Who would bother to refute it ? Who doubts it ? The issue is whether you take the essence of mind to be so radically immaterial and apart from the cau...
Concepts are public ? I can use them incorrectly ? But what I mean, behind my rashly chosen words, is correct. You can't see into my box, but I give y...
But is it possible, in principle, for timetravelling scientists from Neptune to figure it out with scanners ? With 99.875% accuracy over 100000 trials...
That's a silly objection...as if anyone disputes that individuals make claims, as if I didn't share a Brandom quote about the self as something like a...
I claim that the hard problem of consciousness is a language trap. What's a operational definition of consciousness ? What's a criterion for its prese...
I can speculate, but why go down this road ? It's like a theist asking how the world got here if God didn't create it. I don't need to have a settled ...
What would you count as evidence for a private thought ? Is a private thought just something we might quietly 'say' to ourselves ? Is it something tha...
"I'd call it a diary, bro, because it's just your private thoughts." "I'm putting this money away for a rainy day, because you never know (the future)...
If you leap from the boring, typical talk of private thoughts to the 'official theory' of the ghost, then the only difference between a P-Zombie and a...
Both play a role in inferences. Both have meaning. I don't have to know your private thoughts to reason about private thoughts in general. The norms f...
This is not an empirical or a metaphysical discovery. It's a language trap. "We each contain a box that no one can look into but ourselves." "Why do y...
Wittgenstein is one of many. I even tend to invoke Sellars, Ryle, and Brandom lately, all too dry and careful in their exposition to be taken as a gur...
Pray tell how we might evaluate from the outside whether Harry loved Sally, having met her? Or how 'love' could have a public meaning if its referent ...
Sure, this plays a role, but the more you emphasize it...the less it should and can interest us as philosophers. Or as the public. Even lovers share t...
I don't think you mean to do it (and maybe I'm guilty of it as well), but it's way too easy to jump back and forth between common sense and serious ph...
I grant that people sometimes dream without knowing they are dreaming. But is that really all you wanted ? Obviously the dude in the dream who tells y...
I totally get that, but that's a tangent, an exception. By your account, I can't know that my wife loves me. For her 'true' self is 'behind' all the n...
The concept of 'proof' already drags in a world of folks who share a language in which they can make claims which might be wrong. Don't expect us to p...
As I see it, and I don't intend rudeness, you merely assert the old, 'theological' tale of Forms. I don't claim that thoughts and language are strictl...
But I dispute very much that they are the product of an individual intelligence. Even the idea of an individual intelligence is problematic. I don't m...
:up: Recall that I said earlier that the P-zombie is the shadow cast by the ghost story. What, sir, is this mysterious X that separates the convincing...
This is just the ghost story that Ryle mostly demolishes...the idea that the self is hidden behind everything it does. To be sure, we sometimes 'talk ...
No, sir, that's not at all the point. I like philosophy. Practicality be damned ! But getting to the truth about these concepts requires considering t...
Of course it matters. We can both speak with the vulgar and think with the wise. Note please that what people think is still linguistic. Perhaps 'feel...
What happens if we drop the assumption that concepts are something immaterial ? And along with that the whole material/immaterial distinction ? We can...
I don't object to the ordinary version of privacy. But note that both of us can be explained in terms of unexpressed beliefs attributed to us. Our dri...
The 'important' part of my mind, as I see it, is the thinking, linguistic part. 'My' version of green doesn't matter, but my use of 'green' does. Even...
How did you ask me why I asked you what it means to exist if existence isn't a public concept? If no one is wrong, no one is right. There wouldn't be ...
Excellent point. Sellars' project is somehow bringing the 'living' world of parents and children into coherence with the scientific image (the dead wo...
I think it's also that, but philosophers were also, more respectably, trying to figure out the 'lens' and its distortions. Granting the metaphor that ...
Central to the solpisism subissue here is that of whether concepts are public or private. I claim it's incoherent to say they are not public. "Concept...
I doubt that in turn. To the degree that this is an empirical question, I defer to more serious students. But my prejudice is that differentiation is ...
I grant that we can both interpret terms so that either of us is right. I've tried to argue that epistemological solipsism is 'toothless' if understoo...
This is a deep issue, so I don't pretend to have some final theory. That said, as a start, I think it's incoherent to deny that concepts are public, f...
I think you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. If you are indeed a great poetic soul, too cool for anal discussions of epistemology, then......
Improvising: it's basically a version of the 'ghost story.' 'Pure' meanings glow for it, infinitely intimate, unsoiled by the particularity and histor...
I agree that we shouldn't be surprised if the world surprises us. We are even looking for surprises as we extend our knowledge, no? But our sense-maki...
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