Category Archives: Nature of Knowledge

Articles concerning the nature of knowledge, including descriptions of neurological constructivism and pragmatic empiricism.

Realism & Epirealism

Let’s start with one of the first questions that comes up in philosophical inquiry—Is there a real world external to my sensual experiences and thoughts, or is everything only in my head? This presents us with the first meaning of … Continue reading

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Questioning Direct Realism

In his book, Seeing Things As They Are [Oxford Press, 2015] John Searle says that objects in the observer-independent world cause our subjective visual perceptions. And that as a consequence, seeing is knowing. For example, when I look at a … Continue reading

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Skepticism, Pragmatism and Empiricism

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Pragmatism… Richard Rorty (1931–2007) turned consciously to pragmatism to rectify what he saw as mainstream epistemology’s crucial mistake: naively conceiving of language and thought as ‘mirroring’ the world. Rorty’s bold and iconoclastic … Continue reading

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Mind-Stuff

Summary: Mind-stuff refers to sensations and meanings (which are also sensations) produced using (probably) reference frames stored in the cerebral cortex/neocortex. How does mind-stuff relate to the world? Our thoughts and feelings, our sensations and memories, are the only medium … Continue reading

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Are Mountains Real?

[Post at Preface to Atheism, Apr 27, 2024.] When philosophers ask if something is real, they mean: Does it exist independently of our thoughts? Whose thoughts, exactly? Well, generally, human thoughts. Our in this context means us as a species. … Continue reading

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Elon Musk is bad at math

[Post at Preface to Atheism, Apr 11, 2024] Is Elon Musk bad at mathematics? The suggestion may not shock readers who remember him foolishly paying $44 billion for Twitter (now X). For that I give him a pass. He wanted … Continue reading

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Roundess & What is Real

[Post at Preface to Atheism, Sept 16, 2023.] It’s natural to assume that what we see when we open our eyes is what the world looks like, that we see it as is. Sure, there may be more to it … Continue reading

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What is naturalism?

[This was my second post on Preface to Atheism, Aug 23, 2023.] In my first post I talked about my sudden flip to a natural worldview when I was young. I mentioned that I didn’t call what I believed naturalism … Continue reading

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Preface to Atheism

[Preface to Atheism is a blog I started on SubStack. What follows is the first post from Aug 18, 2023] In this Substack, I will advocate atheism as entailed by the meta philosophy of naturalism rather than atheism based on … Continue reading

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Fallacies of the Naive Observer

Today I’m going to discuss a fallacy common to observers of the physical world (people like us), one which has significant practical importance. I call it the naive observer fallacy, and it goes something like this. (1) Observers bring biases … Continue reading

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