Westworld calls attention to the fact that freedom comes in kinds as well as in degrees, something philosophers have been trying to explain for as long as people can remember. This chapter explains how distinct Westworld's characters are from each other, and how fresh and real their agonies feel despite reliance on well‐worn tropes. As monstrous humans and hosts play out their hideous fictions but shed tears as they meet their even more horrible fates. One of the premises that makes (...) Westworld work is that hosts are programmed to ignore anything that might disrupt their continued belief in who they are meant to be. The most salient moral of Westworld is that agency and purpose come in endless varieties, wondrous to behold. The constraints upon Westworld's residents and guests remind us that humans live in inherited institutions and internalize one another's ideas. (shrink)

This essay discusses the unity of mathematics by comparing the philosophies of Mill and Frege. While Mill is remembered as a progressive social thinker, his contributions to the development of logic are less widely heralded. In contrast, Frege made important and lasting contributions to the development of logic while his social thought, what little is known of it, was very conservative. Two theses are presented in the paper. The first is that in order to pursue Mill’s progressive sociopolitical project, one (...) must embrace Frege’s distinction between logic and psychology. The second thesis is that in order to pursue Frege’s project of accounting for the unity of mathematics, we must understand mathematics as a human activity and consider the role that history and psychology play in the growth of mathematics. (shrink)

This book has two parts. The first presents original philosophical considerations for rejecting most traditional, platonism, idealism, formalism, naturalism, etc. Only two find favor, pragmatism an...