Philosophy essays (updated 2/6/05) 


I have just published the various philosophy essays I have written over the last six months as HTML pages, accessible via my philosophy home page, and PDF files available via my downloads page. I will be keeping these pages up to date with any new writing, but at the moment (if there is any such thing!), the contents are as follows… 

The Ghost and the Machine follows on from The Union of Mind and Body (see below) to examine Bertrand Russell's theory of 'neutral monism', which suggests that mind and body are simply two different views of the same thing. Taking quantum physics and neuroscience into account, Russell's theory posits events as the basic building block of reality, and gives a comprehensive and—in my view, anyway—convincing answer to the so-called mind-body problem.

McTaggart’s Argument for the Unreality of Time is a discussion of J M E McTaggart's famous argument that our conception of time is based on a fallacy. Although I agree with him, I argue that the problem is even more fundamental, as the idea of an objective ordering of events that is independent of any observer simply contradicts what we know about the physical workings of our universe.

Is Evolutionary Ethics a Viable Metaethical Theory? examines the role of evolutionary theory in providing an empirical grounding for philosophical theories of ethics. Although the two areas have traditionally been seen as addressing separate problems, I argue that only evolution by natural selection is capable of explaining both the source and justification of ethical theory, and as such, has some fairly hefty implications for our understanding of both human and animal ethics.

The Union of Mind and Body examines how it is possible for the mind and body to interact if they are envisaged as two separate substances, as advocated by Descartes. After considering the views of Malebranche (occasionalism) and Leibniz (pre-established harmony), I adopt a position similar to that of Spinoza, who considered mental and physical properties to be two different aspects of the same underlying substance whose nature is beyond what is known to physical science today.

Plato’s Theory of Happiness analyses precisely what Plato means by ‘eudaimonia’—often translated as ‘flourishing’, or simply ‘happiness’—in his most famous work, The Republic, and comes to some interesting conclusions as to what this word really means and how to achieve it. For further discussion, see my previous blog entry on the subject.

Primary and Secondary Qualities discusses the relationship between the so-called primary qualities of extension, movement and numerical quantity, and secondary qualities such as colour, texture, taste, etc. that we ‘impute’ these upon physical objects by means of our senses. Includes an analysis of Descartes, Galileo, Hobbes and Locke's views on the subject.

The Complex Relationship Between the State, the Soul and its Parts in Plato’s Republic looks at some of the issues associated with Plato's analogy between the psyche of the individual and the structure of the state. The ability of this analogy to support a coherent definition of justice—the main theme of The Republic—is considered and, although problematic, it is found to shed a lot of light upon the nature of both institutions, and their mutually dependent and reinforcing nature. 

Posted on Friday - May 20, 2005 at 07:05 PM            

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