When the proverbial tree falls in the forest, it vibrates creating sound waves that will, under normal conditions, cause a sound-experience as of a crashing tree in the mind of any normal hearer who is within range. There are plenty of vibrations and sound waves, and conditionas are ideal, but alas, there is no one around in that isolated forest, not even a wood-pixie, to have any sound-experiences at all. Was there a sound nevertheless? I say yes. "Sound" in its primary, objective use picks out, roughly, whatever features underlie the objective auditory properties we take ourself to perceive in the world outside us--vibration-events in the tree, more or less, or perhaps the soundwaves they cause. When I say that I hear the resplendent sound of that trumpet, I take myself to be representing a feature of the trumpet (or it's current activity) not a feature of my mind, though I recognize that my auditory capacities are required to accomplish this representation. Cases of auditory illusion (or...

You're right, I think, that this is largely a psychological matter. So I respond here mostly as a fellow parent struggling with precisely this issue. Yesterday, Annabel, the pet goldfish of our our almost four-year old daughter, Lane, died suddenly while Lane was watching . Lane knew immediately what had happened: "Annabel died!" So we weren't confronted with the dilemma of whether to sneak out to a pet store during her nap to buy a fishy-doppelganger. But even though Annabel's death was surprisingly non-traumatic for Lane, it has raised in her all sorts of questions about her dead grandparents (one of whom she knew) and some other deceased pets. We reply that all these people and pets go to the same place. And when she asks where, we say that we don't know. This is border-line misleading, since we're atheists posing as agnostics. (I once replied that they all "went into the ground", but this seemed unnecessarily grim, and not exactly true about Anabel anyway, since she went down the drain.) The...

It depends what you mean by "ultimate purpose". Sex and all that goes with it (the associated pleasures, the urges, the courtship-instincts) has clearly evolved because of its role in reproduction. It wouldn't exist if it didn't play this role. So if something's "ultimate purpose" is to serve that role the playing of which led evolutionarily to its existence, then, yes, sex is ultimately for reproduction. This is true, I think, even though this notion of purpose is, I take it, problematic on evolutionary grounds. One complication is that a thing (a process, a feature, a characteristic) may be a mere evolutionary by-product, and so not have a purpose in this sense. Moreover, things that evolve for one reason might start to serve new purposes, and persist and spread because of this. And finally a thing's evolutionary purpose(s) (if any) might be entirely indiscernible to us. I presume, though, that none of this applies to sex. In fact, sex is probably the only thing that I (from my armchair) feel...

That's an interesting question. Certainly we don't begrudge a person advocating a position she may not support when it's her role to advocate this position. I'm thinking here of lawyers and certain members of government. However, in these cases the idea (though perhaps not the reality) is that truth and overall goodness will be achieved through a general process or system of advocacy. (Also, in such cases, arguments aren't put forth in the author's name alone, but rather on behalf of a client or agency.) One might argue that non-fiction can sometimes be part of a similar system--so that there's some good in throwing out proposals, suggestions and arguments one may not endorse in order that they be digested by a process that will, precisely through grappling with a variety of positions, arrive at a more comprehensive, nuanced and accurate view of reallity. (In certain moments I view professional philosophy in this way.) But these cases seem exceptional to me. Even when the system allows it, the...

You're right that the use of "largest" and "smallest" involves some comparison class, even if this is only implicit. We can say that the largest postage stamp is a lot smaller than the smallest planet because we are, of course, comparing the largest stamp to other stamps, and the smallest planet (Mercury?) to other planets. (Note also that "largest" and "smallest" can be used with different implicit senses of "size". Thus, the largest blunder of my life (not buying Google when it went public) needn't be very large in any physical sense.) To make things explicit, then, your questions are (or might be?): Is there a spatially largest physical object? Is there a spatially smallest one? And you're right, unfortunately, these are really best asked of a physicist. However, answering them will, I think, depend upon certain partly philosophical issues such as whether it makes sense to speak of spatial extension when it comes to micro-particles, and whether the universe as a whole can be considered an "object".

Allowing that we can know anything at all, we can certainly knowthings--that there is currently a red rock on my desk, forexample--without knowing truth itself--that is, without knowing that agiven theory of truth is correct. In fact, I suspect most philosopherstake themselves to be in precisely this position, since the theoryof truth is so thorny. (If you don't want to take my word for this, please read thevarious entiries under "Truth" in the Stanford Encyclopedia.) But thisis really no more surprising than my being able to see that the rock isred without seeing (or knowing) the nature of redness, or of colorsgenerally. Is knowing true things more important than knowingthe nature of truth? Everyday knowledge has greater survival value to be sure, butknowing the correct theory of truth would be extremely satisfying. Andyou would shine in a room full of philosophers...if you could defend it.

By my lights, both you and the vet did exactly the right things. You initially helped the bird help itself (by putting it out of harm's way), and then, when that seemed insufficient, took it to a place where you thought it could get medical attention. In my view, the vet also did the right thing in euthanizing the gull on his or her considered judgment that any other course of action would result in much greater suffering. Your qualms seem really to be with euthanasia, and your role in enabling it. One question to ask is how you think the gull (or the world) would have been better had the the gull not been euthanized, but rather left, in all likelihood, to die much more painfully a few days later. Many would argue that the euthanasia maximized the quality if not the length of the gull's life. The gull may have died more naturally and with more dignity if let be, but this is debatable I think, and in any case difficult to weigh against the much greater suffering. We have to be careful here to strip away...

My pet rock, Rocky exists--he's on the desk in front of me. But this doesn't entail that Rocky thinks. In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't. That's why I like him so much. But if Rocky were to think something, then he would surely think. "I am" is something that a thinker could think. So is "I think". So, someone (not Rocky, alas) could think either of these, and on the basis of doing so conclude that she thinks. But of course her thinking wouldn't follow from her existence any more than it does in Rocky's case. Her thinking would follow from her thinking one of those thoughts. So, what does "I am, therefore I think" mean? It's false if means: I exist, and because of this I think. It's true if it means (roughly): I think that I exist, and because of this I think. (Or: I'm a speaker/thinker (as we can see from my currently asserting that I exist), and because of this I think.) On the second interpretation, the statement is "truer" than what Descartes said, if what he said is...

Philosophy has much to say about this type of distinction, though I doubt I'm the one to say it. Nevertheless... It seems quite right to distinguish between the normative or prescriptive question of what the ends or even choices of an individual or institution ought to be, and the descriptive question of what, as a matter of fact, they were or are likely to be in a particular case. Moreover, it's important, as the books emphasize, to keep these different questions in mind as one assesses proposals, explanations and theories. I might predict that you will come to financial ruin because of a strong preference (e.g., for expensive wines) which I don't think you should have, or a series of choices (e.g., to invest in junk-bonds) which I don't think you should make. And I might argue that the government should raise taxes even though I predict it won't, and even though I doubt its policy leaders share the crucial assumptions that ground my normative view. So the distinction between normative and the...

It depends, and even then it depends. It depends first upon whether we ever discover our massive misconceptions. If not, then I imainge we'd continue along merrily piling fancy details upon them. But if (as I think you are imagining) we one day discover that we've gotten it all wrong, then what happens depends upon the inclination of the discoverers, and their culture. There would be shell-shock, certainly, and perhaps some desire to keep heads in the sand and continue on oblivious to the truth. But it's difficult to live by claims we know to be false--try it sometime. And we humans have a genuine built-in urge to understand the way our world works--some say it's what distinguishes us from the other animals. So in all likelihood, we would soon embark upon fresh attempts to understand the way the world actually works--new experiments, new theories, and new conceptual frameworks. I hereby propose, though, that an independent commission be established to determine how on earth we got everything wrong....