Blog Posts

September 30th, 2020

30/9/2020

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

La Dolce Vita 1960 F Fellini
Escape From Alcatraz 1979 D Siegel
Dark City 1998 A Proyas
Public Enemies 2009 M Mann
Coming Home 2014 Z Yimou

Academic Essays

Philosophy of Mind/Metaphysics/Perception

J Kim 2005 Supervenience, emergence, realisation, reduction
M Kalderon 2007 Color pluralism
U Kriegel 2017 Brentano's concept of mind
G Rosen 2017 Metaphysical relations in metaethics

Aesthetics

N Zangwill 2003 Aesthetic realism 1

History of Philosophy

D Yandell 1997 What Descartes really told Elisabeth
A Schechtman 2016 Substance and independence in Descartes

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August 31st, 2020

31/8/2020

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Knife in the water (1962) R Polanski
The gambler (1974) K Reisz
Starred up (2013) D McKenzie
Sweet bean (2015) N Kawase
Paterson (2016) J Jarmush
The Neon Demon (2016) NWF
Manchester by the sea (2016) K Lonergan

Academic Essays

Philosophy of Mind/Metaphysics

J Fodor (1980) The mind-body problem
J Kim (1990) Supervenience as a philosophical concept
B McLaughlin (1997) Supervenience, vagueness, and determination
M Johnston (1998) Are manifest qualities response-dependent?
P Pettit (2003) Looks as powers

History of Philosophy

D Garber (1983) Understanding interaction

Aesthetics

J Levinson (1983) Aesthetic supervenience
G Currie (1990) Supervenience, essentialism, and aesthetic properties
J Bender (1996) Realism, supervenience and irresolvable aesthetic disputes
J Bender (2003) Aesthetic realism 2
J Levinson (2005) What are aesthetic properties?
D Hudson Hick (2012) Aesthetic supervenience revisited

Books

H Crews (1976) A feast of snakes

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June 30th, 2020

30/6/2020

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

The Cloud Capped Star (1960) R Ghatak
The Great Escape (1963) J Sturges
Why Does Herr R Run Amok? (1970) RW Fassbendir
Vanishing Point (1971) R Sarafin
The Taking of Phelam 1, 2, 3 (1974) J Sargent
35 Shots of Rum (2008) C Denis
Poetry (2010) CD Lee
Beautiful Boy (2018) F van Groeningen
Burning (2018) CD Lee

Academic Essays

Aesthetics/Phil of Art

C Brooks (1947) The heresy of paraphrase
G Currie (1991) Work and text
D Bordwell (1996) Convention, construction and cinematic vision
P Livingston (2005) literary aesthetics and the aims of criticism
S Feagin (2015) Reading plays as literature

Philosophy of Mind/Perception/Concepts (Phil/Cog Science)

E Smith & D Osheron (1984) Conceptual combination with prototype concepts
J Fodor (1985) Fodor's guide to mental representation
T Burge (1986) Intellectual norms and foundations of mind
T Burge (1993) Concepts, definition and meaning
J Fodor (1995) Concepts: a potboiler
D Medin et alia (2000) Are there kinds of concepts?
K Johnson (2004) On the systematicity of language and thought
E Margolis & S Laurence (2007) The ontology of concepts
V Giardino & M Greenberg (2012) Varieties of iconicity
D Weiskopf (2014) The architecture of higher thought
E Camp (2015) Logical concepts and associative characteristics
Å Wikforss (2018) Incomplete understanding of concepts

Epistemology

J Lackey (2011) Testimony

Fiction (short stories/plays)

Euripides (405BCE) The Bacchae
W Faulkner (1930) A rose for Emily
JP Sartre (1946) The Respectable Prostitute
A Adamov (1953) Professor Taranne
R Carver (1983) Cathedral

Fiction (books)

J Conrad (1904) Nostromo
J Thompson (1958) The Getaway

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May 31st, 2020

31/5/2020

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Wild Strawberries (1957) I Bergman
Vertigo (1958) A Hitchcock
Ballad of a Soldier (1959) G Chukhray
The Damned (1969) L Visconti
Sbatti il Mostro in Prima Pagina (1972) M Bellocchio
Chinatown (1974) R Polanski
Série Noire (1979) A Corneau
Big Trouble in Little China (1986) J Carpenter
Raise the Red Lantern (1991) Zhang Yimou
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) G Miller

Academic Essays

Aesthetics

J Levinson (1992) Pleasure and the value of art
D Matravers (1999) Aesthetic concepts and aesthetic experience
J Levinson (2001) Aesthetic properties, evaluative force, and sensibility
N Zangwill (2001) The beautiful, the dainty, and the dumpy
R De Clercq (2008) The structure of aesthetic properties
J Levinson (2009) Aesthetic pleasure

Philosophy of Mind/Perception/Concepts (Phil/Cog Science)

E Rosch (1978) Principles of categorization
G Murphy & D Medin (1982) The role of theories in conceptual coherence
G Rey (1983) Concepts and stereotypes
G Harman (1987) (Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual role semantics
G Harman (1990) The intrinsic character of experience
S Stich (1994) What is a theory of mental representation?
R Cummin (1996) Systematicity
N Block (2002) Concepts of consciousness
N Block (2003) Consciousness
N Block (2003) Mental paint
M Montague (2017) Cognitive phenomenology
M Montague (2017) Perception and cognitive phenomenology

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April 30th, 2020

30/4/2020

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

The French Connection (1971) W Friedkin
The Getaway (1972) S Peckinpah
Roma a mano armata (1976) U Lenzi
The Driver (1978) W Hill
Babel (2006) A Inarritu
Boyhood (2014) R Linklater
1917 (2019) S Mendes
Ozark, Season 3 (2020)
Better Call Saul, Season 5 (2020)

Academic Essays

Epistemology/Philosophy of Mind/Aesthetics

N Carroll (1998) Art, narrative and moral understanding
J Fodor (2007) The revenge of the given (I dislike the style, though)
E Camp (2009) Putting thoughts to work
R Bonzon (2009) Think aesthetic concepts
D Pritchard (2010) The nature and value of knowledge: chapter 4
S Laurence & E Margolis (2012) The scope of the conceptual
N Zangwill (2014) Music, metaphor, and aesthetic concepts
A Hill (2016) Understanding why
J Bengson (2018) The unity of understanding

Short Stories

R Bradbury (1952) A Sound of Thunder

Book

Caesar (58–49) The Gallic War

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March 31st, 2020

31/3/2020

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Pandora's Box (1929) G Pabst
M (1931) Fritz Lang
The Thomas Crown Affairs (1968) N Jewison
Bullitt (1968) P Yates
Get Carter (1971) M Hodges
Alien (1979) R Scott
Aliens (1986) J Cameron
The Thirteenth Floor (1999) J Rusnak
Mystic River (2003) C Eastwood
Deadwood, Season 1 (2004)
Arrested Development, S2 (2004-5)
Arrested Development, S3 (2005-6)
Zodiac (2007) D Fincher
District 9 (2009) N Blonkamp
Argo (2012) Ben Affleck
Tiger King (2020)

Academic Essays

Philosophy of Mind

J Fodor (2004) Having concepts

Applied ethics

J Danahar et alia (2017) Should we campaign against sex robots?

Short Stories

A Kazantsev (1947) Explosion
T Sturgeon (1947) Thunder and roses
A&B Stugatsky (1958) The spontaneous reflex
R Silverberg (1968) Passengers
B Sterling (1989) We see things differently
S Lukyanenko (1992) My dad's an antibiotics
Chen Qiufan (2012) The Fish of Lijiang
Chen Qiufan (2019) Affective Fallacy

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February 29th, 2020

29/2/2020

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Shanghai Express (1932) Josef von Sternberg
Viridiana (1961) L Bunuel
Confidentially Yours (1983) F Truffault
Porco Rosso (1992) H Miyazaki
The Matrix (1999) The Wachowski
Arrested Development, Season 1 (2003)
Uncut Gems (2019) J&B Saldie
Once Upon a Time in Holliwood (2019) Q Tarantino

Academic essays

Philosophy of Art/Aesthetics

F Sibley (1974) Particularity, art and evaluation
M Budd (2003) The acquaintance principle
P Livingston (2003) On an apparent truism in aesthetics
P Livingston (2006) Skepticism, realism, fallibilism in Lem
R Hopkins (2011) How to be a pessimist about aesthetic testimony
D Whiting (2016) The glass is half empty
C Thi Nguyen (2017) The uses of aesthetic testimony

Philosophy of Mind/Metaphysics

D Dennett (1978) Where am I?
J Searle (1980) Minds, brains and programs
B Loar (2003) Qualia, properties, modality
D Chalmers (2005) The Matrix as metaphysics
D Chalmers (2009) The singularity

Epistemology

D Pritchard (2016) Seeing it for yourself

Short stories

R Heinlein (1947) They
H Ellison (1965) Repent Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman
H Ellison (1967) I have no mouth and I must scream
S Lem (1971) Further reminiscences of Ijon Tichy – I
W Gibson (1982) Burning Chrome
G Egan (1990) Learning to be me
G Egan (1992) Closer

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January 2020

31/1/2020

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Star Trek, The Original Series Season 1, Episode 28 (1967)
Love on the Run (1979) F Truffault
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) H Miyazaki
The Shield, Season 5 (2006)
The Shield, Season 6 (2007)
The Shield, Season 7 (2008)
In Bloom (2013) N Ekvtimishvili & S Groß
Black Mirror, White Christmas (2014)

Academic essays

Comparative Philosophy/History of Philosophy/Ethics

E Slingerland (2008) Classical Confucianism (I)

Philosophy of Art/Aesthetics

S Evnine (2015) But is it science fiction?

Philosophy of Mind

B Loar (1997) Phenomenal states
E Diaz-Leon (2016) Phenomenal concepts: neither circular nor opaque

Short stories

HG Wells (1897) The Star
F Scott Fitzgerald (1923) Hot & cold blood
I Asimov (1941) Reason
PK Dick (1966) We can remember it for you wholesale
H Ellison (1967) I have no mouth, and I must scream
P Cadigan (1986) Pretty Boy Crossover
C Mieville (2015) Syllabus

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December 2019

31/12/2019

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Easy Rider (1969) Dennis Hopper
American History X (1998) Tony Kaye
The Shield, Season 1 (2002)
The Shield, Season 2 (2003)
The Shield, Season 3 (2004)
The Irishman (2019) Martin Scorsese
Marriage Story (2019) N Baumbach

Academic essays

Philosophy of Mind/Philosophy of Language

B Loar (2003) Qualia, properties, modality
P Carruthers (2004) Phenomenal concepts and higher order experiences
J Levin (2007) What is a phenomenal concept?
A Grzankowsky & M Tye (forthcoming) What acquaintance teaches

Short stories

HP Lovecraft (1931) At the Mountains of Madness

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November 30th, 2019

30/11/2019

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Miss Julie (1951) Alf Sjoberg
The Importance of Being Earnest (1952) Anthony Asquith
Night of the Living Dead (1968) George A. Romero
State of Siege (1972) Costa-Gavras
Groundhog Day (1993) Harold Ramis
Speed (1994) Jan de Bont
Home (2008) Ursula Meier
Mindhunter, Season 1 (2017)
Mindhunter, Season 2 (2019)
Bojack Horseman, Season 6, Part I (2019)

Academic essays

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art

F Sibley (1959) Aesthetic concepts
F SIbley (1965) Aesthetic and non-aesthetic
R Hopkins (2000) Beauty and testimony

Philosophy of Mind/Philosophy of Language

F Jackson (1982) Epiphenomenal qualia
F Jackson (1986) What Mary didn't know
D Dennett (1987) True believers
B McLaughlin (1987) What is wrong with correlational psychosemantics
B Loar (1988) Social content and psychological content
D Lewis (1988) What experience teaches
B Loar (1997) Phenomenal states
K Farkas (2003) What is externalism?
B Loewer (2007) Mental causation or something near enough
N Block (2007) Concepts of consciousness
K Balog (2012) Acquaintance and the mind-body problem

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October 31st, 2019

31/10/2019

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927) W Ruttman
Milano Calibro 9 (1972) F Di Leo
City on Fire (1987) Ringo Lam
The Seventh Continent (1989) M Haneke
Benny's Video (1992) M Haneke
Reservoir Dogs (1992) Q Tarantino
Das Schloss (1997) M Haneke
Winter on Fire (2015) E Afineevsky
Arctic (2018) Joe Penna
El Camino (2019) V Gilligan
The Laundromat (2019) S Soderbergh

Academic essays

Philosophy of Mind/Philosophy of Language

D Davidson (1970) Mental events
D Davidson (1973) Radical interpretation
D Davidson (1974) Thought and talk
J Searle (1980) Minds, brains, and programs
D Armstrong (1981) The causal theory of the mind
S Shoemaker (1981) Some varieties of functionalism
L Antony (1989) Anomalous monism and the problem of explanatory evidence
D Davidson (1993) Thinking causes
J Yoo (2009) Anomalous monism

Metaphysics

John W. Carroll (2009) Anti-reductionism

Books:

Xenophon (370 BCE) The Expedition of Cyrus

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September 30th, 2019

30/9/2019

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Z (1969) Costa-Gavras
Missing (1982) Costa-Gavras
Death of a Salesman (1985) Volker Schlondorff
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) Werner Herzog
Captain Phillips (2013) Paul Greengrass
The Nice Guys (2016) Shane Black
Unbelievable, S1 (2019)

Short stories:

A. Camus (1957) The Guest
S. Lem (1976) The Mask

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August 31st, 2019

31/8/2019

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

A Farewell to Arms (1932) F Borzage
The Black Cat (1934) EG Ulmer
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) S Spielberg
The Great Hack (2019) K Amer & J Noujaim

Academic essays

Philosophy of Mind

R Carnap (1932/3) Psychology in physical language
C Hempel (1949) The logical analysis of psychology
JC Smart (1959) Sensations and brain processes
UT Place (1956) Is consciousness a brain process?
D Lewis (1966) An argument for the identity theory
H Putnam (1967) The nature of mental states
J Fodor (1974) Special sciences
N Block (1978) Troubles with functionalism
D Lewis (1980) Mad pain and Martian pain
PM Churchland (1981) Eliminative materialism and the propositional attitudes
J Kim (1992) Multiple realisation and the metaphysics of reduction
T Crane (2003) Mental substances
B Montero & D Papineau (2016) Naturalism and physicalism

Short stories:

HG Wells (1905) The Empire of the Ants
S Weinbaum (1934) A Martian Odyssey
D Buzzati (1942) Il Borghese Stregato
D Keyes (1959) Flowers for Algernon
PK Dick (1968) The Electric Ant
S Lem (1971) Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy-I

Books:

HG Wells (1895) The Time Machine
M Bulgakov (1925) Heart of a Dog

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July 31st, 2019

31/7/2019

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

The Minister (2011) Pierre Scholler
Suspiria (2018) Luca Guadagnino [I suspect mostly for sentimental reasons...]
I Am Mother (2019) Grant Sputore

Academic essays

Philosophy of Mind

Franz Brentano (1874) The distinction between mental and physical phenomena
Donald Davidson (1970) Mental events
Jaegwon Kim (1984) Concepts of supervenience
Fred Dretske (1986) Misrepresentation
Jaegwon Kim (1987) 'Strong' and 'global' supervenience
Jaegwon Kim (1990) Supervenience as a philosophical concept

Short stories:

R. Heinlein (1941) They
A. C. Clarke (1953) The Nine Billion Names of God
K. Vonnegut (1961) Harrison Bergeron
K. Vonnegut (1961) Who am I this time?
Ted Chiang (2005) What's expected of us
Ted Chiang (2008) Exhalation
Ted Chiang (2011) Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny
Ted Chiang (2013) The truth of fact, the truth of feeling

Books:

China Mieville (2011) Embassytown

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June 30th, 2019

30/6/2019

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Safe (1995) Todd Haynes
Buongiorno, Notte (2003) Marco Bellocchio
Chernobyl, Season 1 (2019)
Parasite (2019) Bong Joon-Ho

Academic essays

Ethics

Hilary Greaves (2017) Population axiology

Philosophy of Mind

Hilary Putnam (1967) The nature of mental states
Alyssa Ney (2008) Defining physicalism

Books:

Carl Schorske (1979) Fin-de-siecle Vienna
Derek Parfit (1984/87) Reasons and Persons
Jaegwon Kim (2011) Philosophy of Mind

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May 31st, 2019

31/5/2019

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Vagabond (1985) Agnes Varda
Vice (2018) Adam McKay
The Favourite (2018) Yorgos Lanthimos
True Detective, Season 3 (2019)

Academic essays

Normative Ethics/Meta-ethics/Personal Identity

Jonathan Dancy (1997) Parfit and indirect self-defeating theories
David Brink (2011) Prospects for temporal neutrality

Philosophy of Mind

Zoe Drayson (2010) Extended cognition and the metaphysics of mind

Books:

Peter Vergo (2015) Art in Vienna 1898-1908, 4th Edition

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April 30th, 2019

30/4/2019

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This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Carol Reed (1949) The Third Man
Agnes Varda (1965) Le Bonheur
John Frankenheimer (1966) Seconds [Especially recommended if you are interested in personal identity. Also, great cinematography by James Wong Howe]
Tate Taylor (2011) The Help
K. Mundl & A. Prochaska (2014) Sarajevo
True Detective, Season 1 (2014) [This season is truly impressive. Unfortunately, season 2 is very disapponting]
David Mrnka (2017) Milada
Game of Thrones, Season 7 (2017)
Ricky Gervais (2019) After Life, Season 1

Academic essays

Comparative/History of Philosophy/Classics

Paul Williams (1999) On altruism and rebirth
Mark Siderits (2000) Review of Altruism and Reality
Stephen Harris (2011) Does anatman rationally entail altruism?
Stephen Harris (2014) Suffering and the shape of well-being in Buddhist ethics

Normative Ethics/Meta-ethics/Personal Identity

Bernard Williams (1973) Egoism and altruism
Gregory Kavka (1984) The reconciliation project
David Brink (1990) Rational egoism, self, and others
Jennifer Whiting (1991) Impersonal friends
David Brink (1993) The separateness of persons, distributive norms, and moral theory
David Brink (1997) Self-love and altruism
David Brink (1997) Rational egoism and the separateness of persons [In general, I like Brink's essays even though I disagree with some of what he says and despite the fact that he repeats perhaps a bit too much the content of his previous works]
David Brink (2003) Prudence and rationality
Donald LM Baxter (2005) Altruism, grief, and identity
Brad Hooker (2013) Egoism, partiality, and impartiality
Micheal Ridge (2017) Reasons for action: agent neutral vs. agent relative

Applied Ethics

P. Singer (1972) Famine, affluence, and morality

Short stories:

Franz Kafka (1912) The Judgment [I have read this story many times and it's probably one of my favourite. Note the confession to Max Brod about what Kafka was thinking about when he wrote the last sentence of this story...]
Franz Kafka (1919) In the Penal Colony

Books:

Thomas Bernhard (1967) Gargoyles
Charles Goodman (2009) Consequences of Compassion

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March 31st, 2019

31/3/2019

0 Comments

This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, TV series:

Stanley Kubrick (1971) A Clockwork Orange
John Carpenter (1982) The Thing
Martin Scorsese (1995) Casino
Ted Braun (2016) Betting on Zero
John Lee Hancock (2019) The Highwaymen

Academic essays

Comparative/History of Philosophy/Classics

Charles Goodman (2008) Consequentialism, agent-neutrality, and Mahayana ethics
Tom Tillemans (2010) How far can a Madhyamika Buddhist reform truth?
Owen Flanagan & Jing Hu (2011) Han Fei Zi's philosophical psychology
Charles Goodman (2016) Śāntideva (SEP)
Jan Westerhoff (2016) The connection between ontology and ethics in Madhyamaka thought
Bronwyn Finnigan (2018) Madhyamaka ethics

Normative Ethics/Meta-ethics/Personal Identity