Christopher Nolan’s Memento illustrates and explores two roles that memory plays in human life. The film’s protagonist, Leonard Shelby, cannot ‘make new memories’. He copes by using a ‘system’ of polaroids, tatoos, charts and notes that substitutes for memory in its first role, the retention of information. In particular, the system is supposed to help Leonard carry out his sole goal: to find and kill his wife’s murderer. In this it proves a disastrous failure. But are we so very (...) much better off? The film uses the failures of Leonard’s system to raise doubts about the effectiveness of our own psychological capacities for grasping the past. However, memory does more than allow us to retain information. As Richard Wollheim showed, it also enables the past to control our present, by perpetuating, while modifying, its affective hold over us. This is something wholly denied Leonard. By implicitly contrasting his position with ours in this respect, the film also explores this second role that memory plays in our lives. (shrink)

In this paper, I motivate the view that quantitative parsimony is a theoretical virtue: that is, we should be concerned not only to minimize the number of kinds of entities postulated by our theories (i. e. maximize qualitative parsimony), but we should also minimize the number of entities postulated which fall under those kinds. In order to motivate this view, I consider two cases from the history of science: the postulation of the neutrino and the proposal of Avogadro's hypothesis. I (...) also consider two issues concerning how a principle of quantitative parsimony should be framed. (shrink)

What is the connection between valid inference and true conditionals? Many conditional logics require that when A is a logical consequence of B, "if B then A" is true. Taking counterlogical conditionals seriously leads to systems that permit counterexamples to that general rule. However, this leaves those of us who endorse non-trivial accounts of counterpossible conditionals to explain what the connection between conditionals and consequence is. The explanation of the connection also answers a common line of objection to non-trivial counterpossibles, (...) which is based on a transition from valid arguments to the corresponding conditionals. It also contributes to the wider project of illuminating the connections between contexts of utterance, on the one hand, and the truth-conditions of conditionals uttered in those contexts, on the other. (shrink)

Background We investigated the personal philosophies of eight persons with a tetraplegic condition (four male, four female), all living in Sweden with a chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) and all reporting a good life. Our purpose was to discover if there is a philosophical mindset that may play a role in living a good life with a traumatic SCI. Methods Two rounds of in-depth qualitative interviews were performed by the same interviewer, a philosophical practitioner by training (de Miranda). The second (...) round systematically covered the following elements: bodily sense, sense of self, sense of belonging, sense of the possible, sense of purpose and philosophical sense. This six-step method developed by de Miranda is called SMILE_PH, an acronym for Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health. Results All the interviewees, as a consequence of their trauma, reported having gone through a reinvention of themselves which implied questioning the meaning and purpose of their life in particular and life in general. A philosophical rather than realistic sense of the possible was abstracted toward teleological growth. All interviewees developed a sense of purpose based on self-interested altruism and solidarity with disabled peers. Conclusions To reinvent a good life with SCI, in addition to physical training and willpower, one needs to consider philosophical questions about the self and life, what Kant called the cosmic interests of reason: What may I hope? What must I do? What can I know? Our results indicate that we should, in the future, explore what the philosophical health approach may bring to rehabilitation processes in the months or years that follow the trauma. (shrink)

Possible worlds have found many applications in contemporary philosophy: from theories of possibility and necessity, to accounts of conditionals, to theories of mental and linguistic content, to understanding supervenience relationships, to theories of properties and propositions, among many other applications. Almost as soon as possible worlds started to be used in formal theories in logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and elsewhere, theorists started to wonder whether impossible worlds should be postulated as well. In many applications, possible worlds (...) face limitations that can be dealt with through postulating impossible worlds as well. This chapter examines some of the uses of impossible worlds, and philosophical challenges theories of impossible worlds face. (shrink)

When charitable matching occurs, both the person initially offering the matching donation and the person taking up the offer may well feel they have done something better than if they had donated on their own without matching. They may well feel they deserve some credit for the matched donation as well as their own. Can they both be right? Natural assumptions about charitable matching lead to puzzles that are challenging to resolve in a satisfactory way.

The ontological pictures underpinning David Lewis's Parts of Classes and On the Plurality of Worlds are in some tension. One tension concerns whether the sets and classes of Parts of Classes can be found in Lewis's modal space, since they cannot in general be parts of any possible world. The second is that the atoms that are the mathematical ontology of Parts of Classes seem to meet the criteria for being possible worlds themselves, and so fail to be the material (...) Parts of Classes needs. Two different responses to these tensions are discussed: one is unappealing in several ways but keeps more of Lewis's doctrines, while the other requires some modifications to the system of Parts of Classes. (shrink)

There’s an argument around from so-called “linguistic theories of vagueness”, plus some relatively uncontroversial considerations, to powerful metaphysical conclusions. David Lewis employs this argument to support the mereological principle of unrestricted composition, and Theodore Sider employs a similar argument not just for unrestricted composition but also for the doctrine of temporal parts. This sort of argument could be generalised, to produce a lot of other less palatable metaphysical conclusions. However, arguments to Lewis’s and Sider’s conclusions on the basis of considerations (...) about vagueness are uncompelling, even if we accept the crucial premises about vagueness. And a good thing too, since the generalised form of the argument would prove far too much. (shrink)

In the Fifth Meditation, Descartes makes a remarkable claim about the ontological status of geometrical figures. He asserts that an object such as a triangle has a 'true and immutable nature' that does not depend on the mind, yet has being even if there are no triangles existing in the world. This statement has led many commentators to assume that Descartes is a Platonist regarding essences and in the philosophy of mathematics. One problem with this seemingly natural reading is that (...) it contradicts the conceptualist account of universals that one finds in the Principles of Philosophy and elsewhere. In this paper, I offer a novel interpretation of the notion of a true and immutable nature which reconciles the Fifth Meditation with the conceptualism of Descartes' other work. Specifically, I argue that Descartes takes natures to be innate ideas considered in terms of their so-called 'objective being'. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.1 (2005) 55-81 [Access article in PDF] Self-Knowledge in Descartes and Malebranche Lawrence Nolan John Whipple 1. Introduction Descartes's notorious claim that mind is better known than body has been the target of repeated criticisms, but none appears more challenging than that of his intellectual heir Nicolas Malebranche.1 Whereas other critics—especially twentieth-century philosophers eager to use Descartes as their whipping boy—have often (...) been uncharitable, Malebranche accepts many of the fundamental Cartesian doctrines, including mind-body dualism. But he argues that Descartes's position on knowledge of the mind is internally inconsistent. Malebranche agrees with Descartes that the existence of the mind is better known than that of body, but he vehemently denies that the nature of the mind is better known. This denial is based on his view that we lack a clear idea of the mind.2 [End Page 55]Malebranche's polemic has attracted much attention in recent scholarship.3 The growing consensus among commentators is that Malebranche develops a devastating internal critique of Descartes's theory of the mind. For example, Nicholas Jolley writes: "In his case for his negative thesis [concerning knowledge of the mind] Malebranche mounted a powerful, even annihilating, critique of Descartes. This critique embodies the remarkable insight that there is a serious muddle at the heart of Descartes's whole theory of knowledge."4 In a book-length defense of Malebranche's critique, Tad Schmaltz also emphasizes its internal character: "the interpretation here of Malebranche's theory presents it as fundamentally Cartesian, and thereby serves to reinforce his own view that he has provided an authoritative interpretation of the account of mind in the writings of Descartes and other Cartesians."5 Schmaltz also asserts: "Malebranche took his negative thesis concerning our knowledge of the soul to involve not so much a rejection of Cartesianism as an internal correction of it."6We think such remarks misstate the case. Indeed, we argue in this paper that Malebranche's polemic fails as an internal critique of Descartes's theory of the mind. Although we do not here aspire to defend Descartes's strong thesis—that mind is better known than body—we do think he can consistently maintain that we have a clear and distinct idea of the mind, and thus that our knowledge of the mind's nature is at least on a par with our knowledge of corporeal nature.7 While Malebranche's rhetoric would encourage us to think that the debate between him and his predecessor is being fought on common or neutral ground, the fact is that Malebranche often appeals to assumptions and aspects of his own theory of "Vision in God" that Descartes would reject. Once more, he interprets Descartes's theory of knowledge in ways that are misguided and sometimes even uncharitable. If Malebranche's critique succeeds at all, it succeeds only against a straw man—Malebranche's Descartes and not the historical figure.Ours is not the first effort to defend Descartes against this particular attack. When Malebranche first published his critique in Book Three of his first great work, The Search After Truth (1674),8 Descartes had been dead for over two decades, [End Page 56] but he was ably defended by the famous Cartesian Antoine Arnauld in On True and False Ideas (1683). In the ensuing debate Arnauld was clearly the superior dialectician, but while winning several tactical points, he appears not to fully appreciate the crux of Malebranche's argument, or at least that is the view of Jolley and Schmaltz.9 We have a somewhat higher opinion of Arnauld's side of the debate. Granted, some of his defenses are facile and can be easily dismissed; others however are quite compelling when properly developed. In at least one instance, we attempt to provide that development. At the same time we think it is a mistake to treat Arnauld as Descartes's surrogate or as if he had issued the final salvo from the camp of the orthodox Cartesians. Arnauld was a... (shrink)

Zurvanism was an ancient variant of Zoroastrianism. According to Zurvanism, the great powers of good and evil, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu, were the sons of a greater god Zurvan, associated with time. According to Eudemus of Rhodes, some Persian thinkers, presumably Zurvanists, took there to be three great principles underlying the world: light, darkness, and greatest of all time (or perhaps, according to Eudemus, space). This paper explores what metaphysics might underlie these doctrines, and what contemporary options we have (...) for making sense of a metaphysics where time is the ultimate principle. Among the options explored is the option that despite appearance many of the entities of the concrete world are identical to stretches of time, or are somehow aspects of stretches of time; that they include times as parts, or are included in times as parts; that they are somehow properties of time; or hylomorphic compounds of which time is the matter; that the world is somehow a mixture of time, light, and dark; or that somehow the ends or teloi of everyday objects and processes are to be found among good, evil, and time. (shrink)

When invited to consider the methodology of contemporary metaphysics, quite a number of procedures spring to mind as part of the metaphysician's toolkit. These include: eliciting and relying on intuitions; solving location problems and using “conceptual analysis”; inference to the best theory, both on internal metaphysical grounds and drawing from the theoretical reaches of the sciences; working on topics clearly close to, or even overlapping, those of other areas of inquiry using techniques of those other areas; achieving coherence with other (...) theories developed with other aims; and employing deductive reasoning to yield surprising conclusions. Many of these techniques are associated with significant and growing literatures about their scope, epistemic justification, suitability to different metaphysical problems, and so on. (shrink)

This paper examines both creepiness and the distinctive reaction had to creepiness, being “creeped out.” The paper defends a response-dependent account of creepiness in terms of this distinctive reaction, contrasting our preferred account to others that might be offered. The paper concludes with a discussion of the value of detecting creepiness.

Abstract There are at least eight good reasons practicing historians should concern themselves with counterfactual claims. Furthermore, four of these reasons do not even require that we are able to tell which historical counterfactuals are true and which are false. This paper defends the claim that these reasons to be concerned with counterfactuals are good ones, and discusses how each can contribute to the practice of history. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-19 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9817-z Authors Daniel Nolan, School of (...) Philosophy, Australian National University, 0200 Canberra, Australia Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

An overview of hyperintensionality is provided. Hyperintensional languages have expressions with meanings that are more fine-grained than necessary equivalence. That is, the expressions may necessarily co-apply and yet be distinct in meaning. Adequately accounting for theories cast in hyperintensional languages is important in the philosophy of language; the philosophy of mind; metaphysics; and elsewhere. This entry presents a number of areas in which hyperintensionality is important; a range of approaches to theorising about hyperintensional matters; and a range of debates that (...) attention to hyperintensional constructions has generated. (shrink)

Curry's paradox for "if.. then.." concerns the paradoxical features of sentences of the form "If this very sentence is true, then 2+2=5". Standard inference principles lead us to the conclusion that such conditionals have true consequents: so, for example, 2+2=5 after all. There has been a lot of technical work done on formal options for blocking Curry paradoxes while only compromising a little on the various central principles of logic and meaning that are under threat. -/- Once we have a (...) sense of the technical options, though, a philosophical choice remains. When dealing with puzzles in the logic of conditionals, a natural place to turn is independently motivated semantic theories of the behaviour of "if... then...". This paper argues that the closest-worlds approach outlined in Nolan 1997 offers a philosophically satisfying reason to deny conditional proof and so block the paradoxical Curry reasoning, and can give the verdict that standard Curry conditionals are false, along with related "contraction conditionals". (shrink)

This paper explores a special kind of loop of grounding: cosmic loops. A cosmic loop is a loop that intuitively requires us to go "around" the entire universe to come back to the original ground. After describing several kinds of cosmic loop scenarios, I will discuss what we can learn from these scenarios about constraints on grounding; the conceivability of cosmic loops; the possibility of cosmic loops; and the prospects for salvaging local reflexivity, asymmetry and transitivity of grounding in a (...) world containing a cosmic loop of ground. The considerations raised in this paper also bear on what we should think about relations that are meant to support grounding relations: in particular, revisions to theories of the part-whole relation are discussed. (shrink)

A lot of good philosophy is done in the armchair, but is nevertheless a posteriori. This paper clarifies and then defends that claim. Among the a posteriori activities done in the armchair are assembling and evaluating commonplaces; formulating theoretical alternatives; and integrating well-known past a posteriori discoveries. The activity that receives the most discussion, however, is the application of theoretical virtues to choose philosophical theories: the paper argues that much of this is properly seen as a posteriori.

David Lewis’s arguments against magical ersatzism are notoriously puzzling. Untangling different strands in those arguments is useful for bringing out what he thought was wrong with not just one style of theory about possible worlds, but with much of the contemporary metaphysics of abstract objects. After setting out what I take Lewis’s arguments to be and how best to resist them, I consider the application of those arguments to general theories of properties and relations. The constraints Lewis motivates turn out (...) to yield an argument for concretism about possible individuals that is quite different from the better-known Lewisian arguments for that position. The discussion also touches on the puzzling question of whether things are the way they are because of the properties they have, or are the properties and relations the way they are because of the things that have them. (shrink)

A lot of philosophers engage in debates about what claims are “metaphysically necessary”, and a lot more assume with little argument that some classes of claims have the status of “metaphysical necessity”. I think we can usefully replace questions about metaphysical necessity with five other questions which each capture some of what people may have had in mind when talking about metaphysical necessity. This paper explains these five other questions, and then discusses the question “how much of metaphysics is metaphysically (...) necessary?”, and each of its five replacements. (shrink)

The philosophy of necessity and possibility has flourished in the last half-century, but much less attention has been paid to the question of how we know what can be the case and what must be the case. Many friends of modal metaphysics and many enemies of modal metaphysics have agreed that while empirical discoveries can tell us what is the case, they cannot shed much light on what must be the case or on what non-actual possibilities there are. In this (...) paper, in contrast, I discuss and defend naturalistic approaches to discovering the facts about necessity and possibility. After some remarks about what methodological naturalism in philosophy might amount to, I argue that naturalistic method in modal investigations may not need to be particularly revisionary of much of what is currently being done in modal investigation. I then discuss a number of respects in which a naturalistic orientation in modal investigation may improve on our current epistemic situation. (shrink)

One increasingly popular technique in philosophy might be called the "platitudes analysis": a set of widely accepted claims about a given subject matter are collected, adjustments are made to the body of claims, and this is taken to specify a “role” for the phenomenon in question. (Perhaps the best-known example is analytic functionalism about mental states, where platitudes about belief, desire, intention etc. are together taken to give us a "role" for states to fill if they are to count as (...) mental states.) We then look to our best theory of the world to see where this role is satisfied, if at all. Unfortunately, the platitudes analysis, so characterised, does not seem to help when we are doing fundamental metaphysics—when we want to know what, at base, our world is like (and not merely where things like e.g. the mental would be found in an already-specified ontology). Nevertheless, I will argue that the platitudes analysis, properly understood, does have the materials to help us answer questions in fundamental metaphysics as well. I will explore three different ways it can do so. (shrink)

Creationism about fictional entities requires a principle connecting what fictions say exist with which fictional entities really exist. The most natural way of spelling out such a principle yields inconsistent verdicts about how many fictional entities are generated by certain inconsistent fictions. Avoiding inconsistency without compromising the attractions of creationism will not be easy.

Proporciono un estudio crítico de algunos de los principales hallazgos de Wittgenstein y Searle sobre la estructura lógica de la intencionalidad (mente, lenguaje, comportamiento), tomando como punto de partida el descubrimiento fundamental de Wittgenstein, que todos los problemas verdaderamente ' filosóficos ' son los mismos — confusiones sobre cómo usar el lenguaje en un contexto particular, y por lo que todas las soluciones son las mismas — observando cómo se puede utilizar el lenguaje en el contexto en cuestión para que (...) sus condiciones de verdad (condiciones de satisfacción o COS) sean claras. El problema básico es que uno puede decir cualquier cosa menos que uno no puede significar (el estado claro COS para) cualquier enunciado arbitrario y significado es solamente posible en un contexto muy específico. Empiezo con ' On Certainty ' (‘En Certeza’) y continúo el análisis de los escritos recientes por y sobre ellos desde la perspectiva de los dos sistemas de pensamiento, empleando un nuevo cuadro de intencionalidad y nueva nomenclatura de sistemas duales. Aquellos que deseen un marco completo hasta la fecha para el comportamiento humano de la moderna dos sistemas punta de vista puede consultar mi libro 'La estructura lógica de la filosofía, la psicología, la mente y lenguaje En Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle ' 2nd ED (2019). Los interesados en más de mis escritos pueden ver 'Monos parlantes--filosofía, psicología, ciencia, religión y política en un planeta condenado--artículos y reseñas 2006-2019 3rd ED (2019) y delirios utópicos suicidas en el 21St Century 4TH Ed (2019) y otras. (shrink)

A standing challenge in the theory of counterfactuals is to solve the “deviation problem”. Consider ordinary counterfactuals involving an antecedent concerning a difference from the actual course of events at a particular time, and a consequent concerning, at least in part, what happens at a later time. In the possible worlds framework, the problem is often put in terms of which are the relevant antecedent worlds. Desiderata for the solution include that the relevant antecedent worlds be governed by the actual (...) laws of nature with no miracles; that the past in those worlds before the antecedent time matches the actual past; that the account is compatible with determinism, and that many of our ordinary counterfactual judgments are correct, and would be correct even given determinism. Many theorists have compromised on one or more of these desiderata, but this paper presents an account employing impossible worlds that satisfies them all. (shrink)

Una revisión crítica de 'On Certainty' de Wittgenstein, que escribió en 1950-51 y fue publicada por primera vez en 1969. La mayor parte de la revisión se dedica a presentar un marco moderno para la filosofía (la psicología descriptiva del pensamiento de orden superior) y posicionar el trabajo de Wittgenstein y John Searle en este marco y en relación con el trabajo de los demás. Se sugiere que este libro puede ser considerado como la piedra angular de la psicología y (...) la filosofía, ya que fue el primero en describir los dos sistemas de pensamiento y muestra cómo nuestra comprensión inquebrantable del mundo deriva de nuestro innato axiomatic Axiomatic System 1, y cómo interactúa con el sistema 2. Fue una revolución en la epistemología ya que demostró que nuestras acciones no descansan en juicios, sino en axiomas indudables que conducen directamente a la acción. Situaré el trabajo de Wittgenstein y Searle en el marco de los dos sistemas de pensamiento prominentes en el pensamiento y la investigación de decisiones, empleando una nueva tabla de intencionalidad y nueva nomenclatura de sistemas duales. Aquellos que deseen un marco completo hasta la fecha para el comportamiento humano de la moderna dos sistemas punto de vista puede consultar mi libros Talking Monkeys 3ª ed (2019), Estructura Logica de Filosofia, Psicología, Mente y Lenguaje en Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle 2a ed (2019), Suicidio pela Democracia 4ª ed (2019), La Estructura Logica del Comportamiento Humano (2019), The Logical Structure de la Conciencia (2019, Comprender las Conexiones entre Ciencia, Filosofía, Psicología, Religión, Política y Economía, Historia y Literatura (2010), Delirios Utópicos Suicidas en el siglo 21 5ª ed (2019), Observaciones sobre Imposibilidad, Incompletitud, Paraconsistencia, Indecidibilidad, Aleatoriedad, Computabilidad, Paradoja e Incertidumbre en Chaitin, Wittgenstein, Hofstadter, Wolpert, Doria, da Costa, Godel, Searle, Rodych Berto, Floyd, Moyal-Sharrock y Yanofsky (2019) y otras. (shrink)

Hace algunos años, Llegué al punto en el que normalmente puedo decir del título de un libro, o al menos de los títulos de los capítulos, qué tipos de errores filosóficos se harán y con qué frecuencia. En el caso de trabajos nominalmente científicos, estos pueden estar en gran parte restringidos a ciertos capítulos que enceran filosóficos o tratan de sacar conclusiones generales sobre el significado o significado a largo plazo de la obra. Normalmente, sin embargo, las cuestiones científicas de (...) hecho se entrelazan generosamente con la galimatías filosóficas en cuanto a lo que estos hechos significan. Las claras distinciones que Wittgenstein describió hace unos 80 años entre los asuntos científicos y sus descripciones por varios juegos de idiomas rara vez se toman en consideración, y por lo tanto uno es cautivado alternativamente por la ciencia y consternado por su incoherente Análisis. Así es con este volumen. -/- Si uno es crear una mente más o menos como la nuestra, uno necesita tener una estructura lógica para la racionalidad y una comprensión de los dos sistemas de pensamiento (teoría del proceso dual). Si se trata de filosofar sobre esto, se necesita entender la distinción entre cuestiones científicas de hecho y la cuestión filosófica de cómo funciona el lenguaje en el contexto en cuestión, y de cómo evitar las trampas del reduccionismo y el cientismo, pero Kurzweil, como más estudiantes de conducta, no tiene ni idea. Él está encantado con los modelos, teorías y conceptos, y el impulso de explicar, mientras que Wittgenstein nos mostró que sólo necesitamos describir, y que las teorías, conceptos, etc., son sólo formas de usar el lenguaje (juegos de idiomas) que tienen valor sólo en la medida en que tienen un claro prueba (claro que los creadores de la verdad, o como John Searle (el crítico más famoso de AI) le gusta decir, claras condiciones de satisfacción (COS)). He intentado proporcionar un comienzo en este en mis escritos recientes. -/- Aquellos que deseen un marco completo hasta la fecha para el comportamiento humano de la moderna dos sistemas punta da vista puede consultar mi libro 'La estructura lógica de la filosofía, la psicología, la mente y lenguaje en Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle ' 2a ED (2019). Los interesados en más de mis escritos pueden ver 'Monos parlantes--filosofía, psicología, ciencia, religión y política en un planeta condenado--artículos y reseñas 2006-2019 3rd ED (2019) y Delirios utópicos suicidas en el siglo 21 4a Ed (2019) y otras. -/- También, como es habitual en las cuentas "fácticas" de la IA/robótica, no da tiempo a las amenazas muy reales a nuestra privacidad, seguridad e incluso la supervivencia de la creciente ' androidización ' de la sociedad que es prominente en otros autores (Bostrum, Hawking, etc.) y frecuentes en SciFi y películas, así que hago algunos comentarios sobre las delirios utópicos muy posiblemente suicidas de androides ' agradables ', humanoides, inteligencia artificial (IA), la democracia, la diversidad y la ingeniería genética. -/- Me da por sentado que los avances técnicos en electrónica, robótica e IA ocurrirán, resultando en profundos cambios en la sociedad. Sin embargo, creo que los cambios provenientes de la ingeniería genética son al menos tan grandes y potencialmente mucho mayores, ya que nos permitirán cambiar totalmente Quiénes somos. Y será factible hacer servidores SuperSmart/súper fuertes modificando nuestros genes o los de otros monos. Al igual que con otras tecnologías, cualquier país que resista se quedará atrás. Pero, ¿será socialmente y económicamente factible implementar BioBots o superhumanos a gran escala? E incluso si es así, no parece Probable, económica o socialmente, para evitar que el Destrucción de la civilización industrial por la sobrepoblación, el agotamiento de los recursos, el cambio climático y probablemente también la regla tiránica de los siete sociópatas que gobiernan China. -/- Por lo tanto, ignorando los errores filosóficos en este volumen como irrelevantes, y dirigiendo nuestra atención sólo a la ciencia, lo que tenemos aquí es otra ilusión utópica suicida enraizada en el fracaso de captar la biología básica, la psicología y la ecología humana, las mismas ilusiones que están destruyendo Estados Unidos y el mundo. Veo una remota posibilidad de que el mundo se pueda salvar, pero no por Ia robótica, CRISPR, ni por neomarxismo, diversidad y la igualdad. (shrink)

Una breve reseña de la vida y la autobiografía espiritual de la única mística estadounidense ADI da (Franklin Jones). La pegatina en la portada de algunas ediciones dice "la más profunda autobiografía espiritual de todos los tiempos" y esto bien podría ser cierto. Estoy en mis 70 ́s y he leído muchos libros de maestros espirituales y de espiritualidad, y este es uno de los más grandes. Ciertamente, es by lejos la más completa y clara relato del proceso de iluminación (...) que he visto en mi vida. Incluso si usted no tiene ningún interés en absoluto en el más fascinante de todos los procesos psicológicos humanos, es un documento increíble que revela una gran cantidad de religión, yoga, y la psicología humana y las sondas de las profundidades y límites de las posibilidades humanas. Lo describo con cierto detalle y comparo su enseñanza con la del Contemporáneo La mística hindú Osho. Aquellos que deseen un marco completo hasta la fecha para el comportamiento humano de la moderna Dos Sistemas Punto de Vista puede consultar mi libro 'La estructura lógica de la filosofía, la psicología, la mente y lenguaje En Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle ' 2Nd Ed (2019). Los interesados en más de mis escritos pueden ver 'Monos parlantes--filosofía, psicología, ciencia, religión y política en un planeta condenado--artículos y reseñas 2006-2017' 3a Ed (2019) y otras. (shrink)

Después de medio siglo en el olvido, la naturaleza de la conciencia es ahora la más caliente en las ciencias del comportamiento y la filosofía.comienzo con el trabajo pionero de Ludwig Wittgenstein en la década de 1930 (los Libros Azul y Marrón) y desde los años 50 hasta la actualidad por su sucesor lógico John Searle, he creado la siguiente tabla como heurística para promover este estudio. Las filas muestran varios aspectos o formas de estudiar y las columnas muestran los (...) procesos involuntarios y los comportamientos voluntarios que comprenden los dos sistemas (procesos duales) de la Estructura Lógica de Conciencia (LSC), que también pueden considerarse como el Lógico Estructura de Racionalidad (LSR-Searle), de comportamiento (LSB), de personalidad (LSP), de la realidad (LSOR), de la intencionalidad (LSI) -el término filosófico clásico, la Psicología Descriptiva de la Conciencia (DPC), la Psicología Descriptiva del Pensamiento (DPT) –o mejor, el Lenguaje de lo Descriptivo Psicología del Pensamiento (LDPT), términos introducidos aquí y en mis otros escritos muy recientes. -/- Aquellos que deseen un marco completo hasta la fecha para el comportamiento humano de la moderna dos sistemas punto de vista puede consultar mi libros Talking Monkeys 3ª ed (2019), Estructura Logica de Filosofia, Psicología, Mente y Lenguaje en Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle 2ª ed (2019), Suicidio pela Democracia 4ª ed (2019), La Estructura Logica del Comportamiento Humano (2019), The Logical Structure de la Conciencia (2019, Entender las Conexiones entre Ciencia, Filosofía, Psicología, Religión, Política y Economía y Delirios Utópicos Suicidas en el siglo 21 5ª ed (2019), Observaciones sobre Imposibilidad, Incompletitud, Paraconsistencia, Indecidibilidad, Aleatoriedad, Computabilidad, Paradoja e Incertidumbre en Chaitin, Wittgenstein, Hofstadter, Wolpert, Doria, da Costa, Godel, Searle, Rodych Berto, Floyd, Moyal-Sharrock y Yanofsky y otros. (shrink)

One of the standard approaches to the metaphysics of personal identity has some counter-intuitive ethical consequences when combined with maximising consequentialism and a plausible doctrine about aggregation of consequences. This metaphysical doctrine is the so-called ‘multiple occupancy’ approach to puzzles about fission and fusion. It gives rise to a new version of the ‘utility monster’ problem, particularly difficult problems about infinite utility, and a new version of a Parfit-style ‘repugnant conclusion’. While the article focuses on maximising consequentialism for simplicity, the (...) problems demonstrated apply more widely to a range of ethical views, especially flavours of consequentialism. This article demonstrates how these problems arise, and discusses a number of options available in the light of these problems for a consequentialist tempted by a multiple occupancy metaphysics. (shrink)

Que tal um take diferente sobre os ricos e famosos? Primeiro o óbvio-os romances de Harry Potter são superstição primitiva que incentiva as crianças a acreditar na fantasia, em vez de assumir a responsabilidade pelo mundo-a norma, é claro. JKR é tão sem noção sobre si mesma e do mundo como a maioria das pessoas, mas cerca de 200 vezes tão destrutiva como o Americano médio e cerca de 800 vezes mais do que o chinês médio. Ela foi responsável pela (...) destruição de talvez 30.000 hectares de floresta para produzir esses romances de lixo e toda a erosão que se seguiu (não trivial como é pelo menos 6 e talvez 12 toneladas/ano solo no oceano para todos na terra ou talvez 100 toneladas por Americano, e assim por cerca de 5000 toneladas/ano para os livros de Rowling e filmes e seus 3 filhos). A terra perde pelo menos 1% de seu solo superficial cada ano, de modo que se aproxima 2100, a maioria de sua capacidade crescente do alimento será ido. Então há a enorme quantidade de combustível queimado e resíduos feitos para fazer e distribuir os livros e filmes, bonecas plásticas etc. Ela mostra sua falta de responsabilidade social, produzindo crianças em vez de usar seus milhões para incentivar o planejamento familiar ou comprar a floresta tropical, e promovendo a estupidez liberal convencional de 3ª supremacia mundial que está destruindo a Grã-Bretanha, América, o mundo e o futuro de seu descendente. Claro, ela não é diferente dos outros 7.8 bilhões sem noção-apenas mais barulhento e mais destrutivo. É o não livre almoço problema mandado grande. A máfia só não pode ver que não existe tal coisa como ajudar uma pessoa sem prejudicar os outros. Direitos ou privilégios dados a novos operadores em um mundo superlotado só podem escureceros de outros. Apesar dos enormes desastres ecológicos que acontecem na frente deles em todos os lugares todos os dias, eles não podem fixá-los à maternidade desenfreada de "os diversos", que representa a maior parte do aumento da população do século passado e tudo isso neste Um. Eles não têm alguma combinação de inteligência, educação, experiência e sanidade necessária para extrapolar os assaltos diários sobre os recursos e funcionamento da sociedade para o eventual colapso da civilização industrial. Cada refeição, cada viagem de carro ou ônibus, cada par de sapatos é outra unha no caixão da terra. Ele provavelmente nunca cruzou sua mente que um assento em um avião de Londres para San Francisco produz cerca de uma tonelada de carbono que derrete cerca de 3 metros quadrados de gelo marinho e como um dos superprivilegiados que ela provavelmente voou centenas de tais vôos. Não só os ricos e famosos, mas quase qualquer figura pública em tudo, incluindo praticamente todos os professores, são pressionados a ser politicamente correto, que nas democracias ocidentais, agora significa social democrático (Neomarxista-i. e., comunista diluído) terceiro supremacistas mundiais que trabalham para a destruição de suas próprias sociedades e seus próprios descendentes. Assim, aqueles cuja falta of Educação, experiência, inteligência (e senso comum básico), que deve proibi-los de fazer quaisquer declarações públicas em tudo, dominar totalmente todos os meios de comunicação, criando a impressão de que o inteligente e civilizados devem favorecer a democracia, a diversidade e a igualdade, enquanto a verdade é que estes são os problemas e não as soluções, e que eles próprios são os principais inimigos da civilização. Ver meu livros Suicídio pela Democracia 4ª Ed (2019) y outras. (shrink)

金持ちと有名人に別のテイクはどうですか?まず、ハリー・ポッターの小説は、子供たちが世界に責任を持つのではなく、ファンタジーを信じることを奨励する原始的な迷信です。JKRは、ほとんどの人と同じくらい自分 自身と世界について手がかりはありませんが、平均的なアメリカ人の約200倍、平均的な中国人の約800倍の破壊的です。彼女は、これらのゴミ小説とそれに続くすべての侵食を生み出すために、おそらく30,000 ヘクタールの森林の破壊を担当してきました(地球上のすべての人のために海に少なくとも6トンとおそらく12トン/年の土壌、またはアメリカ人1人あたり100トンなので、ローリングの本やmov iesと彼女の3人の子供たちのために約5000トン/年ですies and her)。地球は毎年表土の少なくとも1%を失うので、2100に近づくにつれて、その食糧栽培能力のほとんどはなくなりました。その後、本や映画、プラスチック人形などを作り、配布するために作られた燃料や廃棄 物の膨大な量があります。彼女は、何百万人もの人々を使って家族計画や熱帯雨林の購入を奨励するのではなく、子供たちを生み出し、イギリス、アメリカ、世界、そして彼女の子孫の将来を破壊している第3世界至上主義 の従来のリベラルな愚かさを促進することによって、社会的責任の欠如を示しています。もちろん、彼女は他の7とそれほど変わりません。80億の手がかりのない - ちょうど騒がしい、より破壊的な. それは無料の昼食の問題は大きいです。暴徒は、他の人に危害を加えずに一人の人を助けることのようなものがないことを見ることができません。過密な世界への新規参入者に与えられた権利や特権は、他の人の権利や特権 を暗くすることしかできません。毎日どこでも目の前で起こっている大規模な生態学的災害にもかかわらず、彼らは前世紀の人口増加の大部分を占める「多様」の拘束されていない母性にそれらを固定することはできません 。彼らは、産業文明の最終的な崩壊に社会の資源と機能に対する日々の攻撃を推定するために必要な知性、教育、経験と正気のいくつかの組み合わせを欠いています。各食事、車やバスでの各旅行、靴の各ペアは、地球の棺 の中の別の釘です。ロンドンからサンフランシスコへの飛行機の1つの座席が、約3平方メートルの海氷を溶かす約1トンの炭素を生産し、過剰な特権の一つとして、彼女はおそらく何百ものフライトを飛ばしたことは、彼 女の心を横切ったことはありません。 金持ちや有名人だけでなく、事実上すべての教師を含むほぼすべての公人は政治的に正しいと圧力を受けており、西洋民主主義では、現在、社会民主主義(ネオマルクス主義者、すなわち希薄な共産主義者)第三世界至上主 義者が自分たちの社会と子孫の破壊のために働くことを意味しています。だから、教育、経験、知性(そして基本的な常識)が欠けている人々は、彼らが公の声明を出すのを全く禁止すべきであるが、すべてのメディアを完 全に支配し、知的で文明的な人々が民主主義、多様性、平等を支持しなければならないという印象を作り出す一方で、真実はこれらが問題であり、解決策ではなく、彼ら自身が文明の主要な敵であるという印象を作り出す。 民主主義第2nd ed(2019年)などによる私の自殺を参照してください .

어떻게 부자와 유명한에 다른 걸릴에 대한? 먼저 해리 포터 소설은 아이들이 세상에 대한 책임을 지기보다는 환상을 믿도록 장려하는 원시적인 미신입니다. JKR은 자신과 세계에 대한 단서가 거의없지만, 평균 미국인보다 약 200배, 평균 중국인보다 약 800배 더 파괴적입니다. 그녀는 이 쓰레기 소설과 모든 침식을 생산하기 위해 30,000 헥타르의 숲을 파괴한 책임이있습니다 (지구상의 모든 사람을 위해 바다에 적어도6 톤과 12 톤 / 년 토양이 아니며 미국인 100 톤, 그리고 Rowling의 책과 이스와그녀의 3 명의 아이들에 대해 연간 약 5000 톤). 지구는 매년 표토의 적어도 (...) 1 %를 잃고, 그래서 그것은 2100 에 가까워지면, 그것의 음식 성장 능력의 대부분은 사라질 것입니다. 그런 다음 책과 영화, 플라스틱 인형 등을 만들고 배포하기 위해 만든 연료와 폐기물의 엄청난 양이있다. 그녀는 수백만 명의 아이들을 가족 계획을 장려하거나 열대 우림을 사들이기보다는 아이들을 생산함으로써 사회적 책임이 부족하다는 것을 보여주고, 영국, 미국, 세계 및 그녀의 후손의 미래를 파괴하는 제 3 세계 패권의 전통적인 자유주의 어리석음을 장려함으로써 그녀의 사회적 책임이 부족하다는 것을 보여줍니다. 물론, 그녀는 다른 7과 다르지 않습니다. 80 억 단서 - 그냥 시끄고 더 파괴적. 무료 런치 문제 영장 큰 입니다. 폭도들은 다른 사람을 해치지 않고 한 사람을 돕는 것과 같은 것이 없다는 것을 알 수 없습니다. 혼잡한 세상에 새로운 참가자에게 주어지는 권리 나 특권은 다른 사람들의 사람들을 희미하게 만들 수있습니다. 매일 어디서나 일어나는 거대한 생태 재해에도 불구하고, 그들은 지난 세기의 인구 증가의 대부분과이 모든 것을 차지하는 "다양한"의 억제되지 않은 모성에 고정 할 수 없습니다. 그들은 산업 문명의 궁극적 인 붕괴에 자원과 기능 사회의 매일 공격을 추정하는 데 필요한 지능, 교육, 경험과 정신의 조합이 부족합니다. 각 식사, 자동차 또는 버스로 각 여행, 신발의 각 쌍은 지구의 관에 또 다른 손톱입니다. 런던에서 샌프란시스코로 가는 비행기의 한 좌석이 약 3 평방 미터의 해빙을 녹이는 약 1 톤의 탄소를 생산한다는 것은 결코 그녀의 마음을 건드리지 않았을 것이며, 그녀가 수백 개의 항공편을 비행했을 가능성이 큽니까. 부유하고 유명한 사람뿐만 아니라 거의 모든 공적 인물, 거의 모든 교사를 포함하여, 정치적으로 올바른 압력을 받고, 이는 서구 민주주의에서, 지금 사회 민주주의를 의미(신마르크스주의자 - 즉, 희석 공산주의자) 자신의 사회와 자신의 후손의 파괴를 위해 일하는 제 3 세계 우월주의자. 그래서,그 부족 of 교육, 경험, 정보 (그리고 기본적인 상식), 전혀 공개 발언을 금지해야, 완전히 모든 미디어를 지배, 지적이고 문명화 된 민주주의, 다양성과 평등을 선호해야한다는 인상을 만드는, 진실은 이들이 문제가 아닌 솔루션이며, 그들 자신은 문명의 주요 원수입니다. 민주주의 2nd 에드 (2019) 및 다른 사람에 의해 내 자살을 참조하십시오. (shrink)

the virtues which are desirable for scientific theories to possess. In this paper I discuss the several species of theoretical virtues called 'fertility', and argue in each case that the desirability of 'fertility' can be explicated in terms of other, more fundamental theoretical virtues.

Unified theories of de se attitudes and de dicto attitudes, along the lines of David Lewis’s proposal, face a problem. Whether or not they are adequate for representing beliefs, they can misrepresent the content of many of our desires, which rank possible outcomes in which the agent with the desire does not exist. These desires are shown to play a role in the rational explanation of action, and recognising them is important in our understanding of ourselves. Lewis’s account of attitudes (...) de dicto and de se is shown to be unsatisfactory, and the lessons learned are applied more broadly. (shrink)

This paper responds to commentaries by Kaiserman and Magidor, and Hawthorne. The case of the infinite clowns can teach us several things.

I argue that Graham Priest's story 'Sylvan's Box' has an attractive consistent reading. Priest's hope that this story can be used as an example of a non-trivial 'essentially inconsistent' story is thus threatened. I then make some observations about the role 'Sylvan's Box' might play in a theory of unreliable narrators.

Readers of fictions sometimes resist taking certain kinds of claims to be true according to those fictions, even when they appear explicitly or follow from applying ordinary principles of interpretation. This "imaginative resistance" is often taken to be significant for a range of philosophical projects outside aesthetics, including giving us evidence about what is possible and what is impossible, as well as the limits of conceivability, or readers' normative commitments. I will argue that this phenomenon cannot do the theoretical work (...) that has been asked of it. Resistance to taking things to be fictional is often best explained by unfamiliarity with kinds of fictions than any representational, normative, or cognitive limits. With training and experience, any understandable proposition can be made fictional and be taken to be fictional by readers. This requires a new understanding both of imaginative resistance, and what it might be able to tell us about topics like conceivability or the bounds of possibility. (shrink)

Lewis is famous as a contemporary philosophical system-builder. The most obvious way his philosophy exhibited a system was in its content: Lewis’s metaphysics, for example, provided answers to many metaphysical puzzles in an integrated way, and there are illuminating connections to be drawn between his general metaphysical views and, for example, his various views about the mind and its place in nature.

The question of what truths are necessary in the broadest possible sense is a difficult one to answer, as is the question of what the limits are to what is possible. (Most people would see these two questions as different sides of the same coin, of course, since many think the question of what is possible is just the question of what is not necessarily ruled out). We have three general sorts of strategies for determining whether something is necessary (or (...) possible). We can identify it in a class that we were previously sure was a class of things that are necessary – we might show it is a theorem of a logical system that we have confidence in, or that the sentence appears to be true simply in virtue of the meanings of the words, or that it is a true statement involving names or about natural kinds of the “necessary a posteriori” sort discussed by Kripke and Putnam, and there are perhaps other classes of claims which we are prepared to accept are necessary if true.1 Likewise, we might establish the possibility of something occurring by reference to a class of well-established or uncontroversial possibilities: e.g. we are inclined to think that it is possible (in the broadest sense) for an event to occur in the future if one of the same kind has occurred in the past. (shrink)

This paper argues that all of the standard theories about the divisions of space and time can benefit from, and may need to rely on, parsimony considerations. More specifically, whether spacetime is discrete, gunky or pointy, there are wildly unparsimonious rivals to standard accounts that need to be resisted by proponents of those accounts, and only parsimony considerations offer a natural way of doing that resisting. Furthermore, quantitative parsimony considerations appear to be needed in many of these cases.

Williamson proposes that a "suppositional procedure" is a central heuristic we use to evaluate the truth of conditionals, though he also argues that this method often leads us astray. An alternative approach to the link between supposition and conditionals is to claim that we are guided by our antecedent conditional judgements in our supposing, and in particular in our determining which things follow from an initial supposition. This alternative explanation of the close link between conditionals and supposition is developed and (...) compared to Williamson's proposal. (shrink)

Kecenderungan genetik untuk membantu kerabat dekat kita ("altruisme"), yang sangat penting untuk kelangsungan hidup dalam leluhur kita di dataran Afrika puluhan ribu sampai puluhan juta tahun yang lalu, adalah Cacat fatal dalam dunia yang penuh sesak di mana tetangga kita tidak lagi terkait erat dan terlibat dalam perjuangan hidup dan mati untuk bertahan hidup. Saya telah mengacu pada ini sebagai ' The One Big Happy Family Delusion ' dan itu adalah pusat dari utopis yang bunuh diri delusi politik kiri, yang (...) timbul karena kelimpahan sementara sumber daya dan kedamaian relatif dimungkinkan oleh pemerkosaan tanpa ampun bumi. Pandangan politik liberal yang masuk akal di masa lalu membawa tentang runtuhnya masyarakat demokratis modern dan mungkin peradaban itu sendiri. Meskipun hal ini jelas untuk setiap sepuluh tahun terang dengan akses ke internet atau bahkan TV satelit, itu benar-benar buram untuk liberal/Demokratik/neomarxist/neofasis/ketiga supremasi dunia/20, 30-40 sesuatu Googloids dan iPhoners, yang akan segera mengambil alih dan menghancurkan kemakmuran dan perdamaian di Amerika dan Inggris, dan kemudian dunia, baik secara langsung, dan dengan meninggalkan itu terbuka untuk kehancuran oleh kartel Meksiko, Jihadis Islam dan jauh di atas dan di luar semua, tujuh sociopaths yang memerintah Cina. Amerika dan dunia sedang dalam proses runtuhnya dari pertumbuhan penduduk yang berlebihan, sebagian besar untuk abad terakhir, dan sekarang semua itu, karena orang dunia 3. Konsumsi sumber daya dan penambahan 2 miliar lebih CA. 2100 akan runtuh peradaban industri dan membawa kelaparan, penyakit, kekerasan dan perang pada skala yang mengejutkan. Bumi kehilangan setidaknya 1% dari humus setiap tahunnya, sehingga mendekati 2100, sebagian besar kapasitas tumbuh makanan akan hilang. Miliaran akan mati dan perang nuklir semua tapi pasti. Di Amerika, ini sedang sangat dipercepat oleh imigrasi besar-besaran dan reproduksi imigran, dikombinasikan dengan pelecehan yang dimungkinkan oleh demokrasi. Sifat manusia yang rusak tak terelakkan mengubah impian demokrasi dan keragaman menjadi mimpi buruk dalam kejahatan dan kemiskinan. Ignorance dasar biologi dan psikologi mengarah pada rekayasa sosial delusi dari sebagian berpendidikan yang mengendalikan masyarakat demokratis. Sedikit memahami bahwa jika Anda membantu satu orang yang Anda menyakiti orang lain-tidak ada makan siang gratis dan setiap item yang dikonsumsi orang menghancurkan bumi di luar perbaikan. Akibatnya, kebijakan sosial di mana-mana tidak berkelanjutan dan satu per satu semua masyarakat tanpa kontrol yang ketat pada keegoisan akan runtuh menjadi anarki atau kediktatoran. Fakta yang paling mendasar, hampir tidak pernah disebutkan, adalah bahwa tidak ada cukup sumber daya di Amerika atau dunia untuk mengangkat persentase yang signifikan dari miskin keluar dari kemiskinan dan menjaga mereka di sana. Upaya untuk melakukan hal ini adalah bangkrut Amerika dan menghancurkan dunia. Kapasitas bumi untuk menghasilkan makanan berkurang setiap hari, seperti halnya kualitas genetik kita. Dan sekarang, seperti biasa, sejauh ini musuh terbesar orang miskin adalah miskin lainnya dan bukan orang kaya. Tanpa perubahan dramatis dan segera, tidak ada harapan untuk mencegah runtuhnya Amerika, atau negara yang mengikuti sistem demokratis. (shrink)

Es mi afirmación que la tabla de intencionalidad (racionalidad, mente, pensamiento, lenguaje, personalidad, etc.) que presenta prominentemente aquí describe más o menos con precisión, o al menos sirve como heurística para, cómo pensamos y nos comportamos, y por lo tanto no abarca simplemente filosofía y psicología, sino todo lo demás (historia, literatura, matemáticas, política, etc.). Tenga en cuenta especialmente que la intencionalidad y racionalidad como yo (junto con Searle, Wittgenstein y otros) lo veo, incluye tanto el Sistema Linguístico deliberativo consciente (...) 2 como las acciones o reflejos inconscientes automatizados del Sistema 1 automatizado. -/- Proporciono una encuesta crítica de algunos de los principales hallazgos de dos de los estudiantes más eminentes del comportamiento de los tiempos modernos, Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle, sobre la estructura lógica de la intencionalidad (mente, lenguaje, comportamiento), tomando como punto de partida El descubrimiento fundamental de Wittgenstein -que todos los problemas verdaderamente "filosóficos" son los mismos —confusiones sobre cómo usar el lenguaje en un contexto particular, y por lo tanto todas las soluciones son iguales— mirando cómo se puede utilizar el lenguaje en el contexto en cuestión para que su verdad condiciones (Condiciones de Satisfacción o COS) son claras. El problema básico es que se puede decir cualquier cosa, pero no se puede significar (indicar COS claro para) cualquier expresión arbitraria y significado sólo es posible en un contexto muy específico. Analizo varios escritos por y sobre ellos desde la perspectiva moderna de los dos sistemas de pensamiento (popularizados como 'pensar rápido, pensar lento'), empleando una nueva tabla de intencionalidad y nueva nomenclatura de sistemas duales. Demuestro que esta es una heurística poderosa para describir el comportamiento. -/- Por lo tanto, todo comportamiento está íntimamente conectado si uno toma el punto de vista correcto. La Ilusión Fenomenológica (olvido a nuestro Sistema automatizado 1) es universal y se extiende no sólo a lo largo de la filosofía, sino a lo largo de la vida. Estoy seguro de que Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg y el Papa serían incrédulos si se les dijera que sufren del mismo problema que Hegel, Husserl y Heidegger, (o que difieren sólo en grado de los adictos a las drogas y el sexo en estar motivados por la estimulación de su cortices frontales por la entrega de dopamina (y más de 100 otros productos químicos) a través del tegmentum ventral y el núcleo accumbens), pero es claramente cierto. Mientras que los fenomenólogos sólo desperdiciaron mucho el tiempo de la gente, están desperdiciando la tierra y el futuro de sus descendientes. -/- . (shrink)

Es mi afirmación que la tabla de intencionalidad (racionalidad, mente, pensamiento, lenguaje, personalidad, etc.) que presenta prominentemente aquí describe más o menos con precisión, o al menos sirve como heurística para, cómo pensamos y nos comportamos, y por lo tanto no abarca simplemente filosofía y psicología, sino todo lo demás (historia, literatura, matemáticas, política, etc.). Tenga en cuenta especialmente que la intencionalidad y racionalidad como yo (junto con Searle, Wittgenstein y otros) lo veo, incluye tanto el Sistema Linguístico deliberativo consciente (...) 2 como las acciones o reflejos inconscientes automatizados del Sistema 1 automatizado. Proporciono una encuesta crítica de algunos de los principales hallazgos de dos de los estudiantes más eminentes del comportamiento de los tiempos modernos, Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle, sobre la estructura lógica de la intencionalidad (mente, lenguaje, comportamiento), tomando como punto de partida El descubrimiento fundamental de Wittgenstein -que todos los problemas verdaderamente "filosóficos" son los mismos —confusiones sobre cómo usar el lenguaje en un contexto particular, y por lo tanto todas las soluciones son iguales— mirando cómo se puede utilizar el lenguaje en el contexto en cuestión para que su verdad condiciones (Condiciones de Satisfacción o COS) son claras. El problema básico es que se puede decir cualquier cosa, pero no se puede significar (indicar COS claro para) cualquier expresión arbitraria y significado sólo es posible en un contexto muy específico. Analizo varios escritos por y sobre ellos desde la perspectiva moderna de los dos sistemas de pensamiento (popularizados como 'pensar rápido, pensar lento'), empleando una nueva tabla de intencionalidad y nueva nomenclatura de sistemas duales. Demuestro que esta es una heurística poderosa para describir el comportamiento. Por lo tanto, todo comportamiento está íntimamente conectado si uno toma el punto de vista correcto. La Ilusión Fenomenológica (olvido a nuestro Sistema automatizado 1) es universal y se extiende no sólo a lo largo de la filosofía, sino a lo largo de la vida. Estoy seguro de que Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg y el Papa serían incrédulos si se les dijera que sufren del mismo problema que Hegel, Husserl y Heidegger, (o que difieren sólo en grado de los adictos a las drogas y el sexo en estar motivados por la estimulación de su cortices frontales por la entrega de dopamina (y más de 100 otros productos químicos) a través del tegmentum ventral y el núcleo accumbens), pero es claramente cierto. Mientras que los fenomenólogos sólo desperdiciaron mucho el tiempo de la gente, están desperdiciando la tierra y el futuro de sus descendientes. (shrink)

Impossible fictions are valuable evidence both for a theory of fiction and for theories of meaning, mind and epistemology. This article focuses on what we can learn about fiction from reflecting on impossible fictions. First, different kinds of impossible fiction are considered, and the question of how much fiction is impossible is addressed. What impossible fiction contributes to our understanding of "truth in fiction" and the logic of fiction will be examined. Finally, our understanding of unreliable narrators and unreliable narration (...) in fiction needs to accommodate stories that, on the face of it, cannot possibly be true. (shrink)

To what extent do true predications correspond to truthmakers in virtue of which those predications are true? One sort of predicate which is often thought to not be susceptible to an ontological treatment is a predicate for instantiation, or some corresponding predication (trope-similarity or set-membership, for example). This paper discusses this question, and argues that an "ontological" approach is possible here too: where this ontological approach goes beyond merely finding a truthmaker for claims about instantiation. Along the way a version (...) of the problem of the regress of instantiation is posed and solved. (shrink)