Recent Responses
I am a first year Philosophy teacher at a private high school. Do you have any suggestions for where I can find age-appropriate excercises and activities? I teach high school juniors and seniors.
Eddy Nahmias
February 18, 2012
(changed February 18, 2012)
Permalink
Also, see resources being put together by Mitchell Green at UVA. See here: http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=12739
Log in to post comments
I'm just getting into philosophy, thanks in no small part to this site! I was discussing it with a friend recently - a friend I admire as hard-working, intelligent and someone who challenges himself - and found out that he was actually a philosophy major in college (now he's a businessman). Naturally I was excited, but I was quickly discouraged as he explained that he had given up doing philosophy long ago and had no interest in it. When I asked him why, I received the following explanation, which confused me and I'm hoping to gain some clarity on it from this site. I hope it's not offensive to any of the professional philosophers who read this site, though it is of course anti-philosophy, since it was his reason for abandoning it. In any case, he said that he gave up reading/doing/thinking about philosophy - and he specified "analytic philosophy" as the culprit - saying that, although he found that the material he read was highly intelligent, he was nagged by a persistent feeling (one he ultimately couldn't shake off, try as he might) that somehow the central issues being explored in the readings - issues such as the nature of friendship, or love, or reality - were somehow deeply alien to the writings themselves. He said he never got the sense from their writings that any of the writers he read actually understood the lived human experiences of those central issues or that the highly intelligent discussions from the writings had anything meaningful to do with those issues in real life. He warned me against bringing this up to philosophers, saying that, although he frequently could not put into words anything "wrong" or "illogical" about their writings, he simply had this persistent feeling that the writers didn't understand these issues, though they may have written an entire book on the subject, any better (and possibly worse than) than anyone else. He told me that if I raised this issue with a philosopher, they'd just call him a quitter. Is that how you see him? I've known him many years and he works very hard - I can't see him as a quitter. He also mentioned to me that there were many others like him, and that he finds intellectual sustenance elsewhere. Sorry for the long question - as a neophyte to this field, I'm trying to make sense of this and having trouble. Thanks in advance!
Stephen Maitzen
January 27, 2012
(changed January 27, 2012)
Permalink
As hard as it was for your friend to explain his dissatisfaction with philosophy, it's even harder for me to be confident that I really understand just what his complaint is. But I do think that a philosophical work fails to a significant degree if an intelligent reader comes away feelin... Read more
Can a white male ever legitimately speak about racism or sexism?
Stephen Maitzen
January 27, 2012
(changed January 27, 2012)
Permalink
As a white male myself, I guess I'm answering your question in the affirmative by even presuming to post an answer to it at all. Surely the question you asked is so broad that no one could reasonably answer it in the negative. Racism exists: some people or practices are racist. Sexism... Read more
Is modern philosophy too abstract? I mean when it asks questions about being does it ask questions that about any kind of being when perhaps it could be asking question about the particular kind of being that we live in? I guess you could say the answer is no because philosophers deal with questions about science and science is about the world we live in. But is the kind of being of science the only "concrete" form of being that philosophers can ask about? I personally think that their is more to being than either physics or hyper-abstractions that only look at being in terms of temporarily, causality and quantity, etc. Is a disagreement about what we think is "being" perhaps one of the central splits between analytic and "continental" philosophy?
Stephen Maitzen
January 27, 2012
(changed January 27, 2012)
Permalink
I tend to use the noun 'being' as a count noun: You and I are both beings; maybe the number seven is also a being (although of a different kind from you or me). I'll therefore use the words 'existence' or 'reality' for what you seem to refer to by 'being' in your question. When it asks... Read more
Hello Philosophers! Can anyone defend the Ontological Argument against Kant's criticism that existence is not a predicate?
Jonathan Westphal
January 26, 2012
(changed January 26, 2012)
Permalink
Some random suggestions: (1) David Pears pointed out that even if Kant's argument were wholly clear and wholly successful, which it is not, it could only show that existence is not an ordinary predicate, if it is a predicate. His view is that it is a predicate, just a very peculiar one;... Read more
Are their any resources available on the internet that give insight into contemporary philosophical ideas/debates/schools of thought? As much as I love sifting through Wikipedia articles about Plato and Descartes, I would like to know more about the current going ons in philosophy, as well as hearing about the newest ideas from modern thinkers.
William Rapaport
January 26, 2012
(changed January 26, 2012)
Permalink
Sure! I highly recommend the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. There's a link on the "Related Sites" section of this website.
Log in to post comments
Given ever-increasing population compared with the fixed size of the Earth, is it ethical for me to want to raise my children in a house with a yard, when a handful of houses could make room for apartments that could house hundreds of people?
Oliver Leaman
January 26, 2012
(changed January 26, 2012)
Permalink
I don't see what is wrong with doing things that you want to do in a case like this. One is not perpetually obliged to think of whether one could be doing more for people. Right now instead of responding to this query I might be more suitably employed doling out food for the homeless and th... Read more
I seem to remember the "heap paradox" being a very old one (given a heap and repeatedly removing a single grain of sand, when does it stop being a heap?). Yet I don't ever recall hearing a solution to it. No doubt there are different views of things, but is there at least a generally accepted solution to this paradox?
Stephen Maitzen
January 26, 2012
(changed January 26, 2012)
Permalink
You asked, "Is there at least a generally accepted solution to this paradox?" Not by a long shot! The paradox of the heap (and its cousins that use other vague concepts) is in my opinion one of the greatest unsolved intellectual problems. It has generated a huge philosophical literatur... Read more
What is the difference between a "fallacy" and a "cognitive bias"?
Allen Stairs
January 26, 2012
(changed January 26, 2012)
Permalink
How about this? A fallacy is an actual mistake in reasoning. A cognitive bias is a tendency to commit certain sorts of mistakes. Not all fallacies are the result of cognitive biases, and having a cognitive bias doesn't guarantee that you'll commit the corresponding error.... Read more
Hello Philosophers! Can anyone defend the Ontological Argument against Kant's criticism that existence is not a predicate?
Jonathan Westphal
January 26, 2012
(changed January 26, 2012)
Permalink
Some random suggestions: (1) David Pears pointed out that even if Kant's argument were wholly clear and wholly successful, which it is not, it could only show that existence is not an ordinary predicate, if it is a predicate. His view is that it is a predicate, just a very peculiar one;... Read more