Recent Responses
How do you know that philosophers have the answer?
Richard Heck
October 18, 2005
(changed October 18, 2005)
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I don't think many philosophers would claim to have the answer to very many questions. A philosopher doesn't have to reflect very long on the history of the subject to convince h'erself that a healthy does of modesty would probaby be a good idea. Any philosopher who does claim to have the an... Read more
if it's zero degrees out and tomorrow it is going be twice as cold, how cold will it be?
Peter Lipton
October 15, 2005
(changed October 15, 2005)
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If a stick starts out being two feet long and then it becomes twice as short, it becomes one foot long. Since there is such a thing as absolute zero, I would have thought that twice as cold as temperature T Kelvin is T/2. (But I'm assuming that the Kelvin scale is linear...) So work out w... Read more
I´m a Computer Scientist with a new found interest in philosophy. In particular I'm interested in the philosophy of mind. I have two questions: 1) What is the big fuss about Frank Jackson's knowledge argument? I read the paper and found it quite silly - how could we ever imagine what it would be like to have all physical knowledge? How is it possible that this argument has generated so much debate? 2) Is it really that hard to imagine that we at some point will be able to build a computer that has a consciousness? I mean, apparently there is already such a machine - our brain! von Neumann said something cool once: "Tell me exactly what it is [consciousness] and I will build it". I believe him. In other words, how can there be so much controversy on this matter, when there is still no clear definition of what consciousness is? Thanks.
Amy Kind
October 15, 2005
(changed October 15, 2005)
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There are certainly philosophers who share your intuition about Jackson's thought experiment -- Daniel Dennett, for example, in Consciousness Explained claims that the problem with the argument is precisely the one you've pointed to: Jackson misimagines what it would be like to have all the phy... Read more
This is a follow-up to the question "What is the difference between analytical and continental philosophy?". Even if the distinction should be retired, it still gets used, and those of us outside the profession don't have a sense of what the terms mean. It would still be useful to give us a sense of what the (stereotyped, misleading) distinction is supposed to be. What is the flavor of the rhetorical differences between the two? Do the two address different sorts of question? (This is the characterization I've gotten from philosopher friends: continental figures make up grand sweeping theories about everything, whereas analytic figures try to answer one small question at a time, more like the method of contemporary science.) Who are some of the major figures claimed by either side?
Jyl Gentzler
October 15, 2005
(changed October 15, 2005)
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Like others, I believe that this popular dichotomy is in many ways morepernicious than helpful. Nonetheless, it might be helpful to make thefollowing observations. The Western philosophical tradition has itsroots in Ancient Greece. After the European rediscovery of Aristotleduring the Crusad... Read more
Situation: married man and unmarried woman on the verge of involvement. Does the woman have a responsibility to protect his marriage vows, or is the responsibility solely his? In the absence of any specific religious doctrine, how would you frame a principle to facilitate discrimination about where responsibility begins and ends?
Matthew Silverstein
October 15, 2005
(changed October 15, 2005)
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When I read your description of the situation, my first thought was that the woman has a responsibility not to protect the married man's vows, but rather to protect the married man's wife. After all, the wife is the one who is most likely to be harmed by her husband's affair, and it s... Read more
Can we be right in viewing ourselves -- our lives, our decisions, our contributions to social issues -- as important, if that means important, period, not just important *to* someone? I mean, I'd feel meaningless if what mattered to me mattered only to me, or to any particular people...but is there a sensible way to view ourselves as important, with a capital 'I', to no-one in particular?
Jyl Gentzler
October 16, 2005
(changed October 16, 2005)
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Alex is suggesting that unless something is “important, period,” nothing can be important at all in a way that gives meaning to human lives.
We might understand Alex’s argument for this conclusion as a kind of reductio of my suggestion that I could be reasonably satisfied with the meaning... Read more
Why do the laws of morality and the laws of nature seem to be completely opposite one another? For example, most moral codes encourage monogamy while the theory of evolution states the strongest seed should be spread around.
Sharon Street
October 15, 2005
(changed October 15, 2005)
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I agree with everything Matthew Silverstein says about the crucial difference between descriptive and prescriptive theories. I'd add the following. There is a large body of work in evolutionary theory which explains how altruistic behavior, both in ourselves and other animals, might have... Read more
Hi, I am an aspiring philosopher and I would like to become a professor one of these days. But I don't know how to go about it. I am still an undergrad student and I don't what steps to take. The advice will be much appreciated. Thanx.
Sean Greenberg
October 15, 2005
(changed October 15, 2005)
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One good test of whether one ought to pursue philosophy is whether one finds oneself staying up at night worrying about philosophical questions.In this vein, I was once told that if I read Thomas Nagel's Mortal Questions and found one essay that kept me up worrying, then I would know that... Read more
I've been away from academia since I dropped out of philosophy grad school in 1997, so I'm out of touch with recent developments in philosophy. What are the most significant philosophical books or papers of the past eight or so years? (My main areas of interest in grad school were metaphysics and philosophy of language, but I'd be interested in your answer whatever your specialty.)
Richard Heck
October 23, 2005
(changed October 23, 2005)
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Philosophy tends not to move terribly quickly, and it's always difficult to tell, from "up close", what will prove to have been important. That said, however, there have been some important developments in philosophy of language (one area you mentioned over the last decade). It's less a matt... Read more
I heard about the analogy of a computer and the mind, but I'm fuzzy about the connection. Please help!
Peter Lipton
October 15, 2005
(changed October 15, 2005)
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One attraction of this analogy stems from the distinction between hardware and software (program) for computers. Computers are physical things, but the same program may run on physically different computers, so the states of the program are not to be identified with particular physical stat... Read more