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There is a child that is 5 years old, 4ft tall, likes toys, is of average intelligence, and believes in santa clause. 40 years pass and the child is now a man 45 years old, 6ft tall, doesn't like toys, is a physicist, and does not believe in santa clause. are the child and the man two distinct beings. or are they the same being? if they are two distinct beings then could the 5 year old child be classified as "dead" since he is now non existent (replaced by a completely different individual).
Andrew Pessin
August 16, 2012
(changed August 16, 2012)
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Good question, and space is of course too short for any serious arguments about it --BUT one classic line fo thought is that you decide whether entities x/y are identical by comparing their properties, and if they differ in properties they must be NON-identical ... This is the line you hint a... Read more
I've taken an introductory class in the philosophy of religion and I've read some introductory materials about it on the internet. I'm sort of disappointed with the kinds of questions that are considered central to the philosophy of religion because it seems like other questions can be just as central but they aren't mentioned. One of the central questions of the philosophy of religion is whether or not God existence can be proved. While that is undoubtedly an important question "proof" seems to be a high standard even in philosophy and a "succinct" proof that can be written in a formulaic manner is an even higher standard. If you want to argue whether or not Bill Gates is a good man it isn't necessary to prove his existence. You can however attempt to characterize his behavior within a context and from that attempt to evaluate whether he is a good or a bad person. Should not the philosophy of religion, for at least some important strands of religious thinking, work in a similar vein? That is it would involve an empirical and philosophical effort to consider whether or not the world can be evaluated in terms of the existence of some form of deity. This is already done with efforts to disprove the existence of God in the form of the "problem of evil." (Although that has a very succinct persuasive power)
Andrew Pessin
August 16, 2012
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Thanks for your comments/questions. It's perhaps hard to judge what is 'central' to a discipline or a pursuit, particularly one with as long and varied a history as the 'phil. of religion' (broadly construed). In fact lots more ink (or parchment space) has been devoted to questions of God's n... Read more
Is a foot fetish perverse?
Allen Stairs
August 16, 2012
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Saying that something is perverse often means that it diverts some appetite in a direction that not only defeats its "natural" function, but does so in a way that's harmful or unhealthy or bad. Pedophilia is a plausible case, but what makes pedophilia bad is not that it diverts sexual attracti... Read more
Is mathematics grounded in logic or is logic grounded in mathematics?
Stephen Maitzen
August 16, 2012
(changed August 16, 2012)
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I leave it to the experts on the Panel (and there are several) to give you a proper answer, but I would certainly reject the second of your alternatives: I can't see how logic could be grounded in mathematics. It's a more controversial issue whether mathematics is grounded in logic and, if... Read more
Are first principles or the axioms of logic (such as identity, non-contradiction) provable? If not, then isn't just an intuitive assumption that they are true? Is it possible for example, to prove that a 4-sided triangle or a married bachelor cannot exist? Or must we stop at the point where we say "No, it is a contradiction" and end there with only the assumption that contradictions are the "end point" of our needing to support their non-existence or impossibility?
William Rapaport
August 17, 2012
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To prove a proposition is to derive it syntactically (that is, by "symbol manipulation" that is independent of the proposition's meaning). A "good" (or syntactically valid) derivation is one that begins with "first principles" (axioms) and derives other propositions from them (and from ot... Read more
Can someone be an atheist and do good work in the philosophy of religion? what sorts of issues would attract such a person?
Stephen Maitzen
August 16, 2012
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Most certainly. To give just four of many living examples: William L. Rowe, J. L. Schellenberg, Graham Oppy, and Erik Wielenberg. To see which issues they find interesting, start by following those links. One needn't believe that God exists in order to find questions in philosophy of rel... Read more
Is it possible for something that is said to be logically impossible, to be physically possible? That is, what is the "proof" that logical impossibilities cannot actually exist (if there is any such 'proof')?
Stephen Maitzen
August 16, 2012
(changed August 16, 2012)
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By "X is logically possible," I think most philosophers mean something like "X could exist (or could have existed) or could obtain (or could have obtained) in the broadest sense of 'could', i.e., 'could' without restriction or qualification." This sense of 'could' is supposed to be compatib... Read more
is Jungs' theory of synchronicity simply nonsense? I can make neither head nor tail of it. It is often quoted by 'new agers' as sign that we are all in a way "connected" (i.e networks for a higher consciousness, etc) and I feel that they have abused the original concept, but I myself can't even understand it.
Allen Stairs
August 15, 2012
(changed August 15, 2012)
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Perhaps we might start with a distinction between two things the accusation of nonsense might mean. One is that it's patently false; the other is that there's no coherent idea. Your worry is pretty clearly the latter, and I'm sympathetic: whatever exactly Jung meant, it's hard to be sure that... Read more
Frege said 'a fact is a thought that is true’. Does that mean truth is factual thoughts?
Richard Heck
August 15, 2012
(changed August 15, 2012)
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Frege's views about truth are complex, and there is a great deal of controversy concerning their proper interpretation. (Robert May and I have recently written a paper trying to outline Frege's views.) So I won't try to go into this in detail. But the first point to remember is that, for Frege... Read more
Having an almost three year old daughter leads me into deep philosophical questions about mathematics. :-) Really, I am concerned about the concept of "being able to count". People ask me if my daughter can count and I can't avoid giving long answers people were not expecting. Firstly, my daughter is very good in "how many" questions when the things to count are one, two or three, and sometimes gives that kind of information without being asked. But she doesn't really count them, she just "sees" that there are three, two or one of these things and she tells it. Once in a while she does the same in relation to four things, but that's rare. Secondly, she can reproduce the series of the names of numbers from 1 to 12. (Then she jumps to the word for "fourteen" in our language, and that's it.) But I don't think she can count to 12. Thirdly, she is usually very exact in counting to four, five or six, but she makes some surprising mistakes. Yesterday, she was counting the legs of a (plastic) donkey (in natural size), and she had to move around to see all of them: she managed to come to the conclusion that the donkey had six legs. Fourthly, she usually forgets one of the things or counts one of them twice when she is counting to seven, eight or nine. Finally, she never asked her parents what is the number "next" to some other number (say, the numbem "next" to twelve). Now, do you think that she can count? And to how many things can she count?
Richard Heck
August 15, 2012
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Most of these questions are not so much philosophical as empirical, and there has been a tremendous amount of extremely important work done in the last few decades on children's concepts of number. The locus classicus is The Child's Understanding of Number, by Rachel Gelman and Randy Galistel,... Read more