Maverick Philosopher

More on Jerry Coyne on Free Will

This is a sequel to an earlier discussion. You should read it first. Coyne writes, There's not much downside to abandoning the notion of free will. It's impossible, anyway, to act as though we don't have it: you'll pretend to choose...

Tim Maudlin: Hawking "Just Doesn't Know What He's Talking About"

In this Atlantic article on the philosophy of cosmology, Tim Maudlin states: Hawking is a brilliant man, but he's not an expert in what's going on in philosophy, evidently. Over the past thirty years the philosophy of physics has beco...

Plato's Cave and the Garden of Eden

An archeologist who claimed to have uncovered the site of Plato's Cave would be dismissed as either a prankster or a lunatic. There never was any such cave as is described in the magnificent Book VII of Plato's Republic. And there neve...