Dr. Doolittle can talk with all the animals. I can only talk with my dog. Still, I can testify – because she’s assured me of this – that she doesn’t think of me as belonging to a different species. She… Read More ›
philosophy
THE ADVANTAGES OF PRETENDING-TO-BELIEVE OVER BELIEVING
I find it amazing how many people in western Libya, who supported Gaddafi when it looked like he was going to able to hold Tripoli, will have having not supported him when it became clear that he wasn’t. (I also… Read More ›
THE RHETORICIAN AND THE PHILOSOPHER
A Janus word is one that means one thing but also its opposite. Example: sanction. There are word-pairs that sound like they mean the opposite but don’t, like flammable and inflammable. And then there are word-pairs that sound like they… Read More ›
AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING TRANSPHOBIC …
Apart from the half dozen things I do care about – and for aught I know I’m the only one who does – I pretty much live in my own little world. My wife, by contrast, researches everything. She even… Read More ›
WHAT IS IT TO TRIVIALIZE?
I killed a wasp the other day. I murdered a wasp the other day. These have two very different meanings. Why? Because killing means killing, whereas murder means wrongful killing, and presumably no one, or almost no one, thinks it’s… Read More ›
WHAT TO DO WHEN A COLLEAGUE GOES AWOL
What things need to be licensed, what can but needn’t be, and what shouldn’t be? Doctors, engineers, pilots, certainly. But some people have argued, though mostly tongue-in-cheek, that if anyone needs to be pre-qualified it’s parents. Requiring a license to… Read More ›
URGENCY
I have a colleague who’s become a little bored with teaching modus ponens and the Meditations, and instead now fancies himself something of an authority on global warming. The way you become an authority, by the way, is by so… Read More ›
MATTERING
I trust it will be granted that there are things that matter to no one, that there’s nothing that matters to everyone, and that there are things that matter to some people but not to others. What may not be… Read More ›
Is it Philosophy?
WHY MY COLLEAGUES ARE IDIOTS – Rant # 168 – IS IT PHILOSOPHY? Here’s what I write in the course outline for my Intros, “What is philosophy? is itself a philosophical question, best answered, if at all, only after having… Read More ›
In Defense of Shilling
WHY MY COLLEAGUES ARE IDIOTS – Rant # 163 – IN DEFENSE OF SHILLING For the 312th time – yes, I decided to start counting – I have no interest whatsoever in weighing in on the global warming debate. Nor,… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 