Supernatural powers

I knew someone years ago - I'll call him Pieter - who was very serious about alternative medicine and even practiced it. He believed in biological energy that emanates from people, and which (if you have the right abilities) you can detect and use to determine the state of their health. One evening I invited him to a drinks at my house, where he met another friend who I will call Francoise. Afterwards, my wife said she thought Francoise was pregnant, and indeed two weeks later Francoise announced that she was.

When I told this to Pieter, he was intrigued. How had my wife known this, given that Francoise had said nothing at the time? (Perhaps he was also a little peeved, given that his own energy detectors had clearly failed).

How had my wife guessed? Francoise had invariably accepted the offer of a glass of wine before this. This time, she only wanted water.

Mesmerized by science

Any philosopher who mentions my work in their Ph.D. thesis is to be recommended, in my view. One such is Oxford philosopher Edward Kanterian. But what Kanterian says here transcends mere self-interest. Here he is, defending the currently unfashionable view that the methods of philosophy are altogether unlike the methods of the sciences. Even more interesting, he says this fashionable view has a transatlantic source.

'American culture is mesmerized by science. It seems to me that all too many American philosophers think that all real problems can be resolved and answered by scientific methods and that philosophy is either continuous with science or at any rate ought to emulate the methods of the sciences. I have the impression that such a view is widespread in America. It is certainly a view that was encouraged by Quine. And most American philosophers seem to think that Quine showed that the analytic/synthetic, a priori/a posteriori, conceptual/empirical distinctions are obsolete, invalid and to be rejected.'

But read for yourself.