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Neil Tyson And The Value Of Philosophy

Reprinted from Scientia Salon. You can read the original here.It seems like my friend Neil deGrasse...

What Does It Mean For Something To Be Metaphysically Necessary?

I mentioned before, this semester I’m teaching a graduate level seminar on David Hume, and having...

David Hume And The Missing Shade Of Blue

This semester I’m teaching a graduate level course on “Hume Then and Now,” which aims at...

Is Theologian Alving Plantinga For Real? Alas, It Appears So

I keep hearing that Notre Dame philosopher and theologian Alvin Plantinga is a really smart guy...

Massimo Pigliucci

Massimo Pigliucci is Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York.

His research focuses on the structure of evolutionary theory, the relationship between science and philosophy

Steven Pinker Embraces Scientism. Bad Move, I Think

Aug 12 2013 | comment(s)

Steven Pinker has written a long essay in The New Republic embracing scientism. That's really too bad, because this way Pinker joins a disturbingly long list of scientists (and a few philosophers) who confuse a defense of good science with a knee-jerk reaction against sound criticism of science. [For a good, if partial, response to Pinker from the Left look here; for a far less convincing one, from the Right, look here.]

Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism

Aug 07 2013 | comment(s)

As is well known to readers of this blog, I do not have much sympathy for philosophers like Alvin Plantinga. That’s not because the guy’s not smart (he certainly is), nor because he hasn’t published interesting philosophical arguments (he certainly has). But people like Plantinga still stride what should by now be an impossibly uncomfortable divide and ever widening gap between serious philosophy and theology.

Testing The Supernatural

Jul 31 2013 | comment(s)

Time to reconsider the relationship between science and the supernatural. A number of colleagues in both science and philosophy argue that the supernatural is nothing special, that god-related hypotheses can be tested by ordinary scientific methods, and that — given the repeated failure of such tests — the only rational conclusion is that science has pretty much shown that there is no such thing as the supernatural.

Democracy: The Egyptian Conundrum

Jul 11 2013 | comment(s)

Back in 1992, Francis Fukuyama famously argued that the advent of Western liberal democracy spelled nothing less than the endpoint of sociocultural evolution: we have finally discovered the best way to govern people and organize society, and that’s gonna be it.

Theories Of Truth

Jun 30 2013 | comment(s)

I have wanted to comment for some time about a number of available “theories of truth.” The occasion has now been presented by the fact that I am writing the fourth chapter of my new book (on whether and how philosophy makes progress, forthcoming from Chicago Press), which is about the surprisingly not-so-straightforward concept of progress (and truth) in science itself, the very discipline normally held to be the paragon of a truth seeking enterprise.

Sagan Beats Dawkins. In Related News, Education Overcomes Superstition

Jun 23 2013 | comment(s)

I have been doing public outreach for science since I originally moved to Tennessee in 1996. It has been a fun ride, and I’m sure it will continue to be that way for many years to come. But two of the first things I learned when debating creationists and giving talks about the nature of science were: a) nastiness doesn’t get you anywhere; and b) just because you have reason and evidence on your side doesn’t mean you are going to carry the day.