Recent Responses
The notion of "free will" implies an agent can make its own choice independent of the deterministic laws of nature. However, within a causally closed system this is impossible. Why then would evolution endow agents with the feeling of control? Would it not be more efficient (and more expected) for evolution to produce automata without subjective (and superfluous) mental phenomena?
Sean Greenberg
October 12, 2005
(changed October 12, 2005)
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One way to respond to this question is to reconceive the notion of control at issue. Rather than accepting that the control that agents feel they have requires that they be able to make choices independent of the laws of nature, one might argue that all the control that agents need in ord... Read more
When something disastrous happens, like Katrina, "logic" says: so much the worse for a loving God. But for the believer, what comes out, instead, are things like "God never gives us more than we can handle" and "We have to praise the Lord, and thank him, that <i>we</i> are OK." Why? (Or is this just a psychological or sociological question? Or did I watch too much Fox news?)
Alan Soble
November 11, 2006
(changed November 11, 2006)
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Plantinga writes, in the quoted passage, "what God sees as better is, of course, better. " Oh? Of course? Having solved to his own satisfaction the problem of evil, can Alvin also solve the Euthyphro-style dilemma that arises here? (1) A world is better because God sees it as better vs. (2)... Read more
Should education be a means to an end?
Joseph G. Moore
October 12, 2005
(changed October 12, 2005)
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I don't see anything wrong with using education as a means to an end, as when I suffer through a dreary course on car mechanics so that I can learn how to fix my own engine. Having said this, I don't think education is always merely a means to an end: not only can it be fulfilling to lear... Read more
Is it possible to deify an object, perhaps a penguin? If so, what qualities and/or properties would make it godlike? D.D.
Sean Greenberg
October 12, 2005
(changed October 12, 2005)
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In Chapter XII of Leviathan, Hobbes says that "there is almost nothing that has a name that has not been esteemed...in one place or another, a god or a devil....Men, women, a bird, a crocodile, a calf, a dog, a snake, an onion, a leek, [were] deified." Hobbes would probably say that somew... Read more
If you were sent back 100 years in time and met a fellow philosopher, what advances in the field since his or her time would you tell him or her of? Would you be able to convince him or her of what you said?
Alexander George
October 12, 2005
(changed October 12, 2005)
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To my mind, the formulation, discussion, appreciation, and absorption of the work of Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein, W.V. Quine, Donald Davidson, and Saul Kripke have allowed for far deeper, sharper, and more sophisticated discussions in the philosophy of language than have ever been... Read more
Are we directly aware of reality, or is what we "sense" merely a representation of reality?
Alexander George
October 12, 2005
(changed October 12, 2005)
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This is a perennial and extremely vexing question about which there continues to be great debate. You might find this essay in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to be of value.
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Are we directly aware of reality, or is what we "sense" merely a representation of reality?
Alexander George
October 12, 2005
(changed October 12, 2005)
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This is a perennial and extremely vexing question about which there continues to be great debate. You might find this essay in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to be of value.
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A discussion with a philosopher friend got me all bewildered. He claimed that we cannot say that animals feel pain, because a mind is necessary to feel pain, and animals don't have a mind. My argument was twofold: 1. How do we know that animals don't have minds? 2. Pain is a result of stimulus to certain parts of the brain. If we assume that animals don't have minds, we can still see that their brains respond to pain stimuli the same way as ours. Even if they are unable to cognitively translate an external factor into a thought train like "I stuck my hand on a hot plate, it hurt, so I removed my hand from the hot plate", surely we can watch them pull back from things that we would experience as painful. I was wondering what your thoughts are on this subject. Thanks.
Peter Lipton
October 12, 2005
(changed October 12, 2005)
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I know of no good argument for the conclusion that animals cannot feel pain, and given the behavioral and physiological similarities between us and some animals the evidence seems very strong that some do. A biologist friend of mine told me about an experiement with, yes, rats. These rats... Read more
I have located my personal spiritual 'conviction' within the domain of pantheism, but am dissatisfied with the general discussion for the absence of what is to me a fundamental premise. To consider oneself coextensive with the universe and the universe to be coextensive with God is not to depersonalize God at all. From 'my' perspective, this conciousness I call "I" is as a cell in the universal conciousness, as my body is a cell in the universal body. Where is the doctrine that supports this notion of divinity?
Alexander George
October 11, 2005
(changed October 11, 2005)
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Perhaps the reference given in the response to question 135 will prove helpful.
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Presuming that it is impossible to write unbiased history, does that make the discipline invalid in that it can never be what it would ideally (at least for many) be: a completely truthful presentation of the past?
Alexander George
October 11, 2005
(changed October 11, 2005)
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I'm not sure what you're presuming until you say what "biased" means. Do you believe that contemporary physics is biased? If not, then what is it about historical research that makes it impossible for historians to attain the same degree of rigor and truth that physicists do? And if s... Read more