Philosophy
When it comes to the question of the metaphysics of diachronic personal identity (the question of whether you are the same person at different times), philosophers, such as John Locke, David Hume, Derek Parfit, David Lewis and others, have come up with a plethora of absolutely fascinating and disturbing thought experiments. The idea is that these intuition pumps should help us get clearer on the concept and its logical implications so we can test the coherence of various views. What they haven't always considered is how non-philosophers might react to these stories :)
Unfortunately, summer camp is not the only place we're banned from :(
Via: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
- Intuition And Truth
Had lunch with Jeff Maynes yesterday and we got to talking about his research in experimental philosophy. In philosophy, topics we deal with are often not open to empirical investigation. Therefore, we often use intuitions as data. This is frequently...
- Meta-philosophical Questions
Wow, great questions as always. Let me start with a couple of questions about philosophy. If philosophy is asking questions about questions, these, then, would be questions about questions about questions... Enigman asks, What is the subject-matter of...
- David Eagleman - The Brain And The Law
There is almost universal agreement among philosophers, neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, and other mind researchers that the mind has a physical basis in the brain. Sure, we don't yet understand the particular mechanism through which the...
- Lecture 5 - Knowledge (epistemology)
Ever since Wittgenstein and his theory of family resemblance, philosophers have mainly abandoned the attempt to define concepts in terms of their "necessary and sufficient conditions" originally made famous by none other than Socrates. Still, the attempt...
- Brainspotting - Part 3
As you can probably tell from the majority of my blog entries, I love science, but even science with all its evidence, experiments and equipment can't compare with the kinds of questions that philosophy investigates and seeks to answer. Here is a...
Philosophy
Philosophers are no longer allowed at summer camp
When it comes to the question of the metaphysics of diachronic personal identity (the question of whether you are the same person at different times), philosophers, such as John Locke, David Hume, Derek Parfit, David Lewis and others, have come up with a plethora of absolutely fascinating and disturbing thought experiments. The idea is that these intuition pumps should help us get clearer on the concept and its logical implications so we can test the coherence of various views. What they haven't always considered is how non-philosophers might react to these stories :)
Unfortunately, summer camp is not the only place we're banned from :(
Via: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
- Intuition And Truth
Had lunch with Jeff Maynes yesterday and we got to talking about his research in experimental philosophy. In philosophy, topics we deal with are often not open to empirical investigation. Therefore, we often use intuitions as data. This is frequently...
- Meta-philosophical Questions
Wow, great questions as always. Let me start with a couple of questions about philosophy. If philosophy is asking questions about questions, these, then, would be questions about questions about questions... Enigman asks, What is the subject-matter of...
- David Eagleman - The Brain And The Law
There is almost universal agreement among philosophers, neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, and other mind researchers that the mind has a physical basis in the brain. Sure, we don't yet understand the particular mechanism through which the...
- Lecture 5 - Knowledge (epistemology)
Ever since Wittgenstein and his theory of family resemblance, philosophers have mainly abandoned the attempt to define concepts in terms of their "necessary and sufficient conditions" originally made famous by none other than Socrates. Still, the attempt...
- Brainspotting - Part 3
As you can probably tell from the majority of my blog entries, I love science, but even science with all its evidence, experiments and equipment can't compare with the kinds of questions that philosophy investigates and seeks to answer. Here is a...