Category Archives: Uncategorized

Here is a sensible, informed, and wise essay by Ali Minai at 3QuarksDaily that offers a clear picture of the general way AI systems like Chat-GPT work, and some sober recommendations for minimizing the disruptions they are likely to cause. … Continue reading →

I recently had the chance to visit two centers of the arcane. The first was the Warburg Library, an academic library at the University of London. It attracts a notable but somewhat rare subspecies of academics: those interested in how … Continue reading →

I feel that in my last two posts (on Tár and postmodernism) I managed to miss the big idea that was lurking in both of them. The idea is that the study of culture, and especially popular culture, is no … Continue reading →

“Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourse characterized by skepticism toward the “grand narratives” of modernism, rejection of epistemic certainty or the stability of meaning, and sensitivity to the role of ideology in maintaining political power.” [Wikipedia] Postmodernism … Continue reading →

I just came across this excellent overview of the field of linguistics by Steven Pinker. Highly recommended.

When I put together the “Two and a half minutes” piece for 3QD (below), I experimented with DALL-E to compose some art to accompany it. I ended up going with something less literal, but here’s what the AI did with … Continue reading →

I have taught “Epistemology” for many years, but it has always been for me a difficult course to plan. I want to cover traditional philosophical questions about skepticism, justification, induction, and belief in the external world. But then I also … Continue reading →

At least on the surface, there seems to be something incongruous in regarding some artifact (like a watch) as clearly implying some kind of intelligent, crafty mind, but then regarding that intelligent, crafty mind as not implying any sort of … Continue reading →

One of the cleanest and most compelling arguments against physicalism in the philosophy of mind is the “Knowledge Argument”. (Here is a quick summary. The response I am going to offer doesn’t show up there, though it fits in as … Continue reading →

It might seem daunting to read philosophy. Giants of thinking with names like Hegel, Plato, Marx, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard loom over us with imperious glares, asking if we are sure we are worthy. We might worry that we won’t understand … Continue reading →

I have been teaching university philosophy classes for something like 78 years. (At some point, when you can’t summon the energy to figure out how old you are, and what year something happened, and then do a bit of subtraction, … Continue reading →

We know all too well how easy it is to write something to someone online that we would never say face to face, and conversely how much more effort it takes to write online with the general kindness we employ … Continue reading →

So, I’m no fiction writer (at least, not on purpose). I give it a shot now and then, for fun. A while back I had a plan to write a series of stories featuring the “wonder cabinet” of Dr Tenebris, … Continue reading →