Category: Metaphilosophy
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Would Ortega Have Been a Blogger?
Julian Marias on his master, Ortega y Gasset: Throughout his life he wrote circumstantial, occasional, studies, in which he went straight to the point, to say something, to communicate to the reader — a very particular reader, whose figure gradually changed over the course of time — certain truths, certain warnings, certain very concrete exhortations.…
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Via Platonica Versus Via Aristotelis
I have spoken more than once of the fruitful tension between Athens (philosophy) and Jerusalem (Biblical revelation). But there is also a tension, and it is also a fruitful one, within Athens. It is depicted, if such a thing can be depicted at all, in Raphael's School of Athens. Take a gander at the close-up below. Plato…
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On Hairsplitting
As a follow-up to Anti-Intellectualism in Conservatives, here is an old post from the Powerblogs site. A surprising number still languish there in cyber-limbo awaiting their turn to be brought back to life. …………………. The charge of hairsplitting has always been one of the weapons in the arsenal of the anti-intellectual. One root of anti-intellectualism is…
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On the Dictionary Fallacy
A reader inquires: I am looking into the dictionary fallacy for an essay, and your blog post is the only thing I could find. Do you happen to know some other sources on the fallacy? As far as I know, I invented the dictionary fallacy, or rather, I invented the label and provided some preliminary…
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Jaegwon Kim on Reductionism and Eliminativism
I've been studying Jaegwon Kim's Physicalism, or Something Near Enough (Princeton UP, 2005). Here are some notes and questions. 1. It's clear that mental causation must be saved. If Kim is right that nonreductive physicalism is not viable, then by his lights our only hope of saving mental causation is via "physical reductionism." (159). It…
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A Crisis in Philosophy? How Not to Avert It
Those who make a living teaching philosophy, or are hoping to make a living teaching philosophy, have reason to be concerned. Enrollments are in decline, and as the University of Nevada (Las Vegas) example shows, whole departments are under threat of elimination. Some speak loosely of a crisis in philosophy. But it is more like…
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The Strangeness of the Ordinary
By nature, the philosopher is attuned to the strangeness of the ordinary. By experience, he encounters the hostility of those who don't want to hear about it. "What's the problem?" they ask querulously. I had a colleague who sneeringly dismissed Milton Munitz's The Mystery of Existence by its title alone. He bristled at the word…
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Justifying ‘No Problem of Philosophy is Soluble’
Earlier, I presented the following antilogism: 1. All genuine problems are soluble.2. No problem of philosophy is soluble.3. Some problems of philosophy are genuine. I claimed that "(2) is a good induction based on two and one half millenia of philosophical experience." The inductive inference, which I am claiming is good, is not merely from 'No…
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Are All Genuine Problems Soluble? A Metaphilosophical Antilogism
The old questions are still debated. The problems remain unsolved after millenia: there is no consensus among the competent. But what does interminable debate and lack of consensus show? That philosophical problems are genuine but insoluble or that they are not genuine because insoluble? Or something else? Our metaphilosophical problem may be cast in the…
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On Philosophical ‘Trash-Talk’
Peter Lupu left the following comment which deserves to be separately posted. I supplement Peter's thoughts with a quotation from Mary Midgley and some commentary. In philosophical discourse the phrase "I do not understand" when stated about a philosophical position can mean either (i) this position is so obscure that there is nothing in it…
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The Use and Abuse of Occam’s Razor: On Multiplying Entities Beyond Necessity
Self-styled neo-Aristotelian Richard Hennessey's response to my three posts concerning his theory of accidental predication is now online. He graciously declines my suggestion that he make use of accidental compounds or accidental unities in his theory despite the excellent Aristotelian pedigree of these items, a pedigree amply documented in the writings of Frank Lewis and Gareth…
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Is Philosophy the Most Practical Major?
Here. Via the indefatigable Dave Lull. Here is my little tribute to Lull from earlier this year: If you are a blogger, then perhaps you too have been the recipient of his terse emails informing one of this or that blogworthy tidbit. Who is this Dave Lull guy anyway? Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence provides an answer: As…
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Philosophy, Debate, and Dialog
The proprietor of Beyond Necessity tells us that he is thinking of attending the London debate between William Lane Craig and atheist philosopher Stephen Law on 17 October. I hope he attends and files his report. But can philosophy be debated? In a loose sense, yes, but not in a strict sense. I say that if debate…
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Should One Stoop to a Defense of Philosophy or the Humanities?
The place of philosophy in college curricula is often defended on the ground that its study promotes critical thinking. Now I don't doubt that courses in logic, epistemology, and ethics can help inculcate habits of critical thinking and good judgment. And it may also be true that philosophy has a unique role to play here.…
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Three’s a Crowd
In a face-to-face philosophical discussion, three is a crowd. If Al and Bill are talking philosophy, the first thing that has to occur, if there is is to be any forward movement, is that the interlocutors must pin each other down terminology-wise. Each has to come to understand how the other is using his terms.…