Recent Responses
Why do some people have "good taste" and others have "bad taste"?
Aaron Meskin
October 13, 2005
(changed October 13, 2005)
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What a can of worms! To my mind, the most interesting philosophical work on the subject is David Hume’s wonderful essay “Of the Standard of Taste”. Humeargues that there are a number of criteria for what counts as being a‘true judge’ of the arts (that is, someone who has good taste). Her... Read more
What's the best definition of Nature and its contrast to the supernatural?
Sean Greenberg
October 14, 2005
(changed October 14, 2005)
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In the early modern period, there was considerable debate about the metaphysical status of miracles. Philosophers as different as Hobbes and Malebranche seem to agree, however, that some event is a miracle if and only if it caused by God's willing that that event take place.On this accoun... Read more
POKER - the card game, not Wittgenstein's - seems to have taken many by storm, especially college students. Its ethical (not to mention legal) status, however, eludes us. Is it unethical to play poker? If your answer to this question relies on conceiving of poker as "gambling", then would poker tournaments, in which an entry fee is paid and one cannot lose more than that entry fee (your chips no longer represent real money), deserve the same appraisal? Is gambling unethical, and is there any such thing as something being inherently addictive, or do different people just get addicted to different things because of who they are? Here's a preliminary thought: Our socio/economic system is rather unjust, with many poor people and a few very rich ones. At the poker table, however, a just meritocracy exists: those with intelligence win and climb up the economic ladder. Win one poker tournament for $5, and you now have the entry fee for 5 more such tournaments. For intelligent people currently working minimum wage jobs, this sounds like a real opportunity. What about the chance (so called "luck") element? Well, that doesn't, in my opinion, discount the fact that there's a meritocracy. There is lots of chance in real life, starting with the socio-economic status of your parents, or the fluctuations of the market that leave people out of jobs, or the career-promoting connections you may accidentally have stumbled upon. So, who agrees with my conclusion that a society of poker players is an exemplar for a just society?
Joseph G. Moore
October 13, 2005
(changed October 13, 2005)
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The society of poker players displays a kind of procedural fairness--if everyone starts with the same amount then there is no one to blame for future discrepancies other than Lady Luck and the players' own decisions. But is this type of procedural fairness all that is required in a just s... Read more
Critical thinking: We are bombarded with information all the time so I think it's very important to use "critical thinking" but it's not easy. So my question is: what are the basics in critical thinking?
Andrew N. Carpenter
October 13, 2005
(changed October 13, 2005)
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I think it is also useful to think about the separate skills that are necessary for applying the concepts and techniques that Joseph described to complex real-life situations.
Alas, we often have the most need for critical thinking when confronting the situations where this is the har... Read more
Hi. I was wondering if Jean-Paul Sartre's view on Existentialism have any relevance for today's philosophers? Looking forward to an answer. Thanks, Magnus Sweden
Sean Greenberg
October 13, 2005
(changed October 13, 2005)
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In recent years, there has been an upsurge in interest among Anglo-American philosophers in such philosophers such as Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Paul Sartre. In a recent book, Authority and Estrangement: An Essay on Self-Knowledge, Richard Moran draws on Sartre's... Read more
It seems that most of my thoughts are expressed as reflections of familiar stimuli received through the agreed-upon 'five senses' (this includes spoken and written language). Is there any appropriate way to speculate on what form the thoughts of a hypothetical person born without access to sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste might take? I guess what I mean is: "please speculate!"
Amy Kind
October 13, 2005
(changed October 13, 2005)
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There was a real life case of a girl named Genie (a pseudonym) who was deprived of any real sensory stimuli for much of her young life because of the abuse of her father. Her story is told in a book called Genie by Russ Rymer. Her case suggests, in line with what Alex says above, that the abse... Read more
Do philosophers really think that the problems they discuss are important in themselves, or does thinking about the problems merely serve as practice in analytical thinking? How does philosophy differ from puzzle solving (besides the fact that puzzles actually tend to get solved)?
Andrew N. Carpenter
October 13, 2005
(changed October 13, 2005)
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As Richard states, there is considerable disagreement among philosophers about which philosophical questions are significant, and why. There is also considerable truth in your suggestion that studying the methods and texts of philosophy is itself a valuable way to develop one's analy... Read more
How do we resolve the fact that our finite brains can conceive of mental spaces far more vast than the known physical universe and more numerous than all of the atoms? For example, the total possible state-space of a game of chess is well defined, finite, but much larger than the number of atoms in the universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number). Obviously, all of these states "exist" in some nebulous sense insofar as the rules of chess describe the boundaries of the possible space, and any particular instance within that space we conceive of is instantly manifest as soon as we think of it. But what is the nature of this existence, since it is equally obvious that the entire state-space can never actually be manifest simultaneously in our universe, as even the idea of a board position requires more than one atom to manifest that mental event? Yet through abstraction, we can casually refer to many such hyper-huge spaces. We can talk of infinite number ranges like the integers, and "bigger" infinite ranges like rational numbers, and yet still "bigger" infinite ranges like the irrationals. In what sense can we say all of these potential huge spaces exist (and they must, since we can so easily instantiate well-formed members of them, at will) yet we don't have even the slightest fraction of sufficent space for them in our known universe?
Alexander George
October 13, 2005
(changed October 13, 2005)
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To add a word or two to Dan's great response: there is no questionthatmathematics deals with infinite collections, but what those are, whatwe mean when we make claims about them, which claims are correct —these have been hotly disputed issues for thousands of years. (Inthe history of mat... Read more
What, if anything, do philosophers make of the fact that after centuries of philosophy, there is little consensus on the anwers to most philosophical questions?
Andrew N. Carpenter
October 13, 2005
(changed October 13, 2005)
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The chief lesson I have drawn is that reaching consensus is not an important criterion for progress in philosophy. This is true in several areas of my own professional life, including in my discussions with colleagues, in my own study of philosophical texts, and in my own philosophica... Read more
One of my pet peeves has been that Critical Thinking is not a requirement at the high school level. If high school is supposed to prepare kids to make important life decisions, it would seem to be one of the most important disciplines. I rarely hear any discussion about the issue, however. Do you think an introduction to critical thinking (or for that matter, an introduction to philosophy) should be required at the high school level or before? Why isn't it?
Andrew N. Carpenter
October 13, 2005
(changed October 13, 2005)
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I agree that critical thinkingskills are vital. Taking a course in critical thinking is not the onlyway to gain these skills, however, and so I think the most importantquestion is whether high school students have plentiful opportunitiesto do this.
Inpart, this is a matter of curricul... Read more