Recent Responses
A recent while ago a person asked why their were so few religious persons in Philosophy departments these days. One philosopher responded that there were many opportunities for abstract thinking in the religion department of universities. Most religion departments are centered around particular religions such as Christianity while historically philosophers have often been spiritual but not affiliated with a religion. So I guess you could still ask why are so few philosophers spiritual in orientation and what educational department could they possibly turn to?
Charles Taliaferro
March 24, 2012
(changed March 24, 2012)
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Interesting! There are significant numbers of self-identified "religious persons" throughout the world in different philosophy departments. You may find mostly Muslim philosophers in countries where the culture is Islamic, but that is not always true, as can be seen in the UK and USA. M... Read more
I'm struggling to reconcile David Hume's critiques of science and religion. On the one hand, he suggests that our application of cause/effect to natural phenomena is problematic since it ammounts to simply equating the present with the past. On the other hand, he warns us against believing in second-hand accounts of miracles since they are interruptions of natural law. Isn't our use of causal reasoning the way we determine the characteristics of natural law? Is this an inconsistency in his argument and, if so, does he address it anywhere?
If I may complicate things a
Stephen Maitzen
May 7, 2015
(changed May 7, 2015)
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If I may complicate things a bit: I don't question the scholarly accuracy of Prof. Baxter's reply on behalf of Hume, but I'd point out that he attributes to Hume a handful of inductive claims, for example: "We instinctively make and believe...predictions, anyway. We can'... Read more
In scenarios where the metaphorical glass is either half-full or half-empty, so to speak, are there any compelling rational reasons to come down on one side or the other? Or is a person's optimism or pessimism just a character trait independent of rational thought?
Bette Manter
March 28, 2012
(changed March 28, 2012)
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Thank you Andrew, for this thoughtful response. I have been wanting to respond with notions of false dichotomies and the like, but yours is far more probing and engaging. In my thought world, however, when someone asks me if the glass is half-empty or half-full (as my academic dean did once!)... Read more
According to Wikipedia, "any definition that attempts to set out the essence of" a concept "specifies the necessary and sufficient conditions for a thing being a member of" the set corresponding to that concept. Ok. But I wonder if it wouldn't be great if, for some more difficult concepts, we could at least specify some sufficient conditions in a way that we would pick most things that are members a the corresponding set. For instance, wouldn't it be a nice philosophical progress if we could get a "definition" (?) of beauty that would cover most beautiful things and no non-beautiful thing? I mean a definition that is not circular, of course.
Andrew Pessin
March 22, 2012
(changed March 22, 2012)
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I haven't looked at the wikipedia article, but the view it expresses is VERY old-fashioned. Since Wittgenstein's "family resemblance" concept, and especially since cognitive scientists such as Eleanor Rosch's work in the 1970s, it's far more fashionable to think of concepts (and categories) as... Read more
Most words function properly because we more or less agree on what they mean. I can say "chair" and you will most likely have a good idea of what I am talking about. There are other terms, however, where people seem to squabble quite a bit about what a term actually means - like "art", "personhood", "fairness", etc. My question is: Can such terms be useful even if there are several opposing interpretations of what they mean? How? No doubt the debate itself is informative, but if we don't have a clear understanding of what "art" means, I wonder how useful it is to talk about the qualities of art, the study of art, or whether something counts as art. So how useful are terms where people can't agree on a concrete meaning? When does a term become too vague or disputed to be useful?
Andrew Pessin
March 22, 2012
(changed March 22, 2012)
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Great question, though I might worry that words like "useful" are about as vague as any of those in your examples, and thus your question may suffer from the same problems! ... I like your point that "the debate itself is informative" -- assuming that's true, which seems plausible, why couldn'... Read more
I am wondering how philosophers try to resolve ethical dilemmas in which both sides have reasonable claims to be "right." In particular, I'm wondering about the conflict recently in the news between a woman's right to contraception and an employer's right to refuse to do something considered sinful by his religion. As a more specific example, consider a woman's right to obtain a medicine such as Plan B in a timely manner (say, a woman in an isolated town with only one pharmacy, to whom a pregnancy is likely to prove fatal, and who was raped by her brother) and a pharmacist's right to refuse to dispense such a medicine because he considers doing so the equivalent of committing homicide. Is there any method of resolving such a dilemma in a way that recognizes the ethical arguments of both sides?
Allen Stairs
March 22, 2012
(changed March 22, 2012)
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An interesting question. Without trying to settle the issues you use to raise your question, I'd suggest that there's no sure-fire method to be had here, and that while philosophers have things to contribute, they don't have any sort of magic wand.
Ethical conundrums come up when different ways... Read more
My supposition is; can an abstract possess an abstract? That is, a person (tangible) can possess morality or happiness, but "time" can not possess either. Or, a "society" can be said to be moral (or immoral) but is it the "society" that possesses that morality, or just the tangible members of that society?
Stephen Maitzen
March 22, 2012
(changed March 22, 2012)
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In my opinion, the best way to think of properties (attributes, characteristics, traits) is to think of them as abstract objects. On this way of thinking of them, anything at all that possesses a property possesses (or, maybe better, instantiates) an abstract object. You possess the propert... Read more
I am curious to know what philosophers have said, existentialists in particular, about raising children or procreation. I am seeing a few problems in these things such as: At what point does the child/dependent have freedom? Is it immoral to procreate if/when you know that you are in control of another beings existence and essence? What duties or obligations to parents have to their children and vice versa? Any feedback would be great, I have heard that de Beauvoir has a little say on the subject as does Wollstonecraft (though I have not found more than a handful of pages). In addition to existentialists, in general ethics I think a relevant question would also touch on the issue of overpopulation. Any feedback would be very helpful, even a simple list of texts/authors would shed some light. Thank you.
Amy Kind
March 16, 2012
(changed March 16, 2012)
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Christine Overall has just published a book on this subject that you might find interesting: Why Have Children?: The Ethical Debate.
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Can a person love their country in the manner that those that claim to love their country love it? For the sake of the question any country is relevant.
Oliver Leaman
March 15, 2012
(changed March 15, 2012)
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I think so. Love is so arbitrary anyway that it is difficult to set limits for it. It might be said that it is ridiculous to claim to love a country since one might have been born a citizen of some other country, but then we do not think it is ridiculous to love a particular person, even though... Read more
This is not a factual question of whether conscious being can be aware of it´s own existence in the world. Rather how the chain of reasoning can be non-contradictory if one is to assume the world exists, and that this world is not a part of oneself. Consider the following: Do I or do I not exist? I exist and there exists also something which I am not. Does the "something which I am not" exist if I do not exist?(a question as to whether the world is not me) Well if it is not a part of me, then it would surely be possible for it to exist if I do not. But if I do not exist, the world does not exist, for if the necessary perspective of observation is the perspective of the observer then the facts existing are only those which the observer can yield true or false. Therefore there can be nothing that exists when I do not exist and, stretching it further, there exists nothing which I am not. I do not believe that www.askphilosophers.org and this computer are a product of my imagination, so please, explain how one validly can construct a chain of reasoning that does not lead to contradiction with the premises ´I exist´ and ´the world exists independently of my existence´.
Thomas Pogge
March 10, 2012
(changed March 10, 2012)
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I understand your long complex sentence to make this argument:
(1) the necessary perspective of observation is the perspective of the observer.
Therefore (2) the facts existing are only those which the observer can yield true or false.
Therefore (3) if I do not exis... Read more