Monthly Archives: April 2008

Central APA

I’m off to Chicago today for the Central APA. Assuming I have access to the internet, I’ll post about some of the philosophy going on there.
I’m commenting on a paper by Matthew Pianalto called “Moral Realism and Ways of Life.” He discusses an issue that Walter Sinnott-Armstrong raises for moral realism that’s fun to think [...]

An Objection to Direct Reference Theory: Part II

In a previous post I presented an argument from Jubien aimed at direct reference theory that relied on mereological essentialism. Here is the post. Below is the argument again so you don’t have to click away.

Michael Jubien’s Argument Against Direct Reference

If Direct Reference theory is true, then ‘Venus’ in ‘Venus could have had different parts’ [...]

Bringing Gettier into Intro

I’m curious how many people out there discuss the Analysis of Knowledge literature when they teach Epistemology in their general Introduction to Philosophy courses. I suspect there are a lot of people who don’t.
I thought it would be worth saying why I like to include Gettier discussions when I start epistemology in my introduction to [...]

Rochester Epistemology Conference

The call for papers for the 5th Rochester Graduate Epistemology Conference is now available.
This conference is GREAT! One thing that everyone should know is that most of the professors attend all of the presentations. From what I gather this is not the norm at many other graduate student conferences. Also, the keynote speaker is expected [...]

Freewill and a New Cognitive Science Study

Neil Levy (over at Garden of the Forking Paths) just pointed out a pretty interesting study that may be of interest to philosophers interested in freewill.
The short version: A group of scientists have some confirmation of the hypothesis that the neural activity correlated with conscious decisions happens a full 7 seconds before the conscious decision [...]

Ask Google Images: Metaphysics Edition

In the comments from this post - Joshua writes:
Google images has taught me that I have several false views. Here are some questions that I asked and my interpretation of the answers:
Q: Is endurantism or perdurantism true?A: Perdurantism
Q: Is the pointy view of simples true?A: Yes
Q: Is [...]

Freewill and Eternalism: Part Three

This might be a stronger way to frame the argument for freewill and eternalism incompatibilism. It’s more difficult to dismantle than the argument I presented here.
First let’s do a warm-up exercise. Here’s an argument for Incompatibilism.
An Argument For Incompatibilism

If determinism is true, then facts outside of your control entail your actions.
If facts outside of [...]

Is Concrete Modal Realism true? (Ask Google Images)

Is Concrete Modal Realism true?I think the answer here is clearly, yes! I used to be a linguistic ersatz kind of guy, but thanks to Google images I stand corrected. This is clearly a snap-shot of that possible world where not only is Santa clearly concrete, but I think that’s David Lewis’ counterpart.
(ok…back to work)

Ask Google Images

A friend of mine introduced me to a fun time waster. I’m told it’s called Ask Google Images. Here’s what you do.
1. Go to Google Image Search2. Type in a Question3. The first image in the results is your answer. (Don’t ask me how images can be answers!)
I thought - this is going to be [...]

Informal Logic Goes Open Access

Informal Logic just switched over to open access. Consequently.org has a post about it here. [HT: Mark and Andrei]I knew it had to be possible for a closed access journal to migrate over to an online open access format, and I even suggested that this would be a way for the discipline to get more [...]