Recent Responses
Hello Philosophers! I graduated college not too too long ago and have missed the intellectual discussions I used to have there. Someone alerted me to this site, and it has done more than anything else to bring back the good memories. Thanks to all of you for spending your time on this - it's like having a mini personalized philosophy class - and it's free! I was intrigued by the recent question about philosophy and improving students' characters (posted Sept. 9), responded to by Professor Louise Antony and was wondering if that discussion could be continued a little. In particular, I was unclear on whether Professor Antony was positioning herself as disagreeing with the questioner. Is she saying that it is not philosophy's purpose to improve character, or just that it is un-PC for a professor to state it as a goal of the course? Would, for example, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., (or Socrates, as I think was the example used by the questioner) be considered presumptuous? It was my understanding that writers and philosophers (and artists and engineers), at least the well-intentioned ones, are trying to improve the world. Surely that's not presumptuous of them...So I'm a little unclear as to what Professor Antony meant on that particular point. Secondly, when I went to college many students were disaffected and spent their time in wild parties engaged in all kinds of (I hope this isn't presumptuous of me) immoral and often illegal behavior. And it was a highly ranked college as well! And this wasn't the minority of students either - I'd say it was rather the majority. Is it presumptuous to intervene here, as a professor? I would think that professors of philosophy would be best positioned to intervene here to persuade the disaffected students of the lack of wisdom of their behavior, not just in a practical sense, but in a philosophical and moral sense. I am completely in agreement with Professor Antony that issues such as oppression of women by organized religion are serious, world-affecting issues that everyone (!) should be aware of, but the issues of date rape, hazing, and general alienation that abound in college aged students seem like equally important issues and ones that, perhaps, hit closer to home. I don't understand what is holding those issues back from being discussed in the classroom. Thanks!!!
Jyl Gentzler
October 7, 2006
(changed October 7, 2006)
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This conversation reminds me of one that Plato often representsSocrates as having with certain sophists. Socrates asks them just whatin the world they are claiming to teach. They offer an answer that isvery similar to Richard’s: “We teach our students how to think clearlyand well.”
Socrates w... Read more
Do you think philosophy has any spiritual persuasiveness to turn young people away from say, joining a radical cult group, or attempting suicide? I've always thought of philosophy as spiritual but I've been reading some of the posts on this site and it seems rather mathematical instead.
Richard Heck
September 21, 2006
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Philosophy is a very diverse discipline. It's practiced in lots of ways, and with a focus on lots of different issues. Some philosophy is intensely mathematical; some has a strong focus on science; some is more humanistic; some is, perhaps, even spiritual. But I don't know that anyone wo... Read more
What is relationship of philosophy (in particular, metaphysics) to physics? It seems to me that both disciplines, especially the "classical" metaphysics of the Ancient Greeks and the medieval Christians, attempt to understand the structure of reality, but physics focuses on the development of the material world of matter, metaphysics primarily aims at understanding the non-material world (including how it is related to and shapes the material world). Is this an adequate understanding? I would be very interested to hear your opinion(s) on this subject.
Richard Heck
September 21, 2006
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Metaphysics, as it was originally understood, was 'meta' to physics. That is, metaphysics was concerned with general questions about the nature of physics or, again, with foundational questions about physics. That's certainly the sense you get from Aristotle's Metaphysics, which I think... Read more
i gleaned from a review of d. dennett's "darwin's dangerous idea" the notion that scientists' dogmatic insistence upon a purely materialist frame of reference may not be as justified as most students my age probably assume (also that scientists have brought this view to bear not simply in academia but in the political arena as well). the review included this outrageous quote from feyerabend: "scientists are not content with running their own playpens in accordance with what they regard as the rules of the scientific method, they want to universalize those rules, they want them to become part of society at large, and they use every means at their disposal -- argument, propaganda, pressure tactics, intimidation, lobbying -- to achieve their aims." all this is really kind of extraordinary to me! i really don't think that many studets my age were raised to question science on such a level (i'm pretty sure that if we did at this point, we'd be laughed out of the classroom as kooky i.d. proponents). i don't really have a focused question here; i was just wondering if the panel had anything to say about the place of science in modern day society and education.
Richard Heck
September 21, 2006
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I'll just make a few comments about this. I don't have much detailed to say about it.
First, I'm not sure that "scientists" do insist dogmatically upon a materialist frame of reference. A broadly materialist—or, better, naturalistic—orientation is hardly optional within the practice of s... Read more
Why does society consider it moral (as embodied in its laws) for a 60 year old man to be in a sexual relationship with an 18 year old girl, but considers it immoral for a 25 year old man to have sex with a 17 year old girl? Isn't that just ridiculous?!
Richard Heck
September 21, 2006
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The laws concerning statutory rape—laws that make it a crime for anyone to have sex with a person under a certain age—are justified by the belief that people under a certain age cannot give informed consent to sex. It seems reasonable to suppose that this is true, though the age in quest... Read more
Why are there so few women philosophers?
Gabriel Segal
October 9, 2006
(changed October 9, 2006)
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Just to respond to afew of Jyl's points.
(1) We practice philosophy according to a sort of lawyers-in-courtmodel. This practice has its downside. It encourages aggression, whichoften impedes rather than promotes progress. And it leads people oftento defend views that they do not strongly beli... Read more
What is a concept? How are they formed? Is there such a thing as an objectively correct way of conceptualizing something?
Elisabeth Camp
September 20, 2006
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Basically, concepts are the components of our thoughts, which enable us to think about objects and properties in the world. Most philosophers agree that two concepts F and G are distinct if (and only if) one could believe (desire, hope, etc) that a is F without also believing that a i... Read more
Is there a philosophy of 'Generalisations'? I've heard the phrase 'all generalisations are wrong' and, after getting over the irony of the generalisation (surely it should be 'THIS is the only true generalisation', wondered if it were true. Generalisations seem to be at the heart of a lot of misconceptions, including all manner of prejudices and 'isms'. There seems to be a tendency for people to see a few random events and imagine a they see a patern which everything else must follow - I notice myself doing it sometimes, and do my best to stop it! On the other hand, what if a generalisation is a sine qua non of a thing? for instance 'all female mammals are warm blooded and give birth to live young' must be true because both assertions are essential characteristic for an an animal to be classed as a true mammal. So where do we stand in relation to generalsations? What are they, where do they come from, and how do they relate to 'truth'? - Mark
Peter Lipton
September 19, 2006
(changed September 19, 2006)
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This doesn't address all of your question, but notice that if (as it seems) we can truly say that certain things do not exist, then there must also be true generalisations, since 'There are no A's' is equivalent to the generalisation that 'Everything is a non-A'. Thus 'Griffins do not e... Read more
My question is about the free will problem. I hope it is not too stupid or anything. Many philosophers seem to argue against free will like this: "Either everything has a cause or not. If everything does have a cause, then it looks like you have no free will, because the chain of causes leading to your actions began before you were born. And if not everything has a cause, if in particular some of your actions are uncaused, then that doesn't seem like free will either. It seems just like a random event." This is from what Peter Lipton wrote in another question. I don't understand why if it is true that not everything has a cause, it must also be true that an uncaused event must be a "random" event. Suppose that a Cartesian "soul" caused an event, but there was no prior cause for the soul's causation of the event. That doesn't seem like a random event, it seems like an event which was caused by the soul, but which was not caused by anything else. To me it looks like this would be compatible with free will, because the soul is choosing something. I know that there are other objections which might be made against this sort of picture, but doesn't it at least avoid the argument that an uncaused event is random and so incompatible with free will?
Douglas Burnham
September 21, 2006
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When you say that a 'soul' caused the event, I guess you are referring to (i) something distinctively mental (like a decision, a belief, a judgement), rather than something physical; (ii) something that belongs to or is inside that soul, rather than something extrinsic to it.The first... Read more
I work for a voluntary organisation with a great premise that I am wholeheartedly committed to. However, there are some senior staff who, athough they are themselves committed also, are ineffectual and have over the years damaged the organisation albeit inadvertently. In order to save the organisation from ending, these people need to be removed or brought to a realisation that would probably end in them removing themselves. To do this the board of trustees needs 'evidence' or a paper trail of the ineffectualness. Should I contribute to this evidence in order to help save the organisation or should I refuse to contribute because the people concerned are very good people and only inadvertantly damaging the organisation? To me, both courses of action are wrong in some philosophical sense. And in the end both courses of action leave me damaged in my perssonal sense of what is right or wrong. But should my own concerns be put aside for the greater good of an organisation which genuinely seeks to, and works to, better the lot of society and individuals within it.
Karen Jones
September 18, 2006
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You write asking for advice about a real life moral dilemma that you face. We often ask others for moral advice, but we are rightly suspicious of those who are too quick to offer it! You need a trustworthy adviser, but to be that, for you, in this context, any advisor would have to know a... Read more