Another panelist should take up this question, but I will start by commending you on appreciating the difficulty of defining 'poetry' given the breadth of sounds and marks that count as poems today. Long gone are the days when 'poetry' could be defined in terms of rhythm, but as we get to the point of having trouble defining boundaries over what is and what is not a poem, we do well to recall that the Greek term (poesis) from which we get in English 'poetry' meant 'to make.' So we may have come full circle. Originally, 'poesis' covered the making of anything; now we may come (sadly or happily) to the same point when almost anything can count as a poem. Even so, there are too alternatives to entertain: define poetry in terms of family resemblence to what is recognized as poetry today. This would mean that a decision whether X (whatever) is a poem is if it resembles the writing of T.S. Eliot, Pound, Edna St. Vincent M, Dylan Thomas (and here follows a long list of poets in the Norton Book of Poetry...

A question of the ages! Most philosophers in the west and east who believe that persons survive the death of their bodies either believe that there is more to being a person than their body there is a soul, for example and when the body dies, the soul endures, or they believe in some kind of physical resurrection or material re-embodiment. Both positions have defenders today. For a defense of the first, see work by Stewart Goetz or Richard Swinburne. For a defense of the latter, see Peter van Inwagen or Trenton Merricks. As for the notion of a person having some kind of extended life after death if her body nurtures future animal and vegetative life, this seems problematic for after a certain point of disintegration there will be no meaningful way to identify the person or her body as a thing or subject. The question about the coherence and plausability of a person surviving bodily death would ultimately need to take up large philosophical questions about the nature of reality involving both...

Dear Lisa M: Great question! Without knowing the details, I think the answer to your question depends upon the kind of friendship you have. Some friendships are established with something like vows such as 'I will never lie to you' or 'I will always be your friend, no matter what!' If some kind of promise has been made, it seems that one would have some obligation to be disclosive, even if that involved hurting the other party. But if there has been no explicit promise, it does not seem that the person who is no longer interested in the friendship has a duty to tell the other person, especially if no evident harm will occur from the person not knowing. There is an old saying "A friendship that ends is no friendship." I don't know whether that is quite right or whether you agree or disagree. If it is right, then there was no friendship there at all. But let's say it is wrong (as I suspect it is) and you and the other person actually were genuine friends; there was an authentic, freely given...

In the abstract, this is a very difficult question to address, but I shall offer a few general points you might consider. In his defense before the jurors in Athens, Socrates admonished his people to care for their souls instead of only pursuing material wealth and power. There is a rich tradition of caring for the soul in Ancient and Medieval philosophy that offers very practical advise on passion, work, ambition, vanity, humility and so on. A terrific book that would give you an overview of this tradition is Emotion and Peace of Mind; From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation by Richard Sorabji (Oxford University Press). Apart from looking to the care-for-the-soul tradition (something I sought to address in a Last Lecture in 2010 at St. Olaf College you can find it on the College website), you might take seriously the difference between a vocation and a job. The concept of "vocation" (a calling) has its base in religious belief (called by God to do X) but it can be approached from a...

Thank you for this question! A minor point at the outset: I think a great deal of the best teaching of philosophy involves the practice of philosophy. There are perhaps some philosophy teachers who simply teach what Plato etc thought, and expect students to master certain texts with critical skills. But I think most do not stop there, but seek to engage students in thinking through the great themes of philosophy about values, moral obligations, virtues, political theory, the nature of the world, the limits of knowledge, the nature and value of human and nonhuman animal life, the possible existence of God, and so on. But getting to your broader question, more professional philosophers are applying themselves to issues such as global justice, practical ethical and political positions, medical ethics, economic fairness, and the like. Granted, these are sometimes in textbooks designed for university / college courses, but sometimes it is through education that political change arises. After all, it was...

This is such a profoundly personal question, my fellow panelists might want me shot for trying to respond, but I shall do my best. First, your role as caregiver for 6 years is an extraordinary act of fidelity and the fact that you have had children and children's children plus friendship for 37 years is a tremendous, profound achievement. And your hesitancy in seeking female companionship while still legally married is further testimony of the love you must have shared (and still share) with your wife. I have known husbands in your position who decided to seek female companionship under precisely those conditions and whose children and grandchildren approved. And in one case I know of, the husband waited until his wife died before marrying the woman whose companionship he enjoyed during his first wife's protracted suffering from Alzheimer's. The man and his new companion are now happily married, so the option you are considering has been carried out, without apparent injury or suffering to the...

Great question. Probably one of the other panelists will do a better job than me on this one, but here goes: I suggest that the key to determining the age of responsibility comes down to measuring the development of cognitive power and control. You ask about "what age a child should be held responsible for knowing the difference between right and wrong," which suggests that there might be a time when a child might NOT know such moral differences but that at some point the child SHOULD have such knowledge. For this reason, the key is knowing when a child has sufficient cognitive power to know the moral consequences of her/his acts and omissions. If, for example, the child simply lacks the power to put himself in the position of others (and thus fails, for example, to be able to grasp that hitting his sister hurts her), then the child is not a moral agent. Moreover, if the child lacks sufficient bodily and mental powers to control her body and thought, moral agency would also not be achieved. ...

Great questions. If by 'music' one means actual auditions (sounds), then it seems that the same reply works with the tree in the woods. There would be no sound and thus no music without auditions and thus without someone or thing to hear it. And the definition of music in terms of sound is an important one in the philosophy of music. Jerrold Levinson, for example, defines music as follows: Sounds temporily organized by a person for the purpose of enriching or intensifying experience through active engagement (e.g. listening, dancing, performing) with the sounds regarded primarily, or in significant measure as sounds. But if we change things a bit and think of musical composition, then your question about the musician seems very tempting. After all, imagine a musician composed a piece like the ninth symphony, perhaps writing out all the score, but the piece is never played. In that case, I think many of us would say the muscial composition exists even if there is no sound made at all based on...

Interesting! Philosophers have disagreed about the scope of our freedom and even over whether we (in non-addictive states) have freedom at all. Spinoza, for example, denied that we have libertarian freedom (the freedom to do other than what we are determined to do). The great majority of philosophers have affirmed our morally responsible freedom (or voluntariness), however. Probably the two most famous cases of a "fake it, till you make it" involve Pascal and Descartes. Pascal thought there were good prudential reasons for living a life of religious devotion, a life that included a belief in God. He proposed that nonbelievers could cultivate a belief in God by practicing religious rites and acting as though they believed in God. Descartes undertook a radical skeptical inquiry but decided before doing so that he would act in the world in conformity with the prevailing customs no matter how far his skepticism took him. In a sense, he would "fake" or at least act as though he did not doubt the...

I agree that there is ample evidence of obvious human bias, greed, violence, selfishness, but I suggest that there is also ample evidence of human impartiality, benevolence, love of others, unselfish compassion. Though I am not a neo-Darwinian or a great fan of Darwin's ethics (especially his views on human races in On the Descent of Man), Darwin does make a good case that human violence, selfishness and so on cannot (if there is to be evolution) be unbridled. Given more time, I would like to develop an argument for you that in fact some form on non-violent goodness is an essential precondition for any human life, but I will cut to the chase. I suggest that one of the reasons why many of today are reluctant to simply say (to use your vivid language!): "Screw the slug, humanity is more important" is because we have seen some rather ugly results from (more or less) adopting the view that it is permissible for us (again, using one of your terms) "Screw the other species and the natural world itself,...