Recent Responses
What is conciousness? what causes it? is it an external processs or an internal process? (sorry this is a weighty question, and I know there are no concrete answers, but are there any interesting theories out there?) What are your thoughts? Is conciousness a part of the environment as well as a "bodily" process? where does the trigger start? I find this subject matter very confusing, Thanks so much for your help!
William Rapaport
April 27, 2012
(changed April 27, 2012)
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Both philosophers and scientists (and, among scientists, both neuroscientists and cognitive scientists (and, among cognitive scientists, both computationally-oriented ones working in AI as well as non-computationally-oriented ones)) have been studying consciousness for many years recently.
O... Read more
If a person who is being harassed could easily and effectively extricate themselves from the situation, does that mean the harassment is any less "serious"?
Charles Taliaferro
April 26, 2012
(changed April 26, 2012)
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Great question. I suppose that if the person does not know she can easily and effectively extricate, then her not removing herself has no bearing on the gravity of the harassment (she may feel trapped and has no means of breaking a contract). Also, if the person can easily and effectivel... Read more
What is conciousness? what causes it? is it an external processs or an internal process? (sorry this is a weighty question, and I know there are no concrete answers, but are there any interesting theories out there?) What are your thoughts? Is conciousness a part of the environment as well as a "bodily" process? where does the trigger start? I find this subject matter very confusing, Thanks so much for your help!
William Rapaport
April 27, 2012
(changed April 27, 2012)
Permalink
Both philosophers and scientists (and, among scientists, both neuroscientists and cognitive scientists (and, among cognitive scientists, both computationally-oriented ones working in AI as well as non-computationally-oriented ones)) have been studying consciousness for many years recently.
O... Read more
Is modern critique of religion (that of past and present) practical or obsolete? In other terms is the philosophy of religion more of a debate or consensus? And would you say most professors of philosophy grant their attention either way?
Charles Taliaferro
April 26, 2012
(changed April 26, 2012)
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My colleagues may disagree, but I think philosophical reflection on religion (pro and con) has never been stronger. Leading journals like Religious Studies, the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Sophia, Faith and Philosophy, Philo, Philosophia Christi, and others are vibra... Read more
I have a question about the the usage of words. If a word has a particular meaning in a specific context that contradicts, ignores or stretches beyond the way that word is used in more general context, is that word being used wrong? For instance, consider the term "game." I've frequently come across arguments in different spheres about what constitutes a "game" and how such-and-such use of the term is mistaken. In some contexts a "game" can be all sorts of things (consider the bewildering variety of video games that have almost nothing in common with one another), in others it must be something competitive (there are people who express hesitation at calling solitaire a true "game"), in other contexts "games" need to have a structure of some kind or another (some say that children's imaginative games are not games, but merely "play" in a vague sense). My question is, if certain contexts use a term in a certain way, one that deviates from the understanding of that term in broader contexts, are those contexts making incorrect use of the term? Is it legitimate to say "When we talk about games we usually mean X, so saying that Y is a game is wrong." even if Y is frequently considered a game within the specific context where the discussion is taking place? I hope that makes sense.
Gabriel Segal
April 26, 2012
(changed April 26, 2012)
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I would say that there is, in any general sense, a right or wrong way to use a word. There are various generalizations about how people actually use words that are captured in dictionaries. Dictionaries tell us how people do use words, not how they should use them. There is no such thing as th... Read more
The equality x-x=0 and 0=x-x are suppose to be the same. The first equality is easy to understand while the second equality( 0=x-x )is somewhat mind boggling to me for the following reason: where do the 2x's on the right side come from? Thanks Kal
Stephen Maitzen
April 26, 2012
(changed April 26, 2012)
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Assuming I understand your question: They come from the same "place" in each equation, namely, from anywhere at all. It might help to think of it this way: "What's the result of subtracting any magnitude at all from itself? Zero." "What's zero? The result of subtracting any magnitude at al... Read more
I'm attending a lecture on the philosophy of science, and our professor told us yesterday that "we constantly rely on inductive reasoning all the time in our lives, such as when we assume that the floor won't suddenly collapse beneath our feet if we walk forwards." This struck me as odd. Is it accurate to say we "assume" such a thing? It seems to me that we don't even think about these things at all, much less try to justify any such assumptions - saying we're relying on some kind of argumentation seems like a stretch, but perhaps it isn't. Is everything we do, then, the result of certain processes of reasoning? Or are there things we just do without any reasoning to support them?
Andrew Pessin
May 2, 2012
(changed May 2, 2012)
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Hm, I wonder if you were in MY early modern class (where I use this example with Hume ....!) In any case I might only add to Stephen's reply that one small test that we are making an implicit assumption P is to imagine, for a moment, that we didn't believe the proposition P in question -- if we tell... Read more
Sigmund Freud told of a Jewish women who dreamt that a stranger handed her a comb. The women desired to marry a Christian man which triggered an emotional argument with her mother on the night prior to her dream. When Freud asked her what memories she associated with the word comb the woman told him that once her mother had once told her not to use a separate comb because she would "mix the breed." Freud then revealed that the meaning of the dream was an expression of her own latent wish to "mix the breed." Examples such as this seem like very persuasive evidence of Freud's theory that dreams are a form of wish fulfilment but many scientists and philosophers of science say that Freud's theories can't be scientifically falsified or that he lacks scientific evidence. But what constitutes scientific evidence? Surely Freud is a scientist because he grounds his theories in specific empirical clinical examples that he expresses clearly in a way that even the most uneducated person can understand them? The symbolic nature of dreams may require interpretation but interpretation isn't necessarily simply "subjective" and therefore lacking "objective" "scientific" grounding in my opinion if one can bolster that interpretation with empirical evidence. If we dismiss Freud because he isn't "scientific" then how do I know that other forms of science have been dismissed despite the fact that they maybe entirely reasonable on their own terms?
Gabriel Segal
April 26, 2012
(changed April 26, 2012)
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I don't myself think the term 'scientific' is a scientific term, nor have philosophers, such as Grunbaum or anyone else given it a very interesting or useful interpretation. Freud had a lot of ideas. So do contemporary psychoanalysts 100 years on. Psychoanalysis is no monolith. We can ask o... Read more
The idea underlying many concepts of illness is that something has gone wrong with a biological system and some part of that system which has gone awry must be restored to it's proper function. The proper function of a biological systems is usually whatever allows that entity to live, breathe, exerts it muscles freely and vigorously without pain. When it comes to mental illness we extend that idea of proper functioning to anything that causes mental distress and is presumably due to biological problems with the brain. However there seems to me that something about that way of thinking is flawed because while it seems obvious when biological systems are disrupted rather than acting their natural course it does not seem obvious that mental distress is a product of biological aberrations. It seems rather like it is plausible that that is the normal course of life for humans even if that misery has a biological explanation.. So isn't mental illness essentially a flawed concept?
Gabriel Segal
April 26, 2012
(changed April 26, 2012)
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Hi, Miriam. I completely agree. The concept of illness is very flimsy. It is something like: an abnormality or disorder of a mental or physiological organ or system. Attempts to give a serious scientific account of 'normal' or 'orderly' have proved unsuccessful. Illness is just a vague folk no... Read more
What would a robot have to be able to do, or what would it have to be, for us to consider it a sentient being as opposed to a non-sentient automaton? Please note I am using the term "robot" here in a broad sense, including such obviously sentient (fictional) constructs such as C-3PO of Star Wars fame. I don't consider "robot" and "sentient being" to be mutually exclusive terms. I'm interested in what fundamentally distinguishes sentient beings from automatons that merely mimic sentience.
Gabriel Segal
April 26, 2012
(changed April 26, 2012)
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Somewhat in line Searle's arguments in "Minds, Brains and Programs" I would say that the key is: original intentionality. Intentionality means something like 'aboutness' or 'representation', in the way that the sentence 'Hesperus is a planet' is about Venus, or represents Venus ('Hesperus' bei... Read more