Hey, I've come to the conclusion that every person has their own truth. At the same time, the fact that 2+2=4 is quite obviously a truth. But if someone was to say that 2+2=3, and they believed it to be true, it is their own truth. Does that mean, that whatever we might think is true, no matter our conviction, we can never be sure of it's validity. Or maybe that everything is true, which in turn would make nothing true. Or might it be something else entirely?

Hi, I'm a college freshman taking my first philosophy class. My professor takes points off my essay for grammatical mistakes I made. I disagree with this approach. Isn't the idea the most important, more so for philosophy?

I'm something of a nihilist, but with that I've lost is the reason to care about stuff, even myself and my loved ones. Why should I care about anything?

There is an infinite number of words - "ONE", "TWO", "THREE"... etc. Every word has a definition. Every definition consists of letters. There is a finite number of arrangement of letters; thus there is a finite number of definitions. Thus there is at least one word that doesn't have a definition. Paradox?

Say I have a sequence of numbers - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. I add 1 to 7 to create the next number in the sequence,8. The sequence is finite. I add 1 to 8 to get the next number in the sequence, 9. The sequence is finite. I keep on going... At what point does my sequence become infinite? How can my sequence ever become infinite?

A painter painted a masterpiece to express his observation of the world. However, everyone's understanding of the same works is quite different, and the painter is not sure whether his or her works are reflected in others. The original meaning of some ancient paintings has long been unknown, or gradually distorted in the history of interpretation. What is the meaning of painting? Just speak to oneself? Can the meaning, or beauty, be transmitted among different people?

Suppose some celebrity has made him or herself more loved and well-received partly by establishing an him or herself as faithful, compassionate husband or wife. If it’s later found out that this celebrity actually leads a messy private life far from the established image, does he or she owe an apology to the public? What if the celebrity never revealed anything about his or her private life or used it to establish some image? Does the public or the media have any right to expose, examine or criticize his or her private life? Some say it’s an inevitable price to pay for the publicity, since they also reaped benefit from it. Is it true?

Are there many philosophers who seriously try to argue that there are no objective moral truths? If so, how would they refute the proposition that "it is always wrong to torture people purely for pleasure." ? Thank you for your consideration!

Keep in mind I'm a complete novice in philosophy, especially when it comes to the literature. I might misrepresent some positions completely. Please call me out. In short: The determinist states: Our decisions are bound to causation, and thus we are not truly free. This statement implies that the only way for free will to exist would be to detach an agent from causation; as long as some factors affect out motivation to do something, we are not truly free. The determinist thus claims that the only way for a choice to be free is that there would be some force acting above the physical reality, especially when it comes to cognition and decisionmaking. Thus only in a dualistic reality is free will possible. I have a few problems with this: 1. This method of defining free will seems to consequentally destroy the agent. If we were to be able to decide what we want, we'd, at least apparently, fundamentally be nothing. How would it be possible to even assign a different "want" to ourselves without that want...

Hi, While reading aristotle and aquinas on part whole relationship i often read the phrase "something qua itself and qua something else" as in man qua headed or qua an animal, what do they mean by that ? and how can something be qua itself and at the same time be as something else ? Isnt that a contardiction ? Thanks in advance