On The Very Idea - A Philosophy Podcast

In this final episode of a three part series on John McDowell's Mind and World, I take a look at McDowell's Transcendental Argument. I feel his transcendental argument comes up a bit short in making McDowell's case and neither does it seem to hold the same gravitas as other transcendental arguments like Kant's. Basically, the conclusions sound a lot like the premises. But, McDowell makes another interesting claim namely that there is nothing unnatural about our role as conceptualizers and judgement-makers in carving out the epistemic content of our worldviews. Our normative nature is, well, natural. Natural to us anyway. And, if we acknowledge this, then we see that there is not some divorce or separation of us from the world when we apply concepts to our perception of the world. Our way of seeing is no less natural than a cat's way of seeing. It's just unique to us. And, to fill out how we might understand how the rational and social can be fully natural, we need to look at Aristotle's ethical theory. Which we will. In the episode.

In this second episode of a 3 part series on the work of John McDowell, I look at McDowell’s epistemic distinction between the active and the passive. When we perceive the world, are we soaking up empirical data like a dull sponge or actively sorting fuzzy, impressionistic content into familiar categories? For McDowell, perceptions are conceptual through and through. Despite this, we can make sense of the idea of the contributions of our conceptual apparatus in coloring our perceptions even if we can’t sharply cleave the boundaries. We even get reminders of the unconceptualized world behind our experiences when we make perceptual mistakes or have some sort of perceptual confusion. Squinting, for example, reminds us when we struggle to make our concepts fit the world that opens itself up to us. All that, and McDowell’s answer to the skeptic and his transcendental argument for realism. P.S.: for some reason, when I say ‘veridical’, it sounds like vertical and it looks like I’m not going to solve it any time soon, so please allow your ears to make the appropriate adjustments.

In this first episode of a three part series on John McDowell, I talk a bit about the splash that McDowell's Mind and World made on the philosophy scene when it was published in 1994. Then, I get into and onto the work of McDowell's philosophy itself. Mind and World is quite the apt name as McDowell focuses on the meta-epistemological question of how the mind can know about the world. I look at McDowell's take on the history of philosophy particularly his debt to the work of Immanuel Kant, in developing his theory about how our minds connect to their environment. I attempt to show how McDowell establishes his unique view of how minds connect to the world through the lens of traditional correspondence and coherence theories and how he feels these two approaches fall short in providing accounts of how our brains produce accurate information about our environment. I focus on two dichotomous concepts that McDowell borrows from Kant: the active and the passive and how our epistemic direction towards the world can be understood through this dichotomy. McDowell says that there is no notion of pure experience that is delivered to us. The world, even in our passive intake of it, comes wrapped up in concepts and to look for something preconceptual in experience is a fools errand. All this et plus. 

In this final installment of a four episode series, I take a look at criticisms of Thomas Kuhn's idea of incommensurable scientific paradigms. Kuhn makes use of a vague notion of seeing that allows him to say some surprising things about how people see the world. For example, Kuhn theorizes that 18th century scientists Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier would have had different visual experiences had they seen the same jar of oxygen on account of their belonging to different scientific paradigms. Further, we can see that by using Wittgenstein's work on rule following, that there is no easy way to define the borders of a community and Kuhn's work risks a relativism where every scientist belongs to an isolated paradigm of one.

Finally, I take a look at Hillary Putnam's argument for scientific realism called the 'No Miracles Argument'. Though it is a simple argument, it does seem to make the most compelling case for the apparent everyday notion that most people have that science, at its best, offers the most accurate representation of the world.

In this third installment of a four part series on Thomas Kuhn and the allegedly incommensurable revolutions of science, I look at the idea of epistemic incommensurability. Last episode, I looked at semantic incommensurability - a more intuitively easier idea to get your head around. Semantic incommensurability is the idea that a shift in intensional meanings of a concept such as 'planet' or 'bile' can lead to that concept being untranslatable in terms of it’s former variations within older scientific paradigms so that an idea of progress in moving from one variation of a concept to the next becomes unintelligible. In this episode, I want to look at the idea of epistemic incommensurability where a shift in the intensional meanings of a concept and it's connected theory can produce two people to have two different experiences when viewing the same object or phenomenon. You see phlogiston; I see oxygen. We will see how our sweet eyes deceive us. Or so says Kuhn.

In this second episode of a four part series on the work of Thomas Kuhn, I look at his idea of semantic incommensurability. Semantic incommensurability as applied to science for Kuhn centers around the fact that the meaning of particular scientific terms change over time. These changes become radically different as scientific paradigms shift. 'Bile' and 'planet' meant something different for Aristotle and Ptolemy than they do for us. In this episode, I go through some examples of scientific conceptual change to try and get at the meaning of it all.

In this final part of a two part series on our ability to morally evaluate historical figures, I continue my look at the work of Bernard Williams. After taking into account Williams' theory of the relativism of distance, I look at British philosopher Miranda Fricker's criticism of Williams. Fricker believes that historical figures are capable of being morally blameworthy according to our lights and even in cases where blame is inappropriate, she sets out conditions where we would be justified in feeling moral disappointment. We can indeed be Kant at the court of King Arthur.

In this first episode of a two part series, I look at an issue that has been hot of late (are there any non-hot issues in the internet age?) – the issue of how we should judge our historical heritage – particularly the prominent figures of history. Winston Churchill, Christopher Columbus and others have had statues removed in public places along with a reassessment of their historical legacy. Its a healthy dialogue to be having even if it is isn't always carried out in a healthy manner. The dialogue lacks any nuanced underlying theoretical ethical structure that can guide conflicting groups to consensus- which is my way of saying that there has been a lot of shouting. So, in this episode, I look at candidates for theoretical guidance on the ethical judgment of historical figures. Ethical theories tend to assess an agent's actions according to universal standards or contextual, local ones which may be fine for justifying giving the stink eye to your neighbor but doesn't really give us an insight about what a moral choice would have looked like for Genghis Khan. But the ever broad eye of Bernard Williams provides us with some tools  to tackle the problems associated with ethical assessment of the historical figures and, in this episode, we see what Williams' 'relativism of distance' theory can offer us.

Apologies for the Buzzfeedesque title - In this final episode of a two-part series on the work of Donald Davidson, I look at Davidson’s work on a theory of meaning, his principle of charity, and, what he believed were his arguments that put the final nail in the coffin of empiricism. Davidson claims that we should develop a theory of meaning by imagining interpreting the utterances of others. In order to make a program of interpretation, we must kindly assume that the subjects of interpretation are at least largely correct by our own standards - they must share the majority of our background beliefs. We must interpret with this principle of charity. But when we acknowledge the necessity of a principle of charity to arrive at shared meaning, we see that the interpretation of other speakers cannot involve direct 'word to world' or 'sentence to stuff' relations. Here, in interpretation, empiricism is false and a holism of massive shared background beliefs is necessary. Meaning and interpretation between speakers can only be mediated through a whole heap of background beliefs that are assumed to be shared between interpreter and interpretee. This mass of shared beliefs undermines any workable notion of people having differing conceptual schemes and, funnily enough, provides us with a somewhat janky answer to the Cartesian skeptic.

In this first episode of a two part series on Donald Davidson, I examine the work of this often puzzling yet seminal American philosopher. Davidson offers a seemingly baffingly simple theory of meaning - that 'snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white. In other words, that above sentence about snow is true if and only if snow is actually white and that fact about the whiteness of snow is the only thing that we need to know about snow if we are too understand the meaning of the sentence 'snow is white'. Isn't that a little too simple of a theory you might ask? Fair question and in this episode, I'll attempt to explain why this theory may be all we need to understand the entirety of what a concept of meaning provides for a language. It's adequate. Maybe ...

In this first episode of a two part installment, I look at the work of David Hume and his ideas that justify that famous quote of his “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” This quote has always troubled me. As politico-moral beings, many don't want to classify a horrific act as merely bad. There is also an urge to classify that horrific act as irrational. Does reason really tell us nothing about morality? Is reason just a way of determining efficient means to an end? Was Hitler evil and rational, or, just evil? What work can a concept of rationality do to condemn an evil act? In this episode, I look at the work of Peter Railton, a Hume scholar, who argues that people often interpret Hume's quote incorrectly. According to Railton, Hume believed that rationality does have a robust role to play in determining which acts are moral or immoral. Hume's point was rather that rationality in isolation could not tell us much about morality but working in conjunction with our sentiments, rationality could help determine for us which acts are moral or immoral. 

In this second installment of a two part series on that loftiest of philosophical questions - ‘what is the meaning of life?’, I will make a flailing attempt to answer the question but, hopefully, it is an attempt that may have certain traction. Through looking at nihlism and the work of British analytic philospher James Tartagila, I will show that even if we live in a nihlistic universe, this recognition of a nihilistic realism isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's not a good thing either. It's a no-thing. Just the lack of an answer to what is the meaning of life. Within this universe (if nihlism is indeed the case), we must create our own meaning - we must be the authors of our own lives. If this sounds difficult, it actually isn't. We humans do it all the time in finding meaning in what we do. We have whole civilizations of people finding meaning through life and its activities whether embedded in a social context or self-authored. And, any account of these people’ lives would amount to empirical third person data that would hold up in any social science. So, the fact of meaningful lives is empirically grounded - a fact both obvious but often forgotten in philosophical discussion.  And, its not living a lie to create your own meaning in a nihlistic universe. It's just living well. In a thoroughly materialist and nihilistic framework, the universe provides the stage for a meaningful life but not the answers.

In this first installment of a two part series, I look at that most deepest of all questions of the philosophical variety, 'what is the meaning of life'? ''What is the meaning of life?' is the very question that witty conversational partners will volley back with when they hear you are studying philosophy ... 'Hey, so what's the meaning of life?'. Despite this converational trope, actual academic philosophy blatantly defies this stereotype by almost never asking broad questions about the meaning of life. We have to meander back to the ancient Greeks to hear schools of philosophy devoted to the rigorous discussion of the topic (OK, the existentialists certainly discussed it too). In this episode, I want to clear the brush and discuss what the meaning of life isn't. The meaning of life isn't a mock-evolutionary call to selfishness of the genetic or material variety or the making of babies that have your nose and hairline. Nor is the meaning of life something that a science like physics could tell us about. And religion had its moment a while ago, but it no longer seems to sustain a viable choice in the meaning of life game. John Stuart Mill provided a very promising answer to what a meaningful life could consist in and we'll examine his ideas. Then, in the next episode, in a fit of modesty, I'lll reveal what the meaning of life is. Perhaps.

All that and more. 

In this third and final installment on WVO Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism, I look at Gary Gutting's examination of the paper in his 2009 book What Philosophers Know. Gutting argues that although analytic philosophers pride themselves on the rigor of their argumentation and Two Dogmas is seen as one of the most important papers of 20th century analytic philosophy, Quine offers few actual arguments in favor of rejecting the analytic/synthetic distinction. Rather he relies on a sympathetic audience perhaps exhausted with logical positivism to appeal on pragmatic and even somewhat minimalist aesthetic sensibilities to abandon the analytic-synthetic distinction in favor of a behaviorist and radically empirical approach to questions of meaning. Perhaps the analytic-synthetic distinction is not robust enough to do the heavy lifting that the logical positivists require of it, but, it is still a relevant and very clear distinction. Or so argued Gutting.

In this series, I want to look at W.V.O Quine's 1950 essay Two Dogmas of Empiricism which many feel put the final nail in the coffin of the logical positivist project. It's often regarded as the most important or impactful paper of the 20th century. Gary Gutting, formerly of the University of Notre Dame, felt otherwise. We will explore Quine's argument as well as Gutting's case that it wasn't a very well argued piece of philosophical work at all. But, in this first installment of a three part series, we will look at the logical positivist movement that Quine supposedly had stopped dead in its tracks with his Two Dogmas paper. In particular, I will examine the extent to which the logical positivist project hung on the analytic-synthetic distinction. Plus, the usual trivia.

In this second episode of a three part series on PF Strawson's 1978 lecture Perception and Its Objects, I focus on Strawson's criticism of AJ Ayer's portrayal of the average adult human's process of perception. Through his criticism of Ayer's account, Strawson elaborates on the features of his own account - what he calls a real realism but what PF Snowden calls a relaxed realism. Can we divide our perceptual experiences into a division of raw data and theory? Strawson attempts to answer this question and comes to some Kantian conclusions.

in this first episode of a three part series, I will focus on PF Strawson's 1978 lecture written for the Royal Institute of Philosophy but never delivered 'Perception and Its Objects'. In this lecture, Strawson develops a theory of common sense realism and illustrates his idea of how the average adult perceives the world by contrasting his outlook with AJ Ayer and JL Mackie. In this episode, I mainly focus on AJ Ayers variety of empiricism and ramble on about that thing we do when we open our eyes and see the world and its objects in our visual range. Plus, the usual trivia and whatnot.

I'm trying some short episodes here and there along with the usual full length episodes. The aim is to allow me to digest interesting things that I read and hopefully you can get something out of it. Today, the topic is electromagnetic fields. Cognitive science has been looking for clues to understanding how the physical touches base with the mental in consciousness by looking at neurons. Often this method focuses on mapping the firing and wiring of neurons and the corresponding thoughts that correlate with specific firings. But, this approach always leaves us just short at the most important point: the gap between the mental and the physical. Instead of a neoronal code encrypted in the wiring of our brains, could consciousness be found in the brain’s electromagnetic field? Does consciousness reside in the brain's electromagnetic field?

In this last episode of a three part installment, I look at whether reflective equilibrium is stuck with the same problems of pragmatism - namely a favoring of our already held considered convictions. I say no it isn't and attempt to illustrate why by looking at the work of Canadian philosopher Kai Nielsen's work on wide reflective equilibrium. Reflective equilibrium when conducted widely enough can be quite emancipatory. It allows us to escape from our comfortable, long held beliefs to venture into new territory while still being tied to a rational framework. I end on examining a more pecculiar part of Nielsen's work - his idea that wide reflective equilibrium could allow us to theoretically have a dialogue with long lost figures of history. Care for a chat Genghis Khan? 

In the second episode of a three part series on reflective equilibrium, I look at the historical roots of this philosophical tool. Reflective equilibrium has its roots in the procedural liberalism that developed out of necessity as a means to peacefully resolve the Wars of Religion engulfing Europe in the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries. Political structure began to emphasize procedural rules that enabled people to live together peacefully rather than substantive moral principles that appealed to some citizens but alienated others in increasingly diverse nations. Thus, the birth of liberal values such as the principles of religious toleration and principles of compromise. In this way, justice was to be found in the fairness of the procedures that led to the conclusions rather than the conclusions themselves. Reflective equilibrium finds its place amongst this history of procedural liberalism. This plus the usual trivia and diversions.

In this final epiosode of a three part series, I examine and critique J.L. Mackie's criticisms against moral realism that he lays out in his error theory. Mackie holds that since morality is derived from culture and culture is diverse across humanity, then we should see that there could not be any universal moral facts which humanity could know. This argument from cultural relativism is weakened if we look at Michael Walzer's division of thick and thin senses of morality. Humanity could be seen as sharing a thin sense of morality if construed generally enough which allows each culture's society and social interactions to be functional. Likewise, there seems to be evidence that many humans share some sort of universal moral framework in their preference for certain goods. I use the goods of rights and security offered by (many) liberal social democratic frameworks as an example. Also given the need of certain moral standards to exist for human social interaction to occur at all, I argue that facts about morality don't need to seem peculiar or strange as facts at all - at least no more than facts of logic or mathematics. I ramble alot here but hopefully something comes of it.

In this final episode of a three part installment on Hillary Putnam's lecture Realism with a Human Face, I look at Alfred Tarski's Theory of Truth developed to answer the Liar Paradox. I show how Tarski's hierarchal splitting of language into object language and the meta-language that describes and analyzes it creates the same problem encountered by quantum theory - the need for an observer that always stands outside the system. This leads to the impossibility of one ever being able to develop a god's eye view of the world. This cognitive barrier is a bit of a disappointing harness for the intellectual as they must always keep a certain modesty of scope in developing their theory within these confines. Lastly, I briefly look at the history of logical puzzles like the Liar Paradox in the history of philosophy and am surprised to learn that these puzzles were seen as mere parlour games prior to the advent of analytic philosophy and the movement towards a logic and linguistic-based endeavour from a more broader epistemelogical project found in earlier centuries.

In this second part of a three part series on Hillary Putnam's lecture Realism with a Human Face, I wrap up the discussion about quantum physics by looking at some of quantum physics' philosophical consequences and an interesting book from 80 years ago that relates quantum physics in highly understandable terms for the layperson. Then, I follow Putnam by looking at the liars paradox - that logical puzzle that says 'This sentence is false'. Is that senternce itself true or false? Anyway that you answer it, you are stuck in a bind. Grappling with this paradox led the Polish logician Alfred Tarski to develop a new theory of truth that allowed him to solve this paradox. Tarski's theory of truth was to have deep reverberations in the philosophical community and this all leads into the next episode where I look at how Putnam draws parallels between quantum physics and the the philosophy of logic and truth after Tarski. Also, the usual trivia and general rambling that you've hopefully come to tolerate.

First episode in a three part series where I look at Hillary Putnam’s lecture Realism with a Human Face. Putnam talks about quantum physics and the philosophical implications of it. Basically, Putnam sees quantum theory as providing scientific justification for putting an end to God’s Eye View conceptions of our knowledge of the universe. If we take quantum physics seriously, we must see that it implies that there can be no view from nowhere. Any perspective providing knowledge must be in some sense local - a perspective from somewhere. Quantum physics is a bit beyond my pay grade but hopefully a good conversation can come out of it.

In this second episode of a two part series on narrativity, I look to flesh out an account of how we can think of our life if we don't think of it as story. People who are non-narratives in this way are often episodic. They live their life in chunks or episodes giving limited thought about their past and future without being obsessed with either. Episodic people tend to live in the day and the week and the month that they find themselves in without trying to consciously weave their 'now' into a coherent story with their self from childhood or 5 years ago. Are episodics being irresponsible in living this way, something less than fully human? On the other hand, are narratives overly focused on the past and therefore prone to rumination and depression? Some questions I raise along with some heavy, heavy borrowing from Galen Strawson and some trivia and the usual ramblings. I also try to link the whole academic obsession with narrativity to neoliberalism for those who like politics.

In this final episode of a two part series, I look at Immanuel Kant’s response to David Hume’s skepticism about cause-effect relationships. Kant develops a theory of an a priori cognitive framework through which an individual views the world and which structure our very perceptions of reality. This framework is an ambitious undertaking and defines Kant’s status as one of the giants of the philosophical world. But it comes at a cost. Although it outlines the necessary cognitive structure that must exist if we are to have any  experiences, it must accept that we cannot view reality as it is in itself due to this framework thereby creating a distance between the  objects of the world and our experiences of them.