Recent Responses
are we programed to respond favorably to those subjects that we consider beautiful, rather than considering them unappealing. I imagine if we did not have positive responses to things we consider beautiful, it would make our lives extremely unsatisfying and we would not strive to attain that which gives us emotional pleasure...Is this nature's way of having us adapt and assimilate to our natural surroundings....a joke played on us....making us turn away from the ugliness that truly exists all around us.......rn.
Oliver Leaman
October 31, 2013
(changed October 31, 2013)
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I don't think so. We often do not find the beautiful attractive. The ugly may attract us, there is something fascinating about a very ugly person or situation. I think you are right in thinking that aesthetic features make life more interesting, but it is too simple to think that beauty att... Read more
I'm sure that, for almost any position I take on a controversial political issue, there is an expert out there who has investigated it more than I have and, as a result, rejected my position -- or who *would* reject my position *if* they investigated it more thoroughly. (Take, for example, the question of whether Obamacare is good public policy.) This humbles me and makes it difficult for me to be fully confident in my conclusions and work up the motivation to fight for what seems like the right thing. More generally, careful reflection on how I could be wrong often removes or severely diminishes the passion I might have originally felt about a political issue. My reflection breeds a sort of apathy. Is that inappropriate? How do philosophers who passionately fight for political causes deal with the uncertainty that they could be wrong, or with the fact that there is (or could be) someone out there who is more of an expert *and* has the opposite view?
Miriam Solomon
October 31, 2013
(changed October 31, 2013)
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The quick answer to your question is that most people have more self-confidence--even arrogance--than you seem to have about their opinions, especially if they are "experts." So, they might be wrong, but they don't worry about it like you do (as my husband the surgeon says about surgeons... Read more
Debating with a theologian over the validity of biblical condemnation of homosexuality i've been offered a sequence of arguments that seem to me circular. First argument: Divine directives 1. God has given the directive to establish the eterosexual marriage 2. Homosexual acts are condemned in the BIble 3. Homosexuals brake the divine directive Second argument: Perverse heart 1. To brake a divine law willingly is perversion 2. Homosexual acts are condemned in the Bible 3. Homosexuals are perverse Third argument: social deviance 1. To diffuse behaviours that are condemned in the Bible is a form of social deviance 2. Homosexual acts are condemned in the BIble 3. Homosexual are social deviant To me it is obvious that all these arguments implies, as a second premise, the condemnation whose validity is in question. When i have made this observation i have been offered a curios answer: anyone has a worldview that starts from certain unquestionable premise, that are in themselves circular but not invalid. For instance: Premise: God exists. Conclusion: God exists. For a Christian the validity of the Bible is a presupposition that is not questionable. Therefore there is no circularity in their argument. When i have asked a more detailed explanation, pointing to the fact thta there is a logical jump from their premise to their conclusion, i have received only personal offences. Could you help me to understand better the concept of "worldview" and which ideas can be considered correctly as unqestionable presupposition of a worldview and which not? Thanks Luca ps excuse me for my poor english...
Allen Stairs
October 31, 2013
(changed October 31, 2013)
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Interesting.It's true that we do sometimes rely on assumptions, premises or whatnot that we simply take for granted. In fact, it's hard to see how we could avoid doing that; otherwise we'd end up in an endless regress of justifications. We could use the term "worldview" for broad premises th... Read more
Compatiblism is attractive because it finds room for human freedom in a deterministic world. But objections that compatiblism is evasive or incoherent strike me as persuasive. Setting aside the indeterministic defense of free will, how might the hard determist endorse the claim that humans generally do bear moral responsibility for their actions? Or would the hard determinist have to bite this bullet and conclude that moral responsibility is illusory if we have no free will?
Andrew Pessin
December 6, 2013
(changed December 6, 2013)
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I like Stephen's answer, but I think you ARE asking about the hard determinist -- you're convinced by hard determinism about free will (i.e. tht determinism rules out freedom, not (directly) that it rules out moral responsibility), and you're worried about having to give up moral responsibi... Read more
I have a question about the theistic argument from contingency (henceforth, TAC) and God's selection of universes. There is the following age-old argument which led Leibniz to reject TAC. Argument: 1. Necessarily, If God exists, then God creates the best possible universe. 2. God necessarily exists. 3. So, God necessarily creates the best possible universe (from 1 and 2). (3) gives us modal collapse, which goes against TAC. But let's say we deny (1). Still, God is strongly reasons-responsive. So, if God weighed reasons for and against creating a certain universe U, and God found the reasons to favor creating U, then God necessarily creates U. This would also give us modal collapse. But there may be a solution. My question is whether this solution works. The solution: suppose Molinism is true. Then, God is confronted with different contingent counterfactuals of creaturely freedom in some worlds in which he exists. Maybe in one world in which God exists, all the persons freely reject God's existence, so God chooses not to create a universe in which these persons exist (say, God doesn't want to throw all of them in hell). So in that world, God chooses not to create. So modal collapse is avoided. So, does this work?
Charles Taliaferro
October 27, 2013
(changed October 27, 2013)
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Very interesting! I think you have a point, but let me back up a bit. If it is necessarily the case that God is a Creator, then there is no possible world in which God does not create. In that case, if you have described a plausible state of affairs (there is a possible world in whi... Read more
Are the concepts of 'panta rhei' (Heraclitus' river analogy) and hard determinism reconcilable, or are they mutually exclusive? One suggests a world constantly in flux and the other a world where all events are determined rigidly by prior ones. But surely even if 'everything changes', it is possible for all of those changes to be determined? Or am I interpreting Heraclitus wrongly?
Nickolas Pappas
October 26, 2013
(changed October 26, 2013)
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You are taking claims and concepts from two traditions very far removed from one another. And yet your question makes good sense; for in some respect I believe Heraclitus would understand hard determinism, and the modern hard determinist would understand that panta rhei. Indeed, as th... Read more
why is it that we see sunsets, mountains, life forms, geological formations, etc. and consider them to be beautiful.
Jonathan Westphal
October 24, 2013
(changed October 24, 2013)
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A helpful answer might be that we see sunsets and mountains and so on as beautiful because they are beautiful. The reason I say that this answer is helpful is twofold. It moves the question away from the bias of a model in which (a) there is no beauty in nature, but (b) we project it on... Read more
What theistic philosophical response can there be to evil and suffering, acknowledging original sin, even from a kierkegaardian viewpoint, to what does it relate to the meaning, purpose and endurable with some meaning and joy? (ps sorry for the horrible syntax) basically philosophical statements and ideas relating to meaningful living, not just suffering and illusion, for a religious mind/person. Thank you.
Charles Taliaferro
October 20, 2013
(changed October 20, 2013)
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Your question(s) / challenge(s) is/ are important and well put (no need to apologize for syntax!). Along with many (but by no means all) philosophers, I agree with what I think you are suggesting or open to in your second to last sentence: questions about the meaning and value of lif... Read more
I am interested in how mathematical propositions relate to objects in the world; that is, how math and its concepts somehow correspond to the physical world. I have thought a bit about the issue, and realize that what happens, say, with numbers when we do some kind of mathematical operation with them may be the same as when we deduce one proposition in logic from another (If there is a number 2 and an operation "+", and an operation "=", then the result of using 2 + 2 = 4); but my question is this: does the proposition 2 + 2 = 4 mean the same thing as taking two objects and placing two more objects alongside of them, and then counting that there are four objects?
Stephen Maitzen
October 18, 2013
(changed October 18, 2013)
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Philosophers continue to debate the relationship of mathematics to the physical world, including why mathematics is so effective at describing the physical world. The SEP entry on "Explanation in Mathematics," available at this link, contains much useful discussion as well as many referen... Read more
I have a reoccurance of Base of Tongue cancer, and this is a dehumanizing sort of cancer in that it starts to strip away some our most basic asthetic appreciations: eating food, tasting, swallowing, speaking and sexual intimacy. It is also dreadfully painful. So - I've been having the internal question of, when is enough enough, and I think there was a classical parable of how someone would choose their death.
Gordon Marino
October 14, 2013
(changed October 14, 2013)
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When is enough enough? Oh my friend, what a hard, hardquestion - a question that when being raised says a lot about life itself. Though I worry about a person being in decent fettle trying to resolve such a question --for me it would be when the pain got so relentless and all consumingthat... Read more