In deduction, the move from premises to conclusions is such that if the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true. For example, take the following argument: 1. Elvis Presley lives in a secret location in Idaho. 2. All people who live in secret locations in Idaho are miserable. 3. Therefore Elvis Presley is miserable. If the two premises are true, then it must be true that Elvis is miserable. Note, however, that if Elvis doesn’t exist any longer, then the conclusion need not be true either. But IF 1 and 2 are true, then so is 3. Unlike deductive inferences, induction involves an inference where the conclusion follows from the premises not with certainty but only with probability. Often, induction involves reasoning from a limited number of observations to wider, probable generalisations. Reasoning this way is commonly called "inductive generalization." It’s a kind of inference that usually involves reasoning from past regularities to future regularities. One...

Well, in some ways it's a matter of definition. One might plausibly, I think, distinguish between pacifism and non-violence as a positive form of political struggle (though I think in practice most pacifists haven't made this distinction and the line is often blurry). Pacificism by this account would be negatively defined as the refusal to engage in violent acts, turning the other cheek as it were, without any attempt to provoke violence. Non-violence struggle often includes pacifism but would also involve the positive objective of trying to achieve some political end, perhaps by eliciting a violent response. Those engaged in non-violent struggle, however, aren't always pacifists. They simply think that non-violent techniques are in the relevant contexts the most effective techniques. Some involved in the Palestinian struggle, for example the ISM, use non-violent tactics but aren't pacifists where being a pacifist is defined as holding to the principle that one should never be violent. ...

This is a provocative question. I wish you had been more specific in what you consider the "base communist beliefs" to be and how they manifest themselves in "each government." Might there be some consistency with regard to things like (1) the social or collective (as opposed to private) control of the means of production and distrubution as well as (2) production and distribution directed by need and social choice rather than profit and the chaos of markets? On the other hand, I think you're right that much of what goes and has gone by the name of communism and socialism deviate quite a bit from Marx and Engels's theories. But, of course, modern market capitalism differs quite a bit from the sort of thing described by Adam Smith.

This is a bit more of a sociological or psychological than a philosophical question. My personal experience provides virtually no basis for knowing the answer. My guess is that, as with Copernicus, the proof would take some time to catch on. During that period we'd see a lot of people, particularly those heavily invested in religion, attacking the proof, attacking the person who invented it, and attacking those who accept it. There'd be fatwas against purveyors of the satanic proof; somehow it would be found to manifest the mark of the beast or correspond to some dreary prophecy in Revelation . Well scrubbed suburban homeschoolers would recite its flaws in between trips to the mall. A formerly unknown Danish newspaper would be catapulted to the center of the world's attention for publishing it and then be charged with racism for employing Arabic numerals in doing so. Pat Robertson would condemn the proof as another effort by the homosexual, secular left to undermine religion, morality, and...

There's a funny old remark that goes something like this: "I don't fear my own death, because it's not something that will happen in my lifetime." The Epicureans held something of this view. Death isn't something that happens to us, the argument goes, because when dead we no longer exist. As he was dying, David Hume is recorded as having remarked along these lines when someone asked him whether he feared death: no more so than I regret not having been born earlier. The time before we were born was nothing to us; the time after we die will be nothing, too. It's irrational to fear nothing. But, of course, it's not irrational to fear dying. The process that results in death is certainly something, and it's hardly irrational to fear the sorts of torments that afflict many in the course of that process. Then again, some hold that there's some sort of afterlife during which we might be subjected to indescibable horrors. If when dead we don't cease to exist, then maybe there is something to fear in it...

It's a great question, and the way you pose it raises a number of fascinating issues. About the concern whether "anything" is true, I assume you mean any truth claim. Things can be said to be "true" in certain contexts ("That's a true Rembrandt"; "That way is true north"; "Mine is true love"), but typically in philosophical contexts it's statements that are either true or false. Here I'm inclined to say that it's not unwise to withold some measure of judgment on virtually any truth claim. If by "sure" you mean, impossible to doubt, then I think we might be better off not trying to achieve it. Skeptical philosophers like Sextus Empiricus, Hume, and Montaigne have in various ways advanced ideas like this. On the other hand, Ludwig Wittgenstein and other philosophers have held that in many contexts it's simply senseless to raise doubts our to try to raise doubts. I must say, I've not been persuaded yet by this strategy. But, as Hume reminds us, we must be as diffident of our doubts as of our...

This is a question with which I've struggled for some time. The answer depends upon one's interpretation of Aristotle, one's view of the meaning of the relevant terms, and the proper way to approach historical texts. I've come down on the side of the APA on this one, but in a qualified sense. Here's why: 1. While interpreting the conventional use of "man" as a metonymic figure is not wrong, it is incomplete. I've become convinced on both empirical grounds and on my reading through the history of philosophy that the term is something of what Hilda Smith calls "false universals." That is, while it poses as representing humanity and in a sense does, it's burdened with masculinist connotations. 2. Aristotle, of course, doesn't use the term, "man," but rather mostly variations of anthropos . Anthropos , however, is in my view also a false universal; but it's closer to "humanity"--which, by the way, isn't always used in a neutral way, either, but is I think less inflected than "man." ...

This is an interesting question which could arguably yield a booklength study, or even a series of them. I should caution you at the outset, however, that in a sense there is no such thing as "postmodernism." The term largely stems from usages in architecture and from Jean-François Lyotard's 1979 book, The Postmodern Condition . But there's not really a "postmodern" philosophical movement or a definable "ism" in the way that there's a Marxism or a Platonism. Neither Derrida nor Foucault called themselves postmodernists, and you might be surprised to learn that the term is largely used in Anglo-American circles; the French hardly use it at all. Postmodernism is rather a family of texts, thinkers, and techniques that have been gathered together for various purposes. Post-structuralism you might coonsider as a more precise term. Having said that, one can't really find an ancient school that "corresponds" to post-modernism. Different interepreters, however, will point to different moments in either...

It sounds to me like you're a something of a skeptic--resistant to dogmatism of any kind, whether theist, atheist, or agnostic. (Yes, agnostics can be dogmatic, too, holding dogmatically that religious questions can't be answered.) It also sounds like you remain, however, troubled by a persisting need to be dogmatic about something. Perhaps you can let go of that. Perhaps you might consider the possibility that there's something inherently unstable about religious dogmatics, or anti-religious dogmatics for that matter. Theistic/atheistic/agnostic alternatives seem to come and go in a kind of natural way to people (in a way that beliefs about ordinary, middle-sized, middle-distanced objects like tables and chairs don't). I find something of this in Hume, for example. You might try reading some of Hume' Dialogues concerning Natural Religion , as well as Montaigne's Essays related to religion, and Erasmus's In Praise of Folly .

One of the criteria philosophers generally agree upon for just war is "legitimate authority"--that is, a just war must be authorized in legitimate (usually meaning lawful) ways. The United Nations charter and the U.S. Constitution, for example, set out procedures for properly authorizing war, as will the legal codes of most nations. To evaluate the legality of this war, one must extablish whether those procedures were followed in proper ways. In particular, here you should look at whether the U.S. Congress authorized the war and whether the U.N. Security Council authorized the war. (See Articles 39, 42, 51 of the UN Charter; also see Security Council Resolution 1441; see the U.S. Congress's Joint resolution on the war of October 2002.) Another issue to consider is whether or not, even if authorization was given, the authorization was rendered illegitimate or void since it was predicated on deceitful claims about the nature of the threat posed by Iraq. You may also consider whether any ...