Our panel of 91 professional philosophers has responded to

574
 questions about 
Philosophy
287
 questions about 
Language
1280
 questions about 
Ethics
96
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Time
80
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154
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23
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68
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110
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284
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Mind
81
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88
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Physics
134
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39
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69
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67
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58
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32
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5
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58
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70
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31
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27
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Gender
75
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75
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Beauty
170
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Freedom
117
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Children
151
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34
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374
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110
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36
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Literature
124
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208
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221
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43
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282
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4
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392
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2
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218
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2
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54
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244
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77
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Emotion
24
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Suicide
105
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51
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War
89
 questions about 
Law

Question of the Day

If a paradox resulted whenever one thing had more than one name, then these paradoxes wouldn't be restricted to sets. The names 'Samuel Clemens' and 'Mark Twain' would generate a paradox by referring to the same person. But, of course, there's no paradox here. Everything true of the person named 'Samuel Clemens' is true of the person named 'Mark Twain'. Mark Twain was born in Missouri, and Samuel Clemens wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Indeed, all those who know that Mark Twain wrote the novel thereby also know de re (Latin for 'concerning the thing') that Samuel Clemens wrote the novel: they know, concerning the person denoted by 'Samuel Clemens', that he wrote the novel, even if they wouldn't use 'Samuel Clemens' to denote the author.