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It seems all philosophical arguments for the existence of God all result in having nothing to say about the conception of God, God's attributes or religion. If someone accepts that God exists, how does that belief entail in accepting a particular religion over another, if at all? And if that entailment is accepted does that mean all of the articles of faith of that religion (i.e. ethics, rituals, afterlife) MUST be accepted given that God exists, by coherentism?
Charles Taliaferro
April 27, 2013
(changed April 27, 2013)
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Actually, all the classical and most contemporary arguments for the existence of God are each based on (or involve) a conception of God and divine attributes. So, every version of the cosmological argument I know of as used to support theism relies on the idea that, if there is a God, God... Read more
Is length an intrinsic property or is it something which is only relative to other lengths? Is an inch an inch? Or is it simply a relation between other (length) phenomena?
Allen Stairs
April 27, 2013
(changed April 27, 2013)
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It is indeed an interesting question, and in fact it's more than one question.To begin with, my colleague is correct: in special relativity, length is like velocity in classical mechanics: it's a "frame-dependent" quantity. However, the theory of relativity is also a theory of absolutes; between... Read more
If you are at a conference and somebody behind you says something that you feel is offensive is it okay to take their picture and post that to the Internet so that a lot of people know that somebody said that offensive thing?
Ian Kidd
April 27, 2013
(changed April 27, 2013)
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This is an interesting question - and an important one, given how often one overhears offensive comments (at conferences, on trains, in coffee shops, and so on!) There might be two sets of issues to separate, though.The first set of issues concern what was said, in what context, and why, and whether... Read more
Do you think there is too little applied ethics being studied and researched in academia? I think analytic philosophy still has not recovered from the ideas of logical positivism. If ethics is still a worthwhile field of study, why then shouldn't it connect as much as possible to the public by advising every facet of human behavior?
Ian Kidd
April 27, 2013
(changed April 27, 2013)
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Applied ethics is in fact in rude health! Over the last thirty or so years there has been (firstly) a revival of applied ethics as a distinct discipline in its own right and (secondly) a diversification of new areas of applied ethical theorising, such as environmental ethics, business ethics, agricu... Read more
I've read many here who say that everyone alive who thinks critically is a philosopher, not just those who have published academic articles and books. Isn't this a dangerous and incorrect notion since it gives credence to the fact that Mao Zedong is just as much a philosopher as Kant? Many PhD holders in science wouldn't consider themselves a scientist if they don't work in science. How frustrated are professional philosophers in that the masses throughout history have accepted so much "bad philosophy" and cannot recognize exactly what philosophy IS and what its aims (if any) are?
Ian Kidd
April 27, 2013
(changed April 27, 2013)
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A good question! Or rather, two good questions - the first about whether a desire to philosophise is innate in human beings, the second about what being a philosopher in contemporary society means.Taking the first, many philosophers have argued that a desire to philosophise is inherent in all human... Read more
Do we have an interest in our survival as a species? Would it be a bad thing if humans went extinct? I can see why it would be bad if, say, all of the humans on earth were killed. But suppose instead that everyone simply decided not to have kids, so that our numbers eventually dwindled to zero. Would that be bad?
Gabriel Segal
April 27, 2013
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Do we have an interest in our survival as a species? Would it be a bad thing for whom if humans went extinct? Who are we? We humans as a species? Or just all living humans?
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Is it possible to prove that emotions exist through the use of brain scans (which varies widely among different people in terms of neuron activity)? To clarify, all a brain scan seems to do is prove that neuron activity exists at different levels during different mental states but not the existence of emotion per se. In that sense, isn't emotion similar to the concepts of "chakras," "tao," and "the third eye" in that these ideas may never be scientifically detected or proven yet still exist?
Gabriel Segal
April 27, 2013
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It is possible, but unlikely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affective_neuroscience
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Are equations like F=MA or e=mc squared metaphysical statements about energy and force or are they empirical observations about regularly occurring correlations?
Gabriel Segal
April 26, 2013
(changed April 26, 2013)
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I think you can safely take them either way. You could take them to be more or less definitional of the terms involved. In that case the empirical question would be whether the terms pick out real quantities in nature. Or you could take the terms to pick out independently identifiable quantitie... Read more
Is it true that no computer, no matter how sophisticated humans construct it in the future, will ever be able to solve philosophy problems because fundamentally a computer cannot function without initial human input programming? Even something as simple or mundane as an everyday moral dilemma?
Gabriel Segal
April 26, 2013
(changed April 26, 2013)
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I do no think it is true that a computer cannot function without initial human input programming. There is nothing in the nature of computation that implies this. I believe, along with most cognitive scientists, that human minds are, or include as components, computers... for example, the visua... Read more
The word abstract generally connotes something which is general rather than particular and consisting in the mind or realm of ideas rather than a concrete and actual instance. Metaphysics is often described as an abstract inquiry into being. Yet being (or at least beings) are particular and actual. How do philosophers grapple with this seeming contradiction?
Gabriel Segal
April 26, 2013
(changed April 26, 2013)
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How about an enquiry into the general nature of particular actual things? For example on might ask: what, if anything, do all particular and actual things have in common? What distinguishes them from non-particular and/or non-actual things, if any such there be?
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