1. Gaps, Knots, and Philosophical Pictures  A classical or typical “hard” philosophical problem has a three-part structure. (i) There is an explanatory gap between some set of basic facts and another set of basic facts. E.g., in the classical mind-body problem: “how is consciousness or subjective experience, which is fundamentally mental, possible in a fundamentally … [continue reading]

1. Scientism and Noumenal Realism in Analytic Philosophy. It cannot be rationally denied that “Analytic philosophy” (henceforth without the shudder quotes) has always been predominantly and even aggressively scientistic, whether by way of formal science (logic and mathematics) or by way of natural science (primarily physics, but also chemistry and biology). The Analytic tradition began … [continue reading]

1. The Timeline of the Sartwell case.  Feb. 24 – Sartwell’s post against the APA statement on bullying: http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2016/02/bully-for-you.html  Feb. 27 – Sartwell’s post stating his intention to leave academia: http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2016/02/out.html Feb. 28 – Sartwell accuses Linda Zagzebski of plagiarism and posts a link to a music video by Miranda Lambert called “Time to Get … [continue reading]

I would like to begin with a question: why are we being compelled to write and to communicate in English inside the professional academic philosophical world? It seems to be a trivial question that one could easily answer by saying that English is “the most universal language,” and “the global language par excellence.” But this … [continue reading]

1. So you’re a professional academic philosopher. In all likelihood, this implies that you are someone who, at some time, loved real philosophy and wanted to make it your life’s work. 2. But then it also means: (i) that in all likelihood either you are currently are going through, or you actually went through, a … [continue reading]

1. Nowadays, philosophy is practiced almost universally at universities. If you want to be a philosopher, it’s almost inevitable that you should be a “professional philosopher” working as an “academic”. I have explored elsewhere some of the harms of this association. While professionalizing philosophy looks like a good thing, I shall argue that it kills … [continue reading]

In the well-known professional philosophy blog, The Daily Arse, and elsewhere online, some people have been claiming that Crispin Sartwell is suffering from “mental health” (what an awful, but aptly Foucauldian, euphemism) “issues,” and that this explains away whatever is going on. The charge has the triple-benefit of: 1. Making the charger appear so very … [continue reading]

1. Recently I’ve been reading and thinking about an amazing book, Jeff Schmidt’s Disciplined Minds. It was published in 2000, so 16 years ago, and I was gobsmacked that I’d never heard about it until last month. Here’s a good, short summary of the book. For my purposes, what matters is Schmidt’s main thesis, which … [continue reading]

At least since Bacon’s 1620 Novum Organum, the ideal of acquiring knowledge about the natural world as well as the world of human affairs has critically hinged on the ideal of a distanced, dispassionate observer who just documents the observations he makes. In philosophy and science, formal logic and clear, transparent methods have long been … [continue reading]

1. The Essay, by Boethius. I’ve been reading Russell here and there recently, mostly late stuff from 1942-67, with an eye to studying his metaphilosophy. There’s at least one common metaphilosophical thread with “The value of philosophy” from 1912, one thing I’ve noticed in the tone and substance of Russell’s criticism of philosophy I’d group … [continue reading]