Properties, Troperties

(If you're new to metaphysics, you may want to have a quick read of my background to the universals debate.)

Recall that the metaphysical realist thinks that universals exist: when two objects agree in attribute, that is because there is some one thing they have in common. For example, if two objects are both red, then that is because they both possess the same property (universal) - that of "redness".

By contrast, the austere nominalist denies that universals exist - only particular objects exist. If two objects agree in attribute, then that is just a basic unanalysable fact. There is no property of "redness" floating out there in the world. When people refer to "redness", they're really just refering to the set of all the red objects in the world.

Now, there is a nice compromise between these two extremes, called Trope theory. The Trope theorist basically takes universals, and de-universalises them. That is, he agrees with the realist that we can analyse objects in terms of the properties they possess, BUT he denies that it is possible for two objects to share the same property. Properties are understood not as being multiply-exemplifiable 'universals', but rather, as being individual, singular 'tropes'.

If two objects are both red, then that just means that they both possess red tropes. It is important to note that each trope is distinct - even if they are exactly resembling (e.g. the exact same colour), they nevertheless are numerically distinct tropes. In contrast to realism, then, the two objects do not share the same constituent property (trope). Instead, they are made up of two distinct tropes, two different constituents, though the two happen to be exactly resembling.

Trope theory was portrayed rather unsympathetically in class, since both our lecturer and tutor find it counterintuitive ("crazy" might have been the word they used). But I disagree - for although I'm more inclined towards nominalism regarding properties (they don't really exist, do they?), I at least think Trope theory is better than metaphysical realism. And it's not really as counter-intuitive as they suggested.

Consider two jerseys churned out by a factory, which look exactly alike. Are they made of the same material? Well, no, not exactly. They're made of the same type of material (cotton, wool, or whatever), but if you pull out a thread from each jersey, you will nevertheless agree that they are two different pieces (or 'tokens') of material. So trope theory is just like that, but with all the other properties too. Are the jerseys made of the same colour? The same shape? The same size? No, in each case, the shape/size/colour is exactly resembling between the two jerseys, but they nevertheless are distinct tropes.

Problems with sets:
Now, according to the trope theorist, "redness" does not refer to some ethereal universal (unlike the realist), nor the set of all red objects (unlike the austere nominalist), but instead, it refers to the set of all red tropes. But, as I've discussed before, set-based accounts raise certain problems:

One obvious problem with set-based accounts is that properties which are exemplified by all the same objects would refer to the same set, and so, according to this account, would mean the same thing. For example, austere nominalism considers "being a featherless biped" and "being human" to be the same property, which is obviously an unacceptable result. Possible worlds nominalism improves this, since obviously the sets will differ in other possible worlds (where, say, chickens have no feathers). But there will still be some properties which are co-exemplified (i.e. exemplified by the same set of objects) in all possible worlds - Loux gives the example of being triangular and being trilateral (all objects with three angles also have three sides, and vice versa).

Tropes overcome this to some degree (it doesn't matter if properties are possessed by all the same objects, for we are comparing sets of tropes, not sets of objects). But what about non-existent tropes? For example, in the real world, no tropes of either "elven" or "dwarven" actually exist. Now, supposedly "being a dwarf" refers to the set of all "dwarven" tropes, which is the empty set. Yet "being an elf" refers to the set of all "elven" tropes, which is also the empty set. Hence, the trope theorist concludes, being an elf and being a dwarf are actually the same thing. This, of course, is an unacceptable result.

There are two ways to solve this problem:
1) Expand the set of tropes to cover those in all possible worlds - an analogous solution to that of the austere nominalist in the quoted paragraph above.
2) Deny that non-exemplified properties refer to anything meaningful. I don't much like this answer, but it's acceptable enough, since it's precisely what the Aristotelian realist believes about universals anyway (in contrast to the Platonist).

Another set-based objection is that mathematical sets have their members necessarily. So if there was one more red trope in the world, that would be a different set - "redness" would refer to something different from what it does now! And that seems odd. This is a powerful objection, but I think it can be overcome by distinguishing strict (philosophical) identity from loose (common-sense) uses of the word. I'll discuss that more in a future post.

Category: Politics & Society

History of Political Thought:

• Beginner's Locke - Overview of Locke's famous Letter Concerning Toleration.


• Did Machiavelli's "Prince" live in the Hobbesian State of Nature? - Machiavelli might have been a multi-lateralist after all.


• Rousseau and the "General Will" - Overview of Rousseau's political philosophy in The Social Contract.


• Collective Intelligence and Rousseau - Comparing new ideas in social science to those Rousseau had centuries earlier.


• Political Fictions - Bentham and Hume versus 'Natural Rights' and 'Social Contracts'


• On Liberty - Examining J.S. Mill's famous arguments for freedom of speech and action.

Freedom:

• Substantive Freedom - the only sort worth having, and how mere non-interference is insufficient to provide it. See also Enabling Humanity.


• Freedom and Markets - What is the relation between the two?


• Liberty & Independence - or 'why I am not a libertarian', based on an odd mix of Mill and Rousseau.


• The New Freedom - relates metaphysical 'free will' to political freedom, and argues that liberalism is better (for freedom) than libertarianism.


• Freedom and Constraint - Argues for a more expansive understanding of 'freedom', by also considering internal and negative constraints.


• Freedom and Autonomy - How 'positive liberty' fits into the picture.


• General Freedom - Some freedoms are more important than others, but how are we to go about weighing them? Could we use such a measure to inform our account of 'general' or 'on balance' freedom?


• Illiberal Democracy - The problem with American 'democracy'.


• Civil Freedom vs. Political Power - Sometimes being anti-democratic is the liberal thing to do.


• Advertising and the Mental Environment - Does the constant barrage of commercial advertising threaten our autonomy?


• Rousseau and Freedom (essay)


• Libertarians for State Intervention! - how property rights restrict freedom. See also Poverty as Unfreedom and A Reasonable Resolution.


• Blogging Freedom - external links to my comments on other blogs.


• More on libertarianism - an overview of my anti-libertarian arguments, and a response to a response.

Justice, Equality, and Desert:

• "Libertarian vs. Utilitarian Justice" essay (+ outline)


• Group Welfare - Do groups matter more than the individuals they comprise? If not, do we have any intrinsic reason to care about (e.g. racial) group inequalities?


• Utility, Equality and Priority - Does relative equality have any intrinsic value, or is it just people's absolute level of well-being that matters? See also Against Egalitarianism.


• Equal Concern - What does it mean for government to show "equal concern" for the interests of all citizens? See also The Veil of Ignorance and The Best Distribution.


• Is Justice Created or Discovered?


• Talent, Effort, and Desert - Do we only deserve reward for effort? Must we default to equal outcomes when people are equally deserving? See also Entitlement and Desert.


• Past-Blind Justice - see also Utility and Just Deserts.


• Is Justice Created or Discovered?


• Historical Justice - introduction to libertarian 'entitlement theory'.


• Voluntary Exchange, Just Transfer, and Inequality, Freedom & Power.


• Ongoing Needs and Future-Blind Justice - see also Justice for the Generations.


• Self-Ownership - see also Libertarians for Infanticide!


• Initial Acquisition - see also Libertarians for Confiscation of Property!, Left-Libertarianism, and Original Appropriation.


• Why Taxation Is Not Theft - see also Forced Labour

General Political Philosophy:

• Law and Morality - What, exactly, is the connection between the two?


• Tradition - Do appeals to tradition have any rational force?


• Analyzing Political Correctness - I argue that political correctness is essentially a matter of inappropriate or excessive concern to avoid causing offense.


• The Politics of Individualism - What substantive political conclusions follow from the philosophical claim that "the individual is the locus of value"?


• Respect, Tolerance & War - On the difference between tolerance and approval, and why we shouldn't tolerate the intolerant.


• The Prostitution of Labour - Are workers being exploited?


• Universal Basic Income - why it's a better idea than traditional (targetted) welfare benefits. See also Basic Income for the Economy's Sake, and UBI, Freedom, and Reciprocity.

Education and Civics:

• Education - What should schools be teaching? I argue that a greater emphasis on skills and understanding over mere facts/information would be preferable.


• The Role of Schools - Seems to be both to educate and socialize. Would we do better to separate these two goals? Could homeschooling achieve this?


• Education and Civic Engagement - Researching "engaged universities", and looking at whether students should be encouraged to get more involved in their communities.


• Opposing ID - Should "Intelligent Design" Creationism be taught in schools?

Social Issues / Applied Ethics:

• Abortion's Common Ground - what everyone should agree on.


• Preventing Unwanted Pregnancies - is it better to focus on education and contraception, or wishful thinking about 'sexual purity'?


• Infanticide & Abortion - Is there a difference? Perhaps newborns aren't really 'persons' yet, and so aren't intrinsically valuable after all?


• Universal Voluntary Euthanasia - Does acceptance of medical euthanasia commit us to a much more expansive societal acceptance of suicide? If so, is that a bad thing?


• Smoking Bans - Are they justified?


• Sex Differences vs. Gender Bias - What should be uncontroversial about the "Summers controversy".


• Minimum Wage - doesn't cause unemployment after all


• Institutional Evil


• Suicide and Traffic Jams - which is more important?


• Animal Ethics - Is meat-eating immoral?


• Charity - some thoughts on direct vs. indirect (activity-sponsorship) methods of charitable donation, and the relative benefits of private charity vs. government aid.


• What can little New Zealand do? - On the moral significance of indiscernible contributions, and how this impacts upon contemporary debates about the Kyoto Protocol and about military spending.


• Respect vs. Popularity - which is more important?

Race & Ethnicity:

• Race, Generalisatons, and Profiling - some difficult questions. See also The Ethics of Generalization.


• Some Just Can't Take a Joke - The PC Police crack down on New Zealand public servants


• Affirmative Aristocracy - Objections to the 'argument from superiority' for affirmative action, and also the argument from inferiority


• Affirmative Market Action - Presents my 'argument from market forces' defence of (limited) discrimination in the workplace


• All New Zealanders - Rejects both extremes of assimilation vs biculturalism, in favour of reciprocal integration.


• New Zealand Day - Should we replace 'Waitangi Day' with something less divisive?


• Culturally "Offensive" Playdough - Respect for other cultures does not mean letting them impose their taboos on others.


• Multiculturalism vs. Individual Rights - Outlining an objective method for determining whether an individual would be better off if given rights which contradict their cultural values.


• Multicultural Conservatism - Why do radical leftists support conservatives so long as they're from non-Western cultures?


• Parableman on Affirmative Action - Quick link to a great series of posts by Jeremy Pierce.

Family Values:

• Pseudo-Philosophy - Exposing a fallacious 'argument' against gay marriage


• Fafblog! - Hilarity involving homophobia and Iraq


• Gay Marriage Analogies - Why it's silly to compare gay marriage with "voting dogs".


• Gay Marriage Arguments - Are there any reasonable arguments against gay marriage? This post discusses the most common ones.


• Marriage and Childrearing - Even if childrearing were the sole purpose of marriage, that still wouldn't excuse banning gay marriage.


• Pornography and Censorship (essay)


• Sexist Rape Laws - men can be victims too.

Law and Crime:

• Brash on Crime - what role should prisons play in society?


• The Death Penalty - Is it a big deal?


• In Defence of Assassination - Why not attack those who are really responsible for war?


• Restorative Justice - Does it work?


• The Ethics of Spam - Might those who respond to spam be almost as blameworthy as those who send it?


• Drug Legalisation - Poking some holes in an argument that attempts to show that legalisation would increase drug usage.


• Clean Slate - Should the government encourage ex-criminals to lie about their past?


• Laws should serve us - a couple of examples that don't.


• Unenforced Laws - a bad idea?


• Jury Service - Describes my experience as a juror.


• What a mug - Describes my experience of getting mugged.

Politics:

• The Left/Right Divide - What's the essential difference between these rival ideologies? See also Left-Wing Ideology.


• Political Survey - They say I'm a left-wing pragmatist. (Left-libertarian according to the political compass.) See also New Political Survey, Political Brew, and Times.


• Successful Politics: Facts or Values? - Have facts become redundant? See also Get Out The Facts


• The Wellbeing Manifesto - Some good ideas.


• Culture Wars - how should middle class liberals relate to a conservative working class?


• Morality vs. Sexual Morality - How conservatives hijack moral language.


• The "Morally Superior" - A new framing strategy to highlight the right-wing analogue of 'political correctness'.


• Israeli spies - New Zealand vs Israel. And a good time was had by all.


• The Palestine-Israel Conflict (essay)


• Election Reflection - The implications of four more years for Bush.


• Outsourcing Torture - Republicans try to legalize sending terrorist suspects overseas to be tortured. See also Please Fix America.

Affirmative Market Action

As promised, I'll now describe the 'argument from market forces' which could be used to justify affirmative action in the workplace.

The core idea is that sometimes members of a particular group (eg a specific race or gender) will be better suited for a job, for the intrinsic reason of having such membership. So I'm not talking about hiring men cos they're stronger (just hire strong people, whether they're men or not is irrelevant), or anything like that. Rather, I'm talking about hiring an Asian, a female, a white person, etc, for the particular reason that they belong to that group. But it must be emphasised that the reason for doing this will not be for the sake of the employee (unlike the arguments from inferiority & superiority), but rather, for the sake of the job/customers.

A couple of examples might make this clearer. A typical example would be customer relations. The Christchurch City Council wants to hire more ethnic minorities (particularly Asians), for the reason that such people would be better able to communicate with, and serve the needs of, (e.g.) Asian clients who contact the CCC with enquiries.

Probably the most pressing example I can think of would be male school teachers - of which there is a disastrously short supply in New Zealand. Some boys are going through primary school without ever having a single male teacher. I don't know exactly what all the psychological & sociological implications of this are, but I hear it's bad news, in any case. Ya know, lack of role models, boys educational needs aren't being met, etc etc.

Anyway, the point is, we desperately need more male teachers. (A similar argument might be made for Maori teachers, though it is probably not so pressing a problem. At least according to the statistics I'm aware of, the gender gap in school performance is much more significant than the race gap.) The answer: entice more males into the profession. A pay raise, special scholarships, it doesn't matter how it's done, so long as it works.

The rationale behind such discrimination is pragmatic, not ideological. Hence the name: "argument from market forces". It's simple supply & demand. In the ideal 'free market' (ya know, that one which exists next to 'perfect circles' in Plato's world of forms), if some skill is in short supply (relative to the demand), then its worth increases. In our case, that "skill" - odd though this sounds - is membership in some particular group. In heavily regulated markets such as the civil service, the government might need to actively advocate such pragmatic discrimination, for the sake of market efficiency.

There are some dangers with this line of argument though. Market forces are driven by customer preferences, and these preferences might not always be justified. In the case of Asian customer relations personnel, or male or maori school teachers, I think it probably is.

But suppose some business' customers were all "black power" racists, and they didn't like to be served by white people. There is clearly a pragmatic market incentive for the managers to hire only black people in such a case. But this seems quite patently unjust. This is one case in which we would probably want the government to step in and prevent any discrimination by market forces. (This intuition is even stronger if you reverse the scenario so that it involves traditional white-supremist racism, but that would weaken the link to "affirmative action".)

So there must be some reasonable justification for thinking that someone of a particular race or gender would be intrinsically preferable for a job. Mere client preference is not always enough. Unfortunately, it's not immediately clear where to draw the line. As always, any suggestions/comments would be most welcome.

Affirmative Aristocracy

No Right Turn is appalled that anyone could have the gall to oppose legislation which gives Maori tribes (iwi) preferential treatment in the multimillion-dollar sea farming industry.

I won't comment on the specifics, because I don't know enough. But the general principle at issue here is well worth examining:

I'll spell it out: the reason Maori "get it for free" is because we stole it from them. Giving iwi a mere 20% of what they're entitled to seems to be quite a good deal for us. The reason we have a settlements process is because massive injustices were committed in the past, which stripped an entire people of their economic base and relegated them to disposessed poverty in their own country.

Now, my heart bleeds as much as the next liberal's, but it never fails to irritate me when my fellow lefties start spouting the old 'white people are all imperialist/colonialist thieves!' rhetoric. There are several problems with it:

1) Individuals are not morally responsible for the actions of their ancestors. "We" didn't steal anything.

2) I have a general distaste for legalistic obsession with 'property rights'. There exists no 'natural law' which gives first occupants an enduring metaphysical right to their land. It's irritating when libertarians get hung up over this, and no less so with lefty anti-colonialists who hijack these right-wing ideals. There are other considerations besides history.

3) Dubious use of corporate entities. It's philosophically suspect to personify a race and then attach moral attributes such as victimhood to this fictional entity. This point may well be controversial, but I don't think the category "Maori" (or "Pakeha" for that matter) actually refers to a meaningful entity. Persons can be harmed, groups cannot. The sentence "Maori were wronged" is only meaningful (and true) if it's understood as a rough translation of something like "Some Maori individuals were wronged". The corporate individual "Maori" does not itself exist. As such, trying to compensate this fictional entity does not make any sense. Nor does it make sense to compensate those Maori individuals who were not wronged.

4) Due to generations of interbreeding, there is no longer a clear-cut distinction between Pakeha and Maori. All Maori now have at least some European blood in them. Thus a) they presumably should be counted among the allegedly guilty "we"? b) Separatist rhetoric (e.g. "iwi" vs "the Crown") is highly misleading, and c) the assumption of two distinct races does not accurately reflect reality.

5) Why favour the tribal elite, rather than urban Maori?

More generally, there are two broad ways to attempt justification of affirmative action: the argument from superiority, and the argument from inferiority.* Both are misguided, and rather racist in essence.

The argument from superiority (NRT's approach) suggests that Maori people have special rights (or 'entitlements') which people of other races do not have. In NRT's case, those 'special rights' appear to be a form of property rights inherited by modern Maori (or at least iwi) from their ancestors, marking them out as a sort of natural aristocracy. I outlined five objections to this above.

The argument from inferiority, by contrast, suggests that Maori are somehow disadvantaged by virtue of their race, and so are in need of welfare. Now, good little socialist that I am, I'm all for helping those who need it. But poverty is the appropriate indicator of need, not race.** To suggest otherwise would be patronising and racist in the extreme.

So, to conclude, I really don't see any justification whatsoever for race-based legislation, preferential treatment, 'affirmative action', or whatever else you want to call it. We should be helping those people who need it, but not those who don't. Racial generalisations will not help us to differentiate between those two classes. Most importantly, in response to NRT's argument, today's Maori are not "entitled" to the entire country, or indeed any 'special treatment' at all. They are New Zealand citizens just like the rest of us, and ought to be treated as such.

* = Within the limited domain of employment, there is also the argument from market forces (I'm just making up all these names, by the way), which I have a bit more sympathy for.

** = If a disproportionate number of Maori happen to be poor (for whatever reason), then a fair, poverty-targeting welfare system will (as an innocuous side-effect) result in that same disproportionate number of Maori being helped. And that is as it should be. However, the welfare system should not be actively targeting any particular race.

Update: With regard to point #4, see also this article by Denis Dutton, which mentions one of Tremain's memorable cartoons:

He portrayed an exasperated, potbellied European-looking bloke with scraggy beard and a bone carving around his neck, exclaiming to the reader, "Oh boy, I've got a grievance all right! The despicable way my Maori ancestors were diddled and hoodwinked by my Pakeha ancestors".

Matrix Metaphysics

David Chalmers has a wonderful paper: The Matrix as Metaphysics, which perfectly captures my own ideas about skepticism - though in a much more coherent and convincing way than I've ever managed to express.

I think that even if I am in a matrix, my world is perfectly real. A brain in a vat is not massively deluded (at least if it has always been in the vat). Neo does not have massively false beliefs about the external world. Instead, envatted beings have largely correct beliefs about their world. If so, the Matrix Hypothesis is not a skeptical hypothesis, and its possibility does not undercut everything that I think I know. [Emphasis added]

The core idea is that we should understand the matrix as being another form of reality, another universe. Thus, the things which happen in it aren't lies, rather, they're true in that world.

I think the Matrix Hypothesis is equivalent to a version of the following three-part Metaphysical Hypothesis. First, physical processes are fundamentally computational. Second, our cognitive systems are separate from physical processes, but interact with these processes. Third, physical reality was created by beings outside physical space-time.

Interesting stuff. Read the whole thing for the rest of the details...

Political Survey

Via No Right Turn, I notice there's an improved version of the 'political compass' about these days. Their methodology does sound a lot better, though it has resulted in a slightly strange axis called "pragmatism", which seems to measure some sort of combination of utilitarianism and atheism. The other axis, of course, is the standard left/right political divide.

Anyway, I was 6 points to the left, and 4 towards pragmatism (16 is the maximum in each direction).

Try it yourself and see what you get.

Oh, and my political compass results are (out of a maximum of 10 in each direction):
Economic Left/Right: -5.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.74  

Update 25/10/04: I just retook the survey, and this time got:
left/right -7.3251
pragmatism +3.5051

The Universe's Birth-Song

This is cool.

You can listen to the sound from the first million years after the big bang here (0.5 Mb .wav file). The sound has been compressed to five seconds, with the volume held constant.

Whittle played the soundtrack at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Denver last week. Contrary to its name, the big bang began in absolute silence. But the sound soon built up into a roar whose broad-peaked notes corresponded, in musical terms, to a "majestic" major third chord, evolving slowly into a "sadder" minor third, Whittle explained.

For those worried that you cannot have sounds in space, that is true today, but it was not so in the Universe's infancy. For perhaps its first million years, the Universe was small and dense enough that sound waves could indeed travel through it - so efficiently, in fact, that they moved at about half the speed of light.

1000 Visits!

Quite a milestone, especially since this blog is less than three months old (though only just - my first post was on March 19). I'm surprised at how well it's turned out actually. When I first started blogging, I expected to have hardly any readers at all. Though I still haven't got a clue how many regular readers I've got - probably a fair chunk of the visitors are people who just followed a link here once then never returned.

Anyway, it's good fun, blogging. I've been especially productive recently because I'm (supposedly) on study leave for exams, and it provides me with a handy excuse for procrastination :)

So, to all those reading this: thanks for visiting, hope you return often (or at least occasionally), and feel free to discuss things in the comments!

Your Counterpart is Going to Hell!

I was thinking of appending "P.S. Don't plagiarize or you'll go to Hell" to the post where I link to my essays. Alas, being an atheist, I'm not really allowed to make such fiery threats. A pity. Though I could always go with, say, "if you [enter damnable sin here], then in the closest possible world where Hell exists, your counterpart will be sent there!". But that threat doesn't have quite the same ring to it. What I'm wondering is: does it have any force at all?

Assume modal realism is true, so all possible worlds are real in just the same way as our actual world is. There was a recent post at FBC which suggested that we ought to care about real evils, even if they're non-actual ones - much like we intuitively feel that we ought to care about (some) fictional evils. Here I want to go one step further, and ask whether we ought to feel personally responsible for what happens to our counterparts in other possible worlds.

This probably seems like an absurd suggestion. After all, we're completely isolated from them spatio-temporally - it's not even logically possible for us to affect their world. So how could we be responsible?

Well, as a general rule we have a greater moral responsibility for those who are 'close' (in any sense of the term, not just spatially) to us, right? But our behaviour will affect which other possible worlds are 'closest' (conceptually, not spatially of course) to ours. That is, we have the power to affect whether the possible world closest to ours where heaven & hell exist, is one where our counterpart goes to heaven, or one where he goes to hell. Don't you feel powerful now? ;)

So, the thought goes, perhaps we have some (very faint) moral duty to try to ensure that our close counterparts are better off, rather than our distant ones?

Actually, no. That's a load of nonsense. Our actions there wouldn't make anyone "better off" (we can't affect other worlds, remember?). All we'd be doing is moving ourselves so that we were 'closer' to the well-off people rather than the suffering ones. And that hardly seems like a virtuous move (by my intuitions anyway).

So much for that idea. Still, who would've thought pursuing such a flippant thought would have any philosophical merit at all? ;)

Category: Mind

Posts about psychology, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, etc.

• Artificial Empatelligence - When computers get personal.


• Are Brains Computers? - discusses the implications of the Halting theorem.


• Psychic Powers - the exciting new technology of Brain-Computer interface


• No Regrets - Brain region responsible for feelings of 'regret' has been identified.


• Truth Machines - some thoughts about lie detectors


• Personality Tests - The best on the web, what it shows, and my results.


• The Cost of Thought - Biologically speaking, intelligence isn't always as great as we think.


• Conscious Robots - On hedonism, genetic determinism, and other such sillyness.


• Genes, Brains, and Behaviour - Correcting an over-simplified view of evolution and its importance.


• Infinite Knowledge - Can mere dispositions count as beliefs, or must an actual thought be 'tokened'?


• The Speed of Thought - Is it limited by verbal speed?


• Modal Cognition - My cognitive psychology project.


• Intrinsic Motivation - What is it? Could it possibly not exist?


• Social Psychology - an introductory essay.


• The Physical Mind - Highlighting our common-sense commitment to dualism.

Personhood & Personal Identity:

• Soulless Materialism - On the importance of higher cognitive function.


• Personal Identity - what am 'I'? What makes me the same person I was yesterday?


• Vague Identities - argues that questions of personal identity sometimes have no determinate answer.


• A Self Divided - Thought experiments involving split-brain patients.

Consciousness and Subjectivity:

• Dreams and Sensations - on whether the latter occur in the former


• Sensations, Beliefs, & Subjectivity - are sensations purely subjective things? How about beliefs? Could you have one without realising it? Could you think you have one, when really you don't?


• Private Languages - Do purely subjective phrases have any meaning? (My version of) Wittgenstein's argument suggests not.


• Public Minds - Are the contents of our minds truly - in principle - private?


• Illusions and Zombies - on whether non-conscious people ('zombies') would be fooled by optical illusions


• The Cartesian Theatre - outlines Dennett's arguments against the common-sense view that there is a place in the brain where "it all comes together" and consciousness 'occurs'.


• Representing Time - We can represent time using a medium other than time itself, so the temporal order in subjective experience may differ from the objective order of events.


• Sensory Substitution - Tactile stimuli can give rise to visual experiences. The blind shall see...


• "Filling in" for presentation - Explaining the blind spot without positing extravagant mental 'paint'.


• Multiple Drafts - Overview of Dennett's theory of consciousness.

Free Will:

• Destiny & Determinism - warns against confusing determinism with fatalism.


• My initial free will post examined the basis of the free will debate.


• I go on to argue that we should choose determinism if we want freedom, though this is qualified by a post on Kane's indeterminism.


• To defend my compatibilist position, I offer a counterargument to Van Inwagen's incompatibilism. (Though for a much improved version, see my essay.)


• Just for fun, I also offer a tweaked version of Dennett's invalid "nobody knows..." argument, reconstructed in such a way that it becomes logically valid.


• A Practical Argument for Free Will - If you have a choice, then you can't go wrong by choosing to believe in free will!

Related Topics: Freedom is discussed further in some of my political philosophy, religion, and metaphysics posts.
Posts on Fiction (including our emotional response to fiction) are in the Semantics category.