Author: natesheff

Within days of moving to Connecticut in 2011, I learned that Dakin Humane Society in Springfield had adult cats (i.e. 3 years or older) for adoption. They had a cat colony room with big windows, toys, cat trees, and lots of very cute cats. I remember some of the cats, but the one I liked…

I like this one, on environmental aesthetics and astronomy.

My review of Barbie is now up at 3 Quarks Daily. I really enjoyed writing this one.

My latest at 3 Quarks Daily is a rant about some recent trends in philosophy, concerned with analyzing hot topics in public discourse (e.g. gaslighting, fake news, and conspiracy theories).

My latest at 3 Quarks Daily is on Harry Frankfurt’s theory of bullshit and how it applies to George Orwell’s 1984. It was a lot of fun to write. Check it out here.

Last Monday I started my new columnist gig at 3 Quarks Daily with this piece on the value and lessons of long-lived organisms. My next essay will be appearing in a few weeks, and I’ll keep this site updated with links. Check it out!

Usually, when we say how things are, we’re talking about non-linguistic bits of the world. “Gemini is a dog” is a sentence about a particular dog; so is “Gemini wants cheese.” Sometimes, though, we do talk about pieces of language. “Why did you say that?” asks for the reasons (psychological or otherwise) for someone else’s…

There are analogies, and there are analogies. Some analogies feature prominently in analogical inference, while others merely function as illustrations of general principles. In these latter cases, the term “analogy” is used loosely, but the former type of case involves analogy in a stricter sense. In analogical inference, or arguing by analogy, analogies function instead…

It’s new as in “most recent,” not new as in “actually recent.” This one is on what we’re doing when we’re doing epistemology. It focuses especially on the internalism/externalism debate, and I’m probably too proud of it.