Ep 16: Descriptivist Theory of Names - The Howie Mandel Effect
Listen now
Description
This is our second show about how proper names work (check out episode 10 for part one). It’s an important topic because much of philosophy is built around the concept of assigning truth values to sentences such as “Socrates is mortal.” And we can’t know if that sentence is true or false unless we know what “Socrates” means. In this episode we look at how Bertrand Russell developed his Descriptivist theory of names, and how that theory came to dominate the philosophy of language for much of the 20th century. Along the way we speculate on the outcomes of hypothetical professional wrestling matches, including Frege vs. Mill and Zappa vs. Hogan. We get yet another dose of Mark’s research on weird names and learn about the books that Bertrand Russell while serving hard time in a British prison.
More Episodes
All handsome people enjoy a good paradox, so we decided to open up our paradox box again and pick out a few new ones for this episode. A lot of paradoxes have to do with the way language works, and how it fails us when we try to describe certain aspects of our experience. Often a series of...
Published 11/16/15
Published 11/16/15
Are zombies real? Could we all be zombies? On this special Halloween episode, we raise topics from the dead—specifically we’re reanimating our discussion of philosophical zombies from Episode 2. This time we take a closer look at qualia, a technical term for the experiences that are unique to us...
Published 11/02/15