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Philosophy, general

What is Philosophy?   A guide to the main branches of Philosophy as currently taught written primarily for pre-University students

The Death of David Hume   A play for voices, (running time 25 minutes) in which the main characters. the Narrator excepted, speak lines to be found in the writings of David Hume, James Boswell, Adam Smith, and John Wesley. The play deals with David Hume's beliefs about immortality, morality and religion.

Wittgensteinians and Chomskyans: In defence of Mentalism   An extended defence of Chomskyan linguistics and the Cognitive Paradigm in general against the Wittgensteinian critiques of Saul Kripke, Baker & Hacker, Esa Itkonen and others. Consideration is given to the Private Language arguments; to the distinction between public (outer) and private (inner); to the distinction between the social and the individual; to ascription and causality; to rule-normativity; to creativity arguments. Comments from Noam Chomsky and Peter Hacker are included in the extensive Endnotes. Five lines of Wittgensteinian critique are identified in each of the essay's sub-section headings

Battle for the Mind: Jerry Fodor, Howard Gardner, John Searle   An introduction to cognitive science/cognitive psychology presented through a review of the work of J A Fodor, Howard Gardner and John Searle. The writing dates from 1984. Topics treated include the idea of the modularity of mind (as opposed to the idea of general purpose intelligence); Nature vs Nurture controversies; the positions of Chomsky and Piaget in these debates; the importance of naturally occurring deprivation experiments (the worlds of deaf and blind children).