the mind-body problem. He liked to compare the mental to the liquid: there is only a world of
- [Animal Induction](https://colinmcginn.net/animal-induction/) - Animal Induction Hume argued that induction is based on custom not reason. We believe in induction because we are psychologically built that way by nature not by ratiocination. He could have cited the case of animals: they act according to induction by instinct; they were not taught to do so or employ a priori reflection.
- [Etc.](https://colinmcginn.net/etc/) - Etc. The hostages were released and President Trump may have had something to do with it. Pam Bondi went full Mr. Hyde. RFK talked more twaddle. I detest and despise X, Y and Z. I managed to play Wipe Out using only my little finger. After 12 hours of interviews, I have reached my time
- [Allegations and Obituaries](https://colinmcginn.net/allegations-and-obituaries/) - Allegations and Obituaries Anybody can make any allegation against anyone. It means nothing. Allegations are not evidence. This is obvious, though often forgotten. The OUP gives us: “a claim that someone has done something wrong, typically an unfounded one”. An allegation is a claim not a report, an assertion not a fact. It is as
- [Competitive Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/competitive-philosophy/) - Competitive Philosophy There are two kinds of philosophy: competitive and excellent. These are quite different. In the former kind, people are rewarded for being better than other people (by some standard); in the latter kind, they are rewarded for doing excellent work. Clearly, it is possible to succeed at the former while being lousy at
- [Art and the Hand](https://colinmcginn.net/art-and-the-hand/) - Art and the Hand When you look at a work of art, say the Mona Lisa, you are struck by its beauty, as by that of its subject. You may imagine that long-dead woman, or the artist who painted her. But you don’t generally imagine the hand that painted her (or it): you don’t form
- [Functionalism and Materialism](https://colinmcginn.net/functionalism-and-materialism/) - Functionalism and Materialism We have been told that mental states admit of multiple realization; this is the heart of the functionalist doctrine. Keep the function while letting the matter vary and you keep the mental state. The idea is not without merit; function must surely be part of what matters to mind. Pain could not
- [Interviews](https://colinmcginn.net/interviews/) - Interviews I have been conducting a series of interviews over the last few weeks with my Turkish associate (now friend) Ugur Polat. We have done four so far, each over three hours long (using Zoom). He plans ten in total. The actual interviewing is done by his neurologist wife Burcu, because her spoken English is
- [Kayak Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/kayak-philosophy/) - Kayak Philosophy The other day I was talking to Ian Macleod, world champion kayak surfer (a South African living in the US). He is building me a new waveski (surf kayak) and we were finalizing details. I asked him how the recent world championships had gone and he replied laconically “I won”. He added that
- [Buying a Language](https://colinmcginn.net/buying-a-language/) - Buying a Language I want to learn a language, say Spanish, but I can’t be bothered to do it the old-fashioned way, so I decide to buy it (expensive but labor-saving). I go to the language store (Lang-Mart, right next to the Chinese supermarket). I am told that I can buy either a grammar chip
- [Drummers](https://colinmcginn.net/drummers/) - Drummers In a typical four-piece band you have two guitarists, a bassist, and a drummer; the lead vocalist usually has one or two back-up singers. It isn’t easy to manage with one guitarist; you need a dedicated rhythm guitarist. There are never two bassists and very rarely two drummers. There is certainly no need for
- [Chinese Rooms and Linguistic Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/chinese-rooms-and-linguistic-knowledge/) - Chinese Rooms and Linguistic Knowledge John Searle’s Chinese room argument shows that it’s possible to be able to form meaningful sentences in a foreign language without knowing that language. That is, you can know the grammatical rules of a language without knowing the lexicon—what the individual words mean and refer to. Suppose you wanted to
- [A List](https://colinmcginn.net/a-list/) - A List I will make a list so that you can see that I’m not exaggerating. Intellectual. Philosophy: all areas, technical and popular. Science: psychology, biology, economics, physics. Literature: Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Nabokov, etc. Writing: novels, short stories, poetry, songs (rock, ballads, blues, pop). Sports. Tennis, table tennis, squash, badminton, gymnastics, pole vault, discus, basketball,
- [By a Long Chalk](https://colinmcginn.net/by-a-long-chalk/) - By a Long Chalk The phrase originates in keeping scores by making chalk marks. I remember Professor John Cohen, head of the psychology department at Manchester University when I was a student there (1968-72), writing to me and saying that my M.A. thesis on innate ideas was “the best M.A. thesis I have ever read
- [Epistemic Necessity and the Good](https://colinmcginn.net/epistemic-necessity-and-the-good/) - Epistemic Necessity and the Good The connection between metaphysical necessity and the Good is speculative and questionable, though there are signs of affinity.[1] But the connection between epistemic necessity and the Good is immediate and easy to discern: it goes via certainty. If a given proposition is epistemically necessary, it is certain: I am certain
- [Necessity and Change](https://colinmcginn.net/necessity-and-change/) - Necessity and Change Necessary facts don’t change. The table never changes from wood to plastic or metal: it is necessarily made of wood so can’t become made of plastic or metal. The number 3 is necessarily odd so can’t change into an even number. But the table can change its location or color and the
- [A Story About John Searle](https://colinmcginn.net/a-story-about-john-searle/) - A Story About John Searle In 1984 John Searle gave the Reith lectures in England. This was a big deal and quite an honor. I was asked by the BBC to join a small panel commenting on these lectures. After the program was recorded, we went to a boozy lunch set up by the Beeb.
- [More on Searle](https://colinmcginn.net/more-on-searle/) - Jennifer Hudin sent me this. Yes, actually, but I found a problem, I think, in John's account of social ontology. I'm not sure anything theoretical rides on it, but it is a puzzle nonetheless. Everyone present agreed. I will polish the notes up for you. I was happy with the talk. I managed to
- [An Essay](https://colinmcginn.net/an-essay/) - Dear Prof. McGinn, I hope you are well. I saw that you recently posted an open call to dialogue on your blog, which reminded me that last year I wrote an essay in reply to one of your posts. You may find it interesting. https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/post/on-cancelling-and-repair Kind regards, Mary Dear Mary Peterson, To be honest
- [Attention and Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/attention-and-knowledge/) - Attention and Knowledge In chapter XI (“Attention”) of The Principles of Psychology William James makes the point that the empiricists completely omit the contribution of attention in the generation knowledge. The reason is that attention possesses “a degree of reactive spontaneity” that breaks through the “circle of pure receptivity which constitutes ‘experience’” (402). Instead, he
- [Block on Searle](https://colinmcginn.net/block-on-searle/) - Block on Searle Ned Block says: “Searle was a pugilistic philosopher, much more interested in winning than in truth”. This is a nasty comment, coming so soon after Searle’s death. It isn’t so much the imputation of a desire to win as the suggestion that this was more Searle’s interest than the truth. The clear
- [Indictments](https://colinmcginn.net/indictments/) - Indictments I welcome the indictments the current administration intends to bring against a list of people; not because they are guilty of anything but because they are not. In each case the allegations will fall apart, thus exposing the meritless nature of the charges. This will not look good for the prosecutors. It will also
- [From Jennifer Hudin](https://colinmcginn.net/from-jennifer-hudin/) - This sums things up nicely (CMG): Thank you and I'm more than ready to tell you. I once told (I forget his name, but the guy who gossips all the time on the internet about Philosophy) that I could probably name some unsavory fact about anyone he mentioned, because rumors are just that---rumors. He had
- [John Searle](https://colinmcginn.net/john-searle/) - I have permission from the writer to post this. It was forwarded to me by Tom Nagel. Let me add that I have spoken at length to other philosophers accused of this and that in the last twelve years: Peter Ludlow, Thomas Pogge, Jeff Ketland. My conclusion has been that none of these accusations has
- [Other Conceptions](https://colinmcginn.net/other-conceptions/) - Other Conceptions I have a conception of the world, commonly called my conceptual scheme. It can be investigated, probed, criticized. I also have a conception of myself, specifically my mind. This tends to be more private and more subject to philosophical and scientific controversy. Still, it is quite well-formed and available to my cogitations: I
- [On Being Cool](https://colinmcginn.net/on-being-cool/) - On Being Cool The concept is ubiquitous without being properly defined.[1] Yet we all know what it is (well, not all of us). John Lennon was cool, Paul McCartney not so much. Steve McQueen was cool, but not Sylvester Stallone. Brando, Newman, Redford, Jagger, Presley—all cool. For me, it starts with the hair and the
- [George Soros](https://colinmcginn.net/george-soros/) - George Soros The attempt to indict George Soros on some Trumped-up charge is patently absurd, but will probably happen. I wish him well dealing with this nonsense. However, I have mixed feelings about the man, who I once considered a friend. I spent many hours reading his attempts at philosophy and discussing them with him
- [Baby Finger](https://colinmcginn.net/baby-finger/) - Baby Finger All guitarists struggle with their smallest fretting finger: it just isn’t very strong or agile. You have to work on it. Recently I decided to go all-out on it. I began playing all my familiar licks with only that finger: Day Tripper, Wipe Out, Pretty Woman, I’ll Take You There, Walk This Way,
- [Earth Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/earth-philosophy/) - Earth Philosophy The planet we call Earth has specific properties, physically and geologically. It is reasonable to suppose that all of life reflects these properties—physiologically and psychologically. It is also reasonable to suppose that human science is imbued with these properties; on other planets with intelligent life forms the science may be quite different. A
- [A Letter from Concerned Philosophers](https://colinmcginn.net/a-letter-from-concerned-philosophers/) - A Letter from Concerned Philosophers Twelve years ago, a slew of philosophy professors was persuaded to sign a letter denouncing me for alleged “retaliation”. I am offering a cash prize for anyone of this crowd to write to me and give me their reasons for so signing. I predict there will be no takers, but
- [Is Necessity Good?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-necessity-good/) - Is Necessity Good? Is there any sense in the idea that necessity is good and contingency bad? Is it somehow better to be necessary than contingent? I think there is a feeling that this is so, but it is hard to articulate. We know that many contingent truths or facts are bad, but are any
- [Logic of the Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/logic-of-the-mind/) - Logic of the Mind Modern logic employs an apparatus of quantifiers and variables. The variables are assigned a domain consisting of discrete individual objects such as dogs and houses—substances, in traditional terminology. Logical laws are formulated against the backdrop of this conception—an ontological conception. Logic is thus tied to an ontology of substances, in particular
- [Assemblages of Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/assemblages-of-mind/) - Assemblages of Mind Every substance that we are aware of is an assemblage of smaller objects. Everything perceptible is a coming-together of parts. This includes human bodies and brains. We apprehend these things as assemblages. They are essentially assemblages. But the same is not true of the mind or person or self: we don’t apprehend
- [Comment from Rebecca Goldstein](https://colinmcginn.net/comment-from-rebecca-goldstein/) - As you say, Colin, "so many things to choose from, so many traits to cultivate and exploit!” What we want, in identifying our human essence, is something broad enough to take in the multiplicity of the radically different forms of human life—something that covers the "manual workers, artists, scientists, priests, musicians, entrepreneurs,” not to speak of
- [Cancel Culture and Free Speech](https://colinmcginn.net/cancel-culture-and-free-speech/) - Cancel Culture and Free Speech (I don’t like the phrase “cancel culture” because it suggests that there is something cultural about it, and it is more like annihilation than mere cancellation; but I will go along with it.) When a person is cancelled because of their speech there are two forms of speech that are
- [Human Nature Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/human-nature-philosophy/) - Human Nature Philosophy According to Aristotelian tradition, every species has a specific nature. Every natural kind has a unique defining form. Chemical substances provide the model: each chemical element has a constitutive atomic structure. Natural kinds have determinate nominal and real essences—attributes that characterize them uniquely. The human kind is no different: it has a
- [In Defence of Offensiveness](https://colinmcginn.net/in-defence-of-offensiveness/) - In Defense of Offensiveness It is amazing how much people hate free speech. They are totally against it. Why? The answer is obvious: they hate the truth. And why do they hate the truth? Because truth implies criticism—of them. Someone might tell the truth about them and they don’t want that. Why don’t they want
- [The Clustering Problem](https://colinmcginn.net/the-clustering-problem/) - The Clustering Problem How and why do properties cluster together into an object? How and why do many accidents join together to form a single substance? How do they constitute a cohesive unitary whole? The properties are separate existences yet they form clusters: what binds them together? What is the unifying glue? Why don’t they
- [Moral Rigidity](https://colinmcginn.net/moral-rigidity/) - Moral Rigidity We think of the morally rigid person as stiff, stern, intolerant, inflexible, old-fashioned, stubborn, and unintelligent. No one wants to be accused of being morally rigid—the Victorian prude, the stern and strict headmaster, the punitive prison warden. It’s just not nice, not cool, not lovable. But isn’t rigidity part of what morality is?
- [Al Franken and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/al-franken-and-me/) - Al Franken and Me I was at George Soros’s wedding in 2013, a lavish affair with hundreds of people in attendance, talking to Senator Al Franken. I explained George’s favorite joke to Al: What is the difference between a Hungarian and a Rumanian? They will both sell you their mother, but the Hungarian will deliver.
- [Knowledge of Matter and Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/knowledge-of-matter-and-mind/) - Knowledge of Matter and Mind We don’t naturally know the nature of matter. We can’t know it just by looking. We had to figure it out over a long period of time. It wasn’t easy to discover the atomic theory. But the same is not true of the mind: here we do naturally know whereof
- [Extremism and Violence](https://colinmcginn.net/extremism-and-violence/) - Extremism and Violence People (pundits, politicians) have been trying to figure out the origins of political violence. We are told that such violence stems not from the radical left or the radical right but from being too radical. We need more political moderation, less “radicalization”. The dictionary (OED) gives us the following for “radical”: “relating
- [Political Violence](https://colinmcginn.net/political-violence/) - Political Violence Understandably, people are anxiously and angrily discussing the causes of our current spate of political violence. Is it caused by being of one political persuasion rather than another, as it might be right-wing political ideology? Well, do right-wing people from other countries exhibit the same levels of political violence? Evidently not. Same for
- [SH in Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/sh-in-philosophy/) - SH in Philosophy I see that Brian Leiter is reverting to the topic of sexual harassment and the surge in female enrolment in philosophy programs, both perfectly legitimate topics. If anyone would like to hear my perspective on this subject, as one caught up in it, I invite them to contact me and I will
- [Inside Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/inside-knowledge/) - Inside Knowledge Let’s try to recover some of the insights of seventeenth century philosophy which have been obscured by twentieth century philosophy.[1] I am referring to instrumentalism, operationalism, positivism, phenomenalism, and behaviorism. I offer for your consideration the following two propositions: we don’t know the nature of matter, and we do know the nature of
- [A Religious Blog](https://colinmcginn.net/a-religious-blog/) - A Religious Blog What kind of text is this—this blog? I said a while ago that it is my New Testament. That implies a religious identity, so this a religious text. It is a statement of my religion: that is, a statement of my basic beliefs, values, and life-practices. My Sermon on the Mount (or
- [Back to School](https://colinmcginn.net/back-to-school/) - Back to School It is now twelve years since I stopped teaching philosophy, after thirty-eight years of doing it. There is no back-to-school for me. That always meant stopping work on my own stuff, beginning to teach classes again, meetings and hellos. What are my feelings on the subject? Many--some good, some bad. I think
- [What is it Like to be a Paper Clip?](https://colinmcginn.net/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-paper-clip/) - What is it Like to be a Paper Clip? I know what it’s like to be me, because I experience it directly every day. I also know what it’s like to be you, more or less, because I know you are psychologically similar to me. I even know what it’s like to be a bat
- [Best Ever Tennis Player](https://colinmcginn.net/best-ever-tennis-player/) - Best Ever Tennis Player Alcaraz and Sinner are clearly the best tennis players ever, as is generally acknowledged. Federer and Nadal wouldn’t stand much of a chance against them, even in their prime, and Djokovic is unable to best them now, or ever was. They are well ahead of their current rivals. They are the
- [A Bombing](https://colinmcginn.net/a-bombing/) - A Bombing The recent bombing of a boat off the coast of Venezuela is probably the worst atrocity committed by the Trump administration so far. It was suspected of being a drug-smuggling boat and summarily blown up, killing all on board. No interception, no search, no due process—just destroyed under suspicion of illegality. The US
- [Other Ontologies](https://colinmcginn.net/other-ontologies/) - Other Ontologies It would be generally agreed that ethics, logic, and mathematics suffer from ontological uncertainties. We don’t know what they are about. There are ontological disagreements that never get resolved. The metaphysics is obscure. I don’t need to spell this out. Is ethics about certain special objects and properties—the Good, the non-natural property of
- [Airport Anecdote](https://colinmcginn.net/airport-anecdote/) - Airport Anecdote On the way to Barbados, at the Miami airport, I joined a long shuffling line at 7 in the morning. After about an hour, we were close to security; an official instructed the person behind me to stand by my side so that we could walk a short distance together, as if a
- [Blog Facts](https://colinmcginn.net/blog-facts/) - Blog Facts Readers may be interested to hear some blog facts. The top ten countries to read this blog are in descending order: the USA, the UK, China, France, Mexico, Canada, Sweden, India, Germany, Australia. It varies from week to week but the USA and the UK are always in the top two positions. The
- [On Being the Best](https://colinmcginn.net/on-being-the-best/) - On Being the Best A few years ago, I came to the conclusion that I am the best philosopher who ever lived. It was hard to take in at first. But I had to accept it; I could no longer deny it. It was true. Facts are facts. I kept it to myself for a
- [Knowing Other Minds](https://colinmcginn.net/knowing-other-minds/) - Knowing Other Minds We are only too familiar with the other minds problem: from liars to bats, the inverted spectrum to total zombies. But all is not dark—we do sometimes know what is on, or in, another mind. In fact, we have a great deal of knowledge of this type, generally taken for granted. But
- [Material Selves](https://colinmcginn.net/material-selves/) - Material Selves The self and the mind: what are they? Are they material or immaterial? These questions are usually discussed separately: one under the heading “personal identity”, the other under the heading “the mind-body problem”. Thus, we discuss whether the self is the body and whether mental states are physical states. But these questions are
- [Paleolithic Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/paleolithic-philosophy/) - Paleolithic Philosophy I wish to introduce a new academic discipline to be named “paleolithic philosophy” (aka “caveman philosophy”). This subject investigates the original causes of philosophically interesting concepts. The central tenet of paleolithic philosophy is what I will call “evolutionary empiricism”, the doctrine that our basic concepts derive from the primitive environment of our distant
- [Pinker Comment](https://colinmcginn.net/pinker-comment/) - I couldn’t agree more, Colin (and thanks for the shout-out). As we know, academic fields have their own cultural mores, and the norm that real psychology = experiments (or occasionally computer simulations) is strong. I think it’s gotten worse: when I was an undergrad, every department had a course in history of psychology and a
- [Rhyme Song](https://colinmcginn.net/rhyme-song/) - Rhyme Song I was alone and writing I was up midnighting I wasn’t fighting I wasn’t gaslighting I called your name I wanted fame I fanned the flame I staked my claim Did you hear my voice? Did I make the right choice? Did I make you rejoice? Or was it all
- [How To Be a Psychologist](https://colinmcginn.net/how-to-be-a-psychologist/) - How To Be a Psychologist In my years as a psychology student no one ever suggested I read William James’s The Principles of Psychology. No doubt this was because it was deemed old-fashioned and far too philosophical. In those days great emphasis was placed on doing experiments. You couldn’t be a serious psychologist unless you
- [On Naming](https://colinmcginn.net/on-naming/) - On Naming According to the classic description theory, names are synonymous with definite descriptions; they are said to abbreviate such descriptions, to be “short for” them. The two are therefore intersubstitutable. The description is said to “analyze” the name—spell out its meaning. Thus, there can’t be a language with names but no descriptions, and names
- [Wittgenstein on Propositions](https://colinmcginn.net/wittgenstein-on-propositions/) - Wittgenstein on Propositions The Tractatus is a hymn to propositions. It is all about propositions. Wittgenstein is an unabashed propositional realist: propositions exist outside human minds, capture the structure of the world, have a hidden real essence, determine determinate meaning, divide up the space of logical possibilities, are isomorphic with facts. They are logical pictures,
- [American Guns](https://colinmcginn.net/american-guns/) - American Guns Suppose you visited a foreign country in which the following practices prevailed. Poisonous chemicals are freely available. You can buy them at your local pharmacy or at specialty poison outlets. They are lethal—they can kill people and often do. People buy them in large quantities. There is a thriving culture of chemical ownership.
- [Alcaraz Ascendant](https://colinmcginn.net/alcaraz-ascendant/) - Alcaraz Ascendant You should have seen Carlos Alcaraz play Reilly Opelka last night. Carlos is 6ft; Reilly is 6’11. The big man has a fearsome serve, which gave the shorter man a good deal of trouble. But Carlos out-served him. I felt sorry for the poor sod, having done to him what he does to
- [Propositions](https://colinmcginn.net/propositions/) - Propositions What is a proposition? What indeed: no one really knows. There have been many proposals: a sentence, a statement, a thought, a meaning, a combination of concepts, a combination of objects, a set of possible worlds, a possible state of affairs, a picture, a model, an image, a name of a truth-value, a description
- [Disgust Again](https://colinmcginn.net/disgust-again-3/) - Disgust Again Returning from beautiful Barbados, I am struck anew by the moral squalor in which this country now wallows. Also, the government is pretty bad. An access of moral disgust: that curious puzzling emotion. I put it to one side when I wrote The Meaning of Disgust, not having much to say about it.
- [Brain Views](https://colinmcginn.net/brain-views/) - Brain Views Oh, those perishing bats, hogging all the limelight, with their fancy sense of echolocation! Let’s talk about the humble human and how things look to him or her. Can this be reduced to brain states? We have agreed that consciousness is having a point of view, specifically a visual one; can we argue
- [Points of View](https://colinmcginn.net/points-of-view/) - Points of View We are not good at talking about consciousness. The best we have been able to come up with is the what-it’s-like formula, inaugurated by Brian Farrell and Timothy Sprigge and popularized by Thomas Nagel. But this formula has resisted illuminating paraphrase and remains a vernacular catch-phrase. What is its analysis? Can we
- [Quantum Semantics](https://colinmcginn.net/quantum-semantics/) - Quantum Semantics The so-called quantum revolution, initiated by Planck and Einstein in the first decade of the twentieth century, was just that: an overturning of entrenched earlier theory. Light (radiation) had been conceived as continuous and wavelike not as having a particulate structure. Much of the experimentally observed behavior
- [Comments from Michael Ayers](https://colinmcginn.net/comments-from-michael-ayers/) - ‘Against Identity Theories’, “The Deep Problem’ and the ‘is’ of definition I agree with the gist of both papers. However…. Aristotle distinguished ‘real’ from ‘nominal’ definition. The latter is just a way of identifying what a name names. So (to modify and build on an actual Aristotelian example) “‘Lightening’ names the flashes in the sky
- [Introspection](https://colinmcginn.net/introspection/) - Introspection Some remarks on introspection in the light of recent papers. Is introspection a source of knowledge about the mind? On the one hand, it qualifies as a perceptual faculty, since it provides direct consciousness of the mind; and this means it is a source of genuine knowledge. We “see” what is currently in our
- [Non-Perceptual Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/non-perceptual-knowledge/) - Non-Perceptual Knowledge Perceptual knowledge is quite sharply limited, though clearly a type of knowledge. But we don’t customarily stop there; we generally extend the concept of knowledge beyond this restricted domain, well beyond it. Thus, we recognize several kinds of inferential knowledge—knowledge about things we don’t and can’t perceive. Are there any reasons to doubt
- [Perceptual Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/perceptual-knowledge/) - Perceptual Knowledge The thesis to be defended here is that perception is knowledge and the most basic kind of knowledge.[1] This knowledge has nothing essentially to do with belief, except by way of repudiation. Perceiving is knowing and knowing is perceiving (more or less). In practice this comes down to the thesis that knowing and
- [Bajan Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/bajan-philosophy/) - Bajan Philosophy The last three papers have been metaphysics Barbados-style, boldly black and white, bright as a beach. Now I will turn to Bajan epistemology, in which clear lines are drawn and compromise not tolerated. You either know or you don’t know. You either see it or you don’t. It is sturdy or it is
- [Language, Self, and Substance](https://colinmcginn.net/language-self-and-substance/) - Language, Self, and Substance I will offer some sketchy remarks on meaning and the self in the light of the anti-substantialist view of the mind. First, there has to be something wrong with the Cogito as traditionally conceived, since the self (reference of “I”) is not a substance. We can’t say, “I think, therefore I
- [Ontology of Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/ontology-of-mind-2/) - Ontology of Mind What is the ontology of the physical world? What is its ontology and how do we conceive it? The best answer to this is that it is a substance ontology: the physical world consists of physical substances qualified by what are traditionally called accidents.[1] For example, animals, artifacts, and inanimate lumps—cats, tables,
- [What Makes Consciousness Mysterious?](https://colinmcginn.net/what-makes-consciousness-mysterious/) - What Makes Consciousness Mysterious? Today it would be widely agreed that consciousness is mysterious, rather mysterious or extremely mysterious. It would not, however, be widely agreed what makes it mysterious—what precise characteristic confers the mystery. Some would say there is no mystery at all: consciousness is nothing but higher-order thought or self-ascription or not being
- [The Barbados Files](https://colinmcginn.net/the-barbados-files/) - The Barbados Files My trip to Barbados was not intended to be a “working holiday”. On the contrary, it was intended to be a non-working holiday (totally in vacanza). I made a point of not taking my computer with me just in case I felt tempted to write something. (I had a companion.) However, a
- [An Argument Against Idealism](https://colinmcginn.net/an-argument-against-idealism/) - An Argument Against Idealism Imagine we lived in a world in which idealism was the dominant philosophy (in fact, it is the actual world, but that’s another story). The prevailing doctrine is that everything that exists is mental, i.e., a state of consciousness. Not just the mind itself but also the so-called physical world—mountains, molecules,
- [Barbados Trip](https://colinmcginn.net/barbados-trip/) - I am going to Barbados on August 2nd for two weeks and will not be posting anything during that time. So, my absence is not an indication of some sort of disaster. I will, however, have access to comments.
- [On "What is it like to be a Bat?"](https://colinmcginn.net/on-what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bat/) - On “What is it Like to be a Bat?” Thomas Nagel’s great paper “What is it Like to be a Bat?” begins resoundingly enough: “Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable. Perhaps this is why current discussions of the problem give it little attention or get it obviously wrong.” These words slip smoothly
- [Conscious, Unconscious, and What It's Like](https://colinmcginn.net/conscious-unconscious-and-what-its-like/) - Conscious, Unconscious, and What It’s Like What is the relationship between consciousness and what it’s like? There are two questions: is the latter a necessary condition of the former, and is it sufficient? We could add a third question, which is really the central question: what is the real essence of consciousness—its intrinsic nature, its
- [An Even Harder Problem](https://colinmcginn.net/an-even-harder-problem/) - An Even Harder Problem People like to talk about “the hard problem”, meaning the problem of consciousness. The phrase itself invites scrutiny: it contains the definite article and thus implies uniqueness, unlike “a hard problem”; and “hard” is an attributive adjective associated with cognate words, i.e., “harder” and “hardest”. So, we must ask: is the
- [Ethics and Other Minds](https://colinmcginn.net/ethics-and-other-minds/) - Ethics and Other Minds There is a close connection between ethics and the problem of other minds, which I have not seen remarked (though it is obvious). Belief in the latter supports commitment to the former; skepticism undermines it. If you don’t believe in other minds at all, you can have no morality worthy of
- ["Baby, I Love You"](https://colinmcginn.net/baby-i-love-you/) - “Baby, I Love You” The first thing I did after waking up from a twelve-hour operation on my neck was to vomit into a plastic bag (a normal reaction to all the anesthetic, I was told). I was semi-delirious on a gurney. The next thing I did was feebly sing the chorus to the song
- [William James on Mind and Brain](https://colinmcginn.net/william-james-on-mind-and-brain/) - William James on Mind and Brain In chapter VI of The Principles of Psychology William James writes: “The ultimate of ultimate problems, of course, in the study of the relations of thought and brain, is to understand why and how such disparate things are connected at all. But before that problem is solved (if it
- [South Park](https://colinmcginn.net/south-park/) - South Park South Park has thrown down the gauntlet: expect more of this or come after us. I don’t see that MAGA has any easy options, so this could be one of the most potent political moves so far. I don’t know what will happen, but it is a serious challenge in today’s world.
- [The Deep Problem of Consciousness](https://colinmcginn.net/the-deep-problem-of-consciousness/) - The Deep Problem of Consciousness In The Principles of Psychology, published in 1890, William James quotes from Charles Mercier’s The Nervous System and the Mind (1888): “But why the two occur together, or what the link is that connects them, we do not know, and most authorities believe that we never shall and never can
- [Against Identity Theories](https://colinmcginn.net/against-identity-theories/) - Against Identity Theories Would it shock you to learn that so-called identity theories are not identity theories? If so, prepare to be shocked (I was). Proponents of these theories called them identity theories, but they were mistaken about their true import. This puts them in a new light. Consider the following statements: “water is H2O”,
- [Composers, Singers, and Instrumentalists](https://colinmcginn.net/composers-singers-and-instrumentalists/) - Composers, Singers, and Instrumentalists These three occupations are not commonly combined. Opera singers don’t compose and play an instrument as well as sing. Lead guitarists usually don’t sing as well as play. Composers are rarely performers of note. There are exceptions, but the demands of each occupation are liable to encroach on the other occupations.
- [How to Prove the External World](https://colinmcginn.net/how-to-prove-the-external-world/) - How to Prove There is an External World Suppose you are doing metaphysics, working on which worlds are possible worlds. It occurs to you that no worlds can be immaterial; the idea makes no sense. Thus, you conclude that all worlds must be material. Your paradigms of the material are solid bounded objects in space.
- [A New Proof of the External World](https://colinmcginn.net/a-new-proof-of-the-external-world/) - A New Proof of the External World It would be nice to be able to prove the existence of the external world (it would also be nice if there were a heaven). I am going to consider an argument that purports to do just that, not because I think it is sound, but because I
- [Analysis of Perceptual Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/analysis-of-perceptual-knowledge/) - Analysis of Perceptual Knowledge Suppose I see a bird in the sky, thereby coming to know there is a bird in the sky (of a certain shape and color). I don’t form the belief that there is a bird in the sky; I simply know by perceiving. I might not be a believer at all,
- [Beatle-Philia](https://colinmcginn.net/beatle-philia/) - Beatle-Philia Why were the Beatles so good, so beloved? Why do they stand out from everyone else? You might think it was because they were super-talented: each of them was really good at what they did. I think the opposite is true: they were that good because they were not all that talented or accomplished.
- [Dinosaur Evolution](https://colinmcginn.net/dinosaur-evolution/) - Dinosaur Evolution I saw my first dinosaur skeleton in the late 1950s at the Natural History Museum in London on a family trip. I remember it as huge, alien, and dead; but undeniably impressive. I have seen many more such skeletons since. It has always seemed to me that a lot of evolution separates us
- [Tennis Wall](https://colinmcginn.net/tennis-wall/) - Sent from my iPhone It's like a sculpture you can use.
- [This Boy](https://colinmcginn.net/this-boy/) - This Boy I have a personal relationship, a history, with the song “This Boy” by the Beatles. It was released in November 1963, when I was thirteen, as the B-side of “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. I heard it then. I recall the Beatles being interviewed on the BBC’s Tonight by Cliff Mitchelmore in
- [Seeing as Knowing](https://colinmcginn.net/seeing-as-knowing/) - Seeing as Knowing Knowing may or may not be a type of seeing, but seeing is a type of knowing.[1] I mean this as an identity theory: seeing is knowing. Necessarily, if you see, you know, because seeing is in itself a type of knowing. The knowing isn’t something added to the seeing; it is
- [Activity Area](https://colinmcginn.net/activity-area-2/) - Sent from my iPhone
- [Old House](https://colinmcginn.net/old-house/) - Sent from my iPhone I thought readers might like to see my historic house.
- [Moral Metaphors](https://colinmcginn.net/moral-metaphors/) - Moral Metaphors A solid moral vocabulary would seem essential to sound moral judgement and action. Yet we are signally lacking in that regard. Our language doesn’t aid the cause of morality. Can it be revised and improved? Are we conceptually lacking in our moral attitudes? These are important questions, especially in a time of moral…moral
- [Letter1](https://colinmcginn.net/letter1/) - Colin: Love the piece. We resonate. MUCH busier now than ever before, even when I was running an investment banking firm with 400 employees. Our one fundamental difference is that while table tennis is but one of your many non-philosophy endeavors, it dominates mine - 3 coaching sessions per week, 2 hours per coaching session
- [Rebirth](https://colinmcginn.net/rebirth/) - Rebirth The OED defines “retirement” as “the period of one’s life after retiring from work”. But what is work? That is defined as “activity involving mental or physical effort in order to achieve a result” and “such activity as a means of earning income”. These are very different ideas; confusing them leads to misconceptions about
- [Chinese Translation](https://colinmcginn.net/chinese-translation/) - Hi Colin, FYI on a Chinese edition (!) of Minds and Bodies. Best Peter From: Emma Gier Sent: Monday, July 14, 2025 4:56 AM To: Peter Ohlin Cc: Alastair Lewis ; Cara McMeekan ; Georgina Hoare ; James Sykes ; Jenny Child ; Junan Collins ; Sophie Goldsworthy ; Tasmin Dodson ; Jacqueline
- [Epistemological Origins](https://colinmcginn.net/epistemological-origins/) - Epistemological Origins What causes human (and animal) knowledge? Is it nature or God? The classical empiricists thought it was nature acting on the senses (for most knowledge anyway) not God. The classic rationalists thought it was God acting miraculously on the soul (for some knowledge anyway) not nature. Either nature implants the knowledge via experience
- [Empiricism Refashioned](https://colinmcginn.net/empiricism-refashioned/) - Empiricism Refashioned Historically, we can distinguish three theories of the origin of knowledge: empiricism, rationalism, and revelationism (as it may be called). The first locates the origin of knowledge in conscious sense experience, particularly vision; the second accords a significant role to innate endowment (instinct, genetics); the third regards true knowledge as emanating from an
- [Aspects of the A Priori](https://colinmcginn.net/aspects-of-the-a-priori/) - Aspects of the A Priori It is now fifty years since I first tried to define a priori knowledge. I wrote a long paper on the subject in 1975 that was abbreviated to appear in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society in 1976 (“A Priori and A PosterioriKnowledge”). The basic idea was that a posteriori
- [Fourth Letter](https://colinmcginn.net/fourth-letter/) - Subject: First Set of Questions & Notes on the Interview Project Dear Professor McGinn, First of all, I want to sincerely thank you once again for giving me this opportunity. It truly means a great deal to me, and I consider it a rare honor. As I mentioned before, the interview I am preparing will
- [Aesthetic Tennis](https://colinmcginn.net/aesthetic-tennis/) - Aesthetic Tennis As Wimbledon builds towards its climax, the question on everyone’s mind is “Who is the most aesthetic player in the world?” We all have our views, some more informed and sensitive than others. I will wade into these shark-infested waters, in which one’s credibility is totally on the line. Like, totally. I think
- [Iran Letter](https://colinmcginn.net/iran-letter/) - Dear Professor McGinn, My name is Ehsan Ahrari, a sociologist and writer based in Iran. Over the past years, I have been engaged in a series of grassroots conversations under the banner of Sociology of the Everyday, where we explore ordinary life through a philosophical and ethical lens—often without institutional scaffolding, but with deep intellectual urgency.
- [Interests](https://colinmcginn.net/interests/) - Interests What am I not interested in and don’t enjoy? And what am I somewhat interested in but can do without? I am not interested in politics—in fact I am repulsed by it—but I follow it closely for purely utilitarian reasons. I find it intellectually dismal if not abysmal. I am not interested in business
- [Vanity](https://colinmcginn.net/vanity/) - Vanity It used to be said of certain people that they are “vain” or “arrogant" or “conceited” or “prideful" or “boastful”. Then it was said that such people are “big-headed" or a “bighead”, possibly “cocky” in some contexts (“He’s a cocky bugger”). Later it became “egotistical" or “egocentric”—a slightly more clinical name for the syndrome,
- [Me at 75](https://colinmcginn.net/me-at-75/) - Me at 75 I thought I’d sum up where I am today. Intellectually, I see myself as a philosopher, scientist, and novelist--in that order. I see these as separate, though overlapping in places. Athletically, I am mainly a tennis player, a table tennis player, a skateboarder, a knife thrower, and a motorcyclist. I have been
- [Animal Pyrotechnics](https://colinmcginn.net/animal-pyrotechnics/) - Animal Pyrotechnics Last night I went to see the July 4th fireworks at the Biltmore hotel with my friend Eddy. As usual, I enjoyed them thoroughly (though they are ethically questionable). Afterwards I said to him, “I just had a religious experience”. Why did I say that? Not because I believe that fireworks are a
- [On Teletransportation](https://colinmcginn.net/on-teletransportation-2/) - On Teletransportation Does teletransportation (henceforth “tele”) preserve personal identity? Does the person survive it?[1] I think not—and I think this is obvious on reflection. The workings of the machine are obscure, but the outlines are clear enough: the subject, body and mind, is vaporized, thoroughly dismantled, and someone just like him or her appears on
- [Amorphous Minds](https://colinmcginn.net/amorphous-minds/) - Amorphous Minds Our world is divided into different objects and kinds of objects—separate objects, distinct kinds. But who or what does the dividing?[1] According to conceptualists, it is minds that divide things up as they see fit, depending on their preferences, needs, conventions, decisions, innate quality space, and sense of similarity; there is no mind-independent
- [Cruelty](https://colinmcginn.net/cruelty-2/) - Cruelty The cruelty and nastiness currently demonstrated by the Trump administration towards immigrants seems to me to have an exact parallel in the recent cancelling of people deemed to have sinned against feminist orthodoxy.[1] There is no interest in facts (only slogans), no concern with due process (only quick condemnation), no sense of proportionality (only
- [Dream Laser](https://colinmcginn.net/dream-laser/) - Dream Laser Steven Pinker once said of me, “McGinn is an ingenious philosopher who thinks like a laser and writes like a dream”. Nicely put, Steve, memorable, poetic. But what exactly does it mean? Is it true? We should certainly take it seriously because (a) Pinker is one the world’s top cognitive psychologists, (b) he
- [Second Letter](https://colinmcginn.net/second-letter/) - FYI Subject: Looking Forward to Our Upcoming Interview Project Dear Professor McGinn, I hope this message finds you well. I just wanted to say a brief hello and to let you know how excited I am to be continuing preparations for our long-form interview. I’ve been deeply immersed in your writings—revisiting many of your books
- [Third Letter](https://colinmcginn.net/third-letter/) - Dear Professor McGinn, Thank you very much for your kind reply. It truly means a great deal to me. I also want to express how honored I am that you shared both of my letters on your blog. It is a privilege to be featured in a space that reflects your thinking and writing. I
- [Trauma](https://colinmcginn.net/trauma/) - Trauma For “trauma” the OED gives us “a deeply distressing experience; emotional shock following a stressful event”. The word comes from the Greek for “wound”; in medicine it means “physical injury”. These words are all on the button. Not just distressing but deeply distressing; a certain type of experience not just an external event (there
- [Ontological Rationalism](https://colinmcginn.net/ontological-rationalism/) - Ontological Rationalism Ontological rationalism is the view that the world is intrinsically intelligible.[1] Roughly, the world is intelligible if and only if it obeys laws with some kind of necessity; it is unintelligible if it is completely random, contingent, chaotic. An unintelligible world is one in which anything can happen at any time, e.g., night
- [Resignation](https://colinmcginn.net/resignation/) - Resignation People sometimes assume that my resignation twelve years ago was an admission of guilt. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is very naïve to think otherwise. The decision was carefully considered and took in many factors, some unrelated to the situation at hand. Chief among them was the aggravation and cost entailed
- [Kinds of Kind](https://colinmcginn.net/kinds-of-kind/) - Kinds of Kind Kinds are of many kinds. Sortals are of many sorts. We should not assimilate one to another. Some kinds are obscurely defined. My question concerns mental kinds—what kind of kind are they? First, consider chemical and physical kinds, such as heat, water, and light. The modern theory of these is well known:
- [Intellectual Romance](https://colinmcginn.net/intellectual-romance/) - Intellectual Romance What is an intellectual romance? A romance of the intellect, of course; it isn’t a romance between intellectuals, as in a love affair between intellectual people. Here is a standard definition: “The connection between two people in a relationship where they share ideals, thoughts, and opinions, finding stimulation and enjoyment in each other’s
- [Colin Through the Looking Glass](https://colinmcginn.net/colin-through-the-looking-glass/) - Colin Through the Looking Glass Now I know why I am not allowed on campus: I might enter into a (non-romantic) romantic relationship with a student and fail to report it because it would be bad for the student. It’s perfectly clear: it’s wrong to not report (non-romantic) romantic relationships even if to make such
- [De Re Consciousness of the Brain](https://colinmcginn.net/de-re-consciousness-of-the-brain/) - De Re Consciousness of the Brain Do I have de re consciousness of my brain when I have de dicto consciousness of my mind? I speak of de reconsciousness not of de re belief or perception: the locution “conscious of” admits of a de re-de dicto ambiguity—does it mean a relation or a content? Suppose
- [Perception De Dicto and De Re](https://colinmcginn.net/perception-de-dicto-and-de-re/) - Perception De Dicto and De Re Locke held that all we ever perceive of external objects is their powers and not their intrinsic qualities: we do perceive their powers to produce sensations in us, and we don’t perceive the basis of these powers in the object. This seems doubly wrong: we don’t perceive powers and
- [Origins of Intentionality](https://colinmcginn.net/origins-of-intentionality/) - Origins of Intentionality What is the origin of intentionality? There are three main areas to consider: perception, thought, and language. In the twentieth century it was fashionable to take linguistic intentionality as basic; the other two are then derived from it. The classical empiricists took perceptual intentionality as basic with thought and language parasitic on
- [Alienation](https://colinmcginn.net/alienation/) - Alienation The OED defines “alienate” as “cause to feel isolated”; “alienation” is then “the state or experience of being alienated”. I have lived in the United States for 35 years and I am now officially alienated: I feel isolated, cut off, removed. It wasn’t always so—I used to feel integrated, joined. This is really the
- [Blog Thoughts](https://colinmcginn.net/blog-thoughts/) - Blog Thoughts I sometimes search this blog in order to remind myself of what I have written on such-and-such a topic. I am always surprised. I have completely forgotten about this paper or that, and I read the paper with genuine interest, as if written by someone else. I find myself entering an old-new world.
- [The Unconscious Body](https://colinmcginn.net/the-unconscious-body-2/) - The Unconscious Body We are thought to have an unconscious mind, or minds. The idea is that we have two minds (or more) only one of which are we conscious of. We are aware of one mind but not of the other; hence, we know what is going on in the conscious mind but not
- [Mechanism, Mystery, and Miracle](https://colinmcginn.net/mechanism-mystery-and-miracle/) - Mechanism, Mystery, and Miracle Locke thought that the external world is a mystery: we know there is such a world, but we don’t and can’t know how it works or what it’s like. Physics is a mysterious science (Newton agreed). But he didn’t think the mind is a mystery, specifically knowledge: he thought he knew
- [Belief and Religion](https://colinmcginn.net/belief-and-religion/) - Belief and Religion It is possible to be religious and not believe in God, or gods: you just need to have religious practices but not theistic ontology. Atheistic religion is not a contradiction in terms. But can you be a theist and not be religious? That seems a more difficult undertaking: surely if you believe
- [Letter](https://colinmcginn.net/letter/) - I thought readers would be interested in this. Dear Colin McGinn, I have been following your work for many years with deep admiration and intellectual curiosity. Your profound contributions to philosophy—particularly in the areas of philosophy of mind, consciousness, and epistemology—have significantly shaped my own intellectual path. Not only your ideas, but also the clarity
- [Animal Dreams](https://colinmcginn.net/animal-dreams/) - Animal Dreams I have a close relationship with my pet parakeet Eloise. She likes to climb on my fingers and be enveloped in my hand; we play together every day. We are friends, companions. At night I carry her cage (with two other birds) to my study where I place it in a high place
- [L.A.](https://colinmcginn.net/l-a/) - L.A. I am worried that the presence of the military will provoke a confrontation in which protesters are killed. This will be a terrible tragedy, the end of human decency in America, and will deter any future protests. I can’t help wondering if that is the plan.
- [Naturephilia](https://colinmcginn.net/naturephilia/) - Naturephilia What kind of society is best? We have come to accept the concept of the “open society”: this is deemed better than the “closed society”. These terms were introduced by Henri Bergson in the 1930s and then popularized by Karl Popper in the 1950s. The best society is the most “open” one. But what
- [About Speciesism](https://colinmcginn.net/about-speciesism/) - About Speciesism Speciesism is the prejudice that species is a morally relevant characteristic. Speciesism says that moral status is not supervenient on psychology but includes biological identity. Two individuals could be psychologically identical and yet not share their moral standing, because of a difference of species. In particular, identity of interests does not entail identity
- [Alcaraz versus Sinner](https://colinmcginn.net/alcaraz-versus-sinner/) - Alcaraz versus Sinner Yesterday’s French Open final between Alcaraz and Sinner was the greatest tennis match ever played. No adjective can do it justice. You might think I am exaggerating, but this is the consensus view. Sinner is 23, Alcaraz 22—at the beginning of their tennis careers. The match lasted over five hours and had
- [Divine Bivalve](https://colinmcginn.net/divine-bivalve/) - Divine Bivalve I confess: I am an oyster fanatic. So are most people who eat oysters. I just read Oysters: A Celebration in the Raw (2016) by Jeremy Sewall and Marion Lear Swaybill, which lovingly surveys the world of oysters. The oyster is praised, revered, celebrated, worshipped and adored—by farmers and consumers alike. It always
- [A Historical House](https://colinmcginn.net/a-historic-house/) - A Historical House I live in a historically designated house. Recently, I decided to look more closely into the history. It has changed my attitude to where I live. The house was built in 1923 of locally sourced coral rock, mined from the Venetian pool. It lies half a mile outside what is now Coral
- [American Philosophical Association](https://colinmcginn.net/american-philosophical-association/) - American Philosophical Association I first attended the APA in 1977 and have attended it many times since, in various capacities. I found it quite enjoyable. I would go to papers, look at new books, hang out with old friends. I thought it was a good thing. But I haven’t been in twenty years, and it
- [A New Seven Deadly Sins](https://colinmcginn.net/a-new-seven-deadly-sins/) - A New Seven Deadly Sins I reject the old list of deadly sins, but what do I put in its place? The following: cowardice, conformity, credulity, malicious envy, stupidity, irrationality, ideology. These are mainly designed to fit contemporary academics, particularly American philosophers.
- [Semantics of Sin](https://colinmcginn.net/semantics-of-sin/) - Semantics of Sin We all know about the so-called seven deadly sins: envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath. These are curious words; we do well to delve into their meaning. What is the correct semantic theory of sin words? We can contrast these words with other words in the moral vocabulary: murder, theft,
- [Absurd Cults](https://colinmcginn.net/absurd-cults/) - Absurd Cults One of the more hilarious aspects of my situation has received virtually no attention. The university actually accused me of trying to start a cult. Yes, you read that right—I am (or was) an aspiring cult leader! True, this is not against university rules, so I couldn’t be formally charged with it; but
- [Bald Eagles and Religion](https://colinmcginn.net/bald-eagles-and-religion/) - Bald Eagles and Religion Religion is typically composed of beliefs, emotions, and practices. These are logically detachable. In particular, existential beliefs in respect of supernatural entities are not necessary to the existence of religious emotions and practices. In fact, they can undermine such emotions and practices if they are wildly implausible or rebarbative. If people
- [Anger and Lust](https://colinmcginn.net/anger-and-lust/) - Anger and Lust Anger is closely related to hatred. The OED gives us “strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility” for “anger”. For “hate” we have “intense dislike; strong aversion”. Hatred typically begins in anger at a perceived wrong; anger becomes hatred. It isn’t exactly the same as anger: there can be hatred without anger
- [Darwinian Theology](https://colinmcginn.net/darwinian-theology/) - Darwinian Theology Suppose we marry zoolatry with modern evolutionary science: what kind of offspring do we get? Are the two compatible or do we get only sterility? I think they are perfectly compatible and that we deliver an attractive baby; indeed, something with considerable power—scientifically and spiritually. We get a Darwinian religion, a science of
- [Beastly Religion](https://colinmcginn.net/beastly-religion/) - Beastly Religion I was watching a documentary about insects last night (Bugs that Rule the World). I was interested to discover that bugs are big in Japan, particularly butterflies, fireflies, and stag beetles (kids have them as pets). Butterflies are prized for their beauty, elegance, and otherworldliness. The attitude is vaguely religious (actually not so
- [Explicable Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/explicable-knowledge/) - Explicable Knowledge Suppose I don’t know where my phone is; it could be in a number of places in the house. I look around and find it on top of my desk, thereby coming to know that my phone is on my desk. This is a paradigm case of perceptual knowledge—knowledge by means of the
- [False Good Ideas](https://colinmcginn.net/false-good-ideas/) - False Good Ideas There should be a category of false good ideas: ideas that are clever and appealing but clearly false. These ideas will tend to catch on despite their obvious falsity, because they appear to solve problems. Most of philosophy is made up of these ideas; they might be said to constitute the subject.
- [Good False Theories](https://colinmcginn.net/good-false-theories/) - Good False Theories In what does the goodness of false philosophical theories consist? How can a theory be good and yet false? To be good a theory must have certain attributes: clarity, simplicity, interestingness, the ability to solve problems, integration with other theories, and explanatory power. Generally, it avoids mystery and provides a reduction of
- [Blind Sight](https://colinmcginn.net/blind-sight/) - Blind Sight I am not concerned with the empirical facts about so-called blindsight; I shall take them as given. I am interested in the question of description—how should these cases be described? My question is conceptual. The first thing I want to say is that “blindsight” is a contradictory expression: it is not possible to
- [Can I Prove that I Exist?](https://colinmcginn.net/can-i-prove-that-i-exist/) - Can I Prove that I Exist? The Cogito purports to be a proof that I exist. It is supposed to establish the proposition that I exist. But this is a funny kind of proof for a simple reason: it only proves my existence to me. I cannot use it to prove my existence to you,
- [Paradoxical Paradoxes](https://colinmcginn.net/paradoxical-paradoxes/) - Paradoxical Paradoxes Paradoxes exist. Paradoxes belong either to the world or to our thought about the world. They cannot belong to the world, because reality cannot be intrinsically paradoxical. They cannot belong to our thought about the world, because then we would be able to alter our thought to avoid them (they cannot be intrinsic
- [Black Genocide](https://colinmcginn.net/black-genocide/) - Black Genocide The president was on a roll. He had this immigration thing down. He was righting wrongs. He had been doing some research, i.e., talking to cronies and hangers-on (“great people”). He had never heard of apartheid before and the word baffled him (something to do with not letting blacks live in your neighborhood,
- [Faults of the Philosophers](https://colinmcginn.net/faults-of-the-philosophers/) - Faults of the Philosophers I am going to do something I have never seen attempted. I am going to enumerate the intellectual faults of the main philosophers of the twentieth century—their erroneous assumptions, intellectual biases, ideological commitments, areas of ignorance, and cognitive weaknesses. It is going to get ugly, I’m afraid, though not cruel; we
- [On Not Knowing What It's Like](https://colinmcginn.net/on-not-knowing-what-its-like/) - On Not Knowing What It’s Like How much do I not know about what it’s like? How extensive is my ignorance of the different forms of consciousness? I do know what it’s like to be me now—about my current conscious states. They act as input to my knowledge faculty and that faculty produces knowledge of
- [Diary of a Zoolatrist](https://colinmcginn.net/diary-of-a-zoolatrist/) - Diary of a Zoolatrist Looking back, I see why I am a born animal worshipper: I had a childhood fondness for lizards and butterflies, in particular, but also other animals. I also liked reading Dr Dolittle books. I found nature charming. I imagine many other children feel the same way. It is probably inherited from
- [Animal Worship](https://colinmcginn.net/animal-worship/) - Animal Worship If you google “animal worship” you will get some surprising results (I did). It turns out that animal worship (“zoolatry”) was much more widespread than might be supposed. It is present in nearly all ancient religions and extends right across the animal kingdom. I made a list: bears, whales, cattle, sheep, goats, dogs,
- [Groceries](https://colinmcginn.net/groceries/) - Groceries The president was explaining the word “groceries” to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He fancied himself a bit of a linguist in his spare time, because he was an expert in everything to do with word. In fact, he was an all-round expert on many subjects, including windmill and shower head (not to
- [Assertion and Command](https://colinmcginn.net/assertion-and-command/) - Assertion and Command There is such a thing as speech act theory, but ought there to be? Philosophers and linguists usually distinguish assertion, command, and question: these are the three main types of speech act. Questions are often assimilated to commands (requests) because they can be construed as requests for information (“Please tell me whether
- [Ode to a Wall](https://colinmcginn.net/ode-to-a-wall/) - Ode to a Wall I live near a tennis wall. It is about 40 feet wide and 15 feet high, green with a white line at net height. It is said that Federer once played at it. It is fronted by two tennis court halves, blue and white, so as to simulate real play. The
- [Bathroom Blues](https://colinmcginn.net/bathroom-blues/) - Bathroom Blues The president was loitering in one of the many bathrooms of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. As a construction person, he was much interested in the décor of this palatial retreat. So much fine marble! So much ornate gold! It made Mara Lago look paltry and poor in comparison. He was having
- [A Bit of History](https://colinmcginn.net/a-bit-of-history/) - A Bit of History When I arrived in Oxford in 1972, after having studied psychology for the previous four years in Manchester, I was in need of a philosophy supervisor. At that time, I was enrolled in the B.Litt. program, having been deemed by R.M. Hare not qualified to undertake the B.Phil. degree. I had
- [Certainty](https://colinmcginn.net/certainty/) - Certainty As a topic in the philosophy of mind, as opposed to epistemology, certainty has not received much attention. I intend to put that right. What kind of mental state is certainty? What is its analysis? I will be asking a series of questions, this being a new field—certainty studies. First, what is the relation
- [The President's Jet](https://colinmcginn.net/the-presidents-jet/) - The President’s Jet Reclining in his big beautiful bathroom, the president felt things were going well—really well, in fact, frankly. Even the water pressure in his gleaming shower was working well on his magnificent hair. An Arab state had officially made him the gift of a brand-new luxury jet costing a billion dollars (give or
- [Elicitism](https://colinmcginn.net/elicitism/) - Elicitism I will state what I think is the correct account of knowledge, to be set beside empiricism and rationalism. All concepts and perceptual impressions are innately based; what is not innate is their combinations. It is like language: the basic lexicon is innate, as are the basic rules of grammar; what is not innate
- [Absurdity](https://colinmcginn.net/absurdity/) - Absurdity Every now and then I am struck by the sheer absurdity of my current situation. I live approximately a mile from the University of Miami, where I used to be a philosophy professor. I drive by there frequently. For twelve years I have had no contact with the people in the philosophy department. I
- [Locke, Hume, and Mystery](https://colinmcginn.net/locke-hume-and-mystery/) - Locke, Hume, and Mystery Both Locke and Hume were mysterians. Locke stressed the limits of knowledge obtainable by the senses, this being the only basis for human knowledge; he thought that solidity, for example, has a nature we cannot know. Matter in general is a mystery for Locke. Hume focused on causation, but he too
- [President and Pope](https://colinmcginn.net/president-and-pope/) - President and Pope The president was seething in his presidential bathroom. This time it wasn’t his political enemies or the fake news media or Robert de Niro. It was the pope. The new pope. The American new pope. The problem was obvious: he was drawing big crowds, he was on TV a lot, he was
- [On Empiricism](https://colinmcginn.net/on-empiricism/) - On Empiricism What if empiricism had never been invented? It wasn’t invented till the seventeenth century: there is no trace of it in Plato and Aristotle, or their followers. It took a long time till philosophers got round to it; and it originated only in England not as a world-wide trend. It came from nowhere.
- [Alone](https://colinmcginn.net/alone/) - Alone I was watching American Idol the other day and Carrie Underwood performed a belting version of the song Alone. I had only faint memories of the song from way back, but it intrigued me as a challenge. It switches from a talky intro to a power ballad chorus. I soon discovered it had been
- [Deficiencies of Trump](https://colinmcginn.net/deficiencies-of-trump/) - Deficiencies of Trump As a qualified psychologist, I would like to state my opinion of Trump’s mental health (for want of a better term). Is he aware of his ethical and intellectual deficiencies (also athletic)? Some may say that he is not—that he is self-deluded. My own theory is that he is keenly aware of
- [Against the Identity Theory of Physical Objects](https://colinmcginn.net/against-the-identity-theory-of-physical-objects/) - Against the Identity Theory of Physical Objects The identity theory of physical objects says that a perceived object is identical to an object described in physics (or perhaps in physiology). For example, the table before me is identical to an object described in physics as consisting of a collection of atoms. Logically, it is like
- [Anatomical Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/anatomical-philosophy/) - Anatomical Philosophy Philosophers have not shown much interest in anatomy, whether they be analytical or phenomenological, linguistic or empirical-scientific. Nor have psychologists, with the exception of Freud (oral, anal, and genital). I propose to rectify this. Of course, anatomists and physiologists have shown such an interest, but they have focused on dissection and functional studies,
- [Justice and Justification](https://colinmcginn.net/justice-and-justification/) - Justice and Justification These two words are very similar; indeed, they both derive from the Latin justus. For “just” the OED gives “morally right or fair” and “well founded” in application to opinion. For “justify” we get “prove to be right or reasonable” and “be a good reason for”. A legal ruling can be just
- [Neuropolitics](https://colinmcginn.net/neuropolitics/) - Neuropolitics I quite like the idea of neuropolitics, despite its air of science fiction. I don’t like the idea of neuroethics or neurophilosophy or even neuropsychology, but I see a point to couching political discourse in neurological language. What is the unit (the ontology) of political discourse? It goes by various names: men, people, human
- [Equality and Humanity](https://colinmcginn.net/equality-and-humanity/) - Equality and Humanity We are told that all men are created equal. This dictum takes some parsing.[1] First, there is the word “men”: surely, we don’t mean to exclude women and children, neither of whom are men. This is easily done: swap the word “men” for “human beings” or “members of the human race”—this is
- [Can We Solve the No-Mind-Body Problem?](https://colinmcginn.net/can-we-solve-the-no-mind-body-problem/) - Can We Solve the No-Mind-Body Problem? We usually ask what gives rise to the mind in the body—what the secret ingredient is. This is the positive mind-body problem. But there is also the negative mind-body problem: what explains the lack of mind. Some things have a mind (consciousness) and some things lack it—what is the
- [ABC Interview](https://colinmcginn.net/abc-interview/) - ABC Interview The interview last night of President Trump by Terry Moran of ABC News was an unbelievable display of petulance, egotism, mendacity, vindictiveness, and rank stupidity. It was an embarrassment to the country. The man’s mind is a slag heap of prejudices, stereotypes, grievances, vague generalities, and petty rivalry. He appears to lack a
- [A Reply about Worlds](https://colinmcginn.net/a-reply-about-worlds/) - This is a reply I wrote to an email from Tom Nagel. It may be helpful even without his prompting email. A Reply My OED gives as the primary meaning of “world” “the earth with all its countries and peoples”, immediately followed by “one’s life and activities”. The first is not philosophically relevant except as
- [The World](https://colinmcginn.net/the-world/) - The World The word “world” is a slippery customer. It seems to have two meanings, ordinary and philosophical. In one use it refers to one’s world-view or world of activity, as in “the tortoise’s world” or “How are things in your world?” Here the word is qualified by “of”—the world of X. There are many
- [Future Trump](https://colinmcginn.net/future-trump/) - Future Trump Trump’s law is this: it is always much worse than you think it will be. I am constantly surprised at how bad it keeps getting. With this in mind let’s contemplate the likely future unless things radically change. First, Trump withdraws support to Ukraine and the Russians take over the country. Unimaginable horrors
- [Bodily Identity](https://colinmcginn.net/bodily-identity/) - Bodily Identity Suppose you are interested in the nature of bodily survival: under what conditions does a body survive into the future? Your initial theory is that identity through time is a necessary and sufficient condition: the body then must be numerically identical to the body now. This is generally how it is and you
- [The Eternal City](https://colinmcginn.net/the-eternal-city/) - The Eternal City Chapter 39 of Catch-22, “The Eternal City”, is the heart of the novel, though it stands out like an amputated thumb. It is stylistically quite unlike the rest of this five-hundred-page work. There is no humor in it. It is bleak to the point of pugilism: it pulverizes the reader. Yossarian is
- [Catch America](https://colinmcginn.net/catch-america/) - Catch America The reaction to Catch-22 constitutes an interesting sequel to the book itself. Ostensibly about World War II, it took off during the Vietnam war. It inaugurates the Sixties in America. Among the more perceptive critics, we find Robert Brustein writing in the New Republic (a magazine for which I used to write). He
- [Philosophy Naturalized](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-naturalized/) - Philosophy Naturalized Quine’s famous paper “Epistemology Naturalized” advocates handing epistemology over to the psychologists. No more traditional a priori epistemology; let’s have empirical science instead. Cognitive science replaces conceptual analysis—that sort of thing. This will put an end to endless irresoluble philosophical disputes and set epistemology on the path to academic respectability (you know the
- [Catch 22](https://colinmcginn.net/catch-22/) - Catch 22 I have been reading Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, published in 1961, a book I have long wanted to read. It is better than I expected, less time worn, more trenchant (and funny). As it happens, I once met Heller at a party in New York, sometime in the 1990s. He was a likeable
- [America and Americans](https://colinmcginn.net/america-and-americans/) - America and Americans What do you get if you remove America (the idea) from America (the place]? What if you remove American values, enshrined in the Constitution, from American society? Equality, free speech, free belief, the rule of law—what if you take all that away? The obvious answer is Americans—those individual people. But what makes
- [A Scary Thought](https://colinmcginn.net/a-scary-thought/) - A Scary Thought A scary thought crept into my head yesterday: What if MS-13 had supported Trump all along? What if they had praised and flattered him, called him their leader, wore MAGA hats? What if they had joined forces with the rioters on January 6th? What would be his attitude now? I really don’t
- [Anger and Morality](https://colinmcginn.net/anger-and-morality/) - Anger and Morality Anger is inseparable from morality: we are naturally angry at what is unjust, unfair, blameworthy, evil. Jesus was angry at the money lenders and pharisees. There is no point in denying it. Emotivism used to say that moral judgement is all about boo and hurrah, but it should have said that moral
- [1000 Essays](https://colinmcginn.net/1000-essays/) - 1000 Essays I was just re-reading Simon Blackburn’s intelligent and sympathetic review of my book Philosophical Provocations: 55 Short Essays (2017) in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2018). He praises the book highly, recommending it as a good text for a graduate class. The book contains essays written in the style of the essays published on
- [Counterfactual Music](https://colinmcginn.net/counterfactual-music/) - Counterfactual Music I was discussing my musical history the other day and I reported that in my childhood I didn’t like any of the music I heard on the radio and watched on TV. In fact, I positively disliked it. This was the era of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Pat Boone, Vera Lynne,
- [Meetings](https://colinmcginn.net/meetings/) - Meetings Larry David’s “My Dinner with Adolf” brings up an important point. Bill Maher met Donald Trump for dinner at the White House: was he wrong to do so? The meeting was justified by invoking the principle that it is a good idea to meet with people with whom you disagree. Surely, we should be
- [Consciousness, Language, and Mystery](https://colinmcginn.net/consciousness-language-and-mystery/) - Consciousness, Language, and Mystery The human intellect is confronted by two great mysteries: the mystery of consciousness and the mystery of language.[1] I am not here concerned to argue for the mysterian position in either area, still less to try to remove the mystery; my aim is to compare the two mysteries. I am engaged
- [Is the Problem of Consciousness Hard?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-the-problem-of-consciousness-hard/) - Is the Problem of Consciousness Hard? I will suggest that in one sense it is and in another sense it isn’t. We have heard it said that consciousness is very hard, but here I want to emphasize the positive—it isn’t really that hard.[1] The two senses may be described as “objective” and “subjective” (or “subject-relative”).
- [Gang Deportations](https://colinmcginn.net/gang-deportations/) - Gang Deportations So far, the deportations to El Salvador have scooped up only Latino men (so far as we know). No women gang members or affiliates thereof have been similarly deported, or non-Latino gang members. But what about criminal gangs of other ethnicities and nationalities? Does the current administration intend to deport female (suspected) criminals
- [Philosophy at the University](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-at-the-university/) - Philosophy at the University We are depressingly familiar with the argument that philosophy should not be taught in universities because it has no economic payoff. No goods and services result from it. You can’t make an honest living from it. We shouldn’t use public resources to finance such a useless study. By all means pursue
- [How to Study Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/how-to-study-philosophy/) - How to Study Philosophy I have two proposals for the curriculum, which I believe would have salutary effects. The first is that philosophy should be studied only after studying a science, or concurrently with studying a science. Oxford has no pure philosophy degree; you have to study it with another subject, generally scientific—economics (also politics),
- [Crime and Punishment](https://colinmcginn.net/crime-and-punishment/) - Crime and Punishment I keep on hearing the same refrain from people on the left and the right: deport criminals! Send them back here they came from! The motive is clearly to protect law-abiding citizens from further crimes, and that is not a silly idea. Some are even extending this policy to “homegrown” criminals. But
- [Table Tennis Reinvented](https://colinmcginn.net/table-tennis-reinvented/) - Table Tennis Reinvented I am able to report on the results of changing the service rules. I drew chalk lines on a regular table tennis table, one line twelve inches from the end of the table, the other twenty-four inches. This produced two possible service areas, one smaller than the other. I played with two
- [Classical Conditioning](https://colinmcginn.net/classical-conditioning/) - Classical Conditioning There is something puzzling and not quite believable about Pavlov and his dogs. The dogs instinctively salivate to the sight and smell of food—this is an inborn reflex reaction. The claim is that if you sound a bell a number of times at the same time as presenting food you will get the
- [Causality and Perception](https://colinmcginn.net/causality-and-perception/) - Causality and Perception The causal theory of perception states that it is necessary condition of perceiving an object that the object causes the perception of it. The theory is very plausible, given the counterexamples to a theory without such a causal condition. If the object is causally cut off from the sense impression, we get
- [Bill Maher and Donald Trump](https://colinmcginn.net/bill-maher-and-donald-trump/) - Bill Maher and Donald Trump Bill Maher gave an unexpected report of his dinner with Donald Trump. The president, according to the comedian, was gracious, warm, undogmatic, and quite different from the person we see all the time on television. Bill seemed to think the real Donald was the one he had dinner with not
- [Skepticism and the Mind-Body Problem](https://colinmcginn.net/skepticism-and-the-mind-body-problem/) - Skepticism and the Mind-Body Problem It is sometimes illuminating to compare disparate areas of philosophy in order to find shared patterns, e.g., ethics and mathematics. I will do the same with respect to skepticism and the mind-body problem. These two problems have a similar structure and arise from similar origins, surprising as that may seem.
- [On Knowledge, Consciousness, and Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/on-knowledge-consciousness-and-philosophy/) - On Knowledge, Consciousness, and Philosophy Some philosophers have maintained that the proper subject of philosophy is thought. The idea is not wide of the mark (better than the thesis that philosophy is about language), but it is surely a mischaracterization. For it can hardly be true that philosophy is concerned with false thought, or incoherent
- [Immigration and Deportation](https://colinmcginn.net/immigration-and-deportation/) - Immigration and Deportation When the European settlers arrived on the American continent four hundred years ago, they did not enter the country legally. The native inhabitants did not give them permission to enter or to stay permanently. I don’t know if the natives had any laws prohibiting entry unless it was formally granted; they may
- [A Problem About Mysteries](https://colinmcginn.net/a-problem-about-mysteries/) - A Problem About Mysteries What is the natural history of mystery? When did human beings first feel a sense of mystery, and what mystery came first? We don’t know, but presumably there is a fact of the matter. Is there a logical order here—with mysteries ranked according to their subject matter? So, consider a time
- [American Intelligence](https://colinmcginn.net/american-intelligence/) - American Intelligence America is not a very intelligent country. I take it this does not need much arguing. The question is why. I think it is because America is young. The intelligence of a country does not arrive overnight; it takes centuries, millennia. It is hard won, a struggle. It is passed down the generations—not
- [Evil and Plasticity](https://colinmcginn.net/evil-and-plasticity/) - Evil and Plasticity It used to be held, with some vehemence, that what is bad or evil in human behavior is derived from our “animal nature”: aggression, uncontrolled sexuality, greed, lack of personal hygiene. We must not give in to our animal tendencies; we must cultivate something called “civilization”. We must “rise above” animal instinct
- [Ducks](https://colinmcginn.net/ducks/) - Ducks When I first started skateboarding in December 2024, I used to see a mother duck and her ducklings every day. There were seven of them, evidently just born. With the passing weeks they grew and grew. The mother clearly recognized me as time went by and became less afraid for her family. I always
- [Facts](https://colinmcginn.net/facts-2/) - Facts In 2012 the University of Miami accused me of failure to report a romantic relationship. It is true that I did not report a romantic relationship, and it is also true that failure so to report is against the rules. But I was not having a romantic relationship under any normal definition, so there
- [Epistemic Necessity and the Self](https://colinmcginn.net/epistemic-necessity-and-the-self/) - Epistemic Necessity and the Self Consider the two statements, “This table necessarily exists” and “I necessarily exist”, where “necessarily” is construed epistemically (“I could not be wrong that”). The former is clearly false, the latter apparently true. Why is the former false? It is false because I could be hallucinating or dreaming or otherwise under
- [On Serving](https://colinmcginn.net/on-serving/) - On Serving In tennis the serve has gone through an evolution. In the early days the serve was not a weapon, just a way to start the point. The players were English aristocrats at country houses not crack athletes. The service area was designed to allow the server to have enough space to get the
- [Again, Supervenience](https://colinmcginn.net/again-supervenience/) - Again, Supervenience There is a well-known problem with physicalism: the problem of defining it. Briefly: do we mean the mind is reducible to the brain as now understood, or do we mean the mind is reducible to the brain as it may be understood in the future? Do we mean current actual neuroscience or do
- [Freedom and Tariffs](https://colinmcginn.net/freedom-and-tariffs/) - Freedom and Tariffs Tariffs raise prices on imported goods, as importers pass on costs to consumers. This decreases demand, by the basic laws of economics. It may reduce it to zero. This means that consumers don’t buy what they would have bought if it were not for tariffs. They would prefer to buy what they
- [Due Process](https://colinmcginn.net/due-process/) - Due Process The Fifth Amendment of the United States constitution states: “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” This condition derives from the Magna Carta, clause 39, of 1354. Due process of law requires, at a minimum, notice of alleged offence, a proper hearing, and a neutral
- [Convergence, Truth, and History](https://colinmcginn.net/convergence-truth-and-history/) - Convergence, Truth, and History We tend to converge on the truth. Independent investigators often arrive at the same truth because it is the truth. If investigators are not independent, their coinciding beliefs may well be explained by influence not truth: they have the same beliefs because of interpersonal contact. Convergence of belief in independent investigators
- [Jim and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/jim-and-me/) - Jim and Me I was over at the tennis wall at the Biltmore yesterday, as I frequently am. My pal Jim was there, a retired tennis pro. He told me he had just turned 78 and was working on hitting his forehand from shoulder height; he liked to learn new things. He demonstrated the technique
- [Kings and Queens](https://colinmcginn.net/kings-and-queens/) - Kings and Queens The President was in his bathroom fantasizing about torturing his political enemies. They clearly deserved it. It was a habit of his; he meant no harm by it (or not much). He stood up and his ample buttocks were reflected in the gold plate of his Presidential toilet. He gazed at his
- [Am I an Analytical Philosopher?](https://colinmcginn.net/am-i-an-analytical-philosopher/) - Am I an Analytical Philosopher? The question is not easy to answer. On the one hand, I have written extensively on topics not usually covered in the analytic tradition typified by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Moore, and their successors—disgust, good and evil in literature, sport, mind manipulation, Shakespeare, dreams, movies, the hand. I happen to have
- [An Audacious Solution to the Mind-Math Problem](https://colinmcginn.net/an-audacious-solution-to-the-mind-math-problem/) - An Audacious Solution to the Mind-Math Problem The mind-math problem is the problem of explaining how the mind and mathematical reality manage to come together: how do numbers and geometric figures get to be apprehended by the mind? Suppose we adopt a Platonic view of mathematical reality—it consists of abstract objects, existing outside space and
- [Impersonating Trump](https://colinmcginn.net/impersonating-trump/) - Impersonating Trump Impersonating Trump has become a growth industry. I’d like to see a Trump AI robot. But have you noticed that Trump officials and followers are beginning to impersonate him—his bluster, his insults, his nastiness? I wonder how much his personality and style have seeped into the culture—here and abroad. One Donald Trump is
- [Action and Trying](https://colinmcginn.net/action-and-trying/) - Action and Trying Davidson once memorably said, “We never do more than move our bodies; the rest is up to nature”. This aphorism has the sound of an illuminating truism, but does it stand up to critical examination? Suppose you are suffering from paralysis, total or partial, following an accident. Your physiotherapist asks you to
- [Good Intentions](https://colinmcginn.net/good-intentions/) - Good Intentions I was in my local supermarket, Milams, yesterday, doing my weekly food shopping—not a place of moral drama, you might think. Only one checkout line was open, I was dismayed to discover; a passing supervisor (big, black, vaguely professorial) observed my distress and suggested I take the empty express line (10 items or
- [Barbados](https://colinmcginn.net/barbados/) - Barbados I am seriously thinking about moving to Barbados. The political situation in this country has become intolerable and has been for a while (I’m thinking of the political situation in American academic philosophy, but national politics is pretty bad too). Barbados is a British protectorate, not American, so you can get away from that
- [The President](https://colinmcginn.net/the-president/) - The President The president wants to put on a TV show about deporting criminals. He rounds up a bunch of guys capable of acting the part of deportable criminals. He has them filmed and broadcasts the footage. It makes for great TV. There would be a problem if he insisted on due process for this
- [Degrees of Mind and Body](https://colinmcginn.net/degrees-of-mind-and-body/) - Degrees of Mind and Body We are accustomed to a sharp and rigid distinction between mind and body, between “the mental” and “the physical”. We also tend to think that these are absolute concepts: something is either one or the other with no degrees. One thing can’t be more mental than another, or more physical.
- [3/20](https://colinmcginn.net/3-20/) - 3/20 I find my mind going back to 9/11 a lot. That state of mind is rising up in me again (does it ever really leave?). It’s a mixture of moral outrage, nausea, despair, fear, and anger. It is exceedingly unpleasant. What is causing it? The current political situation, of course. The planes flying into
- [Miami and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/miami-and-me/) - Miami and Me When I moved to the University of Miami in 2006 the plan was to improve the standing of the philosophy department. The hope was to “do a Rutgers”, where I had worked for the previous sixteen years. Peter Klein, the chief architect of Rutgers’ success, had been approached by the university to
- [A Causal Argument for Physicalism](https://colinmcginn.net/a-causal-argument-for-physicalism/) - A Causal Argument for Physicalism Good arguments have been given to show that mental states are not reducible to physical states of the brain (neural transmissions etc.); and intuitively they don’t seem like brain states. Thus, some degree of dualism obtains, of one sort or another. But no one ever argues that mental causation is,
- [Deportation](https://colinmcginn.net/deportation/) - Deportation I keep hearing people say that deporting violent criminals from other countries is a good idea that we should all accept. It is not, and the reasons are obvious. There are two questions: should we deport criminals already convicted and serving time, and should we deport criminals not yet convicted but with a history
- [Errors of Philosophers](https://colinmcginn.net/errors-of-philosophers/) - Errors of Philosophers I asked myself if there are any errors philosophers regularly commit, through the centuries and still today. This would be useful information to have. I came up with three. The first is that they seldom if ever acknowledge that positions they oppose generally have things to be said in their favor; they
- [Because](https://colinmcginn.net/because/) - Because Because is an interesting word. According to the Shorter OED, it was originally two words by and cause, after the old French par cause de (by reason of). To say “p because q” is to say “p by cause q”, where “cause” means “reason”. The Concise OED gives “for the reason that; since”. Roget’s
- [A New Metaphysics](https://colinmcginn.net/a-new-metaphysics/) - A New Metaphysics I am about to propose a new metaphysics—a new metaphysical system. I say “new” with some trepidation, there being nothing new under the sun; but I am confident that nothing like this has ever been formulated before, or not in any tradition with which I am familiar—though there are faint echoes of
- [Thugs](https://colinmcginn.net/thugs/) - Thugs I have noticed an increase in thuggery from the Trump gang. He of course is a thug in the mafia mold (though physically cowardly). They all want to be tough guys. The aim is to instill fear. This is the next stage in installing a dictator. No one in power is standing up to
- [Consciousness and the Fetus](https://colinmcginn.net/consciousness-and-the-fetus/) - Consciousness and the Fetus The brain grows gradually in the fetus, going through various stages of development. This development is now well mapped out embryologically. But nothing is known about the inner consciousness that accompanies this brain growth. It is reasonable to believe that it goes from simple to complex, primitive to sophisticated—how could it
- [Causal and Logical Relations](https://colinmcginn.net/causal-and-logical-relations/) - Causal and Logical Relations Is this an untenable dualism? Are the two relations really that distinct? Isn’t one a special case of the other? The OED defines “cause” as “a person or thing that gives rise to an action, phenomenon, or condition” and “reasonable grounds for a belief or action” (notice it doesn’t say “event”).
- [Ringo and the Philosophers](https://colinmcginn.net/ringo-and-the-philosophers/) - Ringo and the Philosophers I was watching a TV special featuring Ringo Starr. He sang and played the drums a bit. It was quite nice in a low-key kind of way. My constant thought was: why is Ringo so limited? He’s a good drummer, but why is his technique so primitive (I’ve never heard him
- [Perception and Propositions](https://colinmcginn.net/perception-and-propositions/) - Perception and Propositions In order to have a theory of the origins of knowledge one needs an account of the origins of the proposition, i.e., propositional thought. How do we come to grasp propositions? It is notable that empiricists don’t venture an answer; they stick to the origins of concepts (“ideas”). They vaguely suppose that
- [Third Best Philosopher Ever](https://colinmcginn.net/third-best-philosopher-ever/) - Third Best Philosopher Ever I have suggested, tentatively, that Bertrand Russell is the second-best philosopher ever, but it would be nice to say who gets the bronze medal. Reflecting more on my admiration of Russell, I came to a melancholy conclusion: the only philosophical work of his that I really like is The Problems of
- [American Shrinkage](https://colinmcginn.net/american-shrinkage/) - American Shrinkage The American shield is down, Europe is on its own, isolationism is back, protectionism is preferred, xenophobia is rampant, paranoia prevails. This is the new world order under Trump. Europe will have to save Ukraine, if anything can. Canada hates America. France, Germany, and Great Britain have had it with the American government.
- [Quitting](https://colinmcginn.net/quitting/) - Quitting Ken Levy’s case reminds me of my own case of twelve years ago. I resigned from the university I worked at because I did not want to spend thousands of dollars and a lot of time engaged in a legal action to keep my job in a place I no longer wanted to work.
- [Intelligence and Politics](https://colinmcginn.net/intelligence-and-politics/) - Intelligence and Politics Have you noticed how bad people are at talking about politics? Of course you have. Why? Is it because they are riddled with prejudice, brainwashed, of low IQ, uneducated, mentally lazy? I don’t think so; I think it’s because politics is hard. It’s just so complicated, so all-encompassing, so full of uncertainty.
- [Empathy and Racism](https://colinmcginn.net/empathy-and-racism/) - Empathy and Racism I want to discuss a sensitive topic: the cause(s) of racism. I will not discuss all aspects of what is doubtless a complex phenomenon, especially virulent, violent, institutional racism; I will discuss a specific universal non-malicious cause of racism. And by racism I will mean lack of empathy for people of races
- [How Many Mind-Body Problems?](https://colinmcginn.net/how-many-mind-body-problems/) - How Many Mind-Body Problems? We tend to speak in the singular about the mind-body problem: the mind-body problem. But is that realistic? Couldn’t there be many mind-body problems depending on what aspect of the mind we are considering? They may not present the same problem or have the same solution. How many life-matter problems are
- [A Trump Ukraine](https://colinmcginn.net/a-trump-ukraine/) - A Trump Ukraine I have come to a disturbing conclusion: Trump actively wants Ukraine to lose the war with Russia. What triggered this realization was the cessation of intelligence-sharing with Ukraine. This cannot be justified in terms of expense, as the cessation of arms can. It seems gratuitous—the kind of thing you would do if
- [Cult Politics](https://colinmcginn.net/cult-politics/) - Cult Politics Last night’s State of the Union was pure cult: Trump spouted a stream of lies, crazy fantasies, and groundless grievances while his Republican supporters cheered, chanted, and became teary-eyed. They would have wildly applauded anything he said no matter how ludicrous. They seemed happy in their delusions. Vance and Johnson gave whole-body Nazi
- [Cold War Over](https://colinmcginn.net/cold-war-over/) - Cold War Over The Cold War went on for, oh, 75 years, give or take. Now it’s over. How did this miracle happen? Trump brought Putin to the negotiating table—he used diplomacy. He achieved this feat by not criticizing Putin. Yes, there were territorial concessions: Trump gave him Ukraine and any other chunk of Europe
- [Future of Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/future-of-philosophy/) - Future of Philosophy The future of philosophy in America looks dismal. I am not going to sugar-coat it. The root cause is job scarcity—a matter of supply and demand. There are very few jobs for too many people and it’s not going to change any time soon (probably never). Not many new people can get
- [Consequences](https://colinmcginn.net/consequences/) - Consequences Is it too much of an exaggeration to say that last Friday’s berating and insulting of the prime minister of Ukraine by the president and vice-president of the United States marked the end of the Cold War? The USA and Russia are no longer at loggerheads, no longer foes, but rather in harmony with
- [Mental Ontology](https://colinmcginn.net/mental-ontology/) - Mental Ontology A certain way of conceiving mental ontology has become entrenched: there are mental tokens and mental types, and token identity does not entail type identity. In other terminology, there are mental particulars and mental properties, and the former may be identical with physical particulars in the brain without there being an identity of
- [Trump Psychology](https://colinmcginn.net/trump-psychology-2/) - Trump Psychology Recent events support the following conjecture: the whole thing arises from the fact that Trump thinks (correctly) that European leaders dislike and despise him, while be believes, falsely, that the dictators of the world like and admire him. He also envies Zelensky’s ability to draw standing ovations. The only reason he stays in
- [Mind, Brain, and Time](https://colinmcginn.net/mind-brain-and-time/) - Brain, Mind, and Time Thoughts (and other mental events) occur in time and take time. Transitions between thoughts, as in logical reasoning, are temporally extended processes. Some people think more quickly than others. There is such a thing as the speed of thought, in principle measurable. Mental velocity is real. The brain also operates in
- [Is America a Cult?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-america-a-cult/) - Is America a Cult? America has been home to a great many cults, large and small, more so than other countries. It seems prone to them—receptive, welcoming. It is generally a religious country and cults are religious in nature (though not necessarily supernatural-theist). Currently, we have the cult of Trump; before that we had the
- [Genius Project](https://colinmcginn.net/genius-project/) - Genius Project Some years ago, I came up with the idea of the Genius Project (like the Manhattan Project). This was prompted by a desire to help graduate students in the job market—to make them stand out from others (having publications being neither necessary nor sufficient). But the idea can be applied to developing intellectual
- [Second-Best Philosopher Ever](https://colinmcginn.net/second-best-philosopher-ever/) - Second-Best Philosopher Ever Skipping preliminaries, I am going immediately to nominate Bertrand Russell. It might be thought that he can be ruled out by the principle that later philosophers have absorbed his work and so surpass him trivially. That would certainly be true of his contemporaries and predecessors, but Russell wrote so much that it
- [Descriptions and Non-Existence](https://colinmcginn.net/descriptions-and-non-existence/) - Descriptions and Non-Existence Semantics would be easier if there was no such thing as non-existence (if non-existence didn’t exist). Then we could simply assign an existing reference to any referential-looking term. We wouldn’t have the problem of empty terms: all meaning would be explicable by means of existing entities. We would have a fully denotational
- [Expressions of Belief and Desire](https://colinmcginn.net/expression-of-belief-and-desire/) - Expressions of Belief and Desire Darwin investigates the expression of emotion, leaving out thought. He also says nothing directly about belief and desire, but we can attempt to fill that gap. Are there characteristic expressions of belief, disbelief, desire, and lack of desire (antipathy)? We can think of emotional expressions as the extended psychological phenotype
- [Dumbocracy](https://colinmcginn.net/dumbocracy/) - Dumbocracy It’s official, we are now living in a dumbocracy (OED “government by the dumbest”). We used to live in a democracy, but (as Plato predicted) democracy has an inherent tendency to degenerate into dumbocratic rule. The causes are somewhat mysterious (political scientists are baffled) but it is marked by the rise of ignorance, stupidity,
- [Expressing Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/expressing-mind/) - Expressing Mind In The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals Darwin goes into great (indeed excruciating) detail about the ways emotions are expressed in the body—the face, the voice, the hands, the posture. He leaves no doubt that animals and man express their emotions in characteristic bodily configurations, particularly facial expressions. But he never
- [Anger](https://colinmcginn.net/anger/) - Anger I read with interest Darwin’s discussion of anger in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (I am very familiar with that emotion, unfortunately). His discusses in detail the expression of anger in bodily posture, hand gestures, and the baring of the teeth. It made me think of Melville’s Billy Budd, a
- [Animal Respect](https://colinmcginn.net/animal-respect/) - Animal Respect The modern animal rights movement is now over half a century old. Someone should write a history of it. I will venture some alternative history. I was in on it from the beginning, but not at the very beginning. That can be traced to the book Animals, Men, and Morals, edited by John
- [Am I a Naturalist?](https://colinmcginn.net/am-i-a-naturalist/) - Am I a Naturalist? There comes a point in every philosopher’s life when he or she asks himself or herself what kind of philosopher she or he (or possibly it) is. So, what kind of philosopher am I? Heretofore, I would have described myself as a rationalist realist mysterian evolutionist—quite a mouthful. But now I
- [Integrity and Intelligence](https://colinmcginn.net/integrity-and-intelligence/) - Integrity and Intelligence Integrity and intelligence are not givens but choices. They are acts of will as well as brain power. They require effort, sometimes courage. Their opposites—stupidity and malice (or weakness)—have their attractions. We are witnessing their erosion, indeed gleeful abandonment. I am not just referring to the current political era but to a
- [The London Review of Books and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/the-london-review-of-books-and-me/) - The London Review of Books and Me I used to write regularly for the London Review of Books, beginning in 1985 with a piece on Donald Davidson. At that time Karl Miller was the editor (I used to spot him around UCL where we both then worked). I liked Karl (also his brother-in-law Jonathan Miller—no
- [The New York Times and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/the-new-york-times-and-me/) - The New York Times and Me I used to write for the New York Times. It started in 1999 when they asked me to review three books on AI. They printed this review on the front page of the Book Review section and I received a lot of correspondence about it. This was quickly followed
- [On the Multiplicity of Species](https://colinmcginn.net/on-the-multiplicity-of-species/) - On the Multiplicity of Species We can explain the origin of species: where they came from and how (other species by mutation and natural selection). We can explain the diversity of species: how and why they differ from each other (adaptation to different environments). We can explain the complexity of species (progressive evolution with increasing
- [A Proof of Man's Apish Origins](https://colinmcginn.net/a-proof-of-mans-apish-origins/) - A Proof of Man’s Apish Origins For the purposes of this proof, I will assume that general Creationism is false: animals evolved over billions of years by mutation and natural selection. The question at issue is how to establish that the species Homo sapiens evolved from an apelike ancestor.[1] It is not that I think
- [An Essay Concerning Worm Understanding](https://colinmcginn.net/an-essay-concerning-worm-understanding/) - An Essay Concerning Worm Understanding Your average worm has quite a bit of worm know-how. It knows how to dig a burrow of the right width, depth, and angle; it knows how to plug up the mouth of the burrow with leaves of various shapes and sizes; it knows how to produce castings of the
- [Transitional Trump](https://colinmcginn.net/transitional-trump/) - Transitional Trump Trump has finally made the transition (he’s a “trans”): from falsehood to nonsense. He has long been unconstrained by truth and tells whopping lies all the time. We are accustomed to that. But now he has gone a stage further: he has descended into nonsense (very Lewis Carroll). He is no longer constrained
- [Another Skateboarding Story](https://colinmcginn.net/another-skateboarding-story/) - Another Skateboarding Story There I was, happily skateboarding. But this time I had company: a little girl was out on her little scooter. She waved to me; I waved back. Her father was in the driveway, cleaning up leaves. Soon she was scootering next to me and we were having a bit of a race.
- [Authoritarian Future](https://colinmcginn.net/authoritarian-future/) - Authoritarian Future What proportion of people who voted for Trump would support his overthrow of electoral democracy in his favor? Nearly all. The evidence is overwhelming. That way they get what they want without the inconvenience of democracy. Democracy is an instrumental value not an intrinsic value, so they support it only when it gives
- [Education and Error](https://colinmcginn.net/education-and-error/) - Education and Error In education we seek to impart knowledge to the student. The logic of the process is additive: we add to the student’s stock of knowledge. But this has not always been the way education has been conceived: sometimes the aim is to subtract something—not knowledge, to be sure, but error. That was
- [Democrats and Republicans](https://colinmcginn.net/democrats-and-republicans/) - Democrats and Republicans Do you want to hear what’s wrong with contemporary party politics in America? Do you want to know what the root of the problem is? I am going to tell you—and you won’t like it. The Republican party is the party of winning and success. The Democratic party is the party of
- [Darwin's Worms](https://colinmcginn.net/darwins-worms/) - Darwin’s Worms I happen to be reading Charles Darwin’s The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms. I’ve already read The Origin of Species, The Voyage of the Beagle, and The Descent of Man—all excellent books—but I thought it would be nice to round out my Darwin reading with this lesser-known work. It’s
- [Are the Laws of Psychology Necessary?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-the-laws-of-psychology-necessary/) - Are the Laws of psychology Necessary? There are laws of physics and laws of psychology, but are these laws of the same kind? Of course, they are about different things, but do they have the same modal status? Are they both nomologically necessary? The laws of physics are: they are universal and unalterable by human
- [TRUMP](https://colinmcginn.net/trump/) - TRUMP T (Tyrannical) R (Ridiculous) U (Ugly) M (Moronic) P (Psychopathic)
- [Conceptual Analysis Mathematized](https://colinmcginn.net/conceptual-analysis-mathematized/) - Conceptual Analysis Mathematized Frege mathematized meaning by invoking the concept of a function, the central concept in modern mathematics. Concepts are conceived as functions from objects to truth-values, etc. This enables Frege to give a systematic rigorous account of the workings of language, modelled on mathematical notation. I propose to do the same for conceptual
- [Evil Opaque](https://colinmcginn.net/evil-opaque/) - Evil Opaque There is an interesting epistemic asymmetry between good and evil: you can be doing evil and not know it, but you can’t be doing good and not know it. You can think you are doing good and really be doing evil, but you can’t think you are doing evil and really be doing
- [Analysis and Mathematics](https://colinmcginn.net/analysis-and-mathematics/) - Analysis and Mathematics Mathematics is an analytical discipline (a branch of it is even called Analysis). It analyzes shapes (geometry), numbers (arithmetic), populations (statistics), motion (calculus), logical relations (mathematical logic), chance (probability theory), games (game theory). The OED gives us two definitions of “analysis”: “a detailed examination of something in order to explain or interpret
- [Trump Squared](https://colinmcginn.net/trump-squared/) - Trump Squared I don’t think Trump is going far enough in his immigration policies. He wants all the illegal migrant criminals out—good, we don’t want criminals in our midst. No criminal, no crime. But the same argument applies to allcriminals—we want them gone, so they won’t commit crimes on us. We could send them all
- [A Proof of Simulation](https://colinmcginn.net/a-proof-of-simulation/) - A Proof of Simulation I have come to the conclusion that we are living in a simulation. We have the proof to hand: a character named Donald J. Trump has become president of the United States—twice. It is impossible to believe; and what is impossible cannot be true—therefore, it is not true. But all the
- [A Puzzle Regarding Color](https://colinmcginn.net/a-puzzle-regarding-color/) - A Puzzle Regarding Color Color has long intrigued philosophers and others. Is it objective or subjective, or something in between? Is an inverted spectrum possible? What is the nature of logical truths about color? I will raise a different question: do things have the colors they have contingently or necessarily? Is color arbitrary or grounded
- [Medical Update](https://colinmcginn.net/medical-update/) - Medical Update I was driving over to Eddy’s today for a game of tennis. I had just been reading my friend Oliver Sacks’ wonderfully revealing Letters (2024) and had reached nearly the end when cancer had invaded his body. It began as a small melanoma in his right eye, depriving him of some vision in
- [Abstract (and Other) Objects](https://colinmcginn.net/abstract-and-other-objects/) - Abstract (and Other) Objects I propose to discuss an incredibly difficult question and to suggest an incredible answer to it—an answer that only ineluctable logic could recommend to our modern sensibility. It concerns the threefold distinction between the physical, the mental, and the abstract. Let’s first try to get the abstract in our sights (this
- [Explaining Trump](https://colinmcginn.net/explaining-trump/) - Explaining Trump I think I have finally solved the mystery of Trump—the mystery of his popularity. I used to think it was his overt racism: what else could it be? But that was just one manifestation of his underlying appeal. The real reason is that he is a rich asshole, and is perceived as such. He
- [How Not to Talk Garbage](https://colinmcginn.net/how-not-to-talk-garbage/) - How Not to Talk Garbage There is a new type of speech act in the marketplace—the talking of garbage. Philosophers and others have identified several species of defective speech act: falsehood, lies, nonsense, bullshit, hate speech, etc. Each of these needs careful study, and has received it. But speech garbage is in a class of
- [Brain Design and the Mind-Body Problem](https://colinmcginn.net/brain-design-and-the-mind-body-problem/) - Brain Design and the Mind-Body Problem If you look at any organ of an animal body, you will find two things: a function for the organ and a design suited to that function. The organ’s design enables it to perform its function. That’s how nature works and it is hard to see how it could
- [Book Reviews](https://colinmcginn.net/book-reviews-2/) - Book Reviews I used to write a lot of book reviews—something like 80 of them over a 35-year period. I was known for it. I reviewed in all the best places. You might suppose I must have enjoyed doing it. I did not. It was hard work and not in a particularly good way. You
- [How Well Understood is Motion?](https://colinmcginn.net/how-well-understood-is-motion/) - How Well Understood is Motion? Not very. It seems to be generally assumed that we have motion under intellectual control, even if once it was quite a mystery. Physics has tamed it. Consciousness is still untamed, it is agreed, but motion is a bright spot in our understanding of nature. But I think the truth
- [The New York Review of Books and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/the-new-york-review-of-books-and-me/) - The New York Review of Books and Me When Robert Silvers was the editor of the NYRB I wrote regularly for them. I must have written a dozen pieces for the magazine over a ten-year period. If anything, I felt over-employed by them. I got on well with Bob and looked forward to his many
- [Skateboard Update](https://colinmcginn.net/skateboard-update/) - Skateboard Update I have been skateboarding for 45 days, doing it nearly every day for about half an hour (following tennis practice). I now own three boards. I can say that I’ve got the hang of it. The cruising and steering part isn’t that difficult, but the push-off part takes some work. You have to
- [Americans Again](https://colinmcginn.net/americans-again/) - Americans Again Americans are idiots and psychopaths (see American Idiot by Green Day and American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis). It’s obvious and indisputable. The only good American is an anti-American. You know it’s true (the rest of the world certainly does). Trump is just another iteration of the same pathology: he talks rubbish, he
- [Evolution of Reflexes](https://colinmcginn.net/evolution-of-reflexes/) - Evolution of Reflexes The reflex was one of the best ideas that Evolution ever had (second perhaps to articulated bodies). What could be better than an unlearned rapid response action to a threatening stimulus? It’s like having a lightning-fast gunslinger ready to get the organism out of trouble. You don’t have to wait ten minutes
- [Stimulus-Response Science](https://colinmcginn.net/stimulus-response-science/) - Stimulus-Response Science Stimulus-response psychology has been out of fashion and favor for a long time now, not without reason. It is associated with behaviorism, physicalism, and conditioning theories of learning. We are not just physical mechanisms triggered into reflex behavior by outside stimuli! Indeed not: we are full of “intervening variables”, cognitive structures, streams of
- [Digital Weapons](https://colinmcginn.net/digital-weapons/) - Digital Weapons Suppose the Germans at the time of the Second World War were secretly working on a new weapon with lethal potential. The plan was to manufacture small handheld devices that could be distributed to enemy populations (how they weren’t sure). German psychologists and brain scientists had discovered that a certain kind of propaganda
- [Blog Profile](https://colinmcginn.net/blog-profile/) - Blog Profile I thought readers of this blog might be interested in its readership; at any rate, I’m going to tell you. My website gives me a top ten of readers by country, with an indication of relative volume. The top two are always the same but the other eight vary from week to week
- [Spock Logic](https://colinmcginn.net/spock-logic/) - Spock Logic It is quite obvious that Spock doesn’t know any logic. He clearly knows a lot of science, but he is ignorant of the science of logic. Why do I say this? Two things: (a) he doesn’t know what “logic” means, and (b) he never refers to anything in the logical canon. He is
- [2025 Intentions](https://colinmcginn.net/2025-intentions/) - 2025 Intentions I don’t make New Years Resolutions (a pitiful concept) but I do intend to do certain things going forward. The main one is to go on hating—hating evil, corruption, and stupidity. I invite you to join me. This won’t be easy: I am not by nature a good hater. Hating is unpleasant, it’s
- [Chemistry](https://colinmcginn.net/chemistry/) - Chemistry I used to love chemistry. It was my first intellectual interest. I was ten. It was my gateway science. Why, I don’t remember; it might have had to do with Dr. Dolittle. I persuaded my parents to equip me with a chemistry laboratory one Christmas. I selected the apparatus and chemical samples from a
- [Limits of Intelligence](https://colinmcginn.net/limits-of-intelligence/) - Limits of Intelligence Does intelligence have limits? What might these be? Where do we humans stand on the intelligence scale? I will discuss these questions by reference to a Star Trek episode and a well-known philosophical contention involving bats. Don’t expect anything too definitive; these questions are very difficult (we may not have the intelligence
- [A Puzzle in Zoology](https://colinmcginn.net/a-puzzle-in-zoology/) - A Puzzle in Zoology Isn’t it strange how animals vary in their natural defenses? Some are poisonous, some have armor, some have horns, some have thick skin, some have spikes, some have tough scales, some live in shells, some just taste bad; but some—many—have none of the above. Some can only run and hide. The
- [Beatlemania](https://colinmcginn.net/beatlemania/) - Beatlemania Beatlemania has always been something of a mystery. True, these were four handsome young men, stylishly dressed, who made great records; but why the hysteria, the extreme adulation? No other band or individual has ever come close, before or since. It seems hard to believe, a kind of collective madness. I think the answer
- [Knowing Minds](https://colinmcginn.net/knowing-minds/) - Knowing Minds What is the main thing that minds do? A survey of psychological (and philosophical) theories through the centuries suggests a variety of answers: copy, interpret, react, introspect, sense, repress, think, remember, reason, imagine, learn, believe, create, compute, process information, and no doubt others. Each of these might be proposed as the central operation
- [Skateboard Encounter](https://colinmcginn.net/skateboard-encounter/) - Skateboard Encounter The other day I was practicing skateboarding at my usual location—round the corner on a slight incline, around 5pm. Suddenly a red car drew up next to me and the driver opened the passenger side window. She said: “I see you every day as I’m driving home from work and I just want
- [A Christmas Love Song](https://colinmcginn.net/a-christmas-love-song/) - Christmas With You I don’t care for jingle bells I’m not fond of the Christmas tree Santa Claus can go to hell I’d like to set his reindeer free I’m not one for turkey and stuffing I don’t love all that Christmas cheer Don’t give me carol huffing and puffing I don’t even
- [Is Belief Necessary For Knowledge?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-belief-necessary-for-knowledge/) - Is Belief Necessary for Knowledge? It has always seemed that the stipulation that belief is a necessary condition for knowledge is a touch unrealistic. One wants to say, “I don’t just believe it, I know it”. Belief goes with opinion, uncertainty, faith—but knowledge is a matter of being indisputably right, in the know (as we
- [Analyzing Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/analyzing-knowledge/) - Analyzing Knowledge We are familiar with Gettier problems, which bring out the insufficiency of the classic analysis of knowledge as true justified belief. But there are other problems with that analysis, centering on circularity. They question the pretensions of such an analysis to provide conditions that don’t presuppose the concept of knowledge but together add
- [Philosophy as Science, Literature, and Religion](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-as-science-literature-and-religion/) - Philosophy as Science, Literature, and Religion What kind of subject is philosophy? Is it a type of science? Is it a form of literature? Is it a religious calling? Or is it all three? I think it is all three: philosophy is a literary science touching on religious themes (among other things). Once this is
- [How to Take Your Cat to the Vet](https://colinmcginn.net/how-to-take-your-cat-to-the-vet/) - How to Take Your Cat to the Vet I wish to impart some practical advice concerning the cat-vet problem. It comes from bitter experience that I have reason to believe is common. It is designed to spare you and your cat from distress and injury. How do you get the cat in the carrier? First,
- [Consciousness and Evolution](https://colinmcginn.net/consciousness-and-evolution/) - Consciousness and Evolution Evolution by natural selection is a gradual process, not a jumpy jerky one.[1] Small modifications not sudden leaps forward. Complex organs don’t spring into existence from nowhere as a result of spectacular random mutations. This basic Darwinian principle applies as much to the mind as the body. And it applies to consciousness
- [Moral Seeming](https://colinmcginn.net/moral-seeming/) - Moral Seeming In moral philosophy we find distinctions between moral language, moral psychology, and moral reality. Interrelations between these areas are explored. Moral psychology tends to dwell on questions about moral motivation—does it consist in moral beliefs, moral desires, or moral sentiments? I wish to add a further topic: what I call moral seeming.[1] There
- [A Philosophy of Seeming](https://colinmcginn.net/a-philosophy-of-seeming/) - A Philosophy of Seeming In “Seeming” I introduced seeming as a sui generis psychological natural kind. Here I will explore its uses in philosophical thought—the kind of impact it would have on philosophy were it to be taken seriously. I won’t repeat what I said in the earlier paper (this one should be read in
- [Advice For Obituarists](https://colinmcginn.net/advice-for-obituarists/) - Advice for Obituarists I have reached that point in life at which a man starts to wonder about his obituaries, and whether there will even be any. In my case cancellation might go that far. It’s a nasty question. In a close counterfactual world, I would be perfectly sanguine, given my life history; but as
- [Language As Thought](https://colinmcginn.net/language-as-thought/) - Language As Thought I am going to present a new theory of language—a new philosophy of language. Or perhaps I should say newish because elements of it are already out there, particularly in Chomsky.[1] The question is what language is—what fundamentally constitutes it, what its primary mode of being consists in. And the idea is
- [The Pronoun War: A Ceasefire Proposal](https://colinmcginn.net/the-pronoun-war-a-ceasefire-proposal/) - The Pronoun War: A Ceasefire Proposal The war has gone on long enough; it is time to reach an agreement. No one gets everything they want; some territory must be conceded on both sides. I propose that male writers (or speakers) use “he” and female writers (or speakers) use “she”. Each party has their pronoun
- [Language Identity](https://colinmcginn.net/language-identity/) - Language Identity Given plausible empirical assumptions, we can argue on conceptual grounds for two counterintuitive theses: (1) there is only one human language, and (2) this language is not learnable. It will turn out that these statements are not as counterintuitive as they seem. In fact, they follow from well-known considerations advanced by Noam Chomsky,
- [On Reading](https://colinmcginn.net/on-reading/) - On Reading I am going to tackle a question that has baffled our finest minds: why reading is so pleasurable. Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein, your uncle Tony—all these have ignored, or avoided, the question. Too hard, I guess. But this leaves us with a rich field for startling discovery—who will be the first to
- [Intelligence Assessment](https://colinmcginn.net/intelligence-assessment/) - Intelligence Assessment There is something I used to do routinely that I don’t do anymore: assess other people’s intelligence. As a professor, it’s part of the job—forming opinions about other people’s intellectual abilities. Sometimes it seems like the main part of the job. It comes in many forms: grading, admissions, letters of recommendation, job interviews,
- [On the Origin of Heavenly Bodies](https://colinmcginn.net/on-the-origin-of-heavenly-bodies/) - On the Origin of Heavenly Bodies The main thesis of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is that species evolve from other species. They arise from natural variations found within a given species that are selected for or against. They do not arise spontaneously and independently, or by dint of divine or extraterrestrial intervention.
- [Art Miami](https://colinmcginn.net/art-miami/) - Art Miami I went to the annual Art Miami festival yesterday with my friend and tennis partner Eddy. The people were as interesting to look at as the art; indeed, they were works of art themselves. Obviously from the art world, they knew how to put on a good sartorial show. What particularly caught my
- [A New Law of Biology](https://colinmcginn.net/a-new-law-of-biology/) - A New Law of Biology I believe I have discovered a new law of biology. I call it “the law of differential adaptation”. It is fairly easily derivable from established principles, but I have not seen it enunciated before. It strikes me as illuminating. We begin by making a distinction: between the animate environment and
- [Real Americans](https://colinmcginn.net/real-americans/) - Real Americans Several years ago, I was driving down I95 with my wife, Cathy. At some point I found it necessary to change lanes and moved into the outermost lane. This caused an incoming car to slow down a bit—it was moving pretty fast. I then went back to my original lane. Nothing very remarkable—happens
- [Freud Generalized](https://colinmcginn.net/freud-generalized/) - Freud Generalized Freud’s psychoanalytic system was built around the idea of sexual repression. Sexual taboos expressed as societal pressures lead to the repression of the sexual instinct, resulting in distinctive psychological consequences. These include: neurosis, sexually charged dreams, dirty jokes, the artistic drive, and a general feeling of malaise. The basic mechanism is the repressive
- [Perceptual Intuition](https://colinmcginn.net/perceptual-intuition/) - Perceptual Intuition Perception and intuition are usually opposed to each other: what is perceived is not intuited and what is intuited is not perceived. The senses perceive and reason (intellect) intuits. We know material objects by perception and abstract objects by intuition. Empiricism declares perception to be the basis of knowledge (and the criterion of
- [Embarrassed Empiricism](https://colinmcginn.net/embarrassed-empiricism/) - Embarrassed Empiricism Let empiricism be the doctrine that all reality is observable, in principle if not in practice (that last qualification covers a multitude of sins). There is no reality but observable reality, i.e., what is perceivable by the five human senses, particularly vision. This is surely the main dogma of empiricism. The doctrine can
- [George Soros and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/george-soros-and-me/) - George Soros and Me George Soros is now 92 years old. I first met him at his home in Bedford, New York, in 2007, when he was one year older than I am now, at his invitation. It came about as follows. Robert Silvers, then editor of the New York Review of Books, had asked
- [De Re Necessity Reconsidered](https://colinmcginn.net/de-re-necessity-reconsidered/) - De Re Necessity Reconsidered The necessity of origin is a beguiling thesis, instantly plausible. It sounds right. Queen Elizabeth II was necessarily born to her actual parents; in no possible world does she have different parents. If she exists in a world, so do her parents, dutifully giving rise to her. If she exists, those
- [Skateboarding](https://colinmcginn.net/skateboarding/) - Skateboarding I already had a skateboard, but it hadn’t ventured much beyond my living room. It seemed like asking for trouble (too small, too unstable). Then I saw someone using a longer type of skateboard at my local park (I was throwing discus and frisbee left-handed at the time). I went on Amazon and found
- [Morality of Life and Death](https://colinmcginn.net/morality-of-life-and-death/) - Morality of Life and Death Morality is often presented as a list of commandments, imperatives, duties, requirements, rules. Among these we have the commandment not to kill—along with commandments not to steal, lie, betray, break promises, be ungrateful, etc. These are treated as much on a par; together they form a moral whole—a code, a
- [Pain, Consciousness, and Morality](https://colinmcginn.net/pain-consciousness-and-morality/) - Pain, Consciousness, and Morality Consciousness (sentience) evolved at a certain time on planet Earth, many millions of years ago. It didn’t emerge all at once but piecemeal: a certain type of consciousness evolved first, with additions later. What was this type? We don’t know; we can only guess. What we do know is that, whatever
- [Coach Colin Redux](https://colinmcginn.net/coach-colin-redux/) - Coach Colin Redux I had an interesting experience yesterday. I arrived at the Biltmore tennis center for my daily practice and was confronted by a mob of high school students—not dressed in tennis gear. My first concern was whether this would interfere with my hitting session. As I parked my bicycle one of them, a
- [David Lewis](https://colinmcginn.net/david-lewis/) - David Lewis I have in my possession a long letter from David Lewis replying to my paper “Modal Reality” (1981). Several years ago, I was contacted about this letter because no copy of it existed in Lewis’s files, but at that time I didn’t know where it was or even if it had survived. I
- [Romantic Harassment](https://colinmcginn.net/romantic-harassment/) - Romantic Harassment We hear a lot about sexual harassment these days, but not much about romantic harassment. Indeed, I just invented the phrase (and perhaps the concept). What is it? Suppose A falls in love with B and wants B to fall in love with him. He begins a series of efforts to secure this
- [Trumps](https://colinmcginn.net/trumps/) - Trumps How should we cope with Trump’s looming presidency? I think we need a conceptual switch: stop thinking of Trump as a man and start thinking of him instead as a disease. Trump is an epidemic that is sweeping the land. This disease has infected the minds of a great many people: they are suffering
- [Academic Freedom and Sex](https://colinmcginn.net/academic-freedom-and-sex/) - Academic Freedom and Sex I apologize for discussing such a sordid subject. I don’t mean the subject of sex; I mean the threats to academic freedom this subject invites—from the right and the left. Nominally, we are all in favor of academic freedom, but that tolerance is apt to waver when sex is the topic.
- [Does Ethics Have a History?](https://colinmcginn.net/does-ethics-have-a-history/) - Does Ethics Have a History? It might be thought obvious that it does: hasn’t ethical thought changed over time? What we used to find morally acceptable we now find abhorrent. But be careful: are you distinguishing right and wrong from our thought about right and wrong? Ethical thought certainly has a history, but does it
- [Confidence](https://colinmcginn.net/confidence/) - Confidence I came to America with a very positive attitude towards its people (naively optimistic, you might say). It wasn’t long before that confidence was shaken by personal experience. My confidence steadily eroded over the years (I name no names) with professional philosophers the main culprits. It culminated in my experiences of a decade ago.
- [Consciousness and Logical Form](https://colinmcginn.net/consciousness-and-logical-form/) - Consciousness and Logical Form Consider the sentence “It is a necessary truth that for all conscious beings there is something it is like to be that being”. If we render this in standard logical notation, we have two quantifiers and a modal operator. These generate scope distinctions and hence alternative readings of the sentence—nine in
- [Language and Politics](https://colinmcginn.net/language-and-politics/) - Language and Politics I remember it like yesterday—the day I first encountered pronoun mania. It was in London, the late Seventies, at a student party in the philosophy department of University College London, where I used to teach. A female (girl, woman) student told me she had enjoyed our tutorial on the analysis of knowledge
- [A Political Song](https://colinmcginn.net/a-political-song/) - Were You Ever Were you ever right When you arrived that night With your books and your guns With your daughters and sons Were you ever right You landed and looked You built and you cooked You cut down and burned You rampaged and spurned You landed and looked Did
- [Ex-Friends](https://colinmcginn.net/ex-friends/) - Ex-Friends I have many ex-friends. Consider the case of Mark Rowlands: this is a person who I’ve known for forty years. I supervised him at Oxford; I asked him to contribute to a series I was editing on ethics; I brought him to Miami; I saw him every day for lunch when I was in
- [True Lies](https://colinmcginn.net/true-lies/) - True Lies Suppose you see John steal a cookie. He did it and you saw him do it. However, you don’t believe that Johnstole the cookie because John disguised himself as Jack. You believe, falsely, that Jack stole the cookie. As it happens, you don’t like John so you decide to lie and say that
- [Fuck](https://colinmcginn.net/fuck/) - Fuck The word “fuck” has multiple uses. The OED gives us two definitions: “have sex with” and “damage or ruin”. Thus, we have “fuck up”, “fuck about”, “fuck with”, “fuck all”, “fuck off”, “fuck you”, “fucked”, “what the fuck?”, “cluster fuck”, “mind fuck”, “fuck face”, “fuckable”, “fuck!”, and so on. The two definitions are opposed
- [Meme Selection](https://colinmcginn.net/meme-selection/) - Meme Selection What kind of selection applies to memes? According to my scheme, there are two kinds of selection: intentional and nomological.[1] Suppose the meme is a jingle: if it takes up residence in your mind, is that an intentional act? Not generally, since jingles usually repeat themselves against your will. You don’t choose to
- [Double Death](https://colinmcginn.net/double-death/) - Double Death You might think there is nothing more to say about death. You might think death has been done to death. But I am here to report, from the depths of death studies, that death has a new wrinkle—it has a surprise up its sleeve. It turns out that every death is a double
- [American Trump](https://colinmcginn.net/american-trump/) - American Trump Perhaps I see the current catastrophe differently from others. To me it reveals and magnifies the worst American traits: stupidity, credulity, nastiness, thirst for violence, love of bullshit, childishness, amorality. I have seen these traits manifested so many times in my thirty-five years here that Trump’s rise hardly surprises me. Only in America
- [The Selective Universe](https://colinmcginn.net/the-selective-universe/) - The Selective Universe In The Origin of Species Darwin introduces the concept of natural selection via the concept of artificial selection. His idea is that nature operates in a manner analogous to human actions of selective breeding and cultivation. Variety is generated by both processes. Some breeds or phenotypes or species are favored by the
- [Autism and Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/autism-and-philosophy/) - Autism and Philosophy Does philosophy cause autism? Does that question elicit a jolt of recognition? I don’t believe the matter has ever been investigated scientifically, but there is anecdotal evidence to support it. That the two are correlated is prima facie plausible, but does philosophy cause autism? Not florid cases of it, to be sure,
- [Bend Sinister](https://colinmcginn.net/bend-sinister-2/) - Bend Sinister Nabokov’s harrowing novel of that name is about political leaning to the left (“sinistral”). Bending sinister is supposed not to be a good thing to do (communism etc.). But we might also use the phrase to describe something more literal—leaning to the left hand. I have been bending sinister regularly. I am a
- [Axons, Dendrites, and Consciousness](https://colinmcginn.net/axons-dendrites-and-consciousness/) - Axons, Dendrites, and Consciousness You may have heard the saying, “When you get down to brass tacks, these are the facts: birth, copulation, and death”. The sentiment is that these are the basic facts of human (and animal) life—the poles around which everything else revolves. I could paraphrase this in application to the brain as
- [Garbage and "Garbage"](https://colinmcginn.net/garbage-and-garbage/) - Garbage and “Garbage” Biden has a ready and plausible answer to criticism of his “garbage” comment, viz. the use-mention distinction. He was quoting someone else’s use of the word not using it himself non-quotationally. He was enclosing it in what philosophers call scare-quotes. We could paraphrase him thus: “The only so called ‘garbage’ here are
- [The Brain-Brain Problem](https://colinmcginn.net/the-brain-brain-problem/) - The Brain-Brain Problem Time for some conceptual house-cleaning, or furniture-arranging. We have been talking about the mind-body problem all wrong; we need to bring our formulations up to date. We used not to know that the brain is the central mechanism of the mind; now we do. The mind is an aspect of the brain—mental
- [Kamala Harris](https://colinmcginn.net/kamala-harris/) - Kamala Harris I like Kamala, I really do. I think she is a highly intelligent capable person, and even quite likeable (I used to find her off-putting). I badly want her to win. I think she will make a fine president. But there is something she says regularly that really irritates me: she is forever
- [Abby Philip Strikes Again](https://colinmcginn.net/abby-philip-strikes-again/) - Abby Philip Strikes Again Last night was surely a turning point. Abby Philip’s nightly show features vigorous debate between pundits of the left and pundits of the right (usually the MAGA right). She handles it with the utmost integrity and intelligence (not to mention charm). I always dislike the right-wingers she has as guests—all of
- [Cancellation and Silence](https://colinmcginn.net/cancellation-and-silence/) - Cancellation and Silence I have now written three pieces for this blog on cancellation, focusing on my own case (but including Ed Erwin). I have condemned it. Meanwhile Brian Leiter posted a link to my first piece on his blog, and also condemned it. (It isn’t only me—we could also talk about Ludlow, Pogge, and
- [Brain and Self](https://colinmcginn.net/brain-and-self/) - Brain and Self I say “I have a heart”, “I have lungs”, etc. I am evidently saying that I stand in the having relation to organs in my body—possession, ownership. These things are not identical to me; they are extrinsic to me, not what I am. I also say “I have a brain”, as if expressing
- [96 Tears](https://colinmcginn.net/96-tears/) - 96 Tears I decided to listen to a song by the band Question Mark and the Mysterians, since I have been named after them (so I am the second most famous mysterian in history). They are known as a one-hit wonder, dating from the Sixties. I came across 96 Tears, which reached number one in
- [Anti-Feminist Politics](https://colinmcginn.net/anti-feminist-politics/) - Anti-Feminist Politics I used to think that the primary appeal of Trump to his supporters was his racism. That is undoubtedly a factor, but I’m coming to think that his attitude towards women is a big factor too. I mean his misogyny, his sexism, his contempt, his aggression—all the bad stuff. Notice that his many
- [Adverbs and Events](https://colinmcginn.net/adverbs-and-events/) - Adverbs and Events Davidson had a clever idea with his theory of adverbs. It seemed both intuitive and ingenious, a genuine advance. It linked language and ontology, showed the power of standard logic, and provided a model for future work. We might compare it to Russell’s theory of descriptions: a clever and convincing account of
- [Ted Honderich and Others](https://colinmcginn.net/ted-honderich-and-others/) - Ted Honderich and Others Ted and I had adjacent offices at UCL. A tall man, with a corduroy suit, floppy hair, a Canadian-English accent—he was hard to miss. He had ambition, lots of it. It is fair to report that he was not held in the highest regard philosophically. When I left my office on
- [Atrocious Atoms](https://colinmcginn.net/atrocious-atoms/) - Atrocious Atoms Elsewhere I have described atoms as annoying.[1] Dull, dreary, drab. I now want to extend that critique to a further level—they are also atrocious. The OED gives us “horrifyingly wicked” and “extremely bad and unpleasant”. So be it: atoms are that. Strong words indeed, but let’s explore some of the more disagreeable aspects
- [Mutual Cancellation](https://colinmcginn.net/mutual-cancellation/) - Mutual Cancellation I don’t think cancellers understand a simple truth: cancellation can go both ways, and often does. I personally have cancelled many people because of their behavior towards me (and towards others). I will not have anything to do with these people; I will not do anything to help them; I won’t even read
- [Laws and Reality](https://colinmcginn.net/laws-and-reality/) - Laws and Reality I am going to be brief but broad. It is a plausible thesis that reality requires laws: nothing can exist and not be subject to natural law. This applies to the mind as well as the physical world. Laws make things what they are; you cannot detach the laws and expect the
- [Ed Erwin and Cancellation](https://colinmcginn.net/ed-erwin-and-cancellation/) - Ed Erwin and Cancellation Professor Ed Erwin was a valued member of the philosophy department at the University of Miami for many years. He was generally regarded as a person of high integrity and warm generosity. After he came to my defense, he told me of the change in his life in the department: colleagues
- [Annoying Atoms](https://colinmcginn.net/annoying-atoms/) - Annoying Atoms I have come to a rather grim conclusion: I don’t like atoms. Never have, never will. There is something so annoying about them. I wonder if I can get you to see it that way. This is not a phobia on my part, or a prejudice, but a considered judgment. It just isn’t
- [Coach Colin](https://colinmcginn.net/coach-colin/) - Coach Colin When I was at school, I did a lot of athletics: gymnastics, pole vault, diving, discus, table tennis, trampoline, basketball, as well as the usual football, cricket, and track. My PE teachers thought I would make a good PE teacher, and I didn’t disagree. They would be disappointed to learn that I became
- [Gods](https://colinmcginn.net/gods/) - Gods Let’s imagine a theological dispute of a different color: the question is which of two possible Gods, called Yum and Yam, exist. Yum and Yam are very similar—they are standard-issue Gods—but they do differ in certain particulars. Yum’s chosen people are the Dutch while Yam favors the Armenians, Yum’s day of rest is Saturday
- [Shortest Books in the World](https://colinmcginn.net/shortest-books-in-the-world/) - Shortest Books in the World You will be familiar with this genre of humor. Well-known examples include: Italian War Heroes, Polish Wit and Wisdom. Here are my inventions (they are not intended to be fair or accurate—that’s the whole point). Triumphs of British Dentistry Irish Teetotalers I have Known Scottish Hospitality Welsh Wineries Nations of
- [Dreams and Religion](https://colinmcginn.net/dreams-and-religion/) - Dreams and Religion There is a peculiarity of religion that is not often (if ever) remarked: its combination of the serious and the silly. I might even say commingling: the way the serious and the silly are interwoven, inextricably joined. Serious themes run through religion—life and death, right and wrong, cosmology. But at the same
- [Theism and Moral Anti-Realism](https://colinmcginn.net/theism-and-moral-anti-realism/) - Theism and Moral Anti-Realism What are the logical relations between theism and moral anti-realism?[1] First, we must define our terms (tedious work but it has to be done). Let theism be the doctrine that something like the Judeo-Christian God exists (not just any old type of God): not only morally perfect but also the very
- [Table Tennis (and the Meaning of Life)](https://colinmcginn.net/table-tennis-and-the-meaning-of-life/) - Table Tennis (and the Meaning of Life) I was watching the Olympics a few months ago and made a point of checking out the table tennis. I used to play a lot as a teenager—we had a table at home and my brother also played. Naturally, I was pretty good at it (the best in
- [Atheism and Moral Realism](https://colinmcginn.net/atheism-and-moral-realism/) - Atheism and Moral Realism So-called moral realism is the doctrine that morality is mind-independent. In particular, it is independent of judgments, attitudes, legislative acts, or emotions. It is therefore incompatible with divine command theories or human approval theories: the good is not what God commands and not what humans approve of. Moore’s theory of the
- [The Lord's Prayer](https://colinmcginn.net/the-lords-prayer/) - The Lord’s Prayer Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses; As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but
- [God: A Dialogue](https://colinmcginn.net/god-a-dialogue/) - God: A Dialogue A: There’s this guy I read about: he’s like really big, much bigger than anyone else, and he’s incredibly knowledgeable, much more than any Jeopardy player you’ve ever seen, and he’s also extremely powerful, more than all the world leaders put together. B: Really, is he a good guy? A: Oh yes,
- [My Favorite People](https://colinmcginn.net/my-favorite-people-2/) - My Favorite People A disadvantage of knowing great people is that you miss them when they are gone. This is a list of people I’ve known, living and dead, that stand out in my mind for one reason or another. I could easily write an essay about each of them detailing our friendship. I will
- [Life Forms As Synthetic Wholes](https://colinmcginn.net/life-forms-as-synthetic-wholes/) - Life Forms as Synthetic Wholes It is a common idea that animal bodies (also plant bodies) are synthetic wholes consisting of separate organs. There are about a dozen of these in the mammalian body, depending on how you count. Each is different from the others but they work together to compose a functioning body. They
- [Scientific Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/scientific-philosophy/) - Scientific Philosophy Is philosophy a scientific subject? I don’t mean barroom bromides (“My philosophy is live and let live”); I mean academic philosophy. Here I intend to include the usual subject areas including ethics and aesthetics. The best way to answer this question is to ask what the word “science” is taken to contrast with.
- [Lies, Lies, and More Lies](https://colinmcginn.net/lies-lies-and-more-lies/) - Lies, Lies, and More Lies I usually avoid commenting on politics, but every rule has its exceptions. I have been watching a lot of politics on TV, especially Abby Philip’s nightly program on CNN. She is an exemplary presenter: deeply intelligent, amazingly well-informed, and invariably polite (also lovely to look at—that quizzical smile). She always
- [Digestion, Learning, and Dreams](https://colinmcginn.net/digestion-learning-and-dreams/) - Digestion, Learning, and Dreams The word “digestion” (or “digest”) is apt to suggest to modern ears the process by which food is converted to bodily tissue. But it also has another meaning: the process by which information received by the senses is converted into knowledge—as in “That’s a lot (of information) to digest”. The dictionary
- [Defining Time](https://colinmcginn.net/defining-time/) - Defining Time Can time be defined? Einstein and Bergson had an argument about this: Einstein claimed to define time by clocks (“time pieces”), i.e., by physical objects of a certain type; Bergson preferred to define time by means of consciousness of time (“subjective duration”). Time exists by virtue of clocks, natural and artificial, for Einstein;
- [Degrees of Intention](https://colinmcginn.net/degrees-of-intention/) - Degrees of Intention Does intending come in degrees? The question seems odd and to admit of only one answer—it does not. We don’t talk this way (“I half intend to drink a beer”, “Do you strongly intend to go to the shops?”). Intending is like knowing: you don’t weakly or partially know a fact—you either
- [A Puzzle about Desire (and Intention etc.)](https://colinmcginn.net/a-puzzle-about-desire-and-intention-etc/) - A Puzzle about Desire (and Intention etc.) In “A Puzzle about Belief” Kripke introduces his puzzle about belief as a puzzle about belief—specifically, the behavior of names in belief contexts. I will contend that it is a not a puzzle about belief specifically and not about names specifically; that is just one version of the
- [Parasites and Disgust](https://colinmcginn.net/parasites-and-disgust/) - Parasites and Disgust What is the evolutionary origin of the emotion of disgust, along with its behavioral expression? Why was it selected? I will suggest that parasites played a vital role.[1] A desideratum of any theory is to distinguish disgust from two other emotions easily confused with it: fear and aesthetic revulsion. Fear is much
- [Life: A Synthesis](https://colinmcginn.net/life-a-synthesis/) - Life: A Synthesis I am going to attempt something both ambitious and modest: synthesize the various elements of the Dawkinsian view of life as we know it. We are familiar (I hope) with the pillars of the Dawkins’ world-view (zoological philosophy): the selfish gene, the extended phenotype, the genetic book of the dead (the textual
- [Economics and Ethics](https://colinmcginn.net/economics-and-ethics/) - Economics and Ethics Economics is the domain of the selfish. Ethics is the domain of the selfless. So we have been schooled to think. In economic activity (exchange, purchase) we acquire goods: we benefit from what we receive; we get what we want. The act is essentially selfish—self-interested, even greedy. Ethics doesn’t come into it,
- [Archival Minds](https://colinmcginn.net/archival-minds/) - Archival Minds Richard Dawkins’ The Genetic Book of the Dead (2024) advances the thesis that an organism’s body is like a book describing ancestral environments. The genes encode facts about how the world was when the organism containing them evolved. We can thus infer the past state of things from the current state of an
- [On Cancelling](https://colinmcginn.net/on-cancelling/) - On Cancelling Here is a thought experiment for you. Suppose your top ten philosophers had all been cancelled: removed from pedagogical employment, prevented from publishing, and generally shunned. This possibility could cover the philosophers of the last hundred years or of all time. Suppose that their thoughts had therefore never seen the light of day.
- [On Writing](https://colinmcginn.net/on-writing/) - On Writing When I was a professor of philosophy working in a philosophy department, I used to jot down notes on ideas I had that seemed promising. I was too busy to write up the ideas properly, so I made the notes as reminders for later work. The exigencies of teaching had priority (a great
- [Correlational Semantics](https://colinmcginn.net/correlational-semantics/) - Correlational Semantics I will describe some possible uses of correlational semantics. I don’t say I subscribe to these uses; I offer them as a gift to those with anti-realist or fictionalist yearnings in certain areas. It may help ease some discomfort caused by such yearnings. Let’s begin with a relatively simple case: feature-placing sentences like
- [Are We Animals?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-we-animals/) - Are We Animals? I am interested in the concept animal, its analysis and role in our thinking and acting. I am also interested in the use of the word “animal”, its denotation, connotation, conversational implicatures, psychology, and sociology. These interests have a bearing on the ethical treatment of animals and on the nature of human
- [Ontology of Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/ontology-of-mind/) - Ontology of Mind We have no clear ontology of the mental. We have no good way of talking generally about the mind. This has always been a source of awkwardness and embarrassment. We philosophers talk routinely of mental states, attributes, properties, traits, events, processes, and entities; but we volunteer very little in the way of
- [Semantical Considerations on Mental Language](https://colinmcginn.net/semantical-considerations-on-mental-language/) - Semantical Considerations on Mental Language I am going to expound a view of the mind (and hence the mind-body problem) that I am disinclined to accept. Still, the view deserves careful articulation and may contain elements of truth; it should be added to the menu of options. And it is agreeably radical. It begins with
- [Philosophy at the Dentist](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-at-the-dentist/) - Philosophy at the Dentist Yesterday I was having a new crown fitted at the dentist (king at last!). It is not a pleasant procedure, though I’ve had worse. Apart from the discomfort, it is boring. I decided to try an experiment: see if I can think about philosophy while being drilled and scraped orally. Surprisingly,
- [Predicating and Necessity](https://colinmcginn.net/predicating-and-necessity/) - Predicating and Necessity (Bear in mind Kripke’s Naming and Necessity when reading the following.) When a speaker uses a predicate (“man”, “cat”, “rose”, “square”, “red”, “runs”, “clever” etc.) he or she refers to a property or attribute: but how is this done? One answer is by means of ostension: the speaker points to an instance
- [Are There Two Types of Necessity?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-there-two-kinds-of-necessity/) - Are There Two Types of Necessity? It used to be thought there was only one type of necessity, analytic necessity. All necessity is de dictonecessity, stemming from, and about, language. There is no necessity in the extralinguistic world; to suppose otherwise is a fallacy of projection. Necessity is in the head, a product of words
- [Contradiction and Synonymy](https://colinmcginn.net/contradiction-and-synonymy/) - Contradiction and Synonymy This is to be an essay in the philosophy of logic. Regrettably, logic today is taught as mainly formula manipulation with little attention paid to philosophical questions. I will be engaged on foundational questions, not unlike the foundations of physics (crucial but ignored by the mainstream). No doubt this is all about
- [Can the Body be in the Mind?](https://colinmcginn.net/can-the-body-be-in-the-mind/) - Can the Body be in the Mind? The classic mind-body problem can be stated as follows: How can attributes of the mind be attributes of the body? Attributes of the mind have been taken to include consciousness, subjectivity, intentionality, rationality, privacy, incorrigibility, and unity. How can these attributes exist side by side with bodily or
- [Dichotomous Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/dichotomous-knowledge/) - Dichotomous Knowledge There is a long tradition of recognizing two distinct categories of knowledge: knowledge of logic, meaning, and mathematics, on the one hand, and knowledge of geography, history, and chemistry, on the other (these lists are not exhaustive). We might name these “A-type knowledge” and “B-type Knowledge”, so as to be neutral about the
- [The Survival of the Fittest?](https://colinmcginn.net/the-survival-of-the-fittest/) - The Survival of the Fittest? Herbert Spencer’s phrase “the survival of the fittest” has done a lot of mischief, not only in biology, but also in politics, economics, ethics, history, and education. The phrase is riddled with confusion, ambiguity, and tendentious error. I will indict the phrase, first its use in biology and then in
- [Is Consciousness Shrinking?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-consciousness-shrinking/) - Is Consciousness Shrinking? What is the ratio of the conscious mind to the unconscious mind? Is the human unconscious half the size of the conscious or twice the size? What percentage of mental activity is carried out unconsciously and what consciously? Does this proportion vary between species? Which species has the largest unconscious mind relative
- [Reality and Appearance](https://colinmcginn.net/reality-and-appearance/) - Reality and Appearance Appearances are part of reality, even when they are illusions; they are real things, no less so when not representing reality correctly. But is reality part of appearance? Certainly, not all reality is presented in appearances, since some parts of reality have appeared to no one (unless we include God). But is
- [Emotional Logic](https://colinmcginn.net/emotional-logic/) - Emotional Logic The idea that emotions are exempt from logic is widely received. Emotion is supposed to be where logic breaks down, where the mind eludes logic’s inexorable grip. It is the domain of the unruly, the irrational, the unprincipled—a kind of mental anarchy. This is wrong on several levels. Of course, emotions are subject
- [Emotion and Logic](https://colinmcginn.net/emotion-and-logic/) - Emotion and Logic Are they compatible? Is it possible to be an emotional being and a logical being? More exactly, is it possible to be perfectly logical but also emotional? Is emotion always the enemy of logic? In Star Trek we find a defense of the thesis that emotion and logic are incompatible, or an
- [My Secret Garden](https://colinmcginn.net/my-secret-garden/) - My Secret Garden I live in South Miami, just outside Coral Gables. I have an extensive garden, with much tropical vegetation. My study has a door onto this garden; I go out there a fair amount. It has a jungle feel. In this garden I have a full-size competition-level trampoline shaded by trees. I also
- [Four Ways of Studying Language](https://colinmcginn.net/four-ways-of-studying-language/) - Four Ways of Studying Language What is the linguist or philosopher of language studying? It will be useful to distinguish four different (but overlapping) areas of study: ontological, epistemological, behavioral, and phenomenological. By “ontological” I mean the study of language as a formal object: its nature, structure, and inner workings. What is it composed of?
- [Phenomenology of Language](https://colinmcginn.net/phenomenology-of-language/) - Phenomenology of Language Suppose we undertake a phenomenological investigation of human speech (we leave Vulcan speech to the Vulcans). What distinctions will we need to make? What categories must we adopt? What methods should we use? What precedents should we cite? Obviously, we will need a speaker-hearer distinction, as well as distinctions between inner speech
- [Consciousness and Language](https://colinmcginn.net/consciousness-and-language/) - Consciousness and Language Consciousness science has not yet penetrated the field of linguistics, but clearly consciousness and language have a lot to do with each other. How are the two related? They are salient features of the human animal and we would expect to see significant interactions between them. Yet linguistics and philosophy of language
- [Act and Object Dismantled](https://colinmcginn.net/act-and-object-dismantled/) - Act and Object Dismantled Things are getting scary around here, philosophically. Paradigms are shifting, shattering, vaporizing before our very eyes (literally). The act-object analysis of conscious experience is in deep trouble. The senses have no objects! There is no object such that a visual experience is a seeing of it. Not physical, not mental, and
- [Are We Blind?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-we-blind/) - Are We Blind? I can state the argument of this paper very succinctly: we don’t see matter and we don’t see mind; therefore, we don’t see anything; therefore, we are blind. I think this argument is sound. Moreover, it generalizes: we don’t hear or touch or smell or taste anything; therefore, we are deaf, etc.
- [Consciousness and Solipsism](https://colinmcginn.net/consciousness-and-solipsism/) - Consciousness and Solipsism This is to be an essay in existential psychotherapy, proceeding from a sound basis in the metaphysics of consciousness. It is going to be pretty abstract and theoretical, though with a practical payoff (sort of). We can begin with the old thought that consciousness (the conscious self) is an isolated thing as
- [Degrees of Grammaticalness](https://colinmcginn.net/degrees-of-grammaticalness/) - Degrees of Grammaticalness In Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965) Chomsky discusses what he calls “degrees of grammaticalness”. He concludes this discussion with these words: “More generally, it is clear that the intuitive notion of grammatical well-formedness is by no means a simple one and that an adequate explanation of it will involve theoretical
- [Conscious Matter](https://colinmcginn.net/conscious-matter/) - Conscious Matter I will pose a question I don’t think has been posed before: Why can’t there be conscious matter, but only conscious mind? A mental state can be either conscious or unconscious, passing from one condition to the other, but an unconscious material state can only be unconscious. Consider a state of the brain
- [Division and Diversity](https://colinmcginn.net/division-and-diversity/) - Division and Diversity Professional pundits often say that the trouble with contemporary political culture is that we are too “divided”. The remedy is to “bring people together” by recognizing that “we have more in common than we think”. This is completely wrong: the problem isn’t division; it’s error. If people have contradictory opinions, one side
- [Knowledge of the Unconscious](https://colinmcginn.net/knowledge-of-the-unconscious/) - Knowledge of the Unconscious We have two minds: the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. These two minds differ in respect of the distinctive mark of consciousness (“what-it’s-likeness”) and in their accessibility to knowledge. The unconscious mind lacks the mark of consciousness and isn’t known in the way the conscious mind is. We know what
- [Free Choice](https://colinmcginn.net/free-choice/) - Free Choice A strange air of unreality surrounds the free will debate. Fanciful ideas abound. One feels that something is going seriously wrong somewhere, but it is hard to pinpoint where exactly. It is otherwise with the concept of liberty: here things are plain sailing. The OED defines “liberty” as follows: “the state of being
- [Names and Descriptions](https://colinmcginn.net/names-and-descriptions/) - Names and Descriptions It has been commonly supposed that names and definite descriptions have an affinity, a connection. Names of people and places, in particular, are associated with widely known attributes: for example, the name “Ringo Starr” is associated with the description “the drummer for the Beatles” and “London” is associated with “the capital of
- [On Denoting and Connoting](https://colinmcginn.net/on-denoting-and-connoting/) - On Denoting and Connoting There is something amiss with our standard terminology. And it covers actual confusion. I propose to straighten all this out.[1] The standard way of talking assigns a denotation and a connotation to definite descriptions (sometimes also to names and demonstratives): the denotation of a description is the object it refers to
- [Hand-Based Psychotherapy](https://colinmcginn.net/hand-based-psychotherapy/) - Hand-Based Psychotherapy The image we have of the therapeutic set-up derives from Freud’s clinical practice. It consists of a patient lying on a couch with the therapist sitting behind her unseen. There is no physical activity apart from talking. It is as if patient and therapist are focusing exclusively on the mind with the body
- [Is Language a Practical Capacity?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-language-a-practical-capacity/) - Is Language a Practical Capacity It is sometimes said, with an air of obvious truth, that mastery of one’s native language is a practical capacity.[1] The suggestion sounds reasonable enough, even somewhat illuminating: we do useful things with words, perform tasks, achieve stuff; we don’t speak just to broadcast propositions into the atmosphere. This is
- [A Causal Theory of Truth](https://colinmcginn.net/a-causal-theory-of-truth/) - A Causal Theory of Truth We have been inundated with causal theories: of perception, knowledge, memory, and reference. But no one (to my knowledge) has proposed a causal theory of truth. On the face of it this is surprising, since truth is so closely bound up with reference. If reference to both objects and properties
- [Einstein and Wittgenstein](https://colinmcginn.net/einstein-and-wittgenstein/) - Einstein and Wittgenstein In Philosophical Remarks, composed in the late 1920s, Wittgenstein several times enunciates a verificationist principle, which was not present in the Tractatus. It is plausible that the Vienna Circle, with whom Wittgenstein met several times during this period, derived the verifiability theory of meaning from these interactions with him (not from the
- [Memory and Expectation](https://colinmcginn.net/memory-and-expectation/) - Memory and Expectation How do memory and expectation differ? For example, I might remember going to the shops yesterday and expect to go to the shops tomorrow—how do these states of mind differ? They concern the same state of affairs, but they are evidently not the same; we never confuse one with the other (“Am
- [Eliminating Common Sense](https://colinmcginn.net/eliminating-common-sense/) - Eliminating Common Sense Russell said that ordinary language contains the metaphysics of the Stone Age. Wittgenstein says that philosophy leaves everything as it is. Both were wrong. Ordinary language contains no metaphysics at all, ancient or modern; and advanced philosophy does not leave primitive philosophy alone. The bore in the bar telling you “his philosophy”
- [Common Sense and Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/common-sense-and-philosophy/) - Common Sense and Philosophy Philosophers often assume that there is something called common sense, or commonsense belief, with which their theories may agree or disagree. This gives rise to the idea that there is such a thing as commonsense philosophy, or anti-commonsense philosophy. I think this is a mistake for a number of reasons. The
- [Awfulness](https://colinmcginn.net/awfulness/) - Awfulness Have you noticed how awful everything has become? Pop music is awful, movies are awful, most TV is awful, novels are awful, the New York Review of Books is awful, the universities are awful (students, administrators, professors), politicians are really awful, comedy is awful, art is awful, academic philosophy is awful, world politics is
- [Qualities of Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/qualities-of-mind/) - Qualities of Mind Galileo, Descartes and Locke divided the physical world into primary and secondary qualities, thus carving out a place for the science of physics (the study of the primary qualities of matter). But they said nothing about the primary and secondary qualities of the mind, in the hope of carving out a place
- [Primary and Secondary Values](https://colinmcginn.net/primary-and-secondary-values/) - Primary and Secondary Values It has been suggested that moral values can be compared to secondary qualities, thus aligning them with human-centered attributes.[1] To be good or right is to be disposed to elicit attitudes of approval from observers—that kind of thing. I will propose something different: the whole apparatus of primary and secondary qualities
- [Knowledge of Primary and Secondary Qualities](https://colinmcginn.net/knowledge-of-primary-and-secondary-qualities/) - Knowledge of Primary and Secondary Qualities We normally think we know the shapes and colors of things: I know, for example, that the cup in front of me is cylindrical and blue. But reflection casts doubt on this commonsense assumption, in two ways. First, there is the question of whether I really know that the
- [Wing Surfing](https://colinmcginn.net/wing-surfing/) - Wing Surfing Yesterday I went wing surfing for the second time with my friend Eddy in his boat. We were in Biscayne Bay, far out but in shallow water, virtually alone. I was using an inflatable paddle board and a 4.5 meter wing, which also had to be inflated (it’s a work-out). Despite my familiarity
- [Explaining Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/explaining-knowledge/) - Explaining Knowledge We have many kinds of knowledge: perceptual, introspective, scientific, linguistic, ethical, logical, mathematical, aesthetic, historical, and others. Epistemologists have asked which of these is best justified, and which least justified. We should be able to rank them for degree of justification: introspective and mathematical knowledge might get high marks for justification, perceptual and
- [Bat Science](https://colinmcginn.net/bat-science/) - Bat Science What does the science of bats (Chiroptera) include? There are 1,400 species of bats and they make up 20% of all mammals. Many of them use an echolocation sense, though not all. We can expect a science of bats to deal with their anatomy, evolution, physiology, and psychology. With respect to the first
- [Four Types of Quantification](https://colinmcginn.net/four-types-of-quantification/) - Four Types of Quantification It has been said that there are really two types of quantification not one: “objectual” and “substitutional”. The objectual type may be paraphrased as follows: “There is an object x such that x satisfies F, where F is a predicate” (and similarly for the universal quantifier). The substitutional type may be
- [Stock and Tuvel](https://colinmcginn.net/stock-and-tuvel/) - Stock and Tuvel I was just watching a video of Kathleen Stock and Rebecca Tuvel at Cornell talking about their experiences in academia in recent years. Both women struck me as eminently sensible and decent people with perfectly defensible (and innocuous) views. Yet they have been subjected to vicious persecution and cancellation by assorted idiots.
- [The Situation Room](https://colinmcginn.net/the-situation-room/) - The Situation Room I just read my friend George Stephanopoulos’ book The Situation Room, an account of said room over the last sixty years or so. It is a well-researched, clear, and smoothly written book, full of information, eye-opening. As a window into American politics over the relevant time period, it is exemplary; everyone in
- [Albert Einstein: Logical Positivist](https://colinmcginn.net/albert-einstein-logical-positivist/) - Albert Einstein: Logical Positivist In chapter 3 of Relativity (1916) Einstein writes: “We entirely shun the vague word ‘space’, of which we must honestly acknowledge, we cannot form the slightest conception, and replace it by ‘motion relative to a practically rigid body of reference’” (22). Overlooking the use-mention error, Einstein is stating, as if self-evident,
- [Friendship](https://colinmcginn.net/friendship/) - Friendship In our society we treat romantic and friend relationships differently. Romantic relationships go through predictable stages, often culminating in marriage: they progress to the point where a legal contract is in order. But friendship does not follow this course: it develops but it doesn’t culminate in a legal contract, or any kind of contract.
- [Applause](https://colinmcginn.net/applause/) - Applause I once gave a lecture in Finland on externalism and twin earth cases. At the end there was a very brief burst of applause, lasting no more than two seconds. Afterwards I said to my Finnish friend Esa Saarinen that they must not have liked it much given the brevity of the response. On
- [Science Without Language](https://colinmcginn.net/science-without-language/) - Science Without Language Clearly, there could not be poems or novels or essays without language: these things consist of words arranged into sentences. Equally clearly, there could be athletic activities without language: football, high jumping, sprinting, badminton. People may talk as they engage in these activities, but they don’t consist in talking. Could there be
- [Administrators](https://colinmcginn.net/administrators/) - Administrators University administrators are rapidly becoming the most reviled people in America, and with good reason. When was the last time you heard of one making a good decision? It has always been thus, you say. But it is getting worse: atrocious decisions abound, heavy handedness is the norm, authoritarian attitudes prevail, academic freedom is
- [Age](https://colinmcginn.net/age/) - Age We have the wrong idea about age. We think too much in terms of bodily change and the passage of objective time. We can certainly talk about bodily age and temporal age, but we also need to recognize mental age—the age of a person’s mind. This may not correlate closely with the other two
- [Universities](https://colinmcginn.net/universities/) - Universities I am reading Mary McCarthy’s 1951 novel The Groves of Academe. It is a marvelous satire on university politics and pretensions, centering on one Henry Mulcahy, unjustly fired from his post. What is astonishing is how little things have changed in the interim, except for the worse. There is the rogues’ gallery of credulous
- [Index](https://colinmcginn.net/index/) - Index I thought it might be useful to provide a list of words that could be searched on this blog, in case people wanted to look up specific subject areas. Analysis, a priori, truth, meaning, knowledge, skepticism, reality, names, reference, fact, necessity, biology, psychology, physics, astronomy, science, philosophy, identity, existence, freedom, self, person, consciousness, intentionality,
- [Explanations of Life](https://colinmcginn.net/explanations-of-life/) - Explanations of Life Suppose we encounter life forms on another planet unrelated to ours and possibly quite unlike ours. Still, there is evident adaptive complexity, so that the laws of physics and chance cannot explain what we observe. What possible explanation might be given for this complexity? How might
- [Trumperica](https://colinmcginn.net/trumperica/) - Trumperica I claim no originality in asserting Trump’s abysmal character; it stares us in the face every day. Nasty, stupid, witless, bigoted—you name it, he has it. But, as is also ruefully noted, at least a third of the country thinks he is just fine. The point that is not observed, however, is that it
- [Retirement](https://colinmcginn.net/retirement/) - Retirement I once heard Michael Dummett remark that he was looking forward to retirement so that he could get some work done. My sentiments exactly: work has never been so sweet as it has been post-employment. You work on what you want to work on and you don’t have to break off to fulfill your
- [Is Water Disgusting?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-water-disgusting/) - Is Water Disgusting? Wet feces are more disgusting than dry ones. Suppurating wounds are more disgusting than non-suppurating wounds. Blood is disgusting, so is urine, so is saliva. The waterier something is the more disgusting it becomes. It is hard to think of dry things that are disgusting. Liquidity makes for disgustingness. One would think,
- [Is the Universe Large?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-the-universe-large/) - Is the Universe Large? If you study astronomy, it will be impressed upon you that the universe is large—very very very large, unimaginably so. The galaxies, their number, the distance between them, the travel times (even for light)—the universe is an extremely big object, much bigger than you thought, much bigger than anyone thought until
- [Action as Selection](https://colinmcginn.net/action-as-selection/) - Action as Selection The causal theory of action maintains that reasons cause actions, reasons being combinations of beliefs and desires. This doctrine is supposed to provide a uniform account of the “because” relation: action is produced in the same way any event is produced—by means of causation. Cars cause bridges to collapse; reasons cause actions—it
- [Can the Universities Survive?](https://colinmcginn.net/can-the-universities-survive/) - Can the Universities Survive? There is a crisis at American universities: a crisis of stupidity. It has been brewing for a while, but it intensified beginning around 2012. How much stupidity can a university take before it ceases to be a university, before it collapses under the weight of its own stupidity? The DEI craze
- [Free Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/free-mind/) - Free Mind Philosophers of free will usually focus on bodily action. Does anything change if we switch to purely mental actions such as thinking and imagining? Suppose a man is imprisoned: we would normally say that he is not free to do what he wants as far as his body is concerned, but he is
- [Humbert's Love](https://colinmcginn.net/humberts-love/) - Humbert’s Love Chapter 29 of Lolita contains two declarations of love: Humbert’s love for Lolita (Mrs. Richard F. Schiller) and Lolita’s love for Quilty. Neither declaration is predictable. I have discussed Lolita’s declaration elsewhere (“Lolita and Quilty”), noting its prima facie implausibility: Quilty is very far from meriting this love and has
- [Cosmological Phenomenology](https://colinmcginn.net/cosmological-phenomenology/) - Cosmological Phenomenology There are many types of intentional object, each with its associated phenomenology: physical, psychological, mathematical, linguistic, ethical, aesthetic, spatial, temporal, non-existent. I will be concerned with a rather extensive object—the universe. How does the universe present itself to consciousness? What suite of seeming (if I may put it so) is peculiar to this
- [Developmental Philosophy of Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/developmental-philosophy-of-mind/) - Developmental Philosophy of Mind Developmental philosophy of mind is an undeveloped field. There are two questions: phylogenetic and ontogenetic. How did the mind as it now exists develop over evolutionary time, and how does it develop in the individual? Like developmental psychology, it is natural to adopt a stage conception of these processes: what stages
- [Stephen Hawking: Logical Positivist](https://colinmcginn.net/stephen-hawking-logical-positivist/) - Stephen Hawking: Logical Positivist Reading Stephen Hawking’s The Universe in a Nutshell (2001), I came upon the following passage: “Any sound scientific theory, whether of time or of any other concept, should in my opinion be based on the most workable philosophy of science: the positivist approach put forward by Karl Popper and others. According
- [Bad Philosophers](https://colinmcginn.net/bad-philosophers/) - Bad Philosophers Time for a bit of academic sociology. Who are the world’s worst philosophers? I don’t mean which individual philosophers from within philosophy; I mean academics in other fields who like to comment on philosophy. What disciplines produce the worst philosophical commentators? We have quite a full list to choose from: physicists, mathematicians, psychologists,
- [Proof of an External World](https://colinmcginn.net/proof-of-an-external-world/) - Proof of an External World Kant famously (and ruefully) remarked that it was a scandal of philosophy that it has been unable to come up with a proof of the external world. He was right: it is a matter of some embarrassment that philosophy should be unable to prove something so obvious, so commonsensical. What
- [Subjective and Objective](https://colinmcginn.net/subjective-and-objective/) - Subjective and Objective The distinction between subjective and objective is often used in philosophy, but it is less often articulated, still less analyzed.[1] I will do that. The task is not particularly difficult, though there are glitches to be ironed out. The distinction is well-founded and its basic nature easily understood. We can begin with
- [My Left Foot](https://colinmcginn.net/my-left-foot/) - My Left Foot An update on my left hand, and then a corollary on my left foot. I can now stick a knife from about 18 feet throwing with my left hand, no spin. This is substantial progress from a month ago. I also find that my two-handed backhand, which is governed by the left
- [Is Causation Necessary?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-causation-necessary/) - Is Causation Necessary? I don’t mean to be asking Hume’s question about the need for necessary connection in the causal relation; I mean to be asking whether causation (causal power) is a necessary feature of things. Granted that something has a causal power, does it necessarily have that power? Are its causal powers part of
- [Is Speaking Acting?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-speaking-acting/) - Is Speaking Acting? We have grown accustomed to the phrase “speech act”, so much so that we regard it as a truism: of coursespeech is a type of action! It is an action we perform with our mouth and larynx as opposed to our hands or feet. Assertion is something we do—it is an intentional
- [Attitudes to Memory](https://colinmcginn.net/attitudes-to-memory/) - Attitudes to Memory Let me distinguish memories from our attitudes towards them. Memories, though changeable, are relatively static compared to our emotional response to them. The memory may fade or disappear with time (or it may not) but our feelings about it are quite plastic and can even reverse valence. A painful memory can become
- [Foundations of Psychotherapy](https://colinmcginn.net/foundations-of-psychotherapy/) - Foundations of Psychotherapy Say what you like about Freud but at least he had a general theory of the nature, origins, and development of human personality. It centered on psychosexual dynamics, and repression figured prominently. It covered the emotions, neurosis, unhappiness, the family, dreams, jokes, art, morality, and other things. But we need not follow
- [Philosophy of Skill](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-of-skill/) - Philosophy of Skill There is no such thing as what the above title describes. We have philosophy of knowledge, perception, thought, emotions, imagination, and action—but not philosophy of skill (except for some scattered remarks). You can’t take a course in philosophy of skill in a typical philosophy department. So, let’s create the subject—let’s put it
- [On Matter](https://colinmcginn.net/on-matter/) - On Matter Matter is very versatile stuff. And it is capable of amazing feats: it excludes other matter from its place; it exerts gravitational force; it can condense into black holes; it can be extremely hot or extremely cold; it can be positively or negatively charged; it can emit radiation; it can cause massive explosions;
- [Questions About Consciousness and the Brain](https://colinmcginn.net/questions-about-consciousness-and-the-brain/) - Questions About Consciousness and the Brain I think it would be a good idea to investigate relations between consciousness and the brain that are not usually investigated. I don’t say these investigations are feasible, now or in the future, but the idea of them is worth pondering; they reveal how little we really know about
- [My Left Arm](https://colinmcginn.net/my-left-arm/) - My Left Arm Apparently, I have done the three things most likely to damage my right arm: drumming, kayaking, and tennis. All involve repetitive motions with the hand held high, and I have done a lot of each. In addition, my neck surgery caused some nerve damage to my right arm. My left arm, however,
- [Body Parts](https://colinmcginn.net/body-parts/) - Body Parts Is the mind part of the body? I have not seen this question discussed before; it raises some ticklish questions.[1] I am not asking whether the mind is the brain—that question is very familiar; I am asking whether the mind is part of the body even if it is immaterial. That is, I
- [Two Reviews](https://colinmcginn.net/two-reviews/) - Two Reviews Kerry McKenzie’s laughable, ignorant, foolish review of Colin McGinn’s Basic Structures of Reality (2011) could only have been published by Mind because she is a woman of junior rank. She clearly had never read the book she was reviewing, given how wide of the mark her observations are. She is completely out
- [Metaphysical Taxonomy](https://colinmcginn.net/metaphysical-taxonomy/) - Metaphysical Taxonomy What are the most fundamental kinds of things in nature? What are the ultimate natural kinds? A glance at the history of human thought reveals three recurring suggestions: mathematical, material, and mental—the three M’s. Some thinkers have picked one category as basic: Pythagoras picked mathematics, Hobbes picked matter, Berkeley picked mind—along with countless
- [How Old Am I?](https://colinmcginn.net/how-old-am-i/) - How Old Am I? Today I am 74 years old. But am I? Is it that simple? Maybe the referent of my “I” is younger, if new selves grow during a single life, or possibly a little older if we go back to the womb (that’s when I started aging). How old is my body,
- [Is Immaterialism the True Materialism?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-immaterialism-the-true-materialism/) - Is Immaterialism the True Materialism? I will argue for a position that may strike readers as willfully paradoxical—that immaterialism is closer to the spirit of materialism than materialism is. That is, what is officially called “materialism” violates the essence of what is distinctive about the philosophical position so named, and that the doctrine called “immaterialism”
- [On Not Knowing What it is Like](https://colinmcginn.net/on-not-knowing-what-it-is-like/) - On Not Knowing What it is Like We have picked up the habit of saying that we don’t know what it is like to be a bat, and this feeds into skepticism about materialism.[1] But we don’t stop and ask what kind of ignorance this is—about the nature or analysis of the type of knowledge
- [Poland](https://colinmcginn.net/poland/) - I'm interested to see that Poland has suddenly entered the rankings on this website at number 2, following the USA at number 1 and then the UK. I wonder whether any Polish visitors would care to tell me why--I'm curious.
- [Lecture](https://colinmcginn.net/lecture/) - Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving a lecture by Zoom to a group of philosophers in Budapest. It was the first lecture I have given in over ten years (I wonder why). I spoke on the topic of personal identity, and it is true that I don't feel like I am the same person
- [Meaningless Names](https://colinmcginn.net/meaningless-names/) - Meaningless Names If an expression has meaning, it should be possible to say what that meaning is. Meaning should not be something ineffable. Dictionaries say what meaning is—they specify the meaning of words. But they don’t contain names (or very few).[1] What would they look like if they did? They would certainly be extremely long:
- [Things I Can Do](https://colinmcginn.net/things-i-can-do/) - Things I Can Do Intellectual (in descending order of competence): philosophy, psychology, economics, linguistics, biology, physics, chemistry, literature, film. Novelist and short story writer. Athletic: tennis, table tennis, squash, badminton, football, cricket, basketball, gymnastics, pole vault, discus, trampoline, swimming, diving, kayaking, surfing, windsurfing, kiteboarding, skim boarding, skiing, ice skating, bowling, knife throwing, darts, archery, weightlifting,
- [Dictionaries and Meaning](https://colinmcginn.net/dictionaries-and-meaning/) - Dictionaries and Meaning Let’s stipulate that a theory of meaning is a specification of the meanings of all words, phrases, and sentences of a language.[1] If we knew that, we would know what meaning is, presumably. What form should such a theory take? I will suggest that it should take the form of a dictionary.
- [Psychological Economics](https://colinmcginn.net/psychological-economics-2/) - 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 by supply we
- [Generative Economics](https://colinmcginn.net/generative-economics-2/) - Generative Economics Darwin’s theory of evolution includes two generative components: mutation and natural selection. Mutation generates genetic variants and hence phenotypes; natural selection operates on these to produce differential survival. Neither of these generative processes involves intention or intelligence. Thus we have biological novelty without intentional intelligent design. Both processes are blind and driven by
- [Philosophical Economics](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophical-economics-3/) - Philosophical Economics Economics tells us that an economic transaction involves the sale (or exchange) of “goods and services”. This phrase invites conceptual scrutiny. It is notable that an evaluative term is used to describe the commodities sold: goods are good.[1] Services also are inherently valuable: you don’t perform someone the service of executing or robbing
- [Elements of Economics](https://colinmcginn.net/elements-of-economics/) - Elements of Economics Economics is aptly defined as the science of scarcity (we could say “systematic study” if “science” seems too strong). Philosophy of economics is then the philosophy of scarcity, or of the science thereof. It is in this vein that I write the present words. What, then, is scarcity? Here is a good
- [Bounds of Space](https://colinmcginn.net/bounds-of-space/) - Bounds of Space The Kant-Strawson thesis is that all possible experience is spatial in character (Strawson calls it the “spatiality thesis”). That is, all appearances are spatial appearances—of extended things existing in an ordered unified Euclidian space separate from the mind. This is how experience makes things seem, even if they are not objectively (noumenally)
- [Bounds of Sense](https://colinmcginn.net/bounds-of-sense/) - Bounds of Sense Quine once described Strawson as applying his “limpid vernacular” to the technicalities of logic (in a review of Strawson’s Introduction to Logical Theory). One might hope that he would do the same in exegesis of Kant in The Bounds of Sense. However, in that work we are treated to such tortuous locutions
- [Anticipations](https://colinmcginn.net/anticipations/) - Anticipations Perusing a recent book on the cognitive psychology of number (Number Concepts by Richard Samuels and Eric Snyder), I was put in mind of my psychology M.A. thesis, entitled Empiricism and Nativism in Language and Mathematics, submitted in 1972 to Manchester University (when I was 22). In that thesis I brought together psychology, linguistics,
- [Message from Rebecca Goldstein](https://colinmcginn.net/message-from-rebecca-goldstein/) - Rebecca gave me permission to publish this. One of the bright spots in these bleak days gets delivered to me regularly in Colin McGinn’s blog: brief and beautifully composed philosophical pieces on an astonishingly wide number of topics, many of which, I’m pretty sure, have never before been considered from a philosophical point of
- [The Making of a Philosopher (Part Two)](https://colinmcginn.net/the-making-of-a-philosopher-part-two/) - The Making of a Philosopher (Part Two) The following is a sequel of sorts to my The Making of a Philosopher (2002). Like that work, this is to be an intellectual memoir, not a marital, medical, musical, or muscular one—a memoir of the mind. It’s about what has gone on in my head. I originally
- [Empiricism, Memory, and Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/empiricism-memory-and-knowledge/) - Empiricism, Memory, and Knowledge In pre-Socratic times there was a school of thought known as “memorism” (or so I once dreamt). The principal doctrine of this school was that all knowledge is stored in memory: whenever you know something there was a past event that laid it down in memory, and knowledge is the recall
- [Affective Empiricism](https://colinmcginn.net/affective-empiricism/) - Affective Empiricism The classic debate between empiricism and rationalism concerning the origins of the human mind focused on the cognitive aspects of the mind.[1] Descartes and Leibniz believed that some knowledge is innate, while Locke thought that all knowledge is acquired through the senses. But there is little to nothing on the affective aspects of
- [On Substitutivity](https://colinmcginn.net/on-substitutivity/) - On Substitutivity The idea of substituting one expression for another has played a key role in logical and semantic studies. In particular, the idea of substituting terms with the same reference has featured prominently: can this always be done without changing the truth-value of the sentence in which the terms occur? Is such substitution ever
- [Annoying Morality](https://colinmcginn.net/annoying-morality/) - Annoying Morality Given its importance, there is something deeply unsatisfactory about morality. I don’t mean its alleged subjectivity or relativity, which is more puerile than profound, still less the existence of metaethical controversy; I mean its fragmentary and unsystematic character. It appears as a list of injunctions with no unifying principle underlying them. This is
- ["Inner" and "Outer"](https://colinmcginn.net/inner-and-outer-2/) - “Inner” and “Outer” It is with some reluctance that I undertake a discussion of an obscure and elusive topic: what philosophers mean by “inner” and “outer”, if anything. There is a cluster of putative distinctions surrounding the mental: internal and external, private and public, subjective and objective, mental and physical, spiritual and corporeal, inner and
- [Is Language in the Head?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-language-in-the-head/) - Is Language in the Head? It has been said that meaning is not in the head, but is language in the head? A naïve response to this odd question might be: “Well, no, because language is speech and speech is in the mouth and throat”. Technically, the mouth is in the head, of course, but
- [The Journal of Philosophical Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/the-journal-of-philosophical-philosophy/) - I hereby perform the following performative: :"I hereby name this blog "The Journal of Philosophical Philosophy". There, done. I am the editor and sole contributor (aside from such comments as I deem worthy of inclusion). That wasn't so difficult.
- [Existence and Non-Existence](https://colinmcginn.net/existence-and-non-existence/) - Existence and Non-Existence We have puzzled over the nature of existence and the nature of non-existence, but we don’t ask how these two categories relate to each other. Does one entail the other? Not in the sense that if something exists then it doesn’t exist, and vice versa, but in the sense that if one
- [Metaphysical Meaning](https://colinmcginn.net/metaphysical-meaning/) - Metaphysical Meaning The positivists declared metaphysical sentences meaningless. This required them to be able to identify a metaphysical sentence. But how could they do that if such sentences literally have no meaning? It could not be by recognizing them as meaningless, though that is certainly an intelligible mental act, because many sentences are meaningless without
- [Metaphysical Cravings](https://colinmcginn.net/metaphysical-cravings/) - Metaphysical Cravings The soul craves metaphysics.[1] The thinking self wants to think about metaphysical questions. Why do they attract us so? I believe it is because we know (clearly and distinctly) that we are thinking beings: we are directly aware of ourselves as thinking beings. Not necessarily infallibly aware, but aware enough that we don’t
- [A Taxonomy of Reference](https://colinmcginn.net/a-taxonomy-of-reference/) - A Taxonomy of Reference Wittgenstein would say that reference comes in many varieties, like sentences; the concept of reference is a family resemblance concept. We should be wary of the urge to assimilate, unify; we should respect the multiplicity (his word) of reference, like the multiplicity of language games. Gareth Evans called his book The
- [Why Do We Imagine?](https://colinmcginn.net/why-do-we-imagine/) - Why Do We Imagine? If we ask why humans perceive and remember, the answer is not far to seek: for the same reason many animals, particularly mammals, perceive and remember, viz. these are obviously useful traits to possess. They enable the reception and storage of information. There is no evolutionary puzzle about the existence of
- [Why Do We Think?](https://colinmcginn.net/why-do-we-think/) - Why Do We Think? Intelligent thought (cleverness, creativity, insight) is not common in the animal world. Intelligence without thought, and thought without intelligence, are more common, but the combination is rare. That may seem odd, given that intelligent thought is such a dandy adaptation (it can get you to the moon and back)—why isn’t it
- [Why Do We Speak?](https://colinmcginn.net/why-do-we-speak/) - Why Do We Speak? As has often been remarked, language is a rare biological accomplishment. It is not spread widely across the animal world and took billions of years to evolve. I am referring here to communicative speech not the cognitive machinery that underlies human linguistic competence (which may be directed more towards the use
- [Skepticism and Time](https://colinmcginn.net/skepticism-and-time/) - Skepticism and Time We can’t be certain the ordinary world of material objects exists: we might be brains in a vat or perpetually dreaming. We can’t be certain that space exists, at least in the form we think of it, for the same reasons. But what about time? We are familiar with skepticism with respect
- [Anthropocentric Physical Empiricism](https://colinmcginn.net/anthropocentric-physical-empiricism/) - Anthropocentric Physical Empiricism Empiricism is the doctrine that all knowledge derives from something called “experience”. Alternatively, all (non-trivial) knowledge comes from the senses. Knowledge is ultimately reducible to “impressions” or “sense data” originating in the human sense organs. In some forms it takes on a metaphysical cast: all of realityderives from experience and is reducible
- [Knife Throwing](https://colinmcginn.net/knife-throwing/) - Knife Throwing I have been working on my knife throwing recently. It’s not a mainstream sport perhaps, but it has its own charm. I heard someone the other day describe it as “like darts but more macho”; indeed, but it is more than that. It is technically more difficult to stick the knife in the
- [2024 Resolutions](https://colinmcginn.net/2024-resolutions/) - 2024 Resolutions I don’t have any, except one I can’t implement. I would like to ban all teaching of my work in American philosophy departments. Why should I let the products of my labor be used for free by people who refuse to employ me? Shouldn’t there be a law against this? Shouldn’t I have
- [Does the Mind Age?](https://colinmcginn.net/does-the-mind-age/) - Does the Mind Age? The mind has an age, but does it age? The body also has an age, and it does age. The person has an age, and that thing too ages. How old are these things? The body is probably the oldest, because its existence pre-dates the existence of both mind and person
- [Experimental Atomic Psychology](https://colinmcginn.net/experimental-atomic-psychology/) - Experimental Atomic Psychology Is there any evidence for the atomic hypothesis in psychology, however slender? It certainly doesn’t seem to us that our consciousness is composed of little psychic particles separated in space—the analogue of physical particles. But there is one area in which the hypothesis enjoys some phenomenological support—I mean, the experience we have
- [Atomic Psychology](https://colinmcginn.net/atomic-psychology/) - Atomic Psychology Atomic physics has achieved the status of common sense. It is hard now to understand why it took so long to arrive at it. Despite the efforts of a couple of pre-Socratics, it took till the nineteenth and twentieth century till atomic physics came into its own, driven by technology. People just didn’t
- [Evolution of Pain](https://colinmcginn.net/evolution-of-pain/) - This paper follows on from "The Cruel Gene" and "Pain and Unintelligent Design" on this blog. Evolution of Pain Pain has evolved over many millions of years. Presumably it had primitive forms that were subjected to natural selection. It was honed and whittled, modified and amplified. There are now several species of pain, each
- [The Cruel Gene](https://colinmcginn.net/the-cruel-gene-2/) - Ditto this paper. The Cruel Gene I can forgive the genes their selfishness; it is their cruelty I can’t forgive.[1] I understand their need to build survival machines to preserve themselves until they can replicate: they need the secure fortress of an animal body. But why did they have to
- [Pain and Unintelligent Design](https://colinmcginn.net/pain-and-unintelligent-design-3/) - This is an earlier paper that I am re-posting because of the interest shown in "Evolution of Pain". Pain and Unintelligent Design Pain is a very widespread biological adaptation. Pain receptors are everywhere in the animal world. Evidently pain serves the purposes of the genes—it enables survival. It is not just a by-product or holdover;
- [Can There Be a Theory of Meaning?](https://colinmcginn.net/can-there-be-a-theory-of-meaning/) - Can There Be a Theory of Meaning? I will do what is never done: list all the important properties of meaning, in no particular order. First, meaning is combinatorial: meanings combine to form phrase-like and sentence-like structures. Second, meanings are world-correlated: they refer, link to reality, represent how things are. Third, they are use-determining: what
- [Performance Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/performance-philosophy/) - Performance Philosophy There is one aspect of being a philosophy professor that I don’t miss: the performance aspect. I mean the giving of lectures and conference presentations. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t much like it either. It doesn’t mesh with the essential work of being a philosopher, i.e., thinking, reading, and writing. You
- [Here Comes the Sun Again](https://colinmcginn.net/here-comes-the-sun-again/) - A parody of the Beatles' Here Comes the Sun. Here Comes the Sun Again Here comes the sun again Smiling its salesman’s smile Sun, you are so seductive You want to hold me for a while Oh sun, you’re irresistible How can I turn you away When I feel your warmth on my face
- [A Road Song](https://colinmcginn.net/a-road-song/) - I'm reading Paul McCartney's The Lyrics and figured I needed to write a road song (compare Route 66). A Road Song I got my foot on the gas I got my hands on the wheel I’m heading down to Miami To seal the deal I’m a real estate broker If you really want to
- [Rejecting the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction](https://colinmcginn.net/rejecting-the-analytic-synthetic-distinction/) - Rejecting the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction If we cannot make sense of the idea of a synthetic truth, it looks as if we have to reject the analytic-synthetic distinction (the reverse of post-Quine orthodoxy).[1] There is nothing coherent for the concept of analytic truth to contrast with (a genuine distinction requires meaningful things to be distinct). Yet
- [Are There Synthetic Truths?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-there-synthetic-truths/) - Are There Synthetic Truths? There is a tradition, stemming from Quine (but not pre-dating him), claiming that the concept of analytic truth is undefined, or ill-defined, so that the analytic-synthetic distinction cannot be made sense of; accordingly, there are only synthetic truths. I think this is the opposite of the truth. Nothing is true but
- [Preposterous Presidents](https://colinmcginn.net/preposterous-presidents/) - The recent debacle involving the presidents of three top American universities is symptomatic of a deeper and more widespread malaise. The moral obtuseness and intellectual ineptitude of these three women is just part of a general degradation in American universities and intellectual life. I won't go into the causes of this, but what appalls me
- [Consciousness, Paralysis, and Functionalism](https://colinmcginn.net/consciousness-paralysis-and-functionalism/) - Consciousness, Paralysis, and Functionalism Paralysis has been regularly used to defeat behaviorism and its descendant functionalism. How can the mind consist of behavior if paralysis is consistent with having a mind? The objection is clear and strong: paralysis shows that behavior is not required for consciousness to exist. To have a conscious state is not
- [Macro and Micro Necessity](https://colinmcginn.net/macro-and-micro-necessity/) - Macro and Micro Necessity A curious fact of necessity studies: although necessity is liberally spoken of, its extent is rarely tabulated. We find reference to necessities involving people and items of furniture (and the occasional cat) but little in the way of mapping the full distribution of necessities in the world, or their interconnections. We
- [A New Metaphysics of Necessity](https://colinmcginn.net/a-new-metaphysics-of-necessity/) - A New Metaphysics of Necessity There is a tacit recognition in the history of philosophy that in order to account for necessity we need to introduce a split in what we regard as overall reality. Thus, we have the idea that necessity resides in meaning, conceived as separate from the ordinary reality of things and
- [Imagination, Knowledge, and Other Minds](https://colinmcginn.net/imagination-knowledge-and-other-minds/) - Imagination, Knowledge, and Other Minds We don’t know what it is like to be a bat, a shark, or an octopus. There are facts of the matter—phenomenological facts—about these things, but we don’t stand in the knowledge relation to them. We don’t grasp them, apprehend them, conceptualize them. Our knowledge reaches its limits with these
- [A Christmas Song](https://colinmcginn.net/a-christmas-song/) - I thought it would be fun to write a Christmas song and this is what came out. Merry Christmas everyone! Merry Christmas, Christmas Christmas here, Christmas there Christmas, Christmas everywhere! Christmas, Christmas, where will you go When the world’s so hot there is no snow? Christmas, Christmas, do you care If forest fires
- [And and Not](https://colinmcginn.net/and-and-not/) - And and Not Sharp thinkers (Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, among others) have felt that there is something special about the classical logical connectives, and, or, not, and if. I will list the features commonly attributed to these concepts. They are truth-functional and referentially transparent. They are disquotational in the manner formulated by Tarski’s so-called recursion clauses
- [What is a Mental State?](https://colinmcginn.net/what-is-a-mental-state/) - What is a Mental State? The first-person viewpoint is apt to skew our conception of what a mental state essentially involves. We introspect the state and think we have attained a pretty comprehensive picture of what it is, intrinsically, constitutively. Fundamentally, this is a confusion (conflation) of epistemology and metaphysics—privileging one mode of knowing over
- [Are There Psychophysical Correlations?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-there-psychophysical-correlations/) - Are There Psychophysical Correlations? The orthodox view is that mental states or attributes are correlated with physical states or attributes. For every mental state M, there is a physical state P such that M is correlated with P (not so in the opposite direction). That is, every mental distinction has a corresponding physical distinction, down
- [Are There Psychophysical Laws?](https://colinmcginn.net/are-there-psychophysical-laws/) - Are There Psychophysical Laws? This question has been much debated since the publication of Davidson’s 1970 article “Mental Events”.[1]Here I will give my current take on the question. First, we must distinguish strict laws from statements that are lawlike or law-ish, i.e., those that have some nomological force but don’t achieve the status of basic
- [Refuting the Identity Theory](https://colinmcginn.net/refuting-the-identity-theory/) - Refuting the Identity Theory Suppose someone were to make an outrageous identity claim—say, that Donald Trump is identical to Barack Obama. It would be easy to refute that by pointing out that the two men are to be found in different places, so cannot be the same man—following the principle (beloved of detectives) that one
- [On Drumming](https://colinmcginn.net/on-drumming/) - On Drumming My thesis is that all playing of musical instruments is drumming. Drumming is what they all have in common, what constitutes their underlying real essence. It might be thought that this cannot be right, because drums are a rhythm instrument and other instruments are used to produce melody. But actually, drums also produce
- [Identity and Synonymy](https://colinmcginn.net/identity-and-synonymy/) - Identity and Synonymy It is commonly supposed that “water is H2O” is both known to be true and synthetic (hence a posteriori). I think this is not so. The reason is not difficult to see: if the sentence is known to be true, then speakers will associate the same descriptions with each term (following Leibniz’s
- [Shark Attacks](https://colinmcginn.net/shark-attacks/) - Shark Attacks I recently read Francois Sarano’s excellent forthcoming book In the Name of Sharks (sent to me by the publishers because I wrote a review of a book about the octopus in the Wall Street Journal). It puts up a strong case for the preservation of shark populations in the face of dwindling numbers
- [Am I Certain That I Exist?](https://colinmcginn.net/am-i-certain-that-i-exist/) - Am I Certain That I Think? Descartes wanted to build human knowledge on a foundation of certainty. He thought the Cogito provided an instance of certainty, and many have agreed (Montaigne was there before him). Critics have argued that the conclusion of the Cogito doesn’t follow from the premise (the Lichtenberg objection). However, the premise
- [Seeming](https://colinmcginn.net/seeming-2/) - Seeming Seeming is a pervasive feature of conscious life. We (and other animals) are constant subjects of seeming: things are forever seeming this way or that to us. It now seems to me that there is a red cup in front of me, that Sebastian is in a good mood today, and that seeming is
- [How to Do Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/how-to-do-philosophy/) - How to do Philosophy We are confronted by a world we don’t fully understand. We try by various methods to gain understanding of it, sometimes successfully. Philosophy is one such effort. Suppose we want to understand X: we talk about X, have thoughts about X, but we don’t know the nature of X, or the
- [Naming, Necessity, and Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/naming-necessity-and-the-mind/) - Naming, Necessity, and Mind I propose to offer an interpretation of Kripke’s Naming and Necessity that has not (I believe) been offered before. I do not say that this interpretation consciously occurred to the author of that work—in fact, I think it didn’t. But I do claim that it illuminates what is going on argumentatively
- [Apropos the Knowledge Argument](https://colinmcginn.net/apropos-the-knowledge-argument/) - Apropos the Knowledge Argument The knowledge argument tells us that complete physical knowledge of the world is not complete knowledge of the world—in particular, it is not complete knowledge of the mind. How interesting is this conclusion? It depends what we mean by “physical”. Suppose we mean “included in Newtonian physics”, with its talk of
- [The Age of Mystery](https://colinmcginn.net/the-age-of-mystery/) - The Age of Mystery Intellectual historians like to divide up the history of human thought into distinct periods and give them descriptive names: Antiquity, the Middle (Dark) Ages, the Early Modern Period, the Renaissance, the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment, the Romantic Period, the Age of Analysis (I invented that one). But what
- [Life Saving](https://colinmcginn.net/life-saving/) - Life Saving It’s not every day that you save someone’s life. Some years ago, I was visited by the philosopher Amie Thomasson at my home on Miami Beach. We were doing water sports. She got into my waveski (a kayak for surfing). I instructed her not to put on the seatbelt until I had explained
- [Phenomenology of Death](https://colinmcginn.net/phenomenology-of-death/) - Phenomenology of Death What is the phenomenology of death? What is it like to die? What does the final cessation of consciousness feel like? The answer is that there is no phenomenology of death, nothing it is like to die, no feeling of the end of consciousness. As Wittgenstein says, “Death is not an event
- [Immutability and Change](https://colinmcginn.net/immutability-and-change/) - Immutability and Change Is change real? The question is of pre-Socratic antiquity and I probably have nothing new to say about it. Still, the truth is sufficiently strange to be worth reiterating: change is surprisingly absent from the world, more a matter of appearance than reality. Two things don’t change: particles and properties. The same
- [Anthology](https://colinmcginn.net/anthology/) - I am pleased to report that Cambridge Scholars Publishing has agreed to publish a volume entitled Colin McGinn's Philosophy: Further Reflections, edited by Ken Levy. I cordially invite sundry "feminist" groups to send their letters of protest to the publisher and editor; I can promise we will have a good laugh at them.
- [Benefits of Cancellation](https://colinmcginn.net/benefits-of-cancellation/) - Benefits of Cancellation Cancellation does have its upside. During the last ten years (it has been that long) I have had far more time to think, write philosophy, read (by choice), and pursue other interests. None of this would have been possible without ceasing to be a fulltime professor. This blog is one result. Not
- [Character and Consciousness](https://colinmcginn.net/character-and-consciousness/) - Character and Consciousness It would be good to have a philosophy of character analogous to the philosophy of action or perception or emotion or thought or imagination or consciousness or the self. But we don’t. The subject hardly exists. I will take some steps to remedy that, focusing on the relationship between character and consciousness.
- [Aspects of Meaning](https://colinmcginn.net/aspects-of-meaning/) - Aspects of Meaning Many theories of meaning have been propounded, each seeming to have some merit. But only one theory can be true, so some have to be rejected—or so we suppose. I will contest this. Things are more complicated, more nuanced. Among the theories defended we have: truth conditions, verification conditions, linguistic use, speaker
- [Analyzing Use](https://colinmcginn.net/analyzing-use/) - Analyzing Use If meaning is use, then a theory of meaning is a description of use not an analysis of sense. This is the message of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, as commonly understood. Instead of analyzing what a sentence means, breaking it into parts, providing necessary and sufficient conditions, we should aim for a perspicuous description
- [Analysis of a Sentence](https://colinmcginn.net/analysis-of-a-sentence/) - Analysis of a Sentence It is a useful exercise, for those interested in language, to list the various ways in which a sentence can be analyzed, in order to gain a full appreciation of how multi-faceted a sentence is.[1] Strangely, I have never seen this done. As an example, I will choose the sentence “Miami
- [Philosophy and Thought](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-and-thought/) - Philosophy and Thought It is often said that philosophy is, or ought to be, concerned with thought. It is then contended, by some, that it should be concerned with language, since language provides our only access to thought.[1] Hence, the linguistic turn. A contrast is thereby presupposed: between science and philosophy. Science deals with external
- [Analytic Philosophy as Phenomenology](https://colinmcginn.net/analytic-philosophy-as-phenomenology/) - Analytic Philosophy as Phenomenology Phenomenology lies in a long tradition stemming from Descartes and including Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Mill, Brentano, and Wundt. It has a number of distinguishing features, as developed by Husserl: it is based on “intuitions”; it is concerned with phenomena not hidden realities (e.g., Kantian noumena); it aims to discover essences;
- [Andrew Cuomo](https://colinmcginn.net/andrew-cuomo/) - Andrew Cuomo was on Bill Maher last night. It turns out all that Me-Too stuff about him was rubbish. Has anyone apologized? Has the New York Times admitted its mistake? Of course not. It was all politics and hysteria, after all. This was quite obvious to the discerning person at the time, but people preferred
- [Intentionality and the Ego](https://colinmcginn.net/intentionality-and-the-ego/) - Intentionality and the Ego In The Transcendence of the Ego (1936) Sartre criticizes Husserl’s conception of consciousness. I intend to add to this critique. Husserl supposes that in addition to the usual objects of consciousness there exists a further object christened the “transcendental ego”: it is the reference of “I”, the source of the unity
- [Contradictory Being](https://colinmcginn.net/contradictory-being/) - Contradictory Being Non-being looks like it cannot be. Being is always positive, never negative. It never contains lacks or absences or negations. There are no “negative facts”: actualities with not-ness built into them. Negation belongs with language, mental acts, not with objective reality. There is no such thing as nothingness. Yet negation is real; it’s
- [The Symbolic Gene](https://colinmcginn.net/the-symbolic-gene/) - The Symbolic Gene Everyone has heard of the genetic code. Here is a typical statement from Wikipedia: “The genetic code is the set of rules used by living cells to translate information encoded within genetic material (DNA or RNA sequences of nucleotide triplets, or codons) into proteins…The codons specify which amino acid will be added
- [Bill Maher on Universities](https://colinmcginn.net/bill-maher-on-universities/) - Bill Maher on Universities Bill Maher unleashed a diatribe against American universities last night, especially elite ones, mainly prompted by recent events concerning Israel. He blamed various cultural influences and what now passes for scholarship. There is now a good deal of agreement with this (I certainly agree with it). I want to add that
- [A Causal World](https://colinmcginn.net/a-causal-world/) - A Causal World There are two ways to think about causation: either it is something that exists in addition to an antecedent reality of objects and properties or it is constitutive of reality. According to the first way, if you removed causation from the world, you would be left with constant conjunction, a real world
- [Identity Amid Difference](https://colinmcginn.net/identity-amid-difference/) - Identity Amid Difference What is the most fundamental fact about reality? Is it that the world is the totality of facts (not things)? Is it that reality divides into particulars and universals? Is it the spatiotemporal manifold? The substance-accident distinction? Events and processes? The plurality of possible worlds? These are reasonable answers to a good
- [Political Evil and the Family](https://colinmcginn.net/political-evil-and-the-family/) - Political Evil and the Family What is the psychology of political evil, including political violence? By “political evil” I mean evil directed towards groups, as opposed to specific individuals: races, nationalities, religions, party affiliation, educational attainment, style of dress, etc. This kind of evil has a distinctive intentionality: whereas individual-directed intentionality takes in a concrete
- [Anatomy of a Proposition](https://colinmcginn.net/anatomy-of-a-proposition/) - Anatomy of a Proposition In his Notebooks 1914-1916 Wittgenstein writes as follows: “My whole task consists in explaining the nature of the proposition” (39) and “All this would get solved of itself if we understood the nature of the proposition” (33). He clearly thinks we don’t understand the nature of the proposition and that there
- [Accent Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/accent-philosophy/) - Accent Philosophy I propose to open up a new field of philosophy: accent philosophy—the philosophy of accents.[1] This may sound like a dull subject, but in fact it sets the pulses racing: for accents penetrate to the heart of what we are as human beings--as living, breathing, speaking people. It is actually a deeply political
- [States of Affairs](https://colinmcginn.net/states-of-affairs/) - States of Affairs The form of words “state of affairs” is a very odd phrase, and yet it is used primitively in metaphysical theories. What is an “affair” and what is a “state” of one of these?[1] People talk of their financial and romantic affairs, but do ordinary objects have affairs that are in a
- [On the Concept of a Conceptual Scheme](https://colinmcginn.net/on-the-concept-of-a-conceptual-scheme/) - On the Concept of a Conceptual Scheme The phrase “conceptual scheme”, as it is used in philosophy, anthropology, and the history of ideas, is intended to signify a particular conception of the conceptualizing mind, namely that our ways of thinking of the world are contingent, variable, and sometimes non-translatable.[1] That is, as a result of
- [Mysticism, Philosophy, and the Womb](https://colinmcginn.net/mysticism-philosophy-and-the-womb/) - Mysticism, Philosophy, and the Womb In “Mysticism and Logic” Russell lists four characteristics typical of the mystical temperament: a belief in a special way of knowing, a craving for unity in the world, a denial of the reality of time, and a disbelief in evil. The mystic believes that we (some of us) have a
- [Late Wittgenstein](https://colinmcginn.net/late-wittgenstein/) - Late Wittgenstein Wittgenstein died in 1951 (a year after I was born) at age 62. This was 30 years after publishing the Tractatusand two years before the Investigations was published. As everyone knows, he changed his views dramatically in the years following the publication of the Tractatus—perhaps the most dramatic self-repudiation in the history of
- [False to Facts](https://colinmcginn.net/false-to-facts/) - False to Facts We have grown accustomed to a philosophical use of the word “fact”, mainly from the writings of Wittgenstein and Russell in their logical atomism period. Roughly, this is the idea of a fact as a “combination of objects”—a sort of complex of objects, properties, and relations. This conception is what allows Wittgenstein
- [An Ethics of Trust](https://colinmcginn.net/an-ethics-of-trust/) - An Ethics of Trust Deontological ethics suffers from a lack of unity: we have a list of duties, expressed as moral imperatives, but no unifying principle behind them. Thus: don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t break promises, don’t commit adultery, don’t be late, don’t betray friends, etc. Is there anything in common to these prescriptions? Is
- [An A Priori Order](https://colinmcginn.net/an-a-priori-order/) - An A Priori Order In his Private Notebooks 1914-1916 Wittgenstein writes: “The great question around which everything I write revolves is: Is there an a priori order in the world, and if so, of what does it consist?” The question is a good one (and highly metaphysical). In the Tractatus we read what looks like
- [Logical Phenomenology](https://colinmcginn.net/logical-phenomenology/) - Logical Phenomenology What would a phenomenological study of logic look like? It would investigate the modes of consciousness proper to the various categories of logic: variables, quantifiers, individual constants, connectives, predicates, premise and conclusion, rules of inference. This could be directed to a formal language such as we find in a logic textbook or it
- [Linguistic Phenomenology](https://colinmcginn.net/linguistic-phenomenology/) - Linguistic Phenomenology J.L. Austin described his method as “linguistic phenomenology”. It is highly likely that this is an allusion to Husserl’s phenomenology: Husserl’s work was well known in Oxford in Austin’s time and Gilbert Ryle had a special interest in Husserl (he was a colleague of Austin’s). A cheeky allusion, perhaps, but an allusion nonetheless.
- [Cancellation and Quotation](https://colinmcginn.net/cancellation-and-quotation/) - Cancellation and Quotation Today I happened by chance on an article in Scientific American on panpsychism by Dan Falk. The second paragraph contains the sentences: “As philosopher David Chalmers asked: ‘How does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?’ He famously dubbed this quandary the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness.” In the
- [Data in Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/data-in-philosophy/) - Data in Philosophy Every academic subject requires a source of data. Without data a subject cannot thrive, survive, or even exist. History requires written documents of the past. Archeology requires preserved artifacts. Microbiology requires data from microscopes. Anatomy requires dissections. Atomic physics requires data from supercolliders. Astronomy requires light readings from telescopes. Zoology requires observations
- [Determinacy of Translation](https://colinmcginn.net/determinacy-of-translation/) - Determinacy of Translation The following seems logically possible: a speaker’s use of the word “rabbit” is accompanied by rapid changes in its meaning and denotation—at one moment meaning rabbit and at another meaning undetached rabbit part. This will not be apparent to an observer, since assent behavior will remain constant in the presence of rabbits
- [Does Truth Matter?](https://colinmcginn.net/does-truth-matter/) - Does Truth Matter? Theories of truth are very various, as if people can’t decide what kind of thing truth is. Is it just another name for consistency (coherence), an inter-propositional relation? Is it nothing at all, mere repetition of the proposition said to be true? Is it some sort of abstract correspondence between proposition and
- [Against World-Making](https://colinmcginn.net/against-world-making/) - Against World-Making There is a view out there, made respectable by Nelson Goodman, that the world is made not found—or rather, worlds, plural.[1] Worlds are versions, verbiage, visions (to parody Goodman’s alliterative style). They are not discovered, or uncovered; they are constructed, built. Is there any truth to this trope (merit to this meme)? Note that
- [Geometrical Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/geometrical-knowledge/) - Geometrical Knowledge How do we come to have geometrical knowledge? How do we acquire geometrical concepts? The question has been around since Plato and his theory is still probably the best—we have such knowledge innately. But this doesn’t answer the question of what triggers the innate knowledge (it isn’t there fully formed from the start):
- [Quantifier Logics](https://colinmcginn.net/quantifier-logics/) - Quantified Logics Standard propositional logic contains no quantifiers. It simply replaces sentences with propositional variables (“schematic letters”) that remain unbound. But there is nothing to prevent us from introducing quantifiers that bind these variables, ranging over propositions. These can be objectual or substitutional, according to taste. They will be read “for all p” and “for
- [Other Bodies](https://colinmcginn.net/other-bodies/) - Other Bodies The orthodox view of our knowledge of minds is that while other people’s minds are doubtful my own mind is not: I can be certain of my mind but not of other minds. Hence there is a skeptical problem of other minds but not of my own mind. There is a deep epistemological
- [Academic Blacklisting](https://colinmcginn.net/academic-blacklisting/) - Academic Blacklisting A few weeks ago, a fellow philosopher suggested to me that it would be a good idea to produce a book of essays discussing my work, which he would edit. I agreed. He contacted Wiley publishers and received a highly enthusiastic response from their commissioning editor Will Croft. It only remained to sign
- [Cogito for the External World](https://colinmcginn.net/cogito-for-the-external-world/) - Cogito for the External World The traditional Cogito “I think, therefore I am” yields a moderate harvest of existential conclusions: the existence of a subject of thoughts (albeit momentary and etiolated) and the existence of propositions as the content of thoughts. We might compare this to a plant that is rooted in the earth and
- [Formulating the Cogito](https://colinmcginn.net/formulating-the-cogito/) - Formulating the Cogito The Cogito is usually expressed in the words “I think, therefore I am”. The first clause is misleading: it suggests the proposition that I am a thinker, i.e., that I think things at different times. I might assert this because I remember thinking something yesterday and expect to think something five minutes
- [Do I Know That I Exist?](https://colinmcginn.net/do-i-know-that-i-exist/) - Do I Know That I Exist? I am going to argue (a) that the Cogito cannot prove that I exist but (b) that it can prove that various other things exist. This is ironic given that it is commonly supposed that the Cogito can establish the existence of the self (person, subject) but that only
- [Wittgenstein's Ontology](https://colinmcginn.net/wittgensteins-ontology/) - Wittgenstein’s Ontology The Tractatus begins with Wittgenstein’s ontology: facts, totalities of facts, states of affairs, objects, combinations of objects, etc. By contrast, the Investigations does not begin in that way: it begins with language—and it goes on in the same way. No reader could hazard a guess as to Wittgenstein’s ontology in the Investigations. Certainly,
- [The New Cogito](https://colinmcginn.net/the-new-cogito/) - The New Cogito I think, therefore I am (not extended) I think, therefore I am (made of two parts) I think, therefore I am (not an animal) I think, therefore I am (not getting out of bed today) I think, therefore I am (never going to get married) I think, therefore I am (not very
- [Counting Worlds](https://colinmcginn.net/counting-worlds/) - Counting Worlds We encounter the word “world” often in philosophy, particularly in the phrases “possible worlds” and “the actual world” but also in the unmodified “the world”. We also speak in philosophy of “the physical world” or “the biological world” or “the world of science”. What does the word “world” mean in these locutions? Does
- [Time and Rock n' Roll](https://colinmcginn.net/time-and-rock-n-roll/) - Time and Rock n’ Roll We all take a beating from time. Each day, over a lifetime. We can’t beat time. But we can beat to time. Rock n’ roll is our attempt to master time, to fight time back. It’s not about sex, it’s about the need to dominate time. That’s why the drums
- [Being and Doing](https://colinmcginn.net/being-and-doing/) - Being and Doing Two highly general concepts run through the history of philosophy (and science): being and doing. They shape how the subject is conceptualized, yet they don’t tend to be considered in their own right. It is true that both concepts are hard to articulate, and their interrelations are obscure. Here I will describe
- [Coco Wins! But...](https://colinmcginn.net/coco-wins-but/) - Coco played beautifully and thoroughly deserved her win. But the weakness in her forehand is undeniable (and frequently commented upon). By contrast her backhand is solid as a rock and very powerful. Why the difference? Because she uses a two-handed backhand and a one-handed forehand: she obviously gets help from her left hand on the
- [Metaphysical Necessity Reexamined](https://colinmcginn.net/metaphysical-necessity-reexamined/) - Metaphysical Necessity Reexamined When Kripke introduced the phrase “metaphysical necessity” in Naming and Necessity he didn’t say much about the nature of this type of necessity beyond distinguishing it from the a priori and so-called epistemic necessity. These are his words: “The second concept which is in question is that of necessity. Sometimes this is
- [Easy Cosmology](https://colinmcginn.net/easy-cosmology/) - Easy Cosmology It took over 2000 years to discover the correct cosmology: the one formulated by Isaac Newton. The features of this cosmology include a heliocentric solar system, a moving earth (diurnal and annual), a unified theory of terrestrial and celestial motion, a universal force of gravity, elliptical orbits, and an account of moons, comets,
- [Angry](https://colinmcginn.net/angry/) - Yesterday the Stones released their first album of original material in 18 years. I watched the video of the new single "Angry With Me" and am happy to report that it is a triumph. The record rocks. Good drumming, great guitar licks, and Mick in fine voice. The video stars the incomparable Sydney Sweeney who
- [An Argument Against Skepticism](https://colinmcginn.net/an-argument-against-skepticism/) - An Argument Against Skepticism The skeptic claims that we are wrong to credit ourselves with knowledge. Our belief that we possess knowledge is a false belief: we make an error when we ascribe knowledge to ourselves. But why do we make this error? On this question the skeptic is strangely silent: we are not told
- [Astronomy, Mysticism, and Mechanism](https://colinmcginn.net/astronomy-mysticism-and-mechanism/) - Astronomy, Mysticism, and Mechanism Astronomy has always been linked with mysticism. The gods of the sun, moon, and stars; the belief in astrology; the supposed geometrical perfection of celestial motions; the Empyrean Heaven; the spiritual meaning of celestial phenomena; the awe inspired by the “starry heavens” (Kant); the assumption of a superlunary realm of being
- [Novels](https://colinmcginn.net/novels/) - Novels Someone once described my first novel Bad Patches as a “punk existentialist” novel. I thought this an apt description. Written in the early Eighties, when punk was still alive and kicking in the UK (“Anarchy In”), the central character, Dave Green, is abrasive, abusive, resentful, unpleasant to be around, and generally repellent—though not without
- [Einstein and Hume](https://colinmcginn.net/einstein-and-hume/) - Einstein and Hume It is well known that Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity was influenced by his reading of Hume’s Treatise. People sometimes applaud this for revealing Einstein’s openness to philosophy. To me it suggests a different lesson. Einstein will have read Hume from the perspective of contemporary positivism, interpreting him accordingly. A.J. Ayer also
- [Easy and Hard Problems](https://colinmcginn.net/easy-and-hard-problems/) - Easy and Hard Problems It has become customary to speak of “the hard problem of consciousness” and “easy problems [of consciousness]”. I think this is an unhelpful way to talk; it is too simple-minded. In the first place, we should not say that consciousness itself is a hard problem; rather, its relation to the brain
- [Value Realism and Metaphysical Mystery](https://colinmcginn.net/value-realism-and-metaphysical-mystery/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/existentialist-ethics-and-value-realism/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/four-women/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/necessity-and-time/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/notes-on-creativity/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophical-speech-acts/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/scientific-speech-acts/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/science-philosophy/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/scientific-language-philosophy/) - 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
- [Mark Rowe's "Austin"](https://colinmcginn.net/mark-rowes-austin/) - 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.
- [Note to Other Philosophers](https://colinmcginn.net/note-to-other-philosophers/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/quantifiers-deconstructed/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/truth-lies-and-the-internet/) - 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
- [Is Logic Gibberish?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-logic-gibberish/) - Is Logic Gibberish? We are familiar with the standard notation of predicate logic in which we have what is called variable binding. Thus we have a symbol for (say) existence followed by an “x” and then a formula in which a predicate and bound variable occur (“Ex(Fx)”). How should we read this? It is common
- [Oppenheimer](https://colinmcginn.net/oppenheimer/) - I went to see the film the other day. It is commendable in many ways. I liked the moment, surely lost on most viewers, when Einstein says to someone visiting the Institute in Princeton, "Have you met Dr Godel?"--who then disappears for the rest of the movie. But it irritated me that Oppenheimer was depicted
- [Goethe on Italy](https://colinmcginn.net/goethe-on-italy/) - I'm reading Goethe's "Italian Journey". He remarks during his visit to Rome: "The past year has been the most important one in my life; it does not matter whether I die now or last a while longer, in either case I am content." People used to ask me whether there was anything about England I
- [A song for ill people everywhere (the rhyming scheme is the thing)](https://colinmcginn.net/a-song-for-ill-people-everywhere-the-rhyming-scheme-is-the-thing/) - I Feel So Weak Well, I feel so weak There’s nothing I can do I can’t even speak Or come right over to you I’m a-laying in my bed Can’t stand on my own two feet I feel half dead It’s hard for me to breathe Coz I’m weak In my physique
- [A short song about dead friends (inspired by Nellie Was a Lady)](https://colinmcginn.net/a-short-song-about-dead-friends-inspired-by-nellie-was-a-lady/) - Why Did You Die? You were my dear old friend That word is too short for you Now you’ve gone and left me And I don’t know what to do I’d walk with you by my side On summer days and winter nights I thought you’d always be around Like the clear blue
- [Higher-Order Desire](https://colinmcginn.net/higher-order-desire/) - Higher-Order Desire As we know from the work of Frankfurt, it is possible to have second-order desires directed at first-order desires. For example, the prudent alcoholic may decide, upon reflection, to reject or moderate his desire for alcohol: he desires not to desire alcohol, or to act on that desire. He thinks about his first-order
- [Bob Dylan's Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/bob-dylans-philosophy/) - I just finished reading Bob Dylan's The Philosophy of Modern Song. There is no philosophy in it but plenty about song. He clearly has never read any philosophy of music, or perhaps any philosophy at all (bit of Nietzsche maybe). I don't know what he means by "Modern Song": certainly there is nothing classical in it, though
- [Ordering Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/ordering-philosophy/) - Ordering Philosophy Does philosophy consist of a bunch of more or less unconnected problems or is there a pattern to its problems? Is it possible to order philosophy in a natural and illuminating way, with some areas leading naturally to others, or is it that there is just a loose association of problems that historically
- [Gravity and Consciousness](https://colinmcginn.net/gravity-and-consciousness/) - Gravity and Consciousness It is tempting to see an analogy between the mystery of consciousness and the mystery of gravity. Both arose at around the same time (with Descartes and Newton) as the Scientific Revolution was getting underway. Gravity and consciousness seem “occult” to a mechanistic worldview: the brain and the earth are extended objects
- [Readership](https://colinmcginn.net/readership/) - I'm curious about the demographics of my readership. I have the impression that no one from a North American philosophy department ever comments on this blog. I wonder whether readers would care to tell me whether I am wrong about this. Perhaps readers would like to share their affiliation.
- [Wimbledon and Me](https://colinmcginn.net/wimbledon-and-me/) - Wimbledon and Me I had always been a one-handed player, forehand and backhand. Occasionally I would try a two-handed backhand and find it awkward and unnatural. But my neck operation in March changed all of this: it left my right arm impaired, causing me to lose power, mobility, and control. I was assured it would
- [Mass and Consciousness](https://colinmcginn.net/mass-and-consciousness/) - Mass and Consciousness In “The Mysteries of Mass” Jorge Cham and Daniel Whitestone write as follows: “We have many descriptions of mass but very little understanding of what it is and why we have it. We all feel mass. As a baby, you develop that sense that some things are harder to push around than
- [Cancer and Cancelation](https://colinmcginn.net/cancer-and-cancelation/) - I doubt that it will be necessary to cancel me for much longer, which will be a relief to my cancelers. Cancer will step in to help them out.
- [Radiation](https://colinmcginn.net/radiation/) - I have just finished six weeks of radiation treatment, five days a week. Among other things it damaged (temporarily) my sense of taste, making it difficult to eat; I now weigh 128 pounds. Compensation: it is now much easier to do my horizontal balance and I can do more pushups.
- [Quantification and Necessity](https://colinmcginn.net/quantification-and-necessity/) - Quantification and Necessity What is the connection between quantification and necessity? At first sight none: if you make a singular statement of necessity such as “This table is necessarily made of wood” you express no general proposition; you speak simply of a particular table and a property of it. The statement seems
- [Tranquility Ethics](https://colinmcginn.net/tranquility-ethics/) - Tranquility Ethics What constitutes the good life? According to ethical hedonism, the good life is the life of pleasure. But what is it about pleasure that makes it conducive to the good life? Is it pleasure’s inherent phenomenology or is it something to which pleasure gives rise? Is it the way pleasure feels or is
- [Perceiving](https://colinmcginn.net/perceiving/) - Perceiving Two positions have dominated the philosophy of perception: naïve realism and the sense-datum theory. Either we see material objects “directly” or we see only sense-data. I will describe a hybrid theory according to which the objects of perception are indeed material particulars located at some distance away in space but the properties we see
- [Impersonal Identity](https://colinmcginn.net/impersonal-identity/) - Impersonal Identity We normally think that bodily survival depends upon identity through time. The body of an animal may change over time, but the body remains one and the same through these changes; the animal doesn’t acquire a numerically distinct body as it goes through life. Even in death the body remains one and the
- [Subjects and Persons](https://colinmcginn.net/subjects-and-persons/) - Subjects and Persons Are persons and subjects identical? Both these concepts are hard to define, but we can fix ideas by saying that subjects are centers of consciousness and persons are constituted by memories, personality traits, and mental and physical capacities. Elsewhere I have given an argument showing that they are not identical,
- [Does Arithmetic Rest on a Mistake?](https://colinmcginn.net/5181-2/) - Does Arithmetic Rest on a Mistake? How can the statement “1 + 1 = 2” be true? How can the operation of adding 1 to itself produce the number 2? There is only one number 1, so how could it by itself give rise to the distinct number 2? If you add the
- [Intuitive Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/intuitive-knowledge/) - Intuitive Knowledge The OED defines “intuition” as “immediate apprehension by the intellect alone” (among other meanings). Intuitive knowledge, then, is knowledge by the intellect alone—knowledge by pure intellection. The senses play no part in it. Empirical knowledge, by contrast, is defined as knowledge by means of the senses, perhaps allowing a contribution
- [Ears](https://colinmcginn.net/ears/) - Ears It began over a year ago when a small red patch appeared on the top of my right ear. At first it was diagnosed as inflammation of the cartilage probably brought on by wearing too tight headphones. The cure was not to put any pressure on it and wait for the inflammation to
- [Blindsight and Empiricism](https://colinmcginn.net/blindsight-and-empiricism/) - Blindsight and Empiricism Imagine a person with blindsight in every sense: no conscious perceptual experience at all but able to receive information subconsciously from the external world. This person nevertheless has ordinary fully conscious reason: she is capable of forming beliefs that count as knowledge in virtue of the informational input. It would
- [Saying and Showing](https://colinmcginn.net/saying-and-showing/) - Saying and Showing Wittgenstein famously introduced the distinction between saying and showing in the Tractatus. I won’t be concerned with his treatment of the distinction, either by way of interpretation or evaluation; but I will be using the terminology. I want to say that every speech act includes an act of showing,
- [Time and Truth](https://colinmcginn.net/time-and-truth/) - Time and Truth Truth relates to time in an interesting way: once a fact obtains a corresponding proposition is instantaneously true. On the one hand is a fact, say the fact that it just started raining at a certain place, while on the other is a proposition (a belief or assertion), say that
- [Action As Externalization](https://colinmcginn.net/action-as-externalization/) - Action As Externalization The causal theory of action says that actions consist of a causal link between an inner mental state (a reason, an intention, a willing) and a piece of behavior (an arm rising, flicking the switch). The mental state causes the behavior in the same way a tap on the knee
- [Perception As Internalization](https://colinmcginn.net/perception-as-internalization/) - Perception As Internalization We have become accustomed to thinking of perception as a type of causal relation, sharing its logical (metaphysical) features. As earthquakes cause buildings to collapse, so external objects cause experiences to occur. Cause and effect are external to each other; neither is contained in the other. But this picture fails
- [Ed Erwin Again](https://colinmcginn.net/ed-erwin-again/) - Ed Erwin Again It’s nice to receive two laudatory messages about Ed Erwin from Michael Tooley and Alan Goldman, both old colleagues of Ed’s at Miami (now posted under my brief notice of his death in May 2022). I observe, however, that neither the Brian Leiter blog nor Daily Nous has posted any notice
- [Concepts and Philosophical Puzzlement](https://colinmcginn.net/concepts-and-philosophical-puzzlement/) - Concepts and Philosophical Puzzlement Michael Dummett has suggested that philosophical puzzlement is caused by our “imperfect mastery” of our concepts (he is by no means the only person to think this way).[1] He gives the example of the concepts past and future: we understand these concepts well enough to make judgments about
- [What is Mathematics About?](https://colinmcginn.net/what-is-mathematics-about/) - What is Mathematics About? Various suggestions have been made about this question: mathematics is about symbols, or mental constructions, or abstract Platonic entities. We can also ask what physics is about and expect a variety of answers: the sensations of the physicist, mind-independent material bodies, an all-pervading consciousness, abstract structure. In the
- [Extended Ban](https://colinmcginn.net/extended-ban/) - Extended Ban A thought occurs to me: would other university administrators take a similar line? I have to admit that the idea that I would ever be forbidden to attend an academic gathering never entered my head, but that is the reality I now face. So far as I know it is unprecedented. But
- [Banned](https://colinmcginn.net/banned/) - Banned I recently expressed an interest in attending colloquia at the University of Miami, where I used to teach (I live nearby). I was told by the chairman, Professor Mark Rowlands, that I was banned from campus at the direction of university administrators. No reason was given. There was no protest from members of
- [My Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/my-mind/) - My Mind How do I get the idea of my own mind? Do I get it simply by having my mind, or possibly by experiencing the mind I have? Do I perhaps have an “impression” of my mind from which I extract the idea? Here is a problem with this theory: based on
- [Sons of Gods](https://colinmcginn.net/sons-of-gods/) - Sons of Gods According to Greek mythology, Perseus was the son of Zeus and Danae, the former a god, the latter a mortal woman (daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos). One imagines that the conception occurred in the normal way: Zeus paid Danae a visit and impregnated her by penile insertion. Sperm and
- [A Puzzle About Perception](https://colinmcginn.net/a-puzzle-about-perception/) - A Puzzle About Perception Here is a strange fact about the universe: nothing that can be perceived from the inside can be perceived from the outside, and nothing that can be perceived from the outside can be perceived from the inside. You feel an intense pain—you plainly perceive the pain—but no one
- [Reading Matter](https://colinmcginn.net/reading-matter/) - Reading Matter I made on attempt on the mountain of Don Quixote and made it to page 400. I don’t intend to reach the summit, though I enjoyed the climb. It’s just a bit too repetitive and the joke starts to wear thin. Still it has a certain impressive monomania about it. The knight
- [An Interactive Theory of Meaning](https://colinmcginn.net/an-interactive-theory-of-meaning/) - An Interactive Theory of Meaning Theories of meaning are apt to emphasize one or other aspect of what is conceived as a polarity: either meaning is constituted by features of the mind (the subject, the brain) or it is constituted by features of mind-independent reality (objects, the environment). Thus we have internalist
- [Another Philosopher's Day](https://colinmcginn.net/5064-2/) - Another Philosopher’s Day[1] Wake from a dream (that might be reality) Penetrate the veil of perception Check that one is not a brain in a vat Receive the given Will one’s right arm to rise Harness mind to body by tinkering with the pineal Quantify over a few numbers Imbibe some wisdom
- [Another Interview](https://colinmcginn.net/another-interview/) - There is another interview with me on YouTube, this time with Thom Jump. It's about the mind of God.
- [Godless Matter](https://colinmcginn.net/godless-matter/) - Godless Matter Berkeley’s philosophy is built around the insight that the existence of matter and the existence of God are incompatible.[1] If God exists, then matter does not; if matter exists, then God does not. This incompatibility is not obvious: offhand it appears that matter and God are compatible entities—a world could
- [Best At Doing Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/best-at-doing-philosophy/) - Best At Doing Philosophy I found myself wondering who is the best at actually doing philosophy—the activity, the skill. I mean as judged by such criteria as cleverness, ingenuity, argumentative power, intellectual penetration, insight, polemical punch, sheer philosophical IQ. This is independent of correctness or quantity of output. Here is my answer: Descartes,
- [Psychologist](https://colinmcginn.net/psychologist/) - Psychologist Here is an extra oddity: I was originally trained as a psychologist not a philosopher. And I don’t mean a philosophical psychologist but an experimental psychologist. I used to be a scientist. I got my B.A. in psychology from Manchester University in 1971 (first class) and went on to do an M.A.
- [Roger's Retirement](https://colinmcginn.net/rogers-retirement/) - One thing is clear: Roger Federer loved tennis, and still does. He loves his wife for letting him play; he loves his friends for playing with him; he loves to hold a racket in his hands. That's why he cried: because he was leaving tennis behind. It's what gave his life meaning. Roger is tennis.
- [A Saturday Song](https://colinmcginn.net/a-saturday-song/) - If I Tell You If I tell you that I love you Will you say you love me too? If I tell you that I need you Will you promise to be true? Or will you walk away? Will you break my day? Will you leave me here to bleed? And report
- [Best Philosopher Ever](https://colinmcginn.net/best-philosopher-ever/) - Best Philosopher Ever Who is the best philosopher that ever lived? I am going to argue that I am. This claim may be met with some incredulity: surely I don’t believe I’m a better philosopher than Plato or Aristotle or Descartes or Kant or Russell! Actually I am claiming that, but the claim
- [The Queen](https://colinmcginn.net/the-queen/) - When Elizabeth II died I thought: She wasn't a bad old bird--these very words went through my mind. I remember singing God Save The Queen to her at Saturday morning pictures (movies for kids) back in the 1950s when I was 8 or 9. I am no royalist but at least she gave people something
- [New Interview](https://colinmcginn.net/new-interview/) - There is a new interview with me on Youtube with Dylan Aames. It has its moments.
- [Mysteries of Physics](https://colinmcginn.net/mysteries-of-physics/) - Mysteries of Physics I just read We Have No Idea by Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson, a book about all the things we don’t know about the physical universe. These include: dark matter, dark energy, the basic elements of matter, the nature of mass, why gravity is so different from other forces, the nature of
- [Eloise](https://colinmcginn.net/eloise/) - Eloise She was just a bright young thing Not yet fully grown But she caught my eye across the room She cleverly made herself known So I took her home with me And introduced her to her new friends It was tense at first But soon they were happy as larks Oh
- [I Know a Girl](https://colinmcginn.net/i-know-a-girl/) - I Know a Girl I know a girl likes to dance and sing This girl is up for most anything I took her dancing on a Saturday night And wouldn’t you know I got into a fight Too many guys just hanging round She got her red dress on her feet don’t
- [Earth Song](https://colinmcginn.net/earth-song/) - Earth Song Earth is that your voice I hear? Are you whispering to me? Do I feel your soul in mine? Is your mind in my mind? I sense your wide expanse Your molten heart Your halo of air Your oceans, mountains and life You sing to me of ancient times
- [Hazy Babies (lyrics)](https://colinmcginn.net/hazy-babies-lyrics/) - Hazy Babies I was driving alone along route 95 Lights were flashing and I started to dive I told you I loved you and you said you loved me And the hazy babies were nausea clothed Oh-oh-oh don’t go-oh-oh Don’t go oh please don’t go! I was reading a book that made
- [Song](https://colinmcginn.net/song/) - Song I have just stopped taking voice lessons with my esteemed teacher Nicole, after two and a half years. She took me from lamentable singer to not-too-bad performer, even if I say so myself. After a year of intense coaching and practice I achieved my goals, rather to my surprise. We then formed a
- [No More Philosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/no-more-philosophy/) - No More Philosophy Readers may have noticed a cessation in the philosophical essays I have been posting on this blog. The reason for this is that I have nothing further to say. For the past several years I have been writing down my philosophical thoughts and publishing them here. I never intended to do
- [Knowledge and Belief](https://colinmcginn.net/knowledge-and-belief-2/) - Knowledge and Belief The traditional analysis of knowledge as true justified belief encourages the following picture (though it doesn’t strictly entail it): there is a common psychological element to knowledge and non-knowledge, which we can call “belief”, and knowledge is the result of supplementing this element with further conditions that together add
- [Joshua Katz](https://colinmcginn.net/joshua-katz/) - Joshua Katz Let’s be clear, the treatment of Professor Joshua Katz is just the latest example of American stupidity, hysteria, callousness, violence, cowardice, and general vileness to occur in American universities. How people can justify this evil is beyond me. As for his so-called friends—the ones who ran for the hills for rather obvious
- [Ed Erwin (1937-2022)](https://colinmcginn.net/ed-erwin-1937-2022/) - Ed was a genuinely good man--and reviled for it. He was tough and gentle at the same time. He was also an exceptionally good philosopher.
- [Holism and Existence](https://colinmcginn.net/holism-and-existence/) - Holism and Existence Holism is an ontological doctrine: it says that the existence, nature and identity of individual things depend on their place in a wider whole consisting of other individual things. To be a certain entity is to stand in a network of related entities: the being of one thing is
- [Morality as a System of Categorical Modals](https://colinmcginn.net/morality-as-a-system-of-categorical-modals/) - Morality as a System of Categorical Modals We express our moral beliefs in sentences like these: “Murder is wrong”, “Stealing is wrong”, “Generosity is good”, and “Violence is bad”. What do they mean? Some have said they are equivalent to categorical imperatives, others suggest that hypothetical imperatives provide a better analysis; the concepts
- [Driving and Abortion](https://colinmcginn.net/driving-and-abortion/) - Driving and Abortion It is legal to drive. But driving causes death. So if we are pro-life, we should be anti-driving. Therefore driving should be made illegal. Moreover, drivers know the risks they run by driving—there is a non-zero probability that they will kill someone in an accident—so it is unethical of them
- [Abortion and the Body](https://colinmcginn.net/abortion-and-the-body/) - Abortion and the Body We hear it argued that a woman has the right to abort her unborn baby because she has a right to choose what happens to her own body. This is a bad argument. First, it begs the question: an opponent will insist that the fetus is not part
- [Philosophy as Surgery](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophy-as-surgery/) - Philosophy as Surgery The other day I was discussing a medical matter with my son, who is a surgeon, and he remarked, “I would take a knife to it”. The remark stuck with me and I began wondering if philosophy bears any analogy to surgery. Do we in philosophy ever “take a
- [Two Types of Empiricism](https://colinmcginn.net/two-types-of-empiricism/) - Two Types of Empiricism Type I empiricism says that all knowledge comes through the five senses. Type II empiricism says that all knowledge derives from experience. Neither entails the other. The senses could be the sole source of knowledge without being conduits of experience: the process might be entirely physical-causal, or proceed
- [Footnote to "Social Cognition and the Unconscious"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-social-cognition-and-the-unconscious/) - [1] This doesn’t mean there is nothing “erotic” about the unconscious: there is room for the erotic in all sorts of personal relations, and indeed in the joys of discovery (“Eureka!”). In psychoanalysis the erotic is understood as the “life force” (anima in Plato) and contrasted with Thanatos (the “death instinct”). We can preserve this
- [Social Cognition and the Unconscious](https://colinmcginn.net/social-cognition-and-the-unconscious/) - Social Cognition and the Unconscious It is generally recognized in psychology that a good deal of problem solving goes on unconsciously. We can solve problems as we sleep with no expression of this mental activity in consciousness. This can happen with scientific problems, mathematical problems, literary problems, and practical problems of various kinds.
- [Completely Empty Names](https://colinmcginn.net/completely-empty-names/) - Completely Empty Names It is time we faced up to some uncomfortable truths about proper names. There have been two theories about them, neither very intuitive, commonly known as the description theory and the direct reference theory. The two theories are radically opposed to each other and each faces formidable difficulties. The
- [Footnote to "Naming and Contingency"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-naming-and-contingency/) - [1] But as soon as he created the predicate “bachelor” (along with its usual meaning) he was up to his neck in analytic necessities. God made names for the convenience of Adam and Eve (they were somewhat lacking in the omniscience department—don’t ask me why), but he had no intention of endowing them with semantic
- [Naming and Contingency](https://colinmcginn.net/naming-and-contingency/) - Naming and Contingency Let’s accept that names have no meaning, as a distinguished tradition contends.[1] They may have a reference or denotation but they have no sense or connotation. Names lack “descriptive content” and are not synonymous with definite descriptions. Predicates are alien to their semantic functioning. They belong to a different
- [Footnote to "Universals in Thought"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-universals-in-thought/) - [1] The concepts of particular and universal are theoretical concepts introduced to perform an explanatory role. They are not found fully formed in our ordinary conceptual scheme. They should therefore be evaluated in terms of their theoretical utility, which may trump any feeling of metaphysical repugnance they evoke. It is notable that they pull in
- [Universals in Thought](https://colinmcginn.net/universals-in-thought/) - Universals in Thought We introduce the concept of the particular because we observe distinctness in the world. We introduce the concept of the universal because we observe similarity in the world. I see the cat as distinct from the computer and I conclude that particulars exist; if I didn’t I wouldn’t have
- [Big Mystery: Space and Time](https://colinmcginn.net/big-mystery-space-and-time/) - Big Mystery: Space and Time What is the most fundamental mystery in the universe? Mind and matter is big, but space and time might be bigger. Each individually is a mystery, as has long been recognized, but there is also the mystery of their connection. How are space and time connected? Are they
- [Footnote to "Empiricism and Semantic Knowledge"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-empiricism-and-semantic-knowledge/) - The same point applies to our knowledge of propositional content: we don’t have impressions of the content of belief (even if we have impressions of the belief attitude itself). Our senses are not geared to propositions. Thus our knowledge of folk psychology is not explicable in classic empiricist style.
- [Empiricism and Semantic Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/empiricism-and-semantic-knowledge/) - Empiricism and Semantic Knowledge Empiricism tells us that all knowledge worthy of the name derives from the senses. In Hume’s formulation, every idea has its origin in an impression, such as an impression of red. This is a psychological theory to which empirical evidence is relevant (what if we came across a
- [Footnote to "Existentialism and Essentialism"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-existentialism-and-essentialism/) - [1] There is also a genetic question: if the original state of existence is nature-free, how does it ever acquire a nature? Where do the properties come from? If two bare existences interact with each other, what makes them become clothed? Natures can't come from Nothingness.
- [Existentialism and Essentialism](https://colinmcginn.net/existentialism-and-essentialism/) - Existentialism and Essentialism The existentialist credo is: Existence precedes essence.[1] This stands opposed to the dictum: Essence precedes existence. It’s Sartre versus the Scholastics, supposedly. Sartre’s existentialism, deriving from Kierkegaard and Heidegger, is said to invert traditional metaphysics, which takes the nature of a thing to be prior to its existence—or at
- [Footnote to "Intentionality and Space"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-intentionality-and-space/) - [1] This paper is a follow-up to my “Attributes of Mind”. I find it strange that people pay lip service to Brentano without making much effort to find out exactly what he held. And it is far more challenging and momentous than the usual anodyne versions of it suggest (of course the mind is about
- [Intentionality and Space](https://colinmcginn.net/intentionality-and-space/) - Intentionality and Space Here is a famous passage from Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874): “Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction
- [Acquaintance Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/acquaintance-knowledge/) - Acquaintance Knowledge There are some things that can only be known by acquaintance, i.e. by “direct experience”. If you want to know what red is, it’s no use having it described to you; you have to experience it for yourself. Such knowledge is not propositional: it is knowledge concerning a thing (what
- [Footnote to "Is Knowledge True Justified Belief?"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-is-knowledge-true-justified-belief/) - [1] My ulterior purpose here is to defend traditional philosophical theorizing from misguided objections stemming from the impossibility of completing a classic conceptual analysis. Gettier didn’t show that the whole project of a priori analysis (we can still use that word) is pointless; rather, he showed (arguably) that a certain conception of analysis can’t be
- [Is Knowledge True Justified Belief?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-knowledge-true-justified-belief/) - Is Knowledge True Justified Belief? Yes, despite the counterexamples. It is fair to say that before Gettier’s paper the TJB analysis of knowledge was the accepted theory. The theory was not regarded as a work in progress, as somehow incomplete, or vulnerable to counterexample. If not self-evidently correct, it was taken to
- [Attributes of Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/attributes-of-mind/) - Attributes of Mind Three attributes of mind stand out: intentionality, subjectivity, and privacy. The mind is essentially about something; the mind is accessible only from a certain point of view; the mind is known directly only by its subject. I take it these attributes are familiar and I won’t elaborate on them
- [Intentionality and Psychologism](https://colinmcginn.net/intentionality-and-psychologism/) - Intentionality and Psychologism Brentano’s thesis is that every mental phenomenon is directed to an Object distinct from itself.[1] It has an extra-mental correlate—the thing thought about or perceived or desired or loved or hated, etc. This entity may or may not exist (but I will ignore the latter case from now on).
- [Epistemic Unity](https://colinmcginn.net/epistemic-unity/) - Epistemic Unity Epistemic unity among inquirers is an important goal of all inquiry. We strive to arrive at the same opinion on a given subject. We try to eliminate diversity of opinion, divergence of belief. The conscientious inquirer seeks consensus, convergence, homogeneity of belief. To this end we employ methods that reliably
- [Quantifiers and Mass Terms](https://colinmcginn.net/quantifiers-and-mass-terms/) - 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.”.
- [Footnote to "Why Does Philosophy Exist?"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-why-does-philosophy-exist/) - [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?](https://colinmcginn.net/why-does-philosophy-exist/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/psychological-economics/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/america-a-theory/) - 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
- [Footnote to "Notes on Nonsense"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-notes-on-nonsense/) - [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](https://colinmcginn.net/notes-on-nonsense/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/dreaming-and-philosophy/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/trying-its-scope-and-limits/) - 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](https://colinmcginn.net/dualities/) - 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
- [A Theory of the Unconscious](https://colinmcginn.net/a-theory-of-the-unconscious/) - A Theory of the Unconscious From a biological point of view, the mind is a problem-solving device: the problem of finding food, the problem of avoiding predators, the problem of reproducing and raising offspring. That’s why the mind exists—to solve problems. Sometimes we consciously reflect on problems, using Rational Thought. The problems can
- [Persistence through Time](https://colinmcginn.net/persistence-through-time/) - Persistence Through Time In virtue of what do material objects persist through time? This is not a difficult question to answer: the particles composing the object must persist through time (enough of them anyway) and they must stay spatially related to each other in the same way over time (to a sufficient degree).
- [Bad Utilitarianism](https://colinmcginn.net/bad-utilitarianism/) - Bad Utilitarianism There are those who believe we have a moral obligation to donate a substantial part of our wealth to foreign aid if the net utility of doing so is maximized. Thus we should give away (say) 10% of our wealth to charity, even if we are not well off by local standards.
- [Music and Language](https://colinmcginn.net/music-and-language/) - Music and Language The analogies and connections between music and language are striking. This is most apparent in the case of song, but it applies quite generally. Music is made up of notes, phrases, bars, tunes, riffs, verses, movements, symphonies, operas, albums, etc. It has compositional structure. It proceeds from a finite
- [Footnote to "Identity of Selves"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-identity-of-selves/) - [1] A consequence of this is that it is in the nature of every mental state that it belongs to a single self: every mental state needs a subject, but there can only be one subject, so it is part of the essence of being a mental state that it can be instantiated by only
- [Identity of Selves](https://colinmcginn.net/identity-of-selves/) - Identity of Selves It is plausibly urged that there can be no identity without identity conditions (“criteria”): for example, material objects are identical in virtue of being spatiotemporally coincident, or sets are identical if and only if they share their members. Likewise, we could say that distinctness requires conditions (“criteria”) of distinctness: no two
- [Djokovic](https://colinmcginn.net/djokovic/) - So the Australians have shown themselves even stupider than the Americans. I blame the British.
- [One's Own Mind](https://colinmcginn.net/ones-own-mind/) - One’s Own Mind Several times in The Basis of Morality Schopenhauer remarks on the mysterious nature of compassion (or altruism). He says: “When once compassion is stirred within me, by another’s pain, then his weal and woe go straight to my heart, exactly in the same way, if not always to the
- [Right and Ought: Schopenhauer on Kant](https://colinmcginn.net/right-and-ought-schopenhauer-on-kant/) - Right and Ought: Schopenhauer on Kant In The Basis of Morality Schopenhauer undertakes a wholesale critique of Kant’s moral philosophy. He begins by attacking the very idea of a categorical imperative: morality should not be conceived as consisting of imperatives at all; the concept of the “moral law” is defective; moral rightness
- [Language and the Cave](https://colinmcginn.net/language-and-the-cave-2/) - Language and the Cave In Plato’s cave the inhabitants see nothing but shadows. Shadows are etiolated compared to the objects that cast them. You can glean very little from a shadow about the object that casts it. The shadow is two-dimensional, colorless, massless, and without texture: it is merely an absence of light,
- [Death, Disgust, and a Possum](https://colinmcginn.net/death-disgust-and-a-possum/) - Death, Disgust, and a Possum The other day my attention was caught by a bad smell emanating from near the front gate of my yard. Upon closer inspection I discovered a dead animal, evidently a possum. It had clearly been there a few days in hot weather. Flies were buzzing all around it.
- [A Modal Argument from Evil](https://colinmcginn.net/a-modal-argument-from-evil/) - A Modal Argument from Evil Some worlds are more evil than ours: we don’t live in the worst of all possible worlds. Some are a lot worse than ours: only the wicked prosper, disease is rampant and deadly, virtue leads to imprisonment, people are executed for singing in public, deep depression is the
- [The Frog Crawl](https://colinmcginn.net/the-frog-crawl/) - The Frog Crawl The kick in swimming the crawl adds little to forward momentum, maybe ten or fifteen percent of the power. All the power comes from the arms. In the breaststroke the frog-like movement of the legs adds much more to propulsion, about forty percent I would estimate. The arms have less
- [Is God an Atheist?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-god-an-atheist/) - Is God an Atheist? God (if he exists) is a rational being. He believes in his own existence only if it is rational so to believe. So does God believe in his own existence? It might be thought that he has quick route to his existence—the divine version of the Cogito. God
- [Seeming](https://colinmcginn.net/seeming/) - Seeming Seeming is a pervasive feature of conscious life. We (and other animals) are constant subjects of seeming: things are forever seeming this way or that to us. It now seems to me that there is a red cup in front of me, that Sebastian is in a good mood today, and
- [Philosophical Knowledge](https://colinmcginn.net/philosophical-knowledge/) - Philosophical Knowledge I wish to examine the distinctive nature of philosophical knowledge. I don’t want to place much emphasis on the concept of knowledge; if that is too vaunted a term, we can as well speak of opinion or hypothesis or reasoning—whatever it is we do mentally when we do the thing
- [Rationalist Empiricism](https://colinmcginn.net/rationalist-empiricism/) - Rationalist Empiricism Classical empiricism maintains two main theses: all concepts are acquired by experience and are not innate; and all knowledge is based on experience. Classical rationalism by contrast maintains that some or all concepts are innate and not derived from experience; and some knowledge at least is not based on experience.
- [Analytic and A Priori](https://colinmcginn.net/analytic-and-a-priori/) - Analytic and A Priori Take any ordinary analytic statement and prefix it with “It’s analytic that”: is the result analytic? Is “It’s analytic that bachelors are unmarried males” analytic? The answer would appear to be yes, since the meanings of the embedded sentence and the word “analytic” entail its truth. You don’t
- [Art and Morality](https://colinmcginn.net/art-and-morality/) - Art and Morality Morality itself has nothing to do with art, but art is the primary means of expressing morality.[1] This conundrum doesn’t apply to other subjects: physics has nothing to do with art, but it doesn’t recruit art as its primary mode of expression. We don’t learn physics by studying or
- [Metaphilosophy](https://colinmcginn.net/metaphilosophy/) - Philosophical Philosophy by Colin MCGinn AbstrACt: I here set out my general conception of philosophy: it consists of a set of timeless problems that are not of the same nature as standard scientific problems, though we can rightly describe philosophy as a sci- ence. These problems are peculiarly difficult, which makes progress hard to achieve.
- [Morality and the Skeptical Paradox](https://colinmcginn.net/morality-and-the-skeptical-paradox/) - Morality and the Skeptical Paradox We follow moral rules; deontological ethics revolves around such rules. We make it a rule to keep our promises, not lie, not steal, etc. Even if we are consequentialists we follow the rule of utility maximization. What we call our conscience directs us to follow such rules. Virtue
- [Abortion and the Supreme Court](https://colinmcginn.net/abortion-and-the-supreme-court/) - The trouble is that abortion is a philosophical issue and the Supreme Court is not made of philosophers--hence the naive comments from some of the Justices. It's like asking them to make a ruling based on a standard philosophical problem, say free will or the mind-body problem. Do you think they even consulted philosophers on
- [Defining the Good](https://colinmcginn.net/defining-the-good/) - Defining the Good It is not easy to define the good. It is not easy to say what such a definition would even look like—what form it should take. Plato talks about the form of the good: is this form composed of other forms or is it a simple form unrelated to other
- [Semiotics of the Beard](https://colinmcginn.net/semiotics-of-the-beard/) - Semiotics of the Beard Fifty years ago the beard was in the ascendant. I remember as a student everyone had one, plus long hair. I myself was virtually invisible beneath my hairiness—just eyes, nose, and a forehead. In those days a beard signified naturalness, independence, intellectual seriousness, higher aims, and lack of personal
- [Footnote to "Appearance, Reality, and the Good"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-appearance-reality-and-the-good/) - [1] I regard this paper as experimental philosophy in the best sense: let’s try something out and see how it holds up. What have we got to lose? We have become stuck (or bored) so let’s see if we can find a new way to extricate ourselves. We will never break free unless we try
- [Appearance, Reality, and the Good](https://colinmcginn.net/appearance-reality-and-the-good/) - Appearance, Reality, and the Good Once we have adopted the simile of the sun, epistemological questions about the good become pressing.[1] If the good is like the sun, is it known in the same way, or to the same extent, as the sun? The sun is both well known and not well
- [The Sun and the Good](https://colinmcginn.net/the-sun-and-the-good/) - The Sun and the Good In the Republic Plato offers the “Simile of the Sun”, comparing the Good to the Sun. The analogy has prima facieappeal, but what Plato does with it is far from obvious or even intelligible.[1] He writes: “Then what gives the objects of knowledge their truth and the
- [Meaning, Use, and Existentialism](https://colinmcginn.net/meaning-use-and-existentialism/) - Meaning, Use, and Existentialism Wittgenstein writes in the Philosophical Investigations: “How can he know how he is to continue a pattern by himself—whatever instruction you give him?—Well, how do I know?—If that means ‘Have I reasons?’ the answer is: my reasons will soon give out. And then I shall act, without reasons.”
- [Skepticism and Existence](https://colinmcginn.net/skepticism-and-existence/) - Skepticism and Existence The usual forms of skepticism emphasize existence: we don’t know that external objects exist, or that other minds exist. We might be brains in a vat and none of the objects of perception really exist, or the bodies we observe do not contain existing minds. These types of skepticism
- [Is Referring Opaque?](https://colinmcginn.net/is-referring-opaque/) - Is Referring Opaque? If I refer to Hesperus with “Hesperus” am I also referring to Phosphorus? If I refer to Clark Kent with “Clark Kent” am I also referring to Superman? Suppose I disbelieve that Hesperus is Phosphorus and that Clark Kent is Superman: is it still true that I am referring
- [Consciousness and the Cogito](https://colinmcginn.net/consciousness-and-the-cogito/) - Consciousness and the Cogito I think it is fair to report that people take the Cogito to reflect something important about consciousness, thinking, and the existence of the self. Roughly, they take it to demonstrate (or purport to demonstrate) that conscious thinking entails personal existence: if you know that you consciously think,
- [Footnote to "Emotion Management"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-emotion-management/) - [1] Of course, to say that dreams have an emotion-regulating function is not to say that they have no other function—they might be multi-functional. They might aid in memory retention or help with cognitive tasks or allow us to blow off steam or provide a space for adaptive simulation or even provide sexual release. There
- [Emotion Management](https://colinmcginn.net/emotion-management/) - Emotion Management It is striking how much of human life is devoted to emotion management. Among the more obvious manifestations of this are psychiatry, psychotherapy, drug taking, shopping, hot baths, and taking a brisk walk. We are forever trying to calm ourselves down, recover from an emotion-laden incident, cope with a crisis,
- [Footnote to "Dreams and Emotion"](https://colinmcginn.net/footnote-to-dreams-and-emotion/) - [1] It’s hard to find a good analogy for the co-evolution of emotion and dreaming, but the idea of adaptations and counter-adaptations is surely familiar enough. Adopting a bipedal gait will require compensating adaptations to deal with issues of balance, for example. In fact virtually every adaptation will require some counter-adaptation to deal with unintended
- [Dreams and Emotion](https://colinmcginn.net/dreams-and-emotion/) - Dreams and Emotion It is widely agreed that dreams are a mystery, or rather dreaming is. Why do we and other animals dream—what purpose does it serve? And why do we dream about some things and not others? Dreams seem pointless, even disruptive: why did nature install the ability to have them?
- [Strange Ignorance](https://colinmcginn.net/strange-ignorance/) - Strange Ignorance Imagine coming across a tribe with the following peculiar epistemic deficit: they are strangely ignorant of ordinary familiar things like animals, people, mountains, and other objects in the environment. They don’t know whether cats and dogs are both animals, they don’t know whether mountains are convex or concave, they don’t
- [Mind Fuck America](https://colinmcginn.net/mind-fuck-america/) - Mind Fuck America Here is the first verse of Green Day’s American Idiot: Don’t want to be an American idiot Don’t want a nation under the new mania Can you hear the sound of hysteria? The subliminal mind fuck America I wrote a monograph entitled Mindfucking over a decade ago, and it
- [Can We Solve the Problems of Philosophy?](https://colinmcginn.net/can-we-solve-the-problems-of-philosophy/) - Can We Solve the Problems of Philosophy? Philosophy consists of a set of problems that are particularly difficult to resolve. There are two aspects to this difficulty: first, we can’t find solutions that every reasonable person should be able to accept; second, the solutions offered always seem quite inadequate, i.e. we seem forced
- [A New Religion](https://colinmcginn.net/a-new-religion/) - A New Religion Every religion needs a deity, a prophet, and a set of doctrines. These should, if possible, all be absurd, mildly exotic, and essentially arbitrary. The religion needs to appeal to the imagination of children so that they can be easily indoctrinated in its tenets. It should demonstrate a boldness of
- [Mind Maps](https://colinmcginn.net/mind-maps/) - Mind Maps Animals have bodies but they also have maps of bodies in their brains. They know the layout of their own body—topographic somatic representations. This is the basis of what is called proprioception. These representations are not discursive but model-like. They provide the animal with an innate awareness of its body
- [Pets](https://colinmcginn.net/pets/) - Pets I have two cats, four birds, fifteen fish, and one lizard. The cats are called Lucy and Blackie, both male, with quite different personalities (one a rabid hunter, the other a homebody). The birds are parakeets--white, blue, turquoise, and yellow. I have trained the yellow one (she has no name) to perch on
- [Immaterial Substance](https://colinmcginn.net/immaterial-substance/) - Immaterial Substance We already face a problem: what is meant by “immaterial” and what is meant by “substance”? I will bypass all this to raise a clearer question: is there a significant analogy between the structure of material objects (meaning middle-sized dry goods) and the structure of minds? By “structure” I mean
- [Mental and Physical](https://colinmcginn.net/mental-and-physical/) - Mental and Physical The way philosophers use the terms “mental” and “physical” presupposes a conceptual dichotomy with no overlap: what is mental is not physical and what is physical is not mental (except by dint of some speculative metaphysical doctrine such as idealism or materialism). But is that the way we normally

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- [Can There Be Subjective Facts?](https://colinmcginn.net/can-there-be-subjective-facts/) - Can There Be Subjective Facts? I invite you, intrepid reader, to accompany me on a journey into the heart of darkness—into a region of utter obscurity. It will test us both, but it should be worth the effort, including the bouts of sickness and insanity. No, it won’t be that
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