Sexuality and the Transsexual Consider a person, Alec, who believes he was born into the wrong kind of body. He believes himself to be essentially female, despite his anatomy. Accordingly, he chooses to become the woman he inwardly perceives himself to be: he dresses in women’s clothes, wears make-up, and acts the […]
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 […]
