Another Stupid Philosophical Question:

"Do mental events cause physical events?"
(and vice versa)

This illustrates a fundamental confusion faced by those who want to naturalize the mind, as if it weren't something already quite natural. Doesn't phenomenal consciousness provide us with a very good understanding of how reality operates?

This is why I am a neutral monist and panpsychist.

My Website

I have a website where I post some of my writings. I haven't updated it for a while now, so it mostly consists of papers I wrote as an undergraduate. And most of those papers are somewhat sophomoric (I detest that word).

So why do I have the website, and why do I post my writings there?

It is more of a record or expression of my philosophical development than anything else. And the papers do contain some very good ideas, or seeds thereof. And a few of the papers are actually quite good.

http://www.modalrealism.com/

A Stupid Philosophical Question:

"Are indexical properties causally efficacious?"

Titles are Everything

I despise the title "Professional Philosopher" - I will never call myself that.

There is no such thing as a "professional philosopher". There are, to be sure, "philosophy professors", i.e. those who teach philosophy professionally. But no one does philosophy professionally. Philosophy just isn't something that one can be paid to do.

Or, in other words, if you're getting paid to do it, it ain't philosophy.

Addendum:

It should be obvious that, in order to be good at teaching philosophy, one must be good at doing philosophy (although the converse doesn't hold).

...just keep it quiet

Court nixes man’s suit claiming torture by CIA

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday terminated a lawsuit from a man who claims he was abducted and tortured by the CIA, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if the case were allowed to proceed.

So it's OK for the Executive office to do whatever they want, just so long as they keep it secret?

What the fuck happened to checks and balances?