Vallicella debunks Krauss

Vallicella on Krauss. He also responds to a piece of classic Bulverism: If you criticize scientistic nonsense, you only do that because you are motivated by religion.

Can intentional content be fixed by causal relations?

A common strategy for providing a physicalist account of intentionality is the attempt to derive intentional content from causal connections. If something has the causal connections of something with a particular intentional content, then, according to this view, it indeed has that intentional content. This Vallicella entry includes a quote by Putnam on the ability of causal connections to fix reference.  


One cannot simply say that the word "cat" refers to cats because
     the word is causally connected to cats, for the word "cat," or
     rather my way of using the word "cat," is causally connected to
     many things. It is true that I wouldn't be using "cat" as I do if
     many other things were different. My present use of the word "cat"
     has a great many causes, not just one. The use of the word "cat" is
     causally connected to cats, but it is also causally connected to
     the behavior of Anglo-Saxon tribes, for example. Just mentioning
     "causal connection" does not explain how one thing can be a
     representation of another thing, as Kant was already aware.

Why Bill Vallicella is such a Hot Ticket on the Party Circuit

I was wondering if Bill had seen that he had been referenced in Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar, Understanding Philosophy through Jokes. He had, as you can tell from the link.

This is the reference:

Contemporary philosopher William Vallicella writes, "Metaphilosophy is the philosophy of philosophy. It is itself a branch of philosophy, unlike the philosophy of science, which is not a branch of science, or the philosophy of religion, which is not a branch of religion."

It is statements like this that have made Vallicella such a hot ticket on the party circuit.

Well, not only did I get this book in my Christmas stocking, but it's been assigned for one of the courses I'm teaching!

If only I could become that famous.