What is a philosopher? 10 Jun 2009 Before you all go making rude comments, go read this post by Michèle Lamont at Crooked Timber and especially the interesting comments that follow. Epistemology Ethics and Moral Philosophy Metaphysics Philosophy
Biology Some loose ends – Reductionism and Phylocode 26 Aug 201018 Sep 2017 I’ve been asked in the comments to cover two topics, neither of which I want to discuss at length because they are not easy to cover, and because they aren’t the focus of my rather intense monomania right now. They are: Reductionism and Phylocode. Read More
Accommodationism The “developmental hypothesis” of belief acquisition 29 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 In the last two posts I have discussed why members of belief-groups have silly beliefs (that is, beliefs that the wider population finds silly), and why those particular beliefs, whatever they are, are the ones they believe. In broad terms, the answer is that these are arbitrary, costly hard-to-fake signals… Read More
Education What is the “humanities”? 11 May 2009 It is often the case that when non-academics, or even non-humanities academics, talk about my generic field, they refer to it as “arts”, and mean by this the creative arts, like performing arts, crafts, and corporate accounting. So they justify the funding for the “arts” (or “the yartz”, as a… Read More
If I can’t be a actress, I want to be a philosopher. There are so many questions about life that no-one can anwser; and it seems such a interesting thing to study.