1/6 What do you think of this counterexample? It runs counter to NRB: (1) It is beyond human control that p (2) It is beyond human control that if p, then q Hence, (3) It is beyond human control that q. NRB is like Peter van Inwagen's Revised β (2015); a Newly Revised β.

There is, of course, the song "Watch Which Watch U Wear."

All my books in one place for the first time in a long time.

Everything

Is it important to first spread the bees all over your body?

Why is it so obvious that the white billionaire Trump supporter from South Africa was not giving a Nazi salute?

Can we analytic philosophers admit that the reason we don't read books by "continental" philosophers isn't that they are "unclear" - after all, we haven't read them - but that those books are very large, and contain a lot of words?

The real question of life after death isn’t whether or not it exists, but even if it does what problem this really solves. - Ludwig Wittgenstein

That when someone is clearly lying we don't just stop him and say "Dude, you are clearly lying," we just let him go on lying because it is the polite thing to do.

Vance is promoting the idea that length of time in the US is important but he does not include this question in figuring out the consequences of such a view.

Breaking News: Good looking actors get old. Film at 11.

All philosophers make claims, to be sure, but what separates analytic philosophers from the rest is that we put numbers in front of our claims.

I could never get a bad science book published but scientists get to write bad philosophy all the time.

What is the point of grounding a philosophical claim in science? Among the things we can be most certain about is that many of our current scientific claims - especially about cosmology - will be denied in, say, 100 years. Appeal to science is an appeal to (temporal) popularity.

Don't make your hatred of gays seem normal.

Serious question: If objective morality is only possible if God exists, why do so many theists disagree about the moral truth? Knowing that moral truth is possible has no advantage unless you can know what the truth is, which - given radical disagreement - is just not the case.

Someone would have to be insane not to take 15M for doing a line of coke.

1. Some abortions are morally justified. 2. Murder is never morally justified. 3. Ergo, abortion is not murder. How is this not a sound argument?

"I am delighted to inform you that A Companion to Free Will has now reached its publication date." Long time, and a lot of work! Thanks to the authors, the folks at Wiley, and my fabulous co-editors. Thank me for the idea for the beautiful! wiley.com/en-us/A+Companion+…

I was reading this book a breakfast and there was a couple next to me. The woman says to her companion: “See, I’m not the only one who reads crazy books in restaurants.”

What do we think of this? 1. We know 1 + 1 = 2. 2. No one knows what grounds 1 + 1 = 2. 3. So, math knowledge does not require a ground. 4. If math knowledge does not require a ground, moral knowledge does not require a ground. 5. So, moral knowledge does not require a ground.

If God wants to kill the Canaanites, that is one thing. If God commands someone to kill the Canaanites, that is another. Should we obey God's commands in this sense: If you believe God asks you to kill, it is permissible to kill? Ethics is advice; this is bad advice.

Note to professors: If you refer to an activity as a "fetish" online, don't give students extra credit for participating in the activity.

Maybe. My ex-wife wouldn't have sex for a decade and then stole all my money, so anything is possible.

We need to give up the subjective/objective distinction. Everything is in some sense subjective - a potential item of my thought - and in some sense objective - others may think about it, too. Name something that is entirely objective yet in no sense subjective, or vice versa?

There is a constant deconstruction of history by the right, and since no awful things actually happened during Biden, we have to pretend now that things are all better.

Here is a prevalent argument on twitter: 1. Objective morality can only be founded on God. 2. You don't believe in God. 3. Ergo, you don't believe in morality, or your view has no moral basis. This is a bad argument, and not just because premise 1 is false. Comment below.

Cows have free will.

Philosophers are so funny. "Every belief requires warrant," they say. But when you ask about warrant they also say: "You can't use circular reasoning, and you can't make arbitrary assumptions, and the chain of warrant cannot proceed to infinity." As if there were other options!

The foundation of mathematics is logic, so it is really an area of focus within philosophy. Mathematics is just formal philosophy one might say.

A President who ignores the law of the land is a dictator, not a Democratic representative. Or does he get to just steal your funds if he wants? You want protection from that beast, why should others?

Asking if Spinoza believed in God is like asking if Thales of Miletus believed in water.

You are trying to put a positive spin on the fact that the U.S. has a lot of guns, and guns are highly correlated with death.

So happy that the philosopher was on the side of electrons exist. This is a proud moment for us all!

People who deny the existence of free will, I ask: What would free will look like, if it were possible?

I am confident that there were much better gorilla jokes in 1897 than this one.

People say "I'd be a materialist but you can't explain consciousness in material terms" as if you could explain it in non-material terms. Similarly people say "You can't explain free action if determinism is true" as if you could explain free action if indeterminism were true.

I love teaching, I love reading, I love writing. There are parts about the job I do not like - the current politics of my particular job, for instance. But that is likely true of any job, there being a fair amount beyond one's control. Overall I realize I am very fortunate.

This is a common misunderstanding - that continental philosophy is like English lit but it is not; it is philosophy. What you get is philosophy by a philosopher, and that is hard to get in literature.

Who is the better person? Theist: I don't lie because God exists, and says lying is wrong. Otherwise I would lie. Atheist: I don't lie because I believe it is wrong.

A good philosopher can defend any claim. You might have a criticism, but a good philosopher has a response for each and can respond forever. A good philosopher can critique any claim. If you respond in defense, a good philosopher can give another criticism and can do so forever.

The concept of "objective morality" should be abandoned. One only needs to establish that some moral claims are true and some are false, which all of us already believe. The idea of "objective morality" seems to have been invented to support rules that have no rational basis.

1/2 I have an important announcement! I was offered a buyout by WSU, which I have accepted. I am officially retired. I have a lot of plans and the time and money to carry them out, so I'm excited for this new beginning.

An A Priori Argument for Free Will Skepticism · Everything has a cause. · Causes are always prior to effects. · Ergo, nothing can cause itself. · Free will requires self-causation. · Ergo, there is no free will. This is the nuts and bolts of Sapolsky's argument.

If there is a God in Heaven, please make a video of your conversation with Dan Dennett and put it on YouTube. It might help settle a few issues. Thanks!

Philosophy is misguided. We teach that Philosophy is the search for truth, not the love of wisdom. We teach that philosophical questions have answers that can be found using reason. We should prepare people for a world of disagreement. Philosophy is the Mother of disagreement.

I've updated my comparison of Hume's discussions on Liberty and Necessity (aka free will and determinism) in the Treatise and the Enquiry, which are very similar.

How can science be a source of truth if it is always changing? Why even call a scientific claim 'truth' given it won't hold forever? Let me put the point another way. Science discovers regularities. It will never discover all the possible regularities, so it is provisional.

I was at a job talk in grad school and Norman Kretzmann asked a question - he was visiting, not part of the regular faculty. The speaker replied, sarcastically, "That's the kind of question Norman Kretzmann would ask!" There was silence and someone said "That's Norman Kretzmann."

Every philosophical argument is undermined by assumptions in Hume's problem of induction. 1/ There are two forms of knowledge: maths (demonstration) and science (experience and the scientific method). 2/ Philosophical arguments are not demonstrative since the denial of any philosophical conclusion is possible. 3/ Science discovers only contingent truths but philosophical truths are regarded as true in all possible scenarios. We simply lack the kinds of proofs needed for philosophical knowledge.

People ask "What is naturalism?" and then laugh when it can't be easily defined. We may also ask: What is the supernatural; what does it mean to be beyond, or more than the natural? I'll just note you cannot answer the second without admitting there is an answer to the first.

An ex-student asked me: How should I cite class notes in an essay? So now I am asking X: How does one cite class notes in an essay?

Here is a picture explaining why I'm a pantheist. I don't understand how if God were outside of time he could share a "point of contact" with the created universe. If God is outside of time, there is no "point of contact," no causal interaction with the world or its creatures.

Two facts about my philosophical interests, good or bad. 1/ I'm only interested in the 101 issues: free will, skepticism, meaning, etc. 2/ I'm mainly interested in the meta-question of what all the 101 issues have in common, particularly puzzles about free will and knowledge.

Do you realize that a billionaire could give $1 million to 1,000 people? It is hard to see how we can morally justify the hoarding of money.

I just wonder why it is that we are talking about Monica Lewinsky when the President is likely guilty of statutory rape.

New strategy in Philosophy of Religion: name calling. OK it is not new.

I have a difficult time thinking there are immoral acts that do not involve the violation of the will of another. What is a convincing counterexample?

People think physics is better than philosophy because philosophers just argue and never come to conclusions accepted by most if not all. But the only reason physics is so "successful" in the truth-game is that they keep changing the story.

2/2 For reasons that I won't discuss I've decided to cut ties with WSU, and I am declaring myself an Independent Scholar. I might get back in the Academy. We'll see how it goes. I'm already on two conference programs as Joseph Campbell, Independent Scholar! Wish me luck!

Elon Musk

The reason I trust atheists more than theists is that if you go to the trouble of calling yourself an atheist you must have given these issues some thought. People call themselves theists for a wider variety of reasons.

"Why did you do that?" "Facts about the universe prior to my birth together with the laws of nature, I was determined to do it by factors beyond my control." Does the above answer ever provide an explanation for a specific action?

Big fan of semi-colons; use them often.

Purchased Robert Sapolsky’s Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, and I’ve read (and listened to) the first chapter. Five comments in a thread. (Check out 5!) 1/ It is not clear that RS means by ‘determinism’ what other people in the literature mean by ‘determinism.’

I would put Willie Randolph at 2B

I'm trying to watch this video by Dr. Hossenfelder - who, as a person I very much like - but it is difficult. Rather than discuss the whole video, I want to discuss a difficulty that is basic to contemporary free will debate. The issue is the general acceptance of the consequence argument as sound. This is an argument that concludes that determinism is incompatible with leeway free will, the ability to do otherwise. Source compatibilists (John Martin Fischer) are convinced of its soundness, so are libertarians (Carl Ginet), so are free will skeptics (Galen Strawson). This comprises a substantive number of philosophers, but it also opens the door for a kind of rhetorical abuse, as witnessed in the video. Hossenfelder begins with a version of the consequence argument: The world is ("almost entirely") determined by the laws of nature and propositions about the prehuman past, both of which are beyond human control. We have no control over the laws and the past, they dictate all, so there is no free will (.33-1.00). Notice that this formulation of the consequence argument has a stronger conclusion than the usual formulation. It argues that free will is incompatible with what should be called "near-enough determinism" - allowing for indeterminism on the quantum level since it does not appear to influence our level of control over the world (though Bob Kane and Mark Ballaguer would disagree). The point I want to highlight is the logic of the consequence argument is easy to extend. Dr. Hossenfelder does it without notice, moving from a conclusion about incompatibilism to a conclusion about free will skepticism. No one blinks because - well, because few know what to say, having already accepted the logic of consequence argument. This merely extends that faulty logic. Thus, when Hossenfelder uses the reasoning a second time to undermine a more robust view of freedom - "autonomous agency" (4:30-7:15) - you are similarly stuck without response. We need to talk about the consequence argument, and why we might question some of the logic, since we just saw that the logic is independent of the truth of determinism. Reasons for incompatibilism can be turned into reasons for free will skepticism. Indeed, either the indeterminism is so irregular that actions are random (and not free) or they have a regularity that approaches determinism (as seems to be the case). Here are some independent reasons for rejecting the consequence argument that come from issues the philosophy of science. 1/ It assumes laws of nature are necessary in some absolute sense, something that can be treated logically as an operator ranging over propositions. Why not think laws of nature are just conditionally necessary, and not absolutely necessary? 2/ There is a confusion between arguments and predictions and explanations. The thought is that human actions are explained by factors beyond their control but this makes faulty assumptions about explanations (that they are kinds of arguments) that have been disputed (see Wesley Salmon's criticisms of Carl Hempel's covering law model). 3/ The issue is not the necessity of the past. It matters not that I cannot now wear a different pair of shoes yesterday. What matters is what I could have done yesterday. For this reason, proponents of the consequence argument have to use propositions about the REMOTE past to ground the kind of necessity that robs free will. But what does the remoteness of the past have to do with either free will or determinism? Why is the assumption necessary if determinism undermines free will? Note the real conclusion is conditional: if determinism is true AND there is a remote past, then no one has free will (Campbell 2007). 4/ Adding it all together, the consequence argument makes antiquated assumptions about the necessity of the laws, faulty assumptions about the necessity of the past, and tries to get you to accept an inference rule that combines them both - even though one necessity is indexed to time and the other is not. piped.video/watch?v=YdL3QDza…

What good is "objective morality"? Louisiana requires that the 10 commandments be posted in classrooms, but let's just look at the best known of the bunch: Thou shall not kill. What does it mean? Does it apply to war, the death penalty, abortion, non-humans? All debates remain.

No one ever says "I'll accept your ontology if you accept mine."

I'm no free will skeptic, but this - actually most of your posts - reflect what I would call an obsession for moral judgements - obligations, blame - that is wildly inconsistent with our understanding of human abilities and the situations of living people.

What if only those Christians who accept universalism are saved from eternal damnation?

Note to all: If someone thinks physics has an answer to a philosophical question that counts as philosophy. If a physicist, say, explains the nature of time or that the universe has a beginning, this is a win for philosophy, too, provided only that we all go along with the story.

What is your take on metaphysics? On one take, metaphysics provides grounding and is therefore explanatory. Grounding is fundamental, so you don't really explain anything without metaphysics. On another take, by declaring fundamentals & primitives, metaphysics ends explanation.

I was just hacked. If you get something from me, do not click. What do I do?

The hope is that Denmark will just give us Greenland because, you know, we've done such a good job as protectors of the world. It's strategic. Also, Putin just takes things, so we can just take things, too. I'm no expert but, at a glance, this all seems to follow from Kant.

Kevin Spacey

I am most driven by philosophical skepticism. I thought I would outgrow it but that never happened. My skepticism is driven mainly by an overabundance of good philosophical arguments for alternative positions rather than not finding any philosophical arguments convincing.

Are philosophers the only people who think that you can get off the hook of providing an explanation for something if you contend that it is "fundamental"? Are we the only discipline that tolerates that kind of rhetorical gamesmanship?

Somehow the knowledge that it was coming did not make the news less crushing. Helen was such a model of philosophy and being a philosopher, and such a kind and genuine person. I'm thankful for having known her.

It is comments like this that make me resistant to Christianity. Honest truth. I find atheists much easier to get along with than moral elitists. Any club that won't have them as members is no club for me.

That is when it started to decline.

Not all women. You can buy anything with money but not everything.

"They are just trying to get out of taking math," says the man who failed Precalculus.

1/6 My philosophy in a nutshell is antisupernaturalism. I'm against libertarianism in free will, dualism in mind-body relations, and supernatural theism. "I'm against" is in need of clarification. I'm against them as a philosopher. As a person, I fully appreciate the attraction.

Don't I already have a chance of meeting you?

Pedro's lowest moment was throwing Zimmer to the ground. Of course, what was Zim thinking?

You are calling me pompous based on what you assume my answer to your question will be! That is way off. I'm pompous for entirely different reasons.

Suppose two people share the same moral claims - stealing is wrong, killing is always an unconvenience, etc. - but they disagree about the foundations of morality - one being a moral relativist and the other a divine command theorist. Is there a substantive moral disagreement?

Looking better than Hume!

We solved one philosophical problem today.

True or false? Christianity perpetuates philosophical myths. Three examples: immaterial souls, a creator separate from creation, and a free will that is a freedom from nature rather than within the bounds of nature. Each causes more philosophical problems than can be solved.

It will improve your work. Yesterday I took my dog for a walk in the woods, and today I am more productive. It can't just be a correlation.

Light light show on my porch

If you don't work hard on developing your own philosophical beliefs, "custom and habit" will do the job for you!

This is weird. Elon Musk Said X Users Who Use 'Weird' to Describe Trump Supporters 'Will Be Punished'? flip.it/qOGkR7

Which philosophical concept do you hate the most? I'll start: panentheism. Panentheism is not a theory; it's an opportunity for psychoanalysis.

In the waiting room for a minor procedure. Wish me luck!

When we started electing known pedophiles to the Presidency of the US.

The reason no one is compelled to accept your philosophical arguments is that no one is compelled to accept your philosophical definitions.

They have no choice.

What percentage of professional philosophers grew up under the poverty line? How has the percentage changed over time? Does any one even care about answers to these questions? I grew up in poverty, was in the Academy, and I'd say the Academy has a serious issue with classism.