This paper reflects on an article that appeared after the death of A.J. Ayer, which complains about what British philosophers focus on. I propose that the content of the philosophy curriculum can be predicted from a rational actor model.

This paper proposes that there is common ground between H.J. Rose’s A Handbook of Greek Mythology and Robert Graves’s The Greek Myths, in that both seem to think that it is a bad idea to meet a certain demand: to provide a handbook that is reliable, easy to consult, and suitable for students of certain literary tastes.

This paper pays tribute to the distinguished legal and political philosopher Joseph Raz, who recently passed away. I present a response to Donald Davidson on conceptual schemes which tries to imitate Raz’s writing style, which attracts me despite the difficulties it poses. The response includes a definition.

This paper contains a brief pastiche of analytic philosopher Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins, responding to the sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu.

This paper considers whether the saying, “It’s who you know, not what you know” can be used instead of jargon-laden studies of inequality. I argue that it is not a good replacement in some cases and present a challenge to standard Bourdieusian explanations of inequality in some fields. The paper is written as a pastiche of the distinguished political philosopher Joseph Raz.

J.G. Frazer tells us about a last resort technique which Cambodian hunters use when they have caught nothing in their nets. The “technique” is they act as if they themselves have got caught in the net. Frazer explains this as the consequence of magical thinking, but I propose a different explanation.

This is a one page handout, presenting a puzzle from J.G. Frazer regarding why, to become the priest of Diana at Nemi, one had to first break a bough in the sacred grove.

This paper presents an objection to the theory of names according to which what a name refers to is determined by a description that the speaker or writer associates with that name. Some names are associated with paradoxical descriptions. I use the reputations of Henry Sidgwick and J.M.E. McTaggart to illustrate this problem.

In this paper, I present two puzzles arising from J.M. Coetzee’s novel Elizabeth Costello, a fiction which is closely connected to analytic philosophy.

In this paper I make some distinctions, which I hope are of help for Laura Valentini and others. Are the recommendations of a theory of what the government should do possible and are they feasible? Is the project of the theorist possibility-sensitive and is the project feasibility-sensitive?

I raise a worry that Shashi Tharoor’s criticism that “much of Narayan’s prose reads like a translation” is inconsistent with his criticism “the ABC of bad writing – archaisms, banalities and cliches – abounded” because these things tend to be worded in a way that exploits local linguistic features, such as alliteration, making translation difficult. I also flag another inconsistency worry, but earlier in this paper.

What if, instead of a scandal, Jacques Derrida had been accepted by the community of analytic philosophers? My prediction is that little-known philosophers would make points like some which I have made: counterexamples to his claims. There is a different reaction to the question which I consider though, according to which these skills do not just transfer from topic to topic and would not be “activated” by Derrida’s philosophy.

T.H. Irwin characterizes the reflective equilibrium procedure as one which should not involve ruthless surgery, in a metaphorical sense. I argue that many people will find avoiding this difficult, because they do not conceive or go in for subtle options.

On one natural interpretation of what the narrator from Notes from Underground is saying, “People are rebels.” If you give them evidence that this is the career path for them, say, they do something else. But underdeterminism entails one objection to this theory.

I consider the opening to a paper by Jerry Fodor referring to graffiti in the subway stations and what Helen Beebee once said about it in her essay writing guide. I used to just pass over that stuff, but now I find it may be more important.

I present a difficulty with evaluating analytic political philosophy based on a lack of data to compare achievements there with. For example, if a paradox was (or were) given to members of an elite university college for a day, how many solutions would they come up with?

This paper presents an attempt to solve Laura Valentini’s ideal theory paradox, in a way which makes me think of G.E. Moore but I shall leave the classification of the solution to the experts. I also discuss the claim that philosophy is so easy.

I introduce and examine an argument presented by American anthropologist Herbert S. Lewis against thinking that British anthropology played a significant role in supporting colonialist projects: the British empire was large and centuries old, so it seems very unlikely that two dozen anthropologists late on made much difference.

I respond further to an undergraduate philosophy essay writing guide which tells readers that they are studying philosophy not creative writing. I note an obvious disadvantage of the claim.

This paper challenges Marilyn Strathern’s claim that it is, or was, an axiom of social anthropology that societies differ in how they handle the same facts. I present a set of foundational commitments for conducting social anthropology which leave the truth of the proposition as an empirical question of the discipline.

This paper gives further feedback in response to the evening of presentations about the value of different disciplines to the social sciences, at the University of Manchester. I respond to Peter Lawler’s presentation for the politics department, or discipline area. The appendix responds to a remark which I found online about Laura Valentini, related to the main content.

This paper presents an explanation for why Jeanette Edwards did anthropology fieldwork at home. The explanation latches on to her claim “Scrutiny of Western social life, albeit one version of it, has the ability to shed light on the anthropological enterprise itself…” It is presented within a mildly comical dialogue with a character called N, who has featured in my writings before. And the comedy is just to prevent an excess of coldness.

This paper presents a dialogue between Tompkins and a character whom I refer to as N. Tompkins asks, “How do we get into the big leagues?” N’s response is to emphasize quantity. This suggests a solution to the paradox.

The dilemma I present for Laura Valentini’s paradox of ideal theory concerns a theory which includes idealizations but also an account of how you apply the theory to less ideal reality. If this does not count as an ideal theory, then theories of justice need not be ideal. If it does, then ideal theories can be action guiding.

Daniel Hill’s definition of suicide seems vulnerable to a counterexample in which someone kills themselves under some other intention, such as “I remove this useless part of the social organism.” Also Humeans pose a problem for him.

I present a solution to the paradox of the kalela dance based on the need for a contrast.

Historian of anthropology George Stocking tells us: from the point of view of parts of the Victorian middle class, Victorian society was highly evolved yet also contained savage components. Why don’t they change their ways, or why didn’t they? There is a Quinean solution.

This paper presents what I at least regard as a University of Oxford style response to a question often posed to social anthropologist Jeanette Edwards, “Why Bacup?” The question can be a brief way of communicating various puzzles which an inquirer is seeking to solve and I presume “an Oxford person” is going to ask for a clarification of the question, perhaps offering some options.

The preface to A Theory of Justice includes the interesting suggestion that John Rawls’s system is consistent with W.V. Quine’s system. I raise a problem for achieving fair equality of opportunity granting Quine’s system: that one does not have to respond to apparent evidence that two candidates are equally suitable for a job in the desired way. There does not appear to be a logical inconsistency between the systems at this point, but in practice regular positive discrimination schemes are probably (...) required. (shrink)

I think Tompkins’ paradox, as I call it, probably does affect analytic philosophy, particularly analytic political philosophy, and maybe other parts as well. There are female philosophers who have a number of symbols of status, such as posts at prestigious universities or professorships and publications in high ranking journals, yet there is a question of whether they are not regarded as players in the big leagues, to use Tompkins’ metaphor, even if “big leagues” does not refer to particularly impressive leagues. (...) I propose that avoiding certain errors would help. (shrink)

This paper responds to Joel Smith’s definition of empathy. It is unclear to me that it can serve as a dictionary definition of empathy, owing to the lack of a moral aspect, and I think Smith overlooks what its function is in specialist disciplines, such as psychology.

It is tempting to interpret Marilyn Strathern as saying that the concept of nature is a social construction, because in her essay “No Nature, No Culture: the Hagen Case” she tells us that the Hagen people do not describe the world using this concept. However, I point out an obstacle to interpreting her in this way, an obstacle which leads me to reject this interpretation. Interpreting her in this way makes her inconsistent. The inconsistency is owing to a commitment that (...) she shares with previous British anthropologists, a commitment which points to an incompatibility between two intellectual traditions. (shrink)

There have been times in the history of ethical theory, especially in this century, when moral realism was down, but it was never out. The appeal of this doctrine for many moral philosophers is apparently so strong that there are always supporters in its corner who seek to resuscitate the view. The attraction is obvious: moral realism purports to provide a precious philosophical good, viz., objectivity and all that this involves, including right answers to (most) moral questions, and the possibility (...) of knowing those answers. In the last decade, moral realism has re-entered the philosophical ring in powerful-looking naturalistic form. ln this paper we provide a dialectical overview: we situate the new wave position itself, and also our objections to it, in the context of the evolving program of philosophical naturalism in 20th century analytic philosophy. We seek to show that although this new contender might initially look like championship material, it succumbs to punches surprisingly similar to those that knocked out the old-fashioned versions of naturalist moral realism. (shrink)

In this article I take a critical look at the origins and sources of Bruno Latour's pluralism as it is expressed in his book AN INQUIRY INTO MODES OF EXISTENCE, and compare it to other similar projects (Wittgenstein, Feyerabend, Badiou). I consider the accusations of reductionism and of relativism, and demonstrate that Latour's «empirical metaphysics» is not an ontological reductionism but a pluralist ontology recognising the existence of a plurality of entities and of types of entities. Nor is it an (...) epistemological relativism but an ontological pluralism affirming the existence of a plurality of types of existence. These two strands, pluralist ontology and ontological pluralism, mutually reinforce each other to produce at least the outlines of a robust pluralist realism. (shrink)

I begin by “deconstructing” the title and explaining that Feyerabend does not really use the word “ontology”, though he does call his position sometimes (and the “sometimes” is important) ontological realism. I explain that he talks about his position as indifferently a “general methodology” or a “general cosmology”, and that he seems to be be hostile to the very enterprise of ontology, conceived of as “school philosophy”. I then go on to say that there is perhaps a concept of a (...) different type of ontology, that I call a “diachronic ontology” that perhaps he would have accepted,and that is very different from ontology as ordinarily thought, which I claim to be synchronic ontology (having no room for the dialogue with Being, but just supposing that Being is already and always there without our contribution). I discuss Althusser and Graham Harman as exemplifying synchronic ontology, giving a reading of Harman’s recent book THE THIRD TABLE. I then discuss Feyerabend’s ideas as showing a different way, that of a diachronic ontology, in which there is no stable framework or fixed path. I end with Andrew Pickering whose essay NEW ONTOLOGIES makes a similar distinction to mine, expressing it in the imagistic terms of a De Kooningian (diachronic) versus a Mondrianesque (synchronic) approach. (shrink)

Graham Harman judges science and common sense in terms of the crude philosophical criteria of another age and finds them lacking in knowledge of reality. He posits a shadowy "withdrawn" realm of real objects in order to explain the discrepancies between his naive abstract model of knowledge as access and the concrete reality of the sciences. Works such as THE QUADRUPLE OBJECT, THE THIRD TABLE and BELLS AND WHISTLES, like the whole of his philosophy, are the record of Harman noticing (...) the discrepancies, but refusing to revise the model. His solution is a dead-end, the timid, nostalgic, and fundamentally misleading propounding of an antiquated epistemology under the cover of a "new" ontology. (shrink)

This paper attempts to evaluate the AIME project immanently, from the perspective of a participant, in terms of five criteria: digitality, diplomacy, religiosity, testability, and democracy. A sixth criterion runs through the other five: pluralism. I distinguish between AIME as project, as process, and as party line.

This paper examines the compliance of universities in the European Union with the UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher–Education Teaching Personnel, which deals primarily with protection for academic freedom. The paper briefly surveys the European genesis of the modern research university and academic freedom, before evaluating compliance with the UNESCO recommendation on institutional autonomy, academic freedom, university governance and tenure. Following from this, the paper examines the reasons for the generally low level of compliance with the UNESCO Recommendation within (...) the EU states, and considers how such compliance could be improved. (shrink)

Knowledge, like other things of value, can be faked. According to Hawley (2011), know-how is harder to fake than knowledge-that, given that merely apparent propositional knowledge is in general more resilient to our attempts at successful detection than are corresponding attempts to fake know-how. While Hawley’s reasoning for a kind of detection resilience asymmetry between know-how and know-that looks initially plausible, it should ultimately be resisted. In showing why, we outline different ways in which know-how can be faked even when (...) a given performance is successful; and in doing so, we distinguish how know-how can be faked (no less than know-that) via upstream and downstream indicators of its presence, and within each of these categories, we’ll distinguish (in connection with detection resilience) both faking symptoms and (various kinds of) criteria. The unappreciated resilience of faked knowledge-how to successful detection highlights a largely overlooked dimension of social-epistemic risk – risk we face not just in our capacity as recipients of testimony, but in our capacity as both (would-be) apprentices and clients of knowledge-how. (shrink)

According to a familiar reading of Kant, he denies the possibility alleged by the rationalists of our having non-sensible or intellectual intuition. I argue in this article that he simply holds the possibility to be groundless. To put the contrast in terms of a distinction Kant makes in the A-Paralogisms, he raises a “dogmatic” objection to the rationalists in the former case, and a “critical” one in the latter. By analyzing the two-step argument in the B-Deduction, I defend the “critical” (...) reading, which may, I hope, shed light on how Kant can justify his claim – which may be regarded as a second-order, methodological one pivotal to his Critical project – that possible experience serves as the only guideline for proving that we can cognize objects a priori. (shrink)

The Projectability Challenge states that a metaethical view must explain how ordinary agents can, on the basis of moral experience and reflection, accurately and justifiably apply moral concepts to novel situations. In this paper, we argue for two primary claims. First, paradigm nonnaturalism can satisfactorily answer the projectability challenge. Second, it is unclear whether there is a version of moral naturalism that can satisfactorily answer the challenge. The conclusion we draw is that there is an important respect in which nonnaturalism (...) holds an advantage over its most prominent naturalist rivals. The conclusion is interesting if only because it is widely assumed that naturalism has an easier time handling thorny problems in moral epistemology. We argue that there is at least one such problem of which this assumption is not true. (shrink)

What are words? What makes two token words tokens of the same word-type? Are words abstract entities, or are they (merely) collections of tokens? The ontology of words tries to provide answers to these, and related questions. This article provides an overview of some of the most prominent views proposed in the literature, with a particular focus on the debate between type-realist, nominalist, and eliminativist ontologies of words.

Abstract: Might knowledge normatively govern conversations and not just their discrete constituent thoughts and (assertoric) actions? I answer yes, at least for a restricted class of conversations I call aimed conversations. On the view defended here, aimed conversations are governed by participatory know-how - viz., knowledge how to do what each interlocutor to the conversation shares a participatory intention to do by means of that conversation. In the specific case of conversations that are in the service of joint inquiry, the (...) view defended is that interlocutors (A, B, ... n) must intentionally inquire together into whether p, by means of an aimed conversation X, only if A,B, ... n know how to use X to find out together whether p. The view is supported by considerations about instrumental rationality, shared intentionality, the epistemology of intentional action, as well as linguistic data. (shrink)

Jack Spencer argues we should reject a decision rule called MaxRat because it's incompatible with this principle: If you know that you will choose an option, x, and you know that x is better than every other option available to you, then it is permissible for you to choose x. I agree with Spencer that defenders of MaxRat should reject this principle. However, I disagree insofar as he suggests that he and orthodox causalists are in a position to accept it. (...) Both orthodox CDT and Spencer's own theory of rational choice are incompatible with the principle as well. It is surprising to realise, but all are agreed: it can be irrational to knowingly choose the best. (shrink)

Our aim is to provide a topography of the relevant philosophical terrain with regard to the possible ways in which knowledge can be conceived of as extended. We begin by charting the different types of internalist and externalist proposals within epistemology, and we critically examine the different formulations of the epistemic internalism/externalism debate they lead to. Next, we turn to the internalism/externalism distinction within philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In light of the above dividing lines, we then examine first (...) the extent to which content externalism is compatible with epistemic externalism; second, whether active externalism entails epistemic externalism; and third whether there are varieties of epistemic externalism that are better suited to accommodate active externalism. Finally, we examine whether the combination of epistemic and cognitive externalism is necessary for epistemology and we comment on the potential ramifications of this move for social epistemology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Understanding consciousness and its place in the natural world is one of the principal targets of contemporary philosophy of mind. Australian philosophers made seminal contributions to this project during the twentieth century which continue to shape the way philosophers and scientists think about the conceptual, metaphysical and empirical aspects of the problem. After some scene setting, I will discuss the main players and their work in the context of broader developments in the philosophy of mind.

I propose a solution to the paradox of the kalela dance, as presented by Richard Werbner, based on a variety of liberalism I once identified.

In this paper, I draw attention to a revolution in the metaphysical commitments of Western astrology. Although I do not wish to promote astrology, I propose a rational route to this revolution. But there is a strong argument, from a Popperian perspective, that my proposal fails to establish rationality. I then consider whether we should say that astrology is either false or unfalsifiable, drawing attention to some surprising findings from schizophrenia research. Also, in a footnote I present “Tompkins’ paradox.”.

The philosophical significance of attitudinal autonomy—viz., the autonomy of attitudes such as beliefs—is widely discussed in the literature on moral responsibility and free will. Within this literature, a key debate centres around the following question: is the kind of attitudinal autonomy that’s relevant to moral responsibility at a given time determined entirely by a subject’s present mental structure at that time? Internalists say ‘yes’, externalists say ’no’. In this essay, I motivate a kind of distinctly epistemic attitudinal autonomy, attitudinal autonomy (...) that is relevant to knowledge. I argue that regardless of whether we are externalists or internalists about the kind of attitudinal autonomy that is relevant for moral responsibility, we should be externalists about the kind of autonomy that a belief must have to qualify as knowledge. (shrink)