Evolution quotes 15 Apr 2010 Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic, but praiseworthy, tendency to die before reproducing their kind. [W. V. O. Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays 1969: 70] Epistemology Evolution Philosophy Quotes Science
Philosophy Benson Mates dies 16 May 2009 Leiter reports that Benson Mates has died, and links to the UC Berkeley short obit: The Department announces with great sadness the death, on May 13, 2009, of Prof. Emeritus Benson Mates. Born in 1919, Prof. Mates studied at the University of Oregon, completing the B.A. degree there in 1940… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity The mind of the ecological engineer 27 Oct 201127 Oct 2011 I watched a very interesting documentary episode recently, entitled “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” (a phrase of poet Richard Brautigan’s), in which the maker Adam Curtis put forward the view that ecology was founded (at least in its modern iteration) in direct analogy with the view of… Read More
Metaphysics What it is like to be a digital camera 3 Dec 20101 Jul 2020 I’m avoiding work and jotting down notes that might one day issue forth in a paper. The issue of what consciousness is, is a vexed problem in philosophy of mind. Partly this is because it is so ill-defined, as any coined term based on an impressionistic philosophy like Descartes’ can… Read More