Tyranny of the Majority Here is de Tocqueville in Democracy in America (1835): “But the dominating power in the United States [the majority] does not understand being mocked like that. The slightest reproach offends it, the smallest sharp truth stimulates its angry response and it must be praised from the style of its language […]
Self-Blindness and “I” Hume’s point that the self is not introspectively detectable has always been met with intuitive acceptance. Its significance is more contentious. Does it show that the self does not exist, or that introspection is limited, or that the self is really just a congeries of mental states? A possible view […]
Death, Time, and Other Minds It is often said that we are “social animals”. What seems to be intended is twofold: we have an emotional craving for human contact, and we are similar to other social animals in this respect. [1] Both observations are surely correct, but could there be anything more to our […]
Language, Truth, and Grammar It would be convenient if only true statements were grammatical. Then we would be able to read truth-value off grammar. Falsehood would be signaled by ungrammaticality. But of course false statements are as grammatical as true ones. Grammar is completely indifferent to truth. The world is what determines […]
Two Dogmas of Rationalism We may suppose the rationalist to hold two theses: (a) there is an analytic-synthetic distinction, and (b) the meaning of statements can be reduced to the innate ideas expressed or denoted by the terms in them. Since rationalism accords priority to a priori statements, the odd member of the […]
