Language philosopher Bry Willis provides additional details on the details of a prior segment, Unmixing the Steel. In this segment, the focus is on the maths, particularly on the selection and function of the coefficients.

👉 https://philosophics.blog/2026/07/23/unmixing-the-steel/

Language philosopher Bry Willis explores the complexities of decolonisation, using a mathematical "toy model" to challenge the popular idea that colonial influences can be easily extracted from a society. The author argues that the metaphor of purification is flawed; instead of being like salt that can be removed from water, colonial and indigenous elements act like an alloy, forming a new compound that cannot be separated into its original parts. Through an arithmetic simulation, the source demonstrates that joint or hybrid practices quickly become the dominant force in any polity, making it impossible to isolate specific traits by their origin. Consequently, the essay suggests that the provenance-based approach to dismantling colonial structures is logically and mathematically unsound. Instead, the author advocates for a functional rule that evaluates whether a practice currently maintains harmful power imbalances, rather than simply looking at where it came from. This perspective aligns with serious decolonial thinkers who reject restorationist fantasies in favour of more practical, forward-looking transformations.

👉 ⁠https://philosophics.blog

Language philosopher Bry Willis explores the philosophical argument that various forms of political domination, such as colonialism, hegemony, and institutional capture, are actually the same fundamental relationship. The author contends that while we use different words to describe these concepts, the only real distinction is how we narrate the boundary between the controller and the controlled. These labels are often applied retrospectively, meaning the winner of a conflict essentially decides which term is used to describe the power dynamic. By stripping away these linguistic layers, the source reveals a singular invariant relation defined by asymmetric control and the forced reorganisation of existing social structures. Ultimately, the work suggests that our political vocabulary functions as a disguise, hiding a universal system of subordination behind a variety of superficial names.👉 https://substack.com/@brywillis634737/note/c-299870495

Language philosopher Bry Willis explores how the term meritocracy, originally coined as a satirical warning, has been repurposed into a tool for legitimising power. The author argues that society often uses the word to reason backwards, falsely assuming that the act of being selected for a role is definitive proof of an individual's underlying competence. This creates a circular logic where merit is not an objective measurement of skill but a relational label used to reward loyalty or exclude perceived enemies. By flattening complex human capacities into a single, arbitrary ranking, the system prioritises those who are adept at navigating hierarchies over those who possess actual expertise. Ultimately, the source suggests that meritocracy functions as a cynical instrument of social sorting that relies on the sincere belief of the public to maintain its authority.

👉 https://open.substack.com/pub/brywillis634737/p/the-merits-of-meritocracy

Language philosopher Bry Willis explores the philosophical tension inherent in addressing artificial intelligence using personal pronouns. The author describes a personal sense of unease when using the word "you" to prompt a large language model, noting that each interaction is a disconnected, episodic event rather than a continuous relationship. This reflection is rooted in the concept of episodic selfhood, which suggests that neither humans nor machines possess a truly permanent or diachronic identity. By comparing the computational processes of silicon-based AI with human consciousness, the source questions whether the notion of a unified self is merely a convenient linguistic illusion. Ultimately, the piece invites readers to consider their own psychological discomfort when treating software as a sentient entity through the use of second-person language.

👉 https://philosophics.blog/2026/07/21/discomfort-of-you/

Language philosopher Bry Willis explores Paul Pietroski’s theory that words do not directly latch onto objects but instead serve as headers for diverse conceptual families. The author expands on this by introducing the Mediated Encounter Ontology, arguing that reference is a joint achievement occurring within structured, real-world activities rather than a private mental process. By using the practical example of making lemonade, the source illustrates how polysemy—the existence of multiple related meanings—functions across different levels of linguistic complexity. The narrative challenges the traditional view of fixed application conditions, suggesting that speakers, words, and environmental constraints must work together to stabilise meaning. Ultimately, the text posits that language serves as a synchronisation protocol, allowing individuals to coordinate actions through shared encounters. While agreeing that words do not refer to reality in isolation, the author concludes that they successfully facilitate reference when embedded in collective social practices.

👉 https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/words-do-not-refer-alone

Language philosopher Bry Willis introduces a rigorous set of stipulated definitions for metaphysical terms like real, reality, and ontology to resolve linguistic confusion. He argues that these words are often contestable and lack a single, fixed meaning, leading to empty verbal disputes rather than substantive philosophical progress. By defining realness as a product of constraint-responsiveness within specific practices, Willis allows for a nuanced classification of everything from physical atoms to fictional characters. The framework is designed as a self-correcting system, featuring a strict amendment protocol to ensure that any conceptual changes are transparent and logically consistent. Ultimately, the author aims to transform private vocabulary into a functional tool for clearer communication across different intellectual disciplines.

👉 https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/real-reality-ontology-ontic-a-coordinating

Philosopher Bry Willis discusses metaethics and his position on moral non-cognitivism.

Moral utterances express, organise, authorise, condemn, affiliate, repel, coordinate, and demand. They can be coherent, inconsistent, manipulative, compassionate, informed, ignorant, stabilising, or catastrophic. None of this requires that wrongness exist as a property available for detection.

Moral terms are often treated as though they combine descriptive authority with action-authorising force. In practice, their force arises from ontological orientations: inherited structures of salience through which harm, authority, autonomy, purity, loyalty, fairness, and legitimacy become differently visible and differently weighted.

This helps explain why moral disputes often survive factual agreement. Participants may agree about what happened yet remain divided over what the event is, which features matter, who has standing, and what kind of response counts as justice.

The dispute is therefore not always repaired by better information or better definitions. Language enters downstream, after much of the relevant salience has already been assigned.

This does not make moral life trivial. It makes it human: situated, embodied, historical, conflictual, and enforced. The absence of moral facts does not abolish suffering or preference. It removes the celestial notarisation from our reactions to them.

👉 https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/a-provisional-map-of-my-philosophical

Philosopher Bry Willis discusses language and metaphysics and his position on deflationary anti-reification.

 Grammar doesn't merely report an independently segmented world. It encourages certain forms of segmentation.

Nouns suggest things. Subjects suggest authors. Predicates suggest owned properties. Temporal grammar encourages persistent bearers moving through a sequence of presents. These structures are useful, but their fluency repeatedly outruns their ontological warrant.

A process becomes a decision. A pattern of conduct becomes a motive. A first-person orientation becomes a self. An array of capacities becomes intelligence. An opaque range of phenomena becomes consciousness. Once installed as a noun, the compression is easily promoted into the hidden source of the very pattern from which it was abstracted.

I call one specialised form of this operation authoring displacement. Downstream action-patterns are compressed into terms such as will, choice, intent, and decision. These nouns are then grammatically inverted and treated as upstream authors of action.

👉 https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/a-provisional-map-of-my-philosophical

Philosopher Bry Willis discusses his philosophy of language and his position on the Language Insufficiency Hypothesis.

Language effectiveness declines as the conceptual complexity, abstraction, contestability, contextual dependence, and institutional burden of what it is asked to communicate increase. We routinely mistake grammatical fluency for semantic precision and social agreement for shared reference.

👉 https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/a-provisional-map-of-my-philosophical