Recent Responses
I'm a female philosophy student, and I had an argument with my sister about the lack of female philosophers taught in college classes. She claimed that this was because of current sexism in the field of philosophy -- the mostly male philosophy professors disregard many great female philosophers and don't teach them. I thought that it was just a product of past sexism -- there historically haven't been many women in the field of philosophy, and therefore very few great female philosophers. Who's right? And if there aren't great female philosophers, should texts by women be taught anyway, as a kind of affirmative action?
Louise Antony
June 27, 2006
(changed June 27, 2006)
Permalink
I doubt that philosophy has ever harbored more sexism than any other academic discipline, now or in its history. But sexism has nonetheless played a role in keeping women from doing philosophy, and from being taken seriously when they tried. And this is still true, to a discouraging extent.
I w... Read more
Do students of philosophy have much to gain by travel, study abroad, or cultural immersion?
Douglas Burnham
June 9, 2006
(changed June 9, 2006)
Permalink
A quick addition to Professor Heck's response. Most but not all of the usual list of 'great' philosophers have been travellers. Kant is the most notorious exception. But he lived in a cosmopolitan sea-port, and 'cultural immersion' came to him rather than he to it. I say this only in order to rem... Read more
FIRST OF ALL THIS QUESTION DEALS WITH SOCRATES--HIS LIFE SPAN WAS 463-399 B.C.E.--WHAT DOES THE E.STAND FOR? COULD YOU DIRECT ME TO A SITE THAT COULD SHOW ALL OF THE TEXT THAT THE FOLLOWING WAS FOUND FROM? "YOUNG PEOPLE 'LOVE LUXURY, HATE AUTHORITY.. ARE BORED AND ILL MANNERED AND LACK RESPECT FOR ADULTS' THANKS SO MUCH
Nicholas D. Smith
August 28, 2007
(changed August 28, 2007)
Permalink
Have a look at:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=398104
The attribution to Socrates is spurious.
Log in to post comments
Consider the following scenario: an acquaintance I personally do not particularly enjoy talking to is learning French and asks me for a favour, namely to chat with them an hour per week in French, my mother tongue. Would it be morally good to do them the favour, even if it would just be out of duty? Or another scenario: my mum wants me to visit her for Christmas, but I wish not to, just as much as she wants me to go. Should I go out of duty? According to Kant, good actions must be motivated by a sense of duty, as opposed to inclination. But shouldn't it be just the other way round, at least if the action is about doing another person a favour? It almost seems immoral to do somebody a favour only because of duty.
Jyl Gentzler
June 6, 2006
(changed June 6, 2006)
Permalink
I wonder whether there isn’t a bit more to your worry that there issomething immoral involved if you were to visit your mother despite thefact that you really didn’t want to or if you were to give free Frenchlessons to an acquaintance whose company you didn’t enjoy.
To explore this idea, I’d like t... Read more
Hello. I don't know if this is too vague or even if it is a philosophical question or not, but here goes. I am fourteen. In my english class today, we had a discussion about one thing or another and the question was raised, "Do you fear 'getting old'?" A great majority of classmates said that they did. I thought that it was going to happen anyway, so why fear it. Is it irrational to fear aging? Thanks.
Peter Lipton
June 6, 2006
(changed June 6, 2006)
Permalink
A belief can be irrational, if you don't have a good reason for it. Can a fear be irrational? It seems so, if it based on an irrational belief. Thus to be afraid of ghosts is irrational. But I think you are asking whether it is irrational to fear something which, though based on a perfectly rati... Read more
If you are a promising young human being, say anywhere beyond the usual average, is there something like a moral obligation to make something great out of your talent? (Or asked another way: is somebody with great talent more obliged to achieve something great than any other person? See, this question is about one LIFE: taking huge pains, giving up trying to reach normality, all for the one reason of ART which is considered as a state of higher consciousness or whatever; a thing which begins to smell foolish to me and which I question more and more each day - without getting pessimistic, though.) Or is this whole should-would-could-thing just a question of decision?! Isn't life generally speaking just what you CAN and then what you WANT and at last what you DECIDE? I would be downright thrilled about getting an answer.. thx. (Wow, I don't speak english, I had to work on this question for more than an hour.. or actually I began working on it over 18 years ago... who knows, who cares!)
Roger Crisp
June 6, 2006
(changed June 6, 2006)
Permalink
Many philosophers -- including Immanuel Kant -- have believed that each of us a duty to fulfil our talents. Often the view emerges out of a religious world view in which we are here to serve some divine purpose and are, in some sense, under the command of, or even owned by, God. Modern liberal views... Read more
Are machines able to have knowledge?
Louise Antony
June 27, 2006
(changed June 27, 2006)
Permalink
Clearly, machines can process information. For the machine to have knowledge, however, this information has to be information for the machine – the machine would have to understand the information it processes. What would that involve?
In the first place, the states or events in the machine that... Read more
Are machines able to have knowledge?
Louise Antony
June 27, 2006
(changed June 27, 2006)
Permalink
Clearly, machines can process information. For the machine to have knowledge, however, this information has to be information for the machine – the machine would have to understand the information it processes. What would that involve?
In the first place, the states or events in the machine that... Read more
Hello, I wonder how laws of physics, mathematics and logic influence each other. What I mean is the following: In Quantum Mechanics (probably even in general physics), only very few non-linear problems can be explicitly solved. The most important ones are 1.the harmonic oscillator (potential r^2) and 2. the Hydrogen atom (potential 1/r). This is the reason why almost any other non-linear problem is first reduced to a r^2 or 1/r-potential problem. This seems like lucky coincidence or a divine act or whatever you might call it: 2 very basic physical problems can be expressed and solved in a very basic mathematical way. Now I keep on wondering: If our mathematics was based on some different algebra than the one it actually is, say, elliptic functions (=objects that are reasonably hard to express in "our" mathematics), would our understanding of physics be different? (For example: would we better understand physical facts that are now "too complicated" (because of their mathematical complexity), and -maybe- fail to really understand the harmonic oscillator, just because there is no means to express this problem mathematically?)
David Papineau
June 2, 2006
(changed June 2, 2006)
Permalink
Very interesting query. But is it necessarily a 'lucky coincidenceor divine act' that basic physical problems can be solved using basicmathematics? Maybe the reason is that is that our mathematics has beendeveloped in order to deal with the physical world.
True, thereare many familiar cases where... Read more
On the subject of race. Why is there a tacit assumption that all persons are white unless identified as some different race? Example: Maybe a guy is lost from his group at a big convention or something and he tells someone that he is looking for "these three guys... one of them is black, and one of them has a big nose ring?" Like black-ness is an unusual trait to be used to pick somebody out of a crowd or a police line up, like a scar or a tattoo. I hope this made at least some sense.
David Papineau
June 2, 2006
(changed June 2, 2006)
Permalink
I agree with Richard. But there is also another sense in which racism leads people to underestimate the number of 'whites'. I am thinking here of the practice of counting somebody as unequivocally 'black' if their ancestry is half European and half African, or even 80% European and 20% African.... Read more