Recent Responses
Does certainty suggest or indicate truth?
Jonathan Westphal
May 10, 2011
(changed May 10, 2011)
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Descartes sought certainty because he thought that if we know something with certainty, then it must be true. And he was right, if only because 'S knows that p' implies p, so that in 'We know with certainty that . . .' the phrase "with certainty" is redundant; there is no such thing as uncertai... Read more
Does certainty suggest or indicate truth?
Jonathan Westphal
May 10, 2011
(changed May 10, 2011)
Permalink
Descartes sought certainty because he thought that if we know something with certainty, then it must be true. And he was right, if only because 'S knows that p' implies p, so that in 'We know with certainty that . . .' the phrase "with certainty" is redundant; there is no such thing as uncertai... Read more
I told my friend that I didn't pursue a second date with a woman I met through an Internet dating site because she wasn't physically attractive enough. My friend said it was wrong to "judge" a person by their looks. I said that I wouldn't date my friend Travis either based on his looks and you wouldn't disagree with that. My friend said that the reason that I wouldnt date Travis was that Travis is a man and I'm a heterosexual. Yes but what is a man I asked other than someone who "looks" different than a woman? So isn't heterosexuality about discriminating against a person based on their looks? And if that's the case and if we as a society are okay with diacriminating against a person just because they don't look like a certain gender then why is it often considered wrong to not date someone based on looks that go beyond gender? It might sound like I am resorting to a kind of logical trickery but I think I have a good point. People often speak of a romantic relationship as if it were an elevated friendship where looks should not matter but then the very fact that a romantic relationship involves people of different sexes in heterosexual relationships seems to imply to my way of thinking that such a way of thinking is not actually correct. Of course I don't think that means that a relationship should be based on looks but certainly their must be something that people desire in the opposite gender that transcends the (physical attraction=lust/platonic friendship=love)dichotomy or else we are just talking about something platonic aren't we?
Allen Stairs
May 6, 2011
(changed May 6, 2011)
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Physical attraction is part of what makes a romantic relationship, and so if romance was what you wanted, not being attracted would matter. This also explains why it would be strange to say that a heterosexual is discriminating in an objectionable way against people of the same sex just because s/he d... Read more
Is it logically contradictory for a person to say that they are humble, in a broad sense? After all, humility is generally considered a desirable quality.
Charles Taliaferro
May 5, 2011
(changed May 5, 2011)
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Great question. It would be self-refuting for a person to arrogantly claim they are humble (assuming, I think correctly, that arrogance and humility are incompatable), but insofar as one can say (with humiility) that one is humble there is nothing practically or logically contradictory at stake... Read more
Upon learning that Osama bin Laden has died, many people decided to take to the streets and celebrate. This is the celebration of a person's killing, something which is extremely rarely celebrated. On the one hand, his death represents the putative end to a threat (though the jury is out on whether that's true); on the other hand, he was a living human being and, though a criminal, deserved a legal process rather than a killing. Should we be rejoicing that bin Laden was killed, or should we let it pass as an evil lesser than it would have been to let him run free?
Allen Stairs
May 5, 2011
(changed May 5, 2011)
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Lots of good questions here. I see two main issues in what you write. The first, which you close with, is whether the killing was appropriate in the first place. The second, implicit in where you begin, is what to make of the celebration of bin Laden's death.
Start with the first. The administration c... Read more
It seems we like to tell one another that it is important to feel negative emotions, like sadness or confusion or grief, because it is an important part of being human. Is this really the case, or could we just as well do without grief and despair? Conversely, is it also an important part of being human to feel rage, or hatred towards someone or something?
Eddy Nahmias
May 5, 2011
(changed May 5, 2011)
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There are two ways to read your questions:
1. Would we be better off never feeling negative emotions because they were never called for--i.e., because we never experienced the sorts of events that make grief or anger an appropriate reaction? Or...
2. Would we be better off never feeling negative em... Read more
I'm new to Kant, and I'm reading a collection of his works that I found online. The collection begins with _The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics_, translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott. I can't find any information about the work, so I thought I'd see if you guys could provide some context. Thanks!
Douglas Burnham
May 5, 2011
(changed May 5, 2011)
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This is Abbott's translation of the preface and introduction to Kant's 'Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrive of Virtue'. This was published in 1797, shortly after the 'Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Right'. These two short books of first principles are now normally publis... Read more
Upon learning that Osama bin Laden has died, many people decided to take to the streets and celebrate. This is the celebration of a person's killing, something which is extremely rarely celebrated. On the one hand, his death represents the putative end to a threat (though the jury is out on whether that's true); on the other hand, he was a living human being and, though a criminal, deserved a legal process rather than a killing. Should we be rejoicing that bin Laden was killed, or should we let it pass as an evil lesser than it would have been to let him run free?
Allen Stairs
May 5, 2011
(changed May 5, 2011)
Permalink
Lots of good questions here. I see two main issues in what you write. The first, which you close with, is whether the killing was appropriate in the first place. The second, implicit in where you begin, is what to make of the celebration of bin Laden's death.
Start with the first. The administration c... Read more
Henry Stapp (a physicist at Berkeley) in his book The Mindful Universe states: "Let there be no doubt about this point. The original form of quantum theory is subjective, in the sense that it is forthrightly about relationships among conscious human experiences, and it expressly recommends to scientists that they resist the temptation to try to understand the reality responsible for the correlations between our experiences that the theory correctly describes. The following brief collection of quotations by the founders gives a conspectus of the Copenhagen philosophy: Heisenberg (1958a, p. 100): The conception of objective reality of the elementary particles has thus evaporated not into the cloud of some obscure new reality concept but into the transparent clarity of a mathematics that represents no longer the behavior of particles but rather our knowledge of this behavior" As philosophers, what is your take on these statements? It appears to me that these quite distinguished physicists are saying that physics is no longer of an ontological nature, but it has been found to be, irremediably, of an epistemological nature? Thanks
Allen Stairs
May 4, 2011
(changed May 4, 2011)
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It's certainly true that Bohr and Heisenberg, among others, interpreted quantum theory in a way that put the knowing subject center stage, but this is just one part of a controversy that continues to this day. Einstein and Schrödinger, for rather different reasons, resisted these more epistemic interp... Read more
Dear Philosophers, I would like to ask whether there is any reasonable explanation why many after/today's philosophers rather refer to Descartes than to Leibniz. Although Descartes had influenced significantly new modern era in philosophical thinking, so did Leibniz. Moreover, Leibniz proved some imperfections in Descartes’ metaphysics. I mean both of them deserve our attention, yet in my opinion Leibniz is somehow still in Descartes’ shadow. Why is that? Thank you in advance for any tangible arguments or inspiring ideas. Kind regards, Pablo
Sean Greenberg
May 4, 2011
(changed May 4, 2011)
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There are many reasons why Descartes is taken as a reference point for early modern metaphysics and epistemology rather than Leibniz: I present a few. Descartes preceded Leibniz, and certain of Leibniz's philosophical innovations, and especially those in the philosophy of mind, were developed in re... Read more