Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Language Matters

  • Apples and Sparkplugs

    All too frequently people say, ‘You’re comparing apples and oranges’ in order to convey the idea that two things are so dissimilar as to to disallow any significant comparison. Can’t they do better than this? Apples and oranges are highly comparable in respects too numerous to mention. Both are fruits, both are edible, both grow…

  • Questions: Their Raising and Their Begging

    To raise a question is not to beg a question. 'Raise a question' and 'beg a question' ought not be used interchangeably on pain of occluding a distinction essential to clear thought. To raise a question is just to pose it, to bring it before one's mind or before one's audience for consideration. To beg…

  • Call it What it Is!

    In the swimming pool the other morning, conversation drifted onto the topic of recipes.  One lady who hails from Texas proceeded to give me her recipe for what she referred to as cornbread 'dressing.'  In my preferred patois, 'stuffing' is the word, not 'dressing.'  And so in our little conversation I kept using the 's' word. …

  • If You are a Conservative, Don’t Talk Like a Liberal!

    I saw Michael Smerconish on C-Span one morning. His conservative credentials are impressive, but he used the word 'homophobe.' I've made this point before but it bears repeating. We conservatives should never acquiesce in the Left's acts of linguistic vandalism. Battles in the culture war are often lost and won on linguistic ground. So we ought…

  • Positive and Privative Constructions and the Case of Causa Sui

    God is traditionally described as causa sui, as self-caused. Construed positively, however, the notion appears incoherent. Nothing can function as a cause unless it exists. So if God causes his own existence, then his existence as cause is logically prior to his existence as effect. God must 'already' (logically speaking) exist if he is to…

  • The Dictionary Fallacy

    What I will call the Dictionary Fallacy is the fallacy of thinking that certain philosophical questions can be answered by consulting dictionaries.  The philosophical questions I have in mind are those of the form What is X? or What is the nature of X?  High on the list:  What is justice?  Knowledge? Existence?  Goodness?  But…

  • Attaching Useful Senses to ‘Negative Atheism’ and ‘Positive Atheism’

    I have already sufficiently explained why 'atheism' and 'negative atheism' cannot be usefully defined in terms of mere absence of theistic belief.  (See also Peter Lupu's comments on this topic.)  But sense can be attached to these phrases and to their near relatives 'negative atheist' and 'positive atheist.'  I suggest that a negative atheist is…

  • Against Terminological Mischief: ‘Negative Atheism’ and ‘Negative Nominalism’

    This from the seemingly reputable site, Investigating Atheism: More recently, atheists have argued that atheism only denotes a lack of theistic belief, rather than the active denial or claims of certainty it is often associated with. I'm having a hard time seeing what point there could be in arguing that "atheism only denotes a lack of theistic…

  • The Definition of ‘Atheist’ and the Burden of Proof

    Some define atheism in terms of the absence of the belief that God exists.  This won't do, obviously, since then we would have to count cabbages and sparkplugs as atheists given the absence in these humble entities of the belief that God exists.  But the following could be proffered with some show of plausibility: An…

  • The Two-Fold Sense of ‘The Actual World’

    A correspondent poses the following difficulty: . . . compare two possible worlds W1 and W2. What makes them different worlds? Their constituent substances and events – that’s how we identify a world. Let’s say that W1 and W2 are distinct possible worlds, and add that A, the actual world, is in fact W1. [.…

  • Word of the Day: Inconcinnity

    My elite readers no doubt know this word, but I learned it just today. It means lack of suitability or congruity: INELEGANCE.  'Concinnity' is also a word.  From the Latin concinnitas, from concinnus, skillfully put together, it means: harmony and often elegance of design especially of literary style in adaptation of parts to a whole or…

  • Four Uses of ‘Of’ and Non-Intentional Conscious States

    The thesis of intentionality can be stated roughly as follows: Every consciousness is a consciousness of something.  I claim that this Brentano thesis is false because of the existence of non-intentional states of consciousness. Peter Lupu understands and agrees but no one else hereabouts does.  So I need to take a few steps back and issue some…

  • Three Senses of ‘Or’

    ‘Or’ is a troublesome particle in dire need of regimentation. Besides its two disjunctive meanings, the inclusive and the exclusive, there is also what I call the ‘or’ of identity. The inclusive meaning, corresponding to the Latin vel, is illustrated by ‘He is either morally obtuse or intellectually obtuse.’ This allows that the person in…

  • Putting My Contingency Into English: Are There Legitimate Non-Epistemic Uses of ‘Might’?

    I exist now.  But my nonexistence now is possible. ('Now' picks out the same time in both of its occurrences.) 'Possible' in my second sentence is not intended epistemically.  Surely it would be absurd were I to say, 'My nonexistence now is possible for all I know' or 'My nonexistence now is not ruled out by…

  • On the Misuse of Religious Language

    A massage parlor is given the name Nirvana, the implication being that after a well-executed massage one will be in the eponymous state. This betrays a misunderstanding of Nirvana, no doubt, but that is not the main thing, which is the perverse tendency to attach a religious or spiritual significance to a merely sensuous state of…