My latest paper – Carving Nature at its Joints, a review 25 Nov 201225 Nov 2012 You can find it online here. A very interesting but ultimately, to me, largely frustrating book (because it didn’t answer my questions, goddammit!). Review – Carving Nature at Its Joints Natural Kinds in Metaphysics and Science by Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O’Rourke and Matthew H. Slater (Editors) MIT Press, 2012 Review by John S. Wilkins Nov 20th 2012 (Volume 16, Issue 47) Academe Book Epistemology Logic and philosophy Metaphysics
Logic and philosophy Why do physicists hate philosophy? 15 May 201416 May 2014 Lately there has been a slew of physicists making claims like this: Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. [Hawking and Mlodinow, The Grand Design 2011, p5] My concern here is that the philosophers believe they… Read More
Epistemology Reduction and surprisal, or, why water is wet 8 Aug 201122 Jun 2018 In his classic work A System of Logic, which set up so many of the issues and problems of the modern field of the philosophy of science, John Stuart Mill wrote: Not a trace of the properties of hydrogen or of oxygen is observable in those of their compound, water…. Read More
Administrative Home again 3 Aug 2007 So I’m home from Ish, and the front part of my brain is giddy and tired while the rest has just shut down. I don’t travel well, I’m afraid. One thing that I came back fired up over are the unfinished projects I have running. So I intend to finish… Read More
he also addresses the grue paradox and law-derived etiologies, holding that natural law requires natural necessity and natural kinds require natural law. Hmm. I guess I’m going to have to read those. Dangit. acceptability of Humean supervenience of laws Humeanism is a bad (and somewhat confused) position. he does not seem to address the existence of centers; a mountain may have a peak even if one cannot easily distinguish where it and an adjacent mountain meet. A good point. Is it typically discussed in the literature (on kinds or on vagueness)? One sentence is enough to sum the claim up for me: “If there is no teleology in nature, then the Axiological Species Concept fails” *chuckle* the author argues that determinism is neither entailed by nor entails physicalism. obviously = The connection with natural kinds lies in the issue of exceptionless or exception-laden kinds in physics. ?? I guess I’m going to have to read that one too . . .
He does know everything – he just has this strange Socratic idea that by asking these questions we can find enlightenment. Sometimes it even works.