Specter of Reason

I'm writing a paper for a graduate "course" on skepticism, my first paper for a philosophy class in over a decade. (I say "course," because it is independent study: I have not been to any classes, and I have only met with the professor once, at which time we agreed on the topic of the paper without discussing anything of philosophical substance.) The assigned topic is "meaning skepticism." Here's a work-in-progress draft (sans references). Comments, criticism and questions are welcome, as always. I will probably add a bit at the end about Kripkenstein's "skeptical solution." Two Problems with Kripkenstein's Argument for Meaning Skepticism According to Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein produced “a new form of philosophical skepticism,” which I shall call meaning skepticism . Kripke does not give it this or any other name, though some commentators refer to it as rule skepticism . This may be justified by the fact that Wittgenstein ...

Russell Blackford's followed up his question about Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese with a more direct discussion of cinematic greatness and whether it is objective or subjective. His claim is that it is subjective, not objective. I have a problem with that. My response (awaiting moderation on Russell's blog) is more or less as follows: There's a movie by Alejandro Jodorowsky called "El Topo." I don't much care for it, but I'm willing to say that it's a very good film--maybe not great, but very good. Yet, very few people have ever seen it, and I don't expect many would want to sit through it. I doubt many would like it. There's another Jodorowsky film that I absolutely love, and I think everybody should see, called "The Holy Mountain." This is a great film. One of the greatest. But I doubt most people would be able to sit through it. Few would like it. If I reject that there's some objective sense of cinematic greatness...