Recent Responses

Is it true that all people are beautiful? Or is that just a white lie we tell to make non-beautiful people feel better?

Peter Smith August 10, 2010 (changed August 10, 2010) Permalink My colleagues raise a number of points, some rather puzzling, which deserve more that there is space for here. But some quick reflections: 1. Love of the good, to take Charles's example, may be a fine and noble thing. But something surely can be fine and noble without being beautiful. In fact,... Read more

Knowledge Religion

There are many attributes that are commonly attributed to God, or at least some versions of the Christian God, one of which is omniscience. I have my doubts that omniscience is a possible trait for any being to have because it seems to me to be a paradoxical trait. If God (or any being) knows everything that can be an object of knowledge can s/he know what it is like to not know everything that can be an object of knowledge? I say everything that can be an object of knowledge because there are obviously things that are unknowable like a round square or a married bachelor. However, I don't think that a being could know everything that was knowable and simultaneously know the experience of not knowing everything that it knowable (knowing the experience of not knowing everything that is knowable is something that is knowable because as humans that is how our experience is).

Charles Taliaferro August 2, 2010 (changed August 2, 2010) Permalink Just a minor addition to Mitch Green's astute observations: Some defenders of the coherence of omniscience (Richard Swinburne, for example), hold that omniscience does not include the knowledge of future free acts. Swinburne and R.M. Adams and others do so on the grounds that there is no... Read more

Justice

Is power (its nature, its use, its definition) a philosophical issue? It seems as if the social sciences have appropriated "power" to themselves. I think that often power is presented as being everywhere, in every human relation, and that its use borders on obscurantism insofar as it substitutes the need for more detailed explanations of social problems. Is this right? Is there an alternative? How should philosophy address power and power relations? Should it do so? Andrés.

Charles Taliaferro August 2, 2010 (changed August 2, 2010) Permalink Yes, the social sciences certainly have been involved in the definition and study of power (e.g. Max Weber analyzed power in terms of command and obedience structures and came up with different models of power relations). Philosophers have sometimes taken on power as a topic in itself (e.... Read more

Ethics Freedom

Is there a prevailing consensus on determinism vs. free will, and the implications of that debate for the status of moral prescriptions? I am reading a piece by Derek Parfit, for example, which addresses the topic so briefly that it makes me wonder if his (compatibilist) position is the only one breathing. Thank you! -philosophy fan

Sean Greenberg August 14, 2010 (changed August 14, 2010) Permalink Just to add a little to Eddy's fine response, which neatly limns both what position is taken on free will by most philosophers and the general state of play of the debates around free will. I just want to comment briefly on the status of the debate on free will for moral prescriptions--whic... Read more

Education Philosophy

Does worthwhile Philosophy start with good questions or can it start with the proper mood? I am an International Relations major and have decided on writing my honors thesis on a question of political philosophy, not because I have a burning question, but rather because it was the subject I enjoyed the most and because I want to understand whether or not it is something I'd like pursuing in the future in the form of a postgraduate degree. I often find myself in what I - and some friends- call a "Philosophical mood" -though the friends are not without irony when the employ the term- i.e. in the mood for thinking and discussing dispassionately about what I am passionate about. I think Heidegger privileged moods as a way to knowing. I've decided researching the nature of power and the use of this concept in twentieth-Century political thought because I want to satisfy my mood, not because it seems like a burning question. Can real philosophy come from this? Is it (I know it is unscientific) silly to pursue moods and not questions? Does philosophy start with good questions or the proper mood?

Peter Smith August 3, 2010 (changed August 3, 2010) Permalink Isn't that simply a false dichotomy? You need the good questions and the right spirit of enquiry. If you've no clear, well-formulated, questions then you'll just produce an ill-directed ramble. If you aren't driven by curiosity actually to explore the good questions, if you lack the desire to fol... Read more

Logic Mathematics

So, it's my understanding that Russell and Whitehead's project of logicism in the Principia Mathematica didn't work out. I understand that two reasons for this are (1) that some of their axioms don't seem to be derivable from pure logic and (2) Gödel's incompleteness theorems. However, particularly since symbolic logic and the philosophy of mathematics are not my area, it's hard for me to see how 1 & 2 work and defeat the project.

Peter Smith July 30, 2010 (changed July 30, 2010) Permalink I agree with Richard's and Alex's general remarks about "logicism" and what counts as "logical". It would indeed be far too quick to reject every form of logicism just because it makes the existence of an infinite number of objects a matter of "logic". Still, it is perhaps worth reiterating (as Ri... Read more

Knowledge

Is testimony subsumed by empirical knowledge? In other words if I know some historical fact by the testimony of a text book do I have empirical knowledge or is testimony a classification of knowledge unto itself?

Saul Traiger July 30, 2010 (changed July 30, 2010) Permalink Much of what we know is based on the evidence of testimony, rather than the evidence of our senses. Consider your knowledge of your birthday. Your evidence that you were born on a particular date is based on information from your parents, your birth certificate, and other testimonial evidence. You... Read more

Logic Mathematics

So, it's my understanding that Russell and Whitehead's project of logicism in the Principia Mathematica didn't work out. I understand that two reasons for this are (1) that some of their axioms don't seem to be derivable from pure logic and (2) Gödel's incompleteness theorems. However, particularly since symbolic logic and the philosophy of mathematics are not my area, it's hard for me to see how 1 & 2 work and defeat the project.

Logic Mathematics

So, it's my understanding that Russell and Whitehead's project of logicism in the Principia Mathematica didn't work out. I understand that two reasons for this are (1) that some of their axioms don't seem to be derivable from pure logic and (2) Gödel's incompleteness theorems. However, particularly since symbolic logic and the philosophy of mathematics are not my area, it's hard for me to see how 1 & 2 work and defeat the project.

Knowledge Religion

There are many attributes that are commonly attributed to God, or at least some versions of the Christian God, one of which is omniscience. I have my doubts that omniscience is a possible trait for any being to have because it seems to me to be a paradoxical trait. If God (or any being) knows everything that can be an object of knowledge can s/he know what it is like to not know everything that can be an object of knowledge? I say everything that can be an object of knowledge because there are obviously things that are unknowable like a round square or a married bachelor. However, I don't think that a being could know everything that was knowable and simultaneously know the experience of not knowing everything that it knowable (knowing the experience of not knowing everything that is knowable is something that is knowable because as humans that is how our experience is).

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