Logic and philosophy What is critical thinking 26 Oct 201228 Oct 2012 I’m typing away the pain tonight so I aim to be a bit crappy and annoyed. I often read on various websites, blogs, mailing lists and other propaganda (yes, this blog is propaganda: look it up) that this or that person or organisation is devoted to “critical thinking” and “rational… Continue Reading
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Jack Smart has died 7 Oct 201211 Oct 2012 The Twitterverse is reporting that Jack (J. J. C.) Smart has died at the age of 92. Smart was a very influential philosopher who, although born in the UK, was regarded as an Australian materialist. Smart held that mind and brain are identical, along with another UK philosopher turned Australian,… Continue Reading
Australian stuff The Philosophy Club 26 Sep 201226 Sep 2012 There are an increasing number of initiatives to present philosophy and critical thinking to school students, and I am pleased to announce a new one in my home city of Melbourne: The Philosophy Club for ages 8 to 11. As I have argued in print, earlier conceptual acquisitions tend to… Continue Reading
Epistemology Pizza reductionism, emergence and phenomena 20 Sep 201227 Oct 2018 Debates over reduction in science are as old as philosophy of science, but in the 1960s, Ernest Nagel’s book The Structure of Science really set things going. Nagel argued that a goal of science was to reduce one theory to a more general and explanatory theory, so that one can deduce… Continue Reading
Education Scientism and methodological naturalism 9 Sep 201210 Sep 2012 So I’ve been busy with work, and finding a flat and preparing to move. Larry’s been busy tearing strips off those who argue that the ENCODE data shows the genome is mostly functional (only if you think that doing anything happens to be functional). But I hadn’t forgotten his latest… Continue Reading
Epistemology Does philosophy generate knowledge? 2 Sep 20122 Sep 2012 So Larry has responded. Go read it. I’ll wait…. Back? Good. Let me address some of the points there. Not all of them, because most of them I have already addressed in previous posts. I’ll link them at the end of this one. But the most important ones. The first… Continue Reading
General Science Begging questions about philosophy, science and everything else 1 Sep 20121 Sep 2012 Those who know me well take great care not to say (at least when I am in earshot) “That begs the question…” and mean by that “That raises the question…”, or else they will get a dissertation delivered for a period on the right use of that phrase. That’s right, folks,… Continue Reading
Epistemology On innovation 11 Aug 201226 Aug 2012 [I’ll continue the congenital beliefs series soon. Also chocolatarianist political theory] [Late note: Stefano Ghirlanda has pointed me at two papers he has coauthored on just this topic. In one, published in PNAS, he and his colleagues investigate a model of cultural innovation. In another, as yet unpublished, they argue that “creativity… Continue Reading
Chocosophy Zombies and chocolate: what it is like to eat a block 17 Jul 20126 Feb 2013 Zombies are very much in the news lately. People are using them as a way to teach science. However, long before the scientists caught up with the trends, philosophy had been discussing zombies after the question of whether there are philosophical zombies (P-zombies) was raised by Saul Kripke in 1972,… Continue Reading
Humor A template for philosophical debates 16 Jul 201216 Jul 2012 [Click through to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal] Mind, equally popular is this syllogism: If P is true, then my opponent will be sad. I wish my opponent to be sad. Therefore P is true. Continue Reading