Specter of Reason

John left a very thoughtful comment on a previous entry about Gettier . Following Donnellan, John presents two possible readings of (1) The man who gets the job has ten coins in his pocket. One reading is called "referential and the other is "attributive." I don't think either one creates a problem for my analysis of Gettier cases, though itdoes force me to clarify and elaborate upon my argument. If we take Smith to be using "The man who gets the job" in the referential sense, then (as John observes) what Smith says is true. It would mean that (1) is semantically equivalent to (2) Jones has ten coins in his pocket (3) The man whom I believe will get the job has ten coins in his pocket (4) The man whom I refer to as "the man who gets the job" has ten coins in his pocket. (2)-(4) are all justified true beliefs held by Smith. Thus, under a referential reading, (1) is a justified true belief held by Smith. However, a fact which John o...

I've got a lot on my plate at the moment--I've just started teaching a high school American Lit course, which I have yet to plan, and I've got a pretty full schedule of ESL students, too, as well as my graduate courses in European Studies, not to mention an idea for a book which I've barely gotten around to outlining, and also my two little ones to care for--so I doubt I'll have time to post much for a while. Here are some ideas I have for upcoming posts, in case anyone wants to check back in a month or two: A critique of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Nomad , which was monumentally disappointing; An homage to my favorite composer, entitled "Flowers For Prokofiev"; A summation of my previous posts on the zombie and knowledge arguments, as well as my own incompatability argument, entitled "The Price Of Anti-Physicalism." That's TTFN.

Over at Blog & ~Blog , Ben says that the sentence "this sentence is false" (which I will refer to as P), and similar sentences, are meaningless. Ben says that the Liar Paradox (which occurs whenever we try to decide whether P is true or false) disappears once we accept that P is meaningless. I'm not convinced, which is not to say I think the Liar Paradox poses a real problem. I just prefer a different approach. Ben's view is that the predicate "is true" does not add any content to a sentence, and therefore, a sentence which only has "is true" as its predicate cannot be meaningful. While it may be true that "'Snow is white' is true" means the same as "Snow is white," this analysis (called disquotationalism) does not clearly apply to all cases where "is true" is the predicate of a sentence. I think it only applies to cases where "is true" is predicated of a sentence. Thus, we may find semantic eq...

It was about two years ago when I realized that many of my favorite albums were released in 1974, the year I was born. King Crimson's best two albums, Brian Eno's first two solo albums, two of Queen's best albums, my favorite James Brown, Roxy Music and Herbie Hancock. The list goes on. Inspired to learn as much about the music of 1974 as I could. I foraged for months, turning up some wonderful rarities and overlooked classics. To share some of the fruits of that labor, I've compiled a list of notable albums (posted below). (A live version of Brian Eno's "Baby's On Fire," with Eno on vocals and synthesizer, John Cale on piano, Olie Halsall on guitar, Kevin Ayers on bass, and Robert Wyatt on percussion.) If 1974 was not quite the end of a musical era, it was a transformation, an explosion of vast and diverse areas of musical inspiration. Maybe people hadn't come down from the high of th...

Some friends of mine asked me to explain my negative reaction to Christopher Nolan's latest film, Inception . (SPOILER ALERT: I am writing this for people who have already seen the movie.) What I had said was that the film offers neither intrigue nor character development, and that it is neither logical nor realistic. Nolan uses smoke and mirrors to create the illusion of intelligence and insight. He exploits pop psychology and pop philosophy as well as a convoluted set of plot devices to keep audiences both engaged and confused. Apparently, the film works. Many intelligent people are impressed and even willing to dish out the dough to sit through it a second time. Some are performing back-bending feats of post hoc rationalization in order to explain away Inception 's many plot holes and inconsistencies. Others are less impressed. I was happy to have a friend point out this very well-done and humorous commentary on the film's illogical complexity: See mo...

In the London Review of Books , Peter Godfrey-Smith presents a very well-written and lucid criticism of Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini's attack on evolutionary theory, What Darwin Got Wrong (2010). (For obvious reasons, I am going to refer to Fodor & Piattelli-Palmarini as F&P-P.) Their book has drawn lots of criticism from philosophers and scientists alike (e.g., here and here and here and here ), so much so that yet another criticism might look like overkill; however, Godfrey-Smith's analysis is quite accessible and a pleasure to read. I am not going to review his whole review. I just want to point out one weakness I have found in it, and then I want to address F&P-P's response . I have to question Godfrey-Smith on a point about counterfactuals. He notes that many philosophers discuss causality using counterfactuals, though he thinks this is optional. He says that, when we use counterfactuals to describe the causal relationships involved i...

Introduction In his introduction to Creativity, Cognition, and Knowledge: An Interaction ( 2002 ), the late Terry Dartnall challenges his fellow cognitive scientists to pay attention to Wittgenstein in order to understand the central role of creativity in human intelligence. I want to explain why I think he is right, and why I think just as much attention should be paid to Gilbert Ryle. The main issue is the relationship between rules and behavior, an issue which may seem simple, but which implicates our very conception of what it means to be a person. It is sometimes said that, whereas people are creative, computers can only do what they are programmed to do. The idea is that creativity cannot be wholly rule-based. Our intelligence cannot simply be a matter of following rules. However, the truth may be more complicated.  Contemporary wisdom has it that the right kinds of programs can lead to creative behavior. Take genetic algorithms. They involve controlled processes of r...