Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Aporetics

  • Perception: An Inconsistent Triad

    London Ed writes, I am making great progress on the perception book. I have borrowed your idea of an aporia, which I use to illustrate the central problem of perception: (1) Transparency: This is the surface of my desk. (2) Continuity: When I shut my eyes, the surface of my desk does not cease to exist (3) Discontinuity: When I…

  • Semirealism about Facts: An Exchange with Butchvarov

    Facts are the logical objects corresponding to whole declarative sentences, or rather to some of them. When it comes to facts, Panayot Butchvarov appreciates the strengths and weaknesses of both realism and anti-realism. For the realist, there are facts. For the anti-realist, there are no facts. Let us briefly review why both positions are attractive…

  • Beware of Projecting . . .

    . . . your values and attitudes into others. We are not all the same 'deep down,' and we don't all want the same things. You say you value peace and social harmony? So do I. But some are bellicose right out of the box. They love war and thrive on conflict, and not just verbally.   It is dangerous…

  • Existence, Time, Property-Possession, and the Dead

    Here are four propositions that are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent.  1) For any x, temporal or atemporal, if x has a property, then x exists. 2) For any temporal x, if x exists, then x exists at present. 3) Frege, a temporal item, does not exist at present. 4) Frege has properties at present.…

  • Memory and Existence: An Aporetic Tetrad

    Try this  foursome on for size: 1) Memory is a source of knowledge. 2) Whatever is known, exists. 3) Memory includes memory of wholly past individuals and events. 4) Whatever exists, is temporally present. The limbs of the tetrad are collectively inconsistent: they cannot all be true.  To appreciate the logical inconsistency, note that 'exists'…

  • A Kantian Aporia?

    This just in: I know you like puzzles in aporetic form, so here you are. 1. My perception involves (though is not necessarily limited to) the immediate awareness of mental phenomena. 2. When I look at the visible surface of this desk, all I am immediately aware of is the visible surface of this desk. 3. The…

  • Can a Sentence be Named?

    One thing we do with words is make assertions, as when I assert that snow is white. I use those words, but I can also talk about them, refer to them, mention them. You are all familiar with the use-mention distinction. 'Boston' is disyllabic, but no city is.  One way to mention an expression is…

  • The Problem of Consciousness and Galen Strawson’s Non-Solution

    Hi Dr. Vallicella, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts, if it interests you to write about it on your blog, on Strawson's intriguing 2021 paper "Oh you materialist!", in which he argues for a materialistic monism and a deflation of the hard problem.    Here is a link to the paper: https://philarchive.org/archive/STROYM   Best, Chandler…

  • Parallel Problems of God and Evil, Mind and Matter

    For Bradley Schneider. ………………………………….. It is a simple point of logic that if propositions p and q are both true, then they are collectively logically consistent, though not conversely. So if God exists and Evil exists are both (objectively) true, then they are collectively logically consistent, whence it follows that it is possible that they be collectively logically consistent. This…

  • Mark Sainsbury on Intentional Relations

    Following A. N. Prior, Sainsbury sets up the problem of intentionality as follows: We are faced with a paradox: some intentional states are relational and some are not. But all intentional states are the same kind of thing, and things of the same kind are either all relational or all non-relational.  (Intentional Relations, 327) Cast…

  • On Death: Objective and Subjective Views

    Death viewed objectively seems normal, natural, and 'acceptable.' And not evil. Is it evil that the leaves of deciduous trees fall off and die in the autumn? There are more where they came from. It is nature's way.  Everything in nature goes the way of the leaves of autumn. If this is not evil, why…

  • More on the Riddle of Intentionality with the Help of Molnar

      According to George Molnar, The fundamental feature of an intentional state or property is that it is directed to something beyond itself . . . All mental states and processes have an internal reference to an object. The identity of the intentional state is defined in terms of this intentional object. . . . Since intentionality constitutes the…

  • Relations and Nonexistents

     Consider the following two sentences:  a) Lions are smaller than dragons.b) Mice are smaller than elephants. From this datanic base a puzzle emerges.  1) The data sentences are both true.2) 'Smaller than' has the same sense in both (a) and (b).3) In both (a) and (b), 'smaller than' has the same reference: it refers to…

  • Tennyson Strikes a Chord

    The bolded passage below is a beautiful poetic summation of  my philosophical position. IF thou would’st hear the Nameless, and wilt dive Into the Temple-cave of thine own self, There, brooding by the central altar, thou May’st haply learn the Nameless hath a voice, By which thou wilt abide, if thou be wise, 5As if…

  • The Ought-to-Do, the Ought-to-Be, and the Aporetics of “Be Ye Perfect”

    Could one be under a moral obligation to perfect oneself?  Substack latest.