On Ch. 4 of Lewis's book Counterfactuals (1973) and the essays “Scorekeeping in a Language Game” (1979) and “Truth in Fiction” (1978). What makes counter-factual statements true? If you think "I might have grown up in Cleveland" is true, then what thing about the world makes that "might" statement true? Or by contrast, "I might have been a round square" is not only obviously Continue Reading …
PEL Special: Phi Fic on James Baldwin’s Fiction
On the short stories "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon" (1960) and "Sonny’s Blues" (1957). To supplement our episode on Baldwin's essays, we're doing a crossover on to the PEL feed here from the Phi Fic podcast. PEL's Mark Linsenmayer joins Phi Fic regulars Nathan, Cezary, Mary, and Laura (read about them all plus the absent Daniel at our new "Meet Phi Fic" page) to Continue Reading …
Topic for #116 Freud on Dreams
On 5/11/15, the basic foursome recorded a discussion of Sigmund Freud's method of dream interpretation (for Wes Alwan's Freud summaries, go here: https://www.philosophysummaries.com), and got a little bit into what this is supposed to tell us about the human mind, and what the results are for philosophy per Ricoeur's admonition that we should take Freud into account. The Continue Reading …
Episode 108: Dangers of A.I. with Guest Nick Bostrom
On Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014) with author Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at Oxford. Just grant the hypothetical that machine intelligence advances will eventually produce a machine capable of further improving itself, and becoming much smarter than we are. Put aside the question of whether such a being could in principle be conscious or Continue Reading …