Roy Sorensen

“A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.” This enthymeme, widely attributed to Frederick Douglass, suggests a strengthening of the Stoic claim that no insult can disturb the tranquility of the sage. Instead of shielding the Stoic, virtue disarms the assailant attempting the insult. Un-insultability comports better with the Stoic’s concern for the moral welfare of others—even those who mean you harm. The feminist analysis of illocutionary silencing suggests a plausible mechanism for this stronger interpretation. Accordingly, Stoic counsel on insults is reinterpreted in light of J. L. Austin’s theory of speech acts.

Which is older: day or night? Thales is said to have answered “Night is the older by one day.” Recent research bridges this mysterious riddle with the first conceptual puzzle published by Lewis Carroll: “Where does the day begin?” Once understood in its context, Thales’s day and night riddle presents an opportunity to view astronomy in a sort of reverse perspective. In addition to stimulating this gestalt switch, the day and night riddle fuels speculation that Thales had an insight into the hidden antiquity of the night (and day) and that he correctly inferred that the night is older than the Earth itself.

We routinely lie to mindless machines, such as present-day computers, but they cannot lie to us. A mindless machine cannot lie because it cannot assert. One of the ways we can assert is by going on the record. The recorder need only make the assertion accessible to hearers. This is compatible with the speaker knowing that no one will actually access the recorded assertion. For instance, you lied when you last checked the box affirming that you read the service agreement to your computer’s new software. But you did not intend to deceive anyone. How did you manage to lie in such psychologically barren circumstances? An answer is suggested by the legal concept of estoppel.

In the course of demarcating the senses, Aristotle defined sound in _De Anima_ as the proper object of hearing: ‘sight has colour, hearing sound, and taste flavour’ (II.6, 418b13). Sound cannot be seen, tasted, smelled, or felt. And nothing other than sound can be directly heard. All subsequent commentators agree, often characterizing the principle as an analytic truth. This chapter argues that there is a single exception. We hear silence, which is the absence of sounds. Silence cannot be seen, tasted, smelled, or felt. It can only be heard. It is argued that hearing silence is the successful perception of the absence of a sound, not the failure to hear a sound.

I am modest about my spelling accuracy. Oops, I cannot consistently believe that! Modesty about my spelling entails I underestimate my spelling. If I indeed underestimate my spelling accuracy, then my ignorance about spelling accuracy is contagious. For if I believe you and I are equals at spelling, then my modesty commits me to underestimating your spelling. In addition to my ignorance of my merit spreading to my ignorance of your merit, my ignorance can make you ignorant. After all, how do you know that I am modest rather than accurate? In general, any modesty I possess robs my peers.

A thorough telepath in an otherwise mindless world would have an observational basis for solipsism. He would perceive an absence of other minds. How would things appear to the lone telepath? Given sufficient scepticism about introspection, exactly as they now seem to you. This perceptual solipsist would exclude other minds on the basis of evidence rather than the absence of evidence. He would be open‐minded, ready to revise his opinion as rapidly as any perceiver. Any intransigence would be a side‐effect of his theory about the senses. Temperamentally, he need not be a loner. The solipsist's ethics could be altruistic, his politics democratic, and his social preferences gregarious. At the same time, his solipsism would inform his hopes for immortality, his career choice and his means of communication.1.

The principle of charity says that all agents are rational. The principle of meta‐charity says that all agents believe all agents are rational. My thesis is that the arguments which are used to support charity also support meta‐charity. Meta‐charity implies meta‐meta‐charity. By recursion, the principle of charity implies that it is common knowledge. But there appears to be intelligent, well‐informed disagreement with the principle of charity. So if the entailment thesis holds, opponents of the principle of charity have a new objection to the principle. Defenders of the principle of charity must either refute the entailment thesis or accept much stronger consequences than they expected. “As I am, so I see.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson.

This chapter focuses on the views of Australian philosopher-physicist Ernst Mach, the earliest and most systematic writer on thought experiments. It discusses Mach's response to the problem of informativeness. It then details the book's disagreements with Mach. It is argued that Mach's mistakes can be traced to his sensationalism and a one-sided diet of examples. His sensationalism led him to overemphasize the mentalistic aspects of thought experiment and to throw away tools needed to explain its genuinely a priori features. Perhaps because of this, Mach's attention gravitated toward thought experiments he could explain and away from the recalcitrant normative examples. To get a complete account of thought experiments, we should reject sensationalism and consider how armchair inquiry works in general.

This enjoyable book presents a potpourri of paradoxes with the purpose of showing how they connect to serious philosophical issues. The main paradoxes are Zeno's, the sorites, Newcomb's problem, the paradoxes of confirmation, the surprise examination, and the paradoxes of self-reference. A final chapter defends the assumption that contradictions are unacceptable and an appendix throws in sixteen minor paradoxes. Along the way, R. M. Sainsbury peppers the reader with helpful queries and provocative asides.