Recent Responses
Is marketing fundamentally a bad thing?
Eric Silverman
June 29, 2010
(changed June 29, 2010)
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I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'marketing'. Generally, I appreciate being informed about goods and services that I might be interested in purchasing. However, I hate being manipulated into buying things I don't really want or being misinformed about the products that I am offered. Unfo... Read more
I find that Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is as much a critique of empiricism as it is rationalism. Why then call it the critique of "pure reason" as if the focus of the critique is purely about the rationalist's favored tool of inquiry?
Thomas Pogge
June 28, 2010
(changed June 28, 2010)
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I agree that Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is as much a critique of empiricism as it is of rationalism. But the title still makes sense if you understand two things about it. First, the word "Critique" here means not merely criticism but, more broadly, critical examination. The book draws limits... Read more
I would like to encourage my grandchildren (ten of them, ages 5 to 17) to think about and discuss ideas. I started to compose an email (they are located in the U.S. Canada and Sweden) on the importance of the question "Why?". Among other things, I wanted them to be able to challenge, in a constructive way, the "wisdom" of their peers. I found that it was hard to do this in a way that would compel them to even think about my email! I also would like them to learn the value and the discipline of thinking, generally. Do you have suggestions (including literature) that would help in getting children to think and talk about ideas? I have found that this is very difficult - either because they find the process too much work or they don't want to embarrass themselves (or?). Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
William Rapaport
July 18, 2010
(changed July 18, 2010)
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The American philosopher Gareth Matthews haswritten several wonderful books detailing his work withelementary-school kids on philosophy and has a website devoted to it: "Philosophy for Kids".
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Is the concept of inheritance of property a moral one? It makes sense that a person should derive some benefits from their own efforts, in the form of private property, but why should those benefits be transferable to one's offspring?
Thomas Pogge
June 28, 2010
(changed June 28, 2010)
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You agree that a person should derive some benefit from their own efforts, in the form of private property. But then property constitutes a benefit only if and insofar as one can use it in ways one values. Money is worth less, for instance, the fewer and less valued are the things one can purchase... Read more
If free will does not exist -- i.e, each person is only an observer experiencing but never actually choosing or deciding anything -- can life still be meaningful?
Eddy Nahmias
June 28, 2010
(changed June 28, 2010)
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This is an important question, since it might be that one of the reasons we worry about whether we have free will is that free will is required for life to be meaningful. If so, then any threat to our free will would also make life meaningless. (Actually, as I write that sentence, it makes me wo... Read more
Ok, I'm going to go at Godel backwards. I'm going to start from the fact that the universe exists (whatever others may think to the contrary). I'm assuming that the universe is ruled by law. It also seems to me that the universe can't contain any self-contradictions, or it wouldn't exist in the first place. So, its laws are consistent. For a similar reason, they must be complete; if some key part was missing, the universe wouldn't exist. This line of reasoning seems to lead me to: the laws of the universe are both consistent and complete. I know that Godel was talking about formal systems, but it just seems to me that the laws of the universe are *the* formal system. So, there is at least one example of a formal system that is both consistent and complete, whether or not we can articulate it. Or have I completely missed Godel's idea here? Thanks, JT
Peter Smith
June 28, 2010
(changed June 28, 2010)
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A formal system (of the kind to which Gödel's incompleteness theorem applies) is a consistent axiomatized theory which contains a modicum of arithmetic and is such that it is mechanically decidable whether a given sentence is or isn't an axiom.
Why should we think that the "laws of the universe"... Read more
It seems that many philosophical positions are very depressing and scary. For example, a world without God, a world without freedom, or a world where everything can be explained away by science, even a world where everything that makes us human can be reduced to neuroscience. Not all philosophers endorse these views I know but how can some philosophers be happy people and live fulfilling lives with some of the positions in philosophy? I enjoy philosophy but some of the possibilities scare me or worry me too much for me to think about.
Saul Traiger
June 28, 2010
(changed June 28, 2010)
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Whether one finds view, philosophical or otherwise, is depressing or scary is likely a function of one’s prior beliefs. If you already belief that God is the source of all things, has endowed us with freedom, and is the ultimate moral authority, then challenges to the existence of God may indeed b... Read more
Mathematics is extraordinarily effective in revealing and stating the basic laws of physics. Why is this so?
Alexander George
June 28, 2010
(changed June 28, 2010)
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You can find at least one response here.
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Why students checking facebook on class are regarded disrespectful, while a professor who checks his facebook on a symposium as another professor is reading his paper is said to be cute and cool？ Are there absolute boundaries between righteous and evil, right and wrong?
Gordon Marino
July 15, 2010
(changed July 15, 2010)
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These are two very different questions-- First, I would not regard the Facebook checking prof as cool. Going on to your computer while someone is giving a seminar or talk is just disrespectful. I doubt our Facebook checking prof would take kindly to someone doing the same to her as she delivered... Read more
5+5=9 is not an empirical fact. However it can be proven empirically (put 5 objects and four objects together, then count the result). How is it possible for non-empirical facts to be proven empirically?
Allen Stairs
June 28, 2010
(changed June 28, 2010)
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Counting things is something we actually do to get to the answers to arithmetic problems (who hasn't counted on their fingers at some point?) but we need to be careful. What if you put five drops of water together with five drops of water and count the results? Or what if you put an electron and a... Read more