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Anachronism aside, can Socrates be considered an analytic philosopher?

Mitch Green November 22, 2012 (changed November 22, 2012) Permalink Thank you for your question. If analytic philosophy is understood as a way of engaging with philosophical questions that emphasizes clarity, rigor, and the giving of reasons for what one asserts, then Socrates has a good claim to count as an analytic philosopher. On the other hand, if ana... Read more

Philosophers

Anachronism aside, can Socrates be considered an analytic philosopher?

Existence

Is "exist" an overburdened word? We say that ideas exist, processes exist, and substances exist, but doesn't "exist" mean something different in each case? When we say a particular apple exists, we mean the apple takes up space in the world. When we say the sport of baseball exists, we mean there's this process that people could enact. When we say the color red exists, we mean that there's this shared subjective experience that arises from certain stimuli. When I think about whether or not certain things exist, e.g. mind, time, morality, etc., it's really tricky to know which standards to apply, that of processes, materials, or ideas. Might it be more useful to say that substances exist, processes occur, and ideas arise? Then whether or not the mind exists wouldn't even be a valid question, any more than asking whether apples occur or baseball arises. I suggested this to a professor of philosophy who's dating a friend of mine, and he said he didn't think reserving a special meaning for "exist" would make any difference. Is he right, and if so, why wouldn't it?

Charles Taliaferro November 22, 2012 (changed November 22, 2012) Permalink Great question! Some philosophers have actually disparaged the term "exist," possibly for similar reasons. They have thought that "exists" may be redundant, as the sentence "There is a baseball game today" seems more tidy and less odd than a sentence like "A baseball game exists to... Read more

Education

As an aspiring applicant to grad school I am often encouraged to apply to the top 20 or so ranked philosophy departments.However, I am interested in studying continental philosophy among other things and there seems to be very little opportunity for to engage myself in such study; indeed some departments like Rutgers seem entirely analytic. Are there good options out there for me which will provide me good training in both the analytic and continental traditions? Thank you

Andrew Pessin November 21, 2012 (changed November 21, 2012) Permalink well, the general go-to site for such questions is probably this one: http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/ lots of people question the modes of rankings etc., but there is plenty of useful information there to help you answer the question. best, ap Log in to post com... Read more

Logic Philosophers

Why is the socratic paradox called a paradox?

Andrew Pessin November 21, 2012 (changed November 21, 2012) Permalink I presume this phrase refers to the "The one thing I know is that I know nothing" remark attributed to Socrates? Well, one form of paradox occurs when you are simultaneously motivated to endorse a contradiction -- i.e. both accept and reject a given proposition, or assign the truth values... Read more

Art Feminism

I'm curious what moral distinctions (if any) exist between, for example, the Venus de Milo or the Birth of Venus and "soft" pornography like Playboy?

Andrew Pessin November 21, 2012 (changed November 21, 2012) Permalink Well I'm definitely no expert here, but often in our moral evaluations we take into account intention/motive (as perhaps one factor among others). And if one might arguably hold that "art" aims for some kind of "higher" purposes beyond merely sexual stimulation/titillation, then at least... Read more

Knowledge

I have a question about empiricism. If I was an empiricist how would I know that the country of New Zealand exist if I had never been there to experience it with my senses? I have seen it on tv, movies, and read about it, but that would only tell me that those movies, tv programs, and books exist, not that the country they show or describe do. It would seem to be the same as saying since I've seen middle earth on tv, movies, and read about it, then it must exist. How would an empiricist answer this?

Allen Stairs November 21, 2012 (changed November 21, 2012) Permalink I think the simplest answer is this: empiricists think beliefs about matters of fact should be grounded in empirical evidence; they don't think the evidence always has to be direct. I've never been to New Zealand, but I have a considerable amount of indirect empirical evidence that it exis... Read more

Ethics Religion

In conversations with Christians (and members of other religious groups), more often than not I'm asked on what grounds atheism can claim to have an objective morality. This isn't a new question, but it is one I don't feel properly equipped to answer well. I think reason and our intuitions can aid us in finding objective moral truths, but I often find myself at a loss articulating a good defense. I do not find the theist's claim that morality depends on God's existence a good one, but I want to advance a better argument for why secular morality works out, and not just knock down their view. What's the general consensus among philosophers? Is there a firm foundation for morality without God?

Stephen Maitzen November 18, 2012 (changed November 18, 2012) Permalink The literature on this topic is huge. Much of the work in theoretical ethics and metaethics in the last 200 years has been an attempt to provide a non-theistic foundation for morality, whether a foundation within ethics or a foundation outside ethics. If you look under "ethics," "meta... Read more

Logic

Is there a way to prove that logic works? It seems that the only two methods for doing this would be to use a logical proof –which would be incorporating an assumed answer into the question– or to use some system other than logic –thus proving that sometimes logic does not work.

Jonathan Westphal November 16, 2012 (changed November 16, 2012) Permalink Aristotle gives a nice account of why we must have something "definite in our thinking" and not contradictions in Metaphysics IV. In order to say of something that it is or can be both F and not-F, he writes, we must have successfully identified that thing as the thing that is or can... Read more

Time

What is time? My friend and I are having an argument about the nature of time. If I understand her position correctly my friend believes that time is simply an artefact of changes in the universe, or that change is itself synonymous with time. This seems to be a commonly accepted position, however I replied that if two spheres were moving in space in parallel to one another but one sphere was moving faster than the other then that would mean that that sphere would traverse a greater distance in less time but with an equal degree of change in the universe. Thus time and change are two separate things. I guess the physics of that claim are debatable but I suspect that it demonstrates something true in a way that is a priori irrespective of the physics because even if there were a physical difference in the amount of forces which change it would be hard to see how those imperceptible forces would contribute to a difference in how we perceive the time effect of those different objects. What do you philosophers think? Which of us is closer to the truth or is the nature of time better answered by physicists than by a priori speculation?

Allen Stairs November 15, 2012 (changed November 15, 2012) Permalink Some good questions. One view is that if there is change, there is time. However, it doesn't follow from that that time has a "metric" -- that there is an answer to questions of the sort "how much time?" If all that existed were two solid spheres in relative motion, then someone might say... Read more

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