Author Archives: Simon

Larry Shiner reviews Lambert Zuidervaart’s new book, Art in Public: Politics, Economics, and a Democratic Culture.

Jason Streitfeld proposes an objective standard for evaluating the success of works of art, independent of how many people actually like them. You can read Russell Blackford’s earlier denial of any such standard here.

Michael S Pearl argues that, inasmuch as it requires a real capacity to choose between different courses of action, the idea of free will is incompatible with strict determinism.

There’s an interesting post in the Philosopher’s Beard blog on the importance of Ruut Veenhoven’s World Database of Happiness.

Not a lot, suggests Russell Blackford.

Nicely provocative interview here (in the New Scientist magazine) following publication of Law’s new book, Believing Bullshit.

Joshua Knobe reports on his experimental follow-ups to Eddy Nahmias’ and Dylan Murray’s series of studies on the seemingly perceived difference between the ideas of “cause” and “reason for action”.

Experimental philosopher Edouard Machery presents three recent papers on the role and status of intuitions in philosophical argument, and on the importance of surveying them experimentally. However, Clayton Littlejohn worries about the kind of evidence you get from surveying thought … Continue reading →

Clayton Littlejohn gives a useful analysis of Alvin Goldman’s argument (in Internalism Exposed) against the idea that believers can always consciously access the reasons for their beliefs when their beliefs are justified.

Peter Singer writes that Derek Parfit has shown that moral judgments can be objectively right or wrong in his new essay On What Matters.