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...

I find the letter from the EiC of Synthese rather cryptic and I don't think it should be satisfying to anyone who took the petition seriously. The petition is as follows: "We, as members of the philosophical community, call upon the Editors-in-Chief of Synthese to: 1. Respond forthrightly to the allegations in the 'open letter' from Glenn Branch and James Fetzer, the Guest Editors of the special issue on "Evolution and Its Rivals" (their open letter is available here: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2011/04/synthese-editors-cave-in-to-pressure-from-the-intelligent-design-lobby.html#tp) 2. Apologize to the Guest Editors and the contributors for the unprofessional manner in which this issue, and the insertion of a "disclaimer," were handled. 3. Retract the "disclaimer" in a subsequent print edition of Synthese. 4. Disclose the nature of complaints and/or legal threats from Francis Beckwith, his supporters, and supporters of ...

This week I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Distinguished Professor Michael Devitt (CUNY). On Thursday he gave a talk at the University of Szczecin, and on Saturday there was a full-day workshop focusing on his current work in the philosophy of language. In between, on Friday night, he socialized with local philosophy students over beer and wine (and food). I was fortunately able to participate in all of these events. Devitt and I are both naturalists and atheists. We are both sympathetic to ordinary language philosophy and Ryle, and we both have big problems with Stanley & Williamson's 2001 paper, "Knowing How." Unfortunately, however, I don't think Devitt is Rylean enough. I see talk of minds and mental states just as talk of complex and indefinitely heterogeneous dispositions. Devitt sees it as talk about functional structures which supervene on neurological states. Devitt is strongly anti-behaviorist, favoring the Representational Theory of...

So much talk about the morality of celebrating bin Laden's death. There's this idea going around that death is just not something that should ever be cause for celebration. That death is always and essentially bad. That killing is evil, even if it is sometimes a necessary evil. I can't buy into it. First of all, killing never increases the amount of death in the universe. The only thing that increases the amount of death in the universe is procreation, and I don't think procreation is bad. (I am a proud father, as it happens.) So, even if death is bad, killing isn't necessarily bad. But is death necessarily bad? Death can be terrifying to anticipate, and it can be devastating to families and communities. And, of course, death can be painful--even cruel. But it is not inherently any of these things. And, even when it carries these negative consequences, it may still outweigh them with positive ones. We might tell ourselves that it would be better if we d...

Kenneth Branagh's Thor has something to say about science and religion, but that's not what I'm going to write about. I'm glad that the film is friendly to naturalism, explicitly forwarding the view that so-called "magic" is natural phenomena that we don't yet have the science to explain, but this philosophical issue is not what's motivating my review. I just enjoyed the movie and I want to review it on purely cinematic grounds. First, I'm not a comic book aficionado, and I knew nothing about Marvel's Thor going into the film. My expectations were based only on the fact that this is a well-received film adaptation of a comic book superhero version of Thor, and that it is directed by Kenneth Branagh and features Sir Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman. That said . . . Thor is gorgeously filmed and well-balanced between action, drama and comedy. It's not flawless, but it is exceptional in many respects--far better than most superhero mo...

This should put to rest any doubts about whether or not the Editors-in-Chief of Synthese should be petitioned . Leiter's comments are right on the mark. I just wonder why it took so long for this evidence to be revealed.