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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
Hello, I would like to ask a kind of multiple angled question I have noticed a "lack of" while studying logic. Is "the process of elimination" a sound "Rule of Inference"? (Perhaps, we've all used this "process of elimination" in taking a multiple choice test.) I have read two books on Logic: one by Irving M.Copi & Carl Cohen as well as The Logic Book by Merrie Bergmann, James Moor, Jack Nelson. I have not seen a single logic text nor a logic website where "the process of elimination" appears as a inference rule. Why is this not included as a rule? Is it not considered Deductive? Does it go by another name? What is the deal? Thank you for considering this question in advance.
Richard Heck
December 22, 2011
(changed December 22, 2011)
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It goes by another name, sometimes "argument by cases" or "argument by dilemma" or "the disjunctive syllogism". The basic rule is:
A ∨ B~A∴ B
Obviously, this can be extended to any number of disjuncts, e,g.:
A ∨ B ∨ C ∨ D~A ∧ ~B ∧ ~C∴ D
So the disjuncts represent the possibilities you hav... Read more
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)
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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
I've been in education of some kind for over fifteen years now, and over these years I've had many history classes, concerning a variety of topics. Something strange happens in all of them, though - without exception, the classes never seem to spend more than a single session on anything that happened after the 1950s. In high school, we had a single class to talk about the Cold War; two other years of history didn't even go that far, except in the broadest of strokes with mentions of decolonialism. In a college course on American history, our last session was the origins and beginnings of the civil rights movement, with nothing beyond that. The social, technological, political and ideological shifts in the past half-century seem to be deemed unworthy of teaching. Why is this? Aren't the social and technological developments of the last sixty or seventy years at least as critical to the understanding of modern society as the sum of all that came before? What is the importance of teaching the history of the distant past, and why is it that the recent past isn't comparatively as important?
Eddy Nahmias
December 14, 2011
(changed December 14, 2011)
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I've always thought it would be interesting to do a history course in reverse. Start with the later events (beginning in present) and have students consider what history might have looked like to lead to these later events, working backwards as far as possible. I always hated that my hist... Read more
A former college roommate of mine, with whom I lived for a semester over two years ago, was recently arrested for the murder of a young woman (whom he apparently stalked for quite some time), and I have been called to the police to testify as a witness, presumably to his character. Being in this situation, and being a bit philosophically inclined, I have been facing down a lot of questions in my mind, and I would like to hear your thoughts on them. First, and most abstractly: at the time, was I living with a future murderer, or with someone who had the seed of a murderer in him? Or was he just a regular person? Also, when I look back, I seem to remember him as a bothersome person without much respect for personal boundaries. I certainly didn't like him, and after a month or two I did my best to avoid getting caught in a conversation with him. But can I be sure this is what I really thought of him, and not a feeling I am projecting back onto those memories now that I know what he has done? Is it possible I am reshaping my discomfort from the time such that it fits his crime? Am I a reliable witness? Perhaps most importantly - if I had accepted his manner, which seemed irritating to me, and had been his friend despite our differences, perhaps he would have had more positive experiences, and would not have stalked and killed this young woman. Am I, in some diffuse way, responsible for his turning into a criminal? I am sorry for the mix of questions. These events have been a bit unsettling for me.
Eddy Nahmias
December 14, 2011
(changed December 14, 2011)
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That is unsettling. If true. Most of your questions suggest that you're already assuming he is guilty of the crime. Perhaps you should try to do what the legal system aims to do: assume he is not guilty until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I'm not sure why the police are int... Read more
This is a time when overpopulation is a growing problem. It seems that there is no slowing down of procreation even though people are aware of the problem. At the rate it is going I see that it will result in Authorities having to take drastic action to sustain the human race. Any decision they make will be unfair in some way. I wonder whether it would be right to stop trying to cure terminal illnesses such as Cancer and AIDS (as they seem an unbias/fair population control system). On the one hand it would be better for the future of mankind and yet it seems unjust to let people die when we can help them. Where does this issue stand with ethics? as it seems both moral and immoral.
Thomas Pogge
December 10, 2011
(changed December 10, 2011)
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Letting terminally ill people die will do little to slow population growth because the vast majority of these people are not going to have (additional) children anyway. But there are other solutions that would actually work.
You write that there seems to be no slowing of procreation. This... Read more
Other teachers in my department see Situation Ethics and Utilitarianism as a form of relativism. This seems to me to be a confusion between there being different courses of right action for different circumstances (situation ethics and utilitarianism) and there being different right actions for one circumstance (relativism). Even if you're a utilitarian, there is still an absolute as to what one should do in that particular situation (it's just that it isn't always clear given the difficulty in predicting outcomes), and so it is not a relativist ethic. Who's right?
Thomas Pogge
December 10, 2011
(changed December 10, 2011)
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You're right, and the point is well-put, too!
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Is it legitimate to talk about "society" as an agent, when "society" is neither a cohesive unit nor a uniform set?
Thomas Pogge
December 10, 2011
(changed December 10, 2011)
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I share your qualms in regard to common formulations about how society approves of this and condemns that. But most societies have some fairly determinate decision procedures that can result in collective decisions and actions, as when Danish society does not recognize polygamous marriages... Read more
Why aren't more philosophers involved in discussions and policy on global warming? It is a desperate issue to be addressed and regardless of the philosophical stance in regard to it (i.e. moral skepticism), moral reasons and moral knowledge motivate action in a profound way! I do not think that much progress can be made towards addressing global warming unless the moral seriousness of the matter becomes clear to people and our unjustified indifference is slashed. The culture and spirit of the time should inspire philosophy, just as the excessive violence inspired Descartes in his skeptical exploits. If philosophers, whose reason is supposed to be strong to say the least don't get very involved, who should? I'm sure that this is a bit outlandish, but under what current conditions does a philosopher not have an obligation to get involved? Also, this would be a nice way to reconnect philosophy to the world, especially since a lot of its progress is connected to the insights of philosophy and reason.
Thomas Pogge
December 10, 2011
(changed December 10, 2011)
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I don't know about other philosophers, but their reluctance may be motivated by thoughts such as those Gerald Gaus expresses in his essay "Should Philosophers Apply Ethics?" in Think (2005), pp. 63-67, available at
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=THI&tab=mostdo... Read more
Can a nation have an official religion and be a democracy?
Thomas Pogge
December 10, 2011
(changed December 10, 2011)
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I would consider Norway and the UK to be examples of this. Here the fundamental equality of citizens is not seriously undermined because the role of the state religion is largely ceremonial. In other countries, of course, citizens who do not share the state religion suffer severe discrimin... Read more