Argument or GTFO
So you want to publish philosophy? Follow the three Rs! 1. Rhetoric No matter how good your results are or how technically sophisticated your argumentation, if it is done in an obscure way, your paper will not be published. There are at least two, but more usually three or more people that will read your paper when it is sent to a journal. First is the head editor and/or section editor. If they can’t make […]
Let us assume that logic cleaves the world at its corners. Then everything can be divided into the logically privileged, that which makes up the corners, and the not logically privileged, that which makes up everything else. Where then does the concept of logical privilege fall? If logical privilege is logically privileged, then it describes it as something that is at the corners, and not the content. But then it must describe not have described […]
I’ve made a major update to my site, The Practical Ontologist. Check it out and let me know what you think. Major site updates: Topical Subsections: Metaphysics, Professional, Science, Traditions, Value, & Fun. Incoming posts are classified via Naive Bayes Machine Learning. The categories, save Fun and Professional, are roughly modeled on [PhilPapers’ classifications](https://philpapers.org/browse/all). Fun is a stream of philosophical memes, mainly from Tumblr. Professional contains news about the profession and other meta-philosophical content. RSS […]
Update 12 Feb: This post had been expanded upon and, after submission, accepted for publication in Analysis published by Oxford University Press. View the final version here. [draft] It is hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs because they take things literally. On the surface, this statement is a statement of logic, with a premise and conclusion. Given the premise: Kleptomaniacs take things literally. We may deduce the conclusion: It is hard to explain puns to […]
https://xkcd.com/1455/
Something that caught my eye in the recent PGR debate was a compliment of the anti-PGR faction’s organizational skills that was stated right along side an insult to their actions. Specifically: “I really do not understand what is going on. You [did x]… The response has been a well-organized attempt to force you to [do y]. But [doing x] had exactly nothing to do with [doing y].” This well-organization stands in contrast to: “I would […]
Dr. Ellen Clark, a.k.a. Philosomama, has written a good review of Velasco & Hitchcock’s Evolutionary and Newtonian Forces [no paywall], one of the first papers to appear in the new open access journal Ergo. She points out that although V&H are trying to show how evolutionary forces are well described by analogy to classical causal Newtonian forces, they very nearly prove their opponent’s — the statisticalist — position. However, she comes to their defense. Briefly, […]
Are you good at metaphysics? How good are you at metaphysics? When I consider these questions, the only sure thing is that there is no objective measure of metaphysical proficiency. I can’t even imagine standards by which we could judge it. It would be at least as hard to estimate as intelligence, and anyway, I doubt smarts correlates with metaphysical skill. Lots of smart people have said a lot of ridiculous things. I like to […]
I’ve updated my NYC Area Philosophy Calendar, a listing of the philosophy lectures, conferences and events in the NYC metro area. As per usual, if one were to attend the huge amount of lectures and events, they would have a very good academic philosophy education for the price of a Metrocard and some late fees at the public library. Please leave me any comments and suggestions, especially if you know of events and venues that […]
Many arguments are called ‘cynical,’ but is there anything that is common to them? Is there a general form of cynical argument? One type of cynical argument is a kind of reductio ad absurdem, a proof by contradiction, to discredit a premise. The first step is to take the premise and associate it with some worldview. Assume P. (premise) P holds under worldviews W. (Cynical Generalization) Then, the cynic discredits those worldviews. Worldviews W are […]