I stumbled into the menagerie at 2 A.M. Loud speakers were playing carnival music, and at each booth a strange looking individual shouted out slogans and calls. It was separated into four wings, in the shape of a cross. In the center there was a crowded arena, filled with one-eyed tricksters who offered the secrets of the stars, astrology, horoscopes, passionate love, and happiness. Slightly to the side a gonzo journalist in a skipper hat and his lawyer rode on the Ferris wheel with a look of empty fear. What sorts of metaphysical and epistemological sights would be hidden behind the curtains of those “world-famous” displays? Monsters? Zombies? Swamp men? Brains? (click "Read More" at end for rest of story)
North Entrance: Philosophy of Philosophy
I stumbled through the entrance past the ticket-stand, where a small lady looked out with ennui. I tripped and stumbled into a little blue niche with flashing lights and sparkling metallic ornaments. This booth was lined with prizes, resting on stacked shelves and ascending in value on each shelf. A man with a name-tag, Richard Chappell, with a large, menacing smile, invited me to participate in the games. “Get in character,” he said.
• Philosophical ‘Meta-Gaming’ covers the errors that can commonly arise in considering hypothetical philosophical scenarios. Notably, we must be careful not to illegitimately import our actual knowledge into the hypothetical scenario.
I spent $12 at the meta-gaming booth until I decided that it was a con. Those rings would never fit around the hypothetical space. That Plush Panda would not be mine, or anybody else’s.
So, in a hallucinatory state, I wandered even further through the North wing of the carnival. As I reached the center arena I noticed a man shouting out fantastical stories. Thom Brooks, at the top of his voice, paraded about with a cane and a straw porkpie hat. He spoke with the cadence of a 1940s newsreel narrator. “See the Wonders of Siam. Conjoined since birth. I’ll tell you all about it. I found them working for pence a day in the United Kingdom. See the jointly appointed twins.”
• Why not joint appointments in the UK? discusses the value of joint appointments in academia, which promote and recognize interdisciplinary work, and questions why they have not been implemented as much in the U.K.
Western Gate: Philosophy of Mind
Once I got past the swirling crowd of gregarious denizens I found my way to the Western Gate of the circus. There I saw a row of shows advertizing the outstanding qualities of the brain. In the first stop was the chance to feel a brain with my own hands. A little further down a female neuroscientist lived her entire life in a monochromatic cube. What purveyors of misery and exploitation were these carnival workers?
Suddenly a cloud of dust rose up from the dirt-laden grounds and got swept into my eyes. The forms became blurry. I stumbled and then finally fell into a trance-like, delusional state. A strange man wearing a bizarre hat from another age (an age of noir sentiments and dark shadows)—a Fodora. Suddenly I felt myself surrounded by icons, computers, and gray matter. I was being encircled by… Brains!.
• Fodor’s Done It Again gives a brief but informative summary of Jerry Fodor’s new book, LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited.
Hazy from these maddening events, I chased a speckle of flurrying light down to the end of the wing. I encountered many things and beings there—beings that were not quite human. I reached the end of the wing where the grounds terminated in a wall that had a chain-link fence spray-painted on its surface. There, an evangelist. He spoke loudly and projected across the grounds. “Hear of the Intelligent Dasein. Teach it to your children and bring it to the schools.”
• In Dasein for Dummies, Gary Williams explores the meaning of Dasein and why Heidegger chose to take that term as the central point of his investigations in Being and Time.
Eastern Gate: Ethics and Law
I saw a large, overbearing gauge, looking like a thermometer. I headed over, seeing above me the prominently displayed title “Empathy Meter.” A wise Latina woman was held in a glass display as onlookers judged her capacity to empathize and decided whether it was a positive or negative talent.
• Joseph Orasco, in Equity, Empathy, and the Wise Latina Judge, looks at the reaction to Judge Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, and discusses the extent to which judges must consider the particularities of individual persons when deciding their cases.
“Step right up!” A bearded man with a peg-leg was pointing to a circular, blue, plastic pool. It was filled to the rim with water and looked to be five feet deep. A cage above the pool held a defenseless infant. Connected to the cage was a contraption consisting of a lever and a small target. Hit the target head-on, I was told, and I might succeed in drowning the child. But if I missed, the man warned me, my expensive suit (already covered in dust and unrestricted mereological sums at this point) would be dowsed in water.
• Beating Singer at his Own Game assess Singer’s drowning child argument and poses a problem. If one’s suit could be sold off with the proceeds going to charities that could save several children’s lives, it would seem one is not obligated to save the drowning child.
Southern Exit: Epistemology and Metaphysics
I was nearing the exit when a blue clown jumped in front of me and asked “How do you know?” He asked this repeatedly with a monotony that drove me to the limits of insanity. The whole experience, anyhow, had left me incredulous. I knew that if I stayed at the carnival I would be confronted by more of these sights. The clown repeated. “How do you know?” He suggested that I could not go off of my past experiences. Induction, he told me, does not exist. This seemed preposterous. The cotton candy certainly seemed capable of inducing vomiting.
• Tony Lloyd, in A Bayesian Argument Against Induction, attempts to argue from Bayesian grounds to the conclusion that induction does not exist.
Even nearer the entrance a creature with a rather disproportionately sized skull. The caller claimed that the creature’s brain has at least 147 dimensions.
• Andrew Bernardin’s My Brain Has At Least 147 Dimensions interrogates the connotations of the term “dimension” and how it has been used in science.
Finally, almost there. A sign above the exit read, “You are free to leave.” Was I?
• Jared Tanner’s What is Free Will? tries to locate the definition of free will with respect to physical determinism and randomness.
As I reached the exit, to my left I saw a warped mirror. It seemed to suggest to me that I should not forget to include myself among the monstrosities and vulgar sights of this circus.
• In The Positive Conceivability of Zombies I argue that Chalmers’ response to the “positive conceivability” objection to the zombie argument is erroneous, at least when taking into consideration the very intuitions that motivate the zombie argument.
The carnival ended, but it would be traveling to another town
Summary of exhibits:
• Philosophical ‘Meta-Gaming’ covers the errors that can commonly arise in considering hypothetical philosophical scenarios. Notably, we must be careful not to illegitimately import our actual knowledge into the hypothetical scenario.
• Why not joint appointments in the UK? discusses the value of joint appointments in academia, which promote and recognize interdisciplinary work, and questions why they have not been implemented as much in the U.K.
• Fodor’s Done It Again gives a brief but informative summary of Jerry Fodor’s new book, LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited.
• In Dasein for Dummies, Gary Williams explores the meaning of Dasein and why Heidegger chose to take that term as the central point of his investigations in Being and Time.
• Joseph Orasco, in Equity, Empathy, and the Wise Latina Judge, looks at the reaction to Judge Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, and discusses the extent to which judges must consider the particularities of individual persons when deciding their cases.
• Beating Singer at his Own Game assess Singer’s drowning child argument and poses a problem. If one’s suit could be sold off with the proceeds going to charities that could save several children’s lives, it would seem one is not obligated to save the drowning child.
• Tony Lloyd, in A Bayesian Argument Against Induction, attempts to argue from Bayesian grounds to the conclusion that induction does not exist.
• Andrew Bernardin’s My Brain Has At Least 147 Dimensions interrogates the connotations of the term “dimension” and how it has been used in science.
• Jared Tanner’s What is Free Will? tries to locate the definition of free will with respect to physical determinism and randomness.
• In The Positive Conceivability of Zombies I argue that Chalmers’ response to the “positive conceivability” objection to the zombie argument is erroneous, at least when taking into consideration the very intuitions that motivate the zombie argument.
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