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3569On Bullshit Harry G. Frankfurt Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, 67 pp., $9.95 (review)Dialogue 45 (3): 617-620. 2006.According to Frankfurt’s analysis, bullshitting and lying necessarily differ in intention. I argue contra Frankfurt that (i) bullshitting can be lying, and that (ii) bullshitting need involve neither misrepresentation nor intention to deceive. My discussion suggests that bullshit is not capturable by a simple formula and that, although illuminating, Frankfurt’s analysis is limited to one paradigm.
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1874The Normative Significance of Flatulence: Aesthetics, Etiquette, and EthicsIAFOR Journal of Arts and Humanities 7 (1): 17-25. 2020.Proceeding on the basis of reports of a proposal in 2011 to criminalize public flatulence in Malawi, the normative significance of flatulence is considered from the respective standpoints of aesthetics, etiquette, and ethics, and it is indicated how aesthetics and etiquette may themselves also have ethical significance. It is concluded that etiquette and ethics may both require that certain violations of etiquette and ethics should sometimes be ignored.
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458Intentionality and the non-psychologicalPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 46 (4): 531-54. 1986.IT IS SHOWN IN DETAIL THAT RECENT ACCOUNTS FAIL TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN INTENTIONALITY AND MERELY CAUSALLY DISPOSITIONAL STATES OF INORGANIC PHYSICAL OBJECTS—A QUICK ROAD TO PANPSYCHISM. THE CLEAR NEED TO MAKE SUCH A DISTINCTION GIVES DIRECTION FOR FUTURE WORK. A BEGINNING IS MADE TOWARD PROVIDING SUCH AN ACCOUNT.
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332Some by the Way Remarks on Wreen's 'By' WaysAnalysis 48 (2). 1988.WREEN'S PROPOSAL FOR AVOIDING CAUSAL LOOPS IN THE DESCRIPTION OF ACTION IS, I ARGUE, ITSELF LOOPY.
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308Review – Correct English: Reality or Myth? (review)Metapsychology Online Reviews 21 (10). 2017.Geoffrey Marnell presents philosophical arguments favoring grammatical descriptivism over grammatical prescriptivism. I argue that his explanation and defence of descriptivism reveal that his descriptivism is itself prescriptivist.
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278Orgasm and artAcademic Voices 2021 18-20. 2021.Karl Pfeifer argues against the view that an aesthetic experience must be a uniquely special kind of experience by means of an analogy with sexual experiences. Nonetheless, he leaves open the possibility that some aesthetic experiences might still be of a special kind.
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254Naïve PanentheismIn Godehard Brüntrup, Benedikt Paul Göcke & Ludwig Jaskolla (eds.), Panentheism and Panpsychism: Philosophy of Religion Meets Philosophy of Mind, Mentis. pp. 123-138. 2020.Karl Pfeifer attempts to present a coherent view of panentheism that eschews Pickwickian senses of “in” and aligns itself with, and builds upon, familiar diagrammed portrayals of panentheism. The account is accordingly spatial-locative and moreover accepts the proposal of R.T. Mullins that absolute space and time be regarded as attributes of God. In addition, however, it argues that a substantive parthood relation between the world and God is required. Pfeifer’s preferred version of panpsychism,…Read more
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254Actions and Other Events: The Unifier-multiplier ControversyPeter Lang. 1989.This book is a general defence of Donald Davidson's and G.E.M. Anscombe's 'unifying' approach to the individuation of actions and other events against objections raised by Alvin I. Goldman and others. It is argued that, ironically, Goldman's rival 'multiplying' account is itself vulnerable to these objections, whereas Davidson's account survives them. Although claims that the unifier-multiplier dispute is not really substantive are shown to be unfounded, some room for limited agreement over the …Read more
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232Boring Philosophy Professors, Streetwalkers, and the Joy of SexIn Kishor Vaidya (ed.), Teach Philosophy with a Sense of Humor: Why (and How to) Be a Funnier and More Effective Philosophy Teacher and Laugh All the Way to Your Classroom, The Curious Academic Publishing. 2021.Karl Pfeifer distinguishes between humor used extraneously in the delivery of philosophical content and humor intrinsic to the content itself: “Enlivening the delivery isn’t the same as enlivening the content of the delivery.” Using examples from topics in philosophy of mind and moral philosophy he illustrates how humor can be used to make certain ideas more engaging and memorable for students. He also gives an example of what to avoid.
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224Review – Mathematical Doodlings (review)Metapsychology Online Reviews 21 (45). 2017.A review of Geoffrey Marnell, Mathematical Doodlings: Curiosities, conjectures, and challenges.
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216The Sudden, the Sudded, and the SidesplittingIn Kjell S. Johannessen & Tore Nordenstam (eds.), Culture and Value: Philosophy and the Cultural Sciences (Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, Vol. 3, 1995), Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. pp. 224-232. 1995.
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200The Modern Idea of History and its Value: An Introduction, by Chiel van den AkkerInternational Network for Theory of History. 2021.
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191From Locus Neoclassicus to Locus Rattus: Notes on Laughter, Comprehensiveness, and TitillationRes Cogitans 3 (1). 2006.Abstract. This paper illustrates how philosophy and science may converge and inform one another. I begin with a brief rehearsal of John Morreall’s “formulaic” theory of laughter, that laughter results from a pleasant psychological shift, and of my previously published criticisms and counterproposal that laughter results from titillation (where “titillation” is a semitechnical term). I defend my own position against charges that it is trivial, circular, or vacuous (charges that, if correct, woul…Read more
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191What did Hecker say about laughter? Funny you should askIsraeli Journal of Humor Research 9 (2): 44-48. 2020.The Darwin-Hecker hypothesis, viz. that laughter induced by tickling and humor share common underlying mechanisms, is so-called in part because of a quotation attributed to Ewald Hecker. However, a German counterpart of the quotation does not appear in the location cited. Some textual sleuthing is undertaken to find out what Hecker actually wrote and where he wrote it.
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162D.M. Armstrong And Norman Malcolm, Consciousness And Causality (review)Philosophy in Review 5 279-281. 1985.
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162Review of R. Wells Imre, Knowing and Caring: Philosophical Issues in Social Work. (review)Canada's Mental Health 32 19-20. 1984.
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156Philosophy outside the academy: The role of philosophy in people-oriented professions and the prospects for philosophical counselingInquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 14 (2): 58-69. 1994.I suggest that the current interest in philosophical counseling is comparable to the situation in the Sixties when many philosophy graduates entertained false hopes of nonacademic philosophical employment. I describe my own experience as a welfare worker, in the course of which my philosophical training proved useful in various ways; I maintain, though, that there was nothing especially philosophical in this. I then consider some ways in which philosophical counseling might be distinctively phil…Read more
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151Humour again [letter]Cogito 4 (1): 210. 1990.Several counterexamples are adduced against the view that surprise is an essential ingredient of humor.
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149A Short Vindication of Reichenbach's «Event-Splitting»Logique Et Analyse 31 (121-122): 143-152. 1988.In "The Logical Form of Action Sentences" Donald Davidson argues that Hans Reichenbach's analysis of action and event sentences is "radically defective." I show that Reichenbach can easily deflect Davidson's objections, thus leaving their respective accounts largely comparable.
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149Chisholm on Psychological AttributesIn Roberto Casati & Graham White (eds.), Philosophy and the Cognitive Sciences: Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. pp. 413-417. 1993.What is it for an attribute to be psychological? One clever and inventive, albeit somewhat Byzantine answer to this vexing philosophical question has lately been proposed by Roderick M. Chisholm. Chisholm’s approach is to take a small number of technical philosophical notions as given and then employ these in a series of definitions which together yield an account of the psychological. I examine Chisholm’s account and show that it doesn’t work.
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120This is the commentary on Richard C. Richards, "Humor and Happiness”, read at the Lighthearted Philosophers' Society 5th Annual Conference, 14 October 2011, Treasure Island, Florida.
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119DM Armstrong and Norman Malcolm, Consciousness and Causality Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 5 (7): 279-281. 1985.
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95A Note on a Cold Case: Wittgenstein’s Allusion to a Fairy TaleGramarye (24): 29-34. 2023.Karl Pfeifer revisits Wittgenstein’s parenthetical allusion in the _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ to the Grimms’ fairytale “The Golden Lads”, confirming that it does not work well as an illustration of the notion of “internal identity” that figures in Wittgenstein’s picture theory. He then proposes alternative ways of understanding the relationship of identity apparent in “The Golden Lads”.
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77Pantheism as PanpsychismIn Andrei A. Buckareff & Yujin Nagasawa (eds.), Alternative Concepts of God: Essays on the Metaphysics of the Divine, Oxford University Press. pp. 41-49. 2016.This chapter suggests how certain problematic claims of pantheism might be made more intelligible. It shows, first, that some pantheistic God-talk is comparable to talk involving mass terms; treating “God” as a mass term affords us a way of understanding, for example, how parts can seemingly be identified with the wholes of which they are the parts, as per the claim that “God is everything and everything is God”. This chapter then goes on to describe a contemporary variant of panpsychism, a vari…Read more
Wantirna South, VIC, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Aesthetics |
Areas of Interest
Aesthetics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
20th Century Philosophy |