A quote from Lewis Carroll 11 Jun 202411 Jun 2024 Well, it’s actually from Charles Dodgson’s The Game of Logic 1887: The world contains many Things (such as “Buns”, “Babies”, “Beetles”, “Battledores”, &c.) ; and the Things possess many Attributes (such as “baked”, “beautiful”, “black”, “broken”, &c: in fact, whatever can be “attributed to”, that is “said to belong to”, any Thing, is an Attribute). Whenever we wish to mention a Thing, we use a Substantive : when we wish to mention an Attribute, we use an Adjective. People have asked the question “Can a Thing exist without any Attributes belonging to it?” It is a very puzzling question, and I’m not going to try to answer it : let us turn up our noses, and treat it with contemptuous silence, as if it really wasn’t worth noticing. But, if they put it the other way, and ask “Can an Attribute exist without any Thing for it to belong to?”, we may say at once “No: no more than a Baby could go a railway-journey with no one to take care of it ! ” You never saw “beautiful” floating about in the air, or littered about on the floor, without any Thing to be beautiful, now did you ? Chapter 1, §1, page 2 The really lovely thing here, apart from the wonderful alliteration [“Buns”, “Babies”, “Beetles”, and “Battledores” is my new band name] is that Dodgson gives, in one paragraph, a summary of metaphysics, philosophy of language, and logical classification. The rest of the book is pretty good too. Logic and philosophy Metaphysics Philosophy
Genetics Update: Genetic information paper 22 Jan 2010 I have updated my paper on deflating genetic information. The new version is here. Details: A deflation of genetic information ABSTRACT: It is often claimed there is information in some biological entity or process, most especially in genes. Genetic “information” refers to distinct notions, either of concrete properties of molecular… Read More
Biology When philosophy meets historical taxonomy 5 Apr 2010 Chris Taylor does this absolutely amazing blog. I find myself checking to see if he’s done another one of his wonderful taxon posts, where he picks some usually obscure group of animals and makes them interesting and alive. He’s done it again, for indrids, a group of lemurs, but what… Read More
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Rise of the Planet of the Moralists 5: Social Dominance and Power 2 Nov 20112 Nov 2011 Rise of the Planet of the Moralists Series1: Introduction2: Chains and Trees 3: Clades and grades4: Predicting traits5: Social dominance and power Thus far we have focused on the differences between human beings and apes, and the ways we should expect to find each species behave. What do all apes… Read More