Philosophy Miscellany

For a long time I have conceived philosophy as the examination of assumptions that most people never question or are even aware of, especially the fundamental ones, such as that we have a mind or soul separate from our body or that we have free will or even that we exist at all. What philosophers then do is consider the reasons to believe or deny the assumption, and also whether the assumption might be reinterpreted. It is my considered view after a career in philosophy that none of these issues is ever decided once for all. Nevertheless I find value in the enterprise from the very turning of assumptions into questions, that is, issues about which people may reasonably disagree. This has the benign effect of supporting a greater mutual tolerance and respect among people who disagree even fundamentally.             A further benefit of – and way to characterize – philosophy is that it generates hypotheses. For by turning an assumption into a question, it in effect creates the hypothes

For some time now I have been arguing that concepts are polysemous, which is to say that they have multiple meanings. I derive this claim from the common usage of terms, which seem to be referring to the same thing and yet have distinct, even conflicting meanings. I have argued that this is not always a case of mere homonymy but evidences the deep ambiguity of language and even thought. Nevertheless I need not press that strong claim in most cases, since the practical upshot may be the same either way: No matter whether due to homonymy or polysemy, ambiguity abounds, and it is often helpful to dispel it by the careful explication of what one means, that is, of how one is using a particular word.             Thus my general preface to the topic of this essay, which is rationality. I have already written much about what this concept means in its various meanings. See especially “ What Is It to be Rational? ” Right now I want only to add a peculiar case (which itself no doubt has severa