The wine itself has aesthetic value; but what it is for a wine to have aesthetic value cannot be understood without making reference to the experience to tasting it

Unlike art which contains a message, wine conveys nothing, it has no intellectual or cognitive content

Even if we ignore the 'non-theoretical' knowledge which we acquire through experience (such as the knowledge of what something tastes like) and concentrate on theoretical knowledge, there is no good reason to think that physics can literally give the theory of everything. Here I want to be really pedantic. Although everything may be subject to physical law, not everything can be explained or described in physical terms. Physics has literally nothing to say about society, morality and the mind, for example - but of course these are parts of 'everything'.

I do not claim to have any developed or sophisticated views in political philosophy, but I think that one of the lessons of the last few hundred years of history is that the greatest threat to human prosperity and well-being is fanaticism and intolerance, even in the name of apparently laudable goals.

I'm not a militant atheist, just an atheist. In fact, in a largely atheist country like the UK I think it's a bit silly to be a militant atheist.

A real naturalistic approach, I would claim, should take the reality of mental representation as a natural fact. A lot can be said about this fact, but there is no need to say it all in terms of necessary and/or sufficient conditions which are stated in non-intentional terms. The idea that naturalism might require that all the truths should be stated in a particular kind of vocabulary now strikes me as a very peculiar one.

I had abandoned Catholicism, but even during my short militant atheist period I maintained an interest in western religious art and music.