Does language influence how we think? This looks like a psychological question, in many ways it hasn’t left the domain of philosophy: the psychological research is unclear, leaving us with largely logic and common sense; it involves issues of what consciousness is, “what is it like to be a thinker?”; and it raises core questions [...]
Category Archives: language
Pinker is wrong, Orwell was right, Pinker is right
Posted by Chris Hallquist on April 21, 2009
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Yes, PZ, scientists prove things
Posted by Chris Hallquist on April 16, 2009
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Just found a random example of PZ repeating the “science doesn’t prove anything” talking point. Why is this still around? Science may not prove anything in the sense of the word used by mathematicians, but that’s not the only recognized sense used in English. For example, it clearly sometimes happens that murder charges are proven, [...]
Why philosophers shouldn’t be assumed scientifically competent
Posted by Chris Hallquist on March 2, 2009
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Later this week, I’m going to try to post something on the recent Plantinga-Dennett debate. I’m listening to the audio as I type this, actually. But until I finish the audio, a blog post inspired by one of the comments on the initial report: I don’t think the ‘Lots of people think God exists; so [...]
Review: Keith Ward’s Is Religion Dangerous?
Posted by Chris Hallquist on February 13, 2009
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These reviews of Dawkins’ Fleas are pretty routine by now, so let me do a run down of major contacts: Literalism: Ward hits the literalism issue hard, in a way that most writers don’t. Within this topic, there’s a strong emphasis on what anthropology tells us about whether religion was originally taken literally or figuratively. [...]
More tea, sir?
Posted by Chris Hallquist on February 2, 2009
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Andrew Sullivan posts a bunch of reader responses on Russell’s Teapot. Number One: Your atheist readers make the classic move of pretending to be the referee when in fact they are just another player on the field. Okay, stop right now, this is a good example of why dying metaphors are so annoying. When I [...]