Recent Responses
Is it ok to kill ants for fun.
Oliver Leaman
June 4, 2010
(changed June 4, 2010)
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I think there is a difference between saying that all that matters is pleasure and pain, and thinking that pleasure and pain is a good place to start when looking at such issues. If it is an open question whether ants feel pain, then we should not kill them, if that might hurt them, it seems to me.... Read more
Some time ago, a question was asked: "How do you think technology will affect the teaching and practice of philosophy." The responses, while interesting, were a little too pragmatic. So, I would like to reformulate and ask a parallel question: How do you think technology will affect teaching and learning in the 21st century? Is the technological classroom the next great revolution? Or is it all hype, rhetoric, and advertising spin? Can philosophy help guide us in sorting the useful from the useless, the time wasting, and cost incurring technologies? Plato/Socrates was uncertain about print, Heidegger warned that in asking "the question about technology" that we are on the wrong track ... So, what advice would philosophers give to teachers trying to negotiate the validity of the technological revolution for teaching. George
Lisa Cassidy
May 20, 2010
(changed May 20, 2010)
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Dear George,I don't have too much of my own to add (but see below).Really, I wanted to recommend to you the work of philosopher Neil Postman. He was the go-to philosopher on the issue of technology and citizenry. You might want to start by looking up his lecture called "Five Things We Need to Know a... Read more
However hard I try, I cannot shrug off the impression that philosophy asks all the truly important questions, but has always been somewhat vague when it comes to giving staightforward answers to those very questions. Do people have to turn to religion to get final answers? Because one thing is for sure: they are looking for those final answers.
Charles Taliaferro
June 19, 2010
(changed June 19, 2010)
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I might add a modest point that could be helpful: It may not be helpful to see philosophy on the one side and religion on the other side of a great divide in terms of "final answers" and the offering of clear answers. Many philosophers today and in the past have adopted religious conviction... Read more
As the Lays Potato chip ad goes, "bet you can't just eat one." Yet I will sometimes find myself eating potato chips even when they no longer taste good. Why do we continue to desire things that when they no longer give us pleasure?
Nicholas D. Smith
May 20, 2010
(changed May 20, 2010)
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I think that what philosophers call "moral psychology" (the analysis of why people act as they do, where by "act" we mean behavior that is voluntary, rather than involuntary) would hold that the relevant factors here are a bit more complex. Some eating is, as you suggest, simply a matter of pu... Read more
I am reading The Republic by Plato right now. I am now on the 8th book of The Republic. I have read that Plato enumerates the theory of forms in the 7th book. Yet when I read the 7th book I found his theory of forms very unlike what I have heard about this theory. According to how the theory of forms has been taught to me a horse or a person corresponds to the form of a horse or person. It seemed like Plato what actually said was very different from that. I admit that I had a difficult time following Plato's arguments in book 7 but I am curious if I am the only person who finds a discrepancy between how Plato is taught and what he actually says.
Nicholas D. Smith
May 20, 2010
(changed May 20, 2010)
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The Forms make their first appearance in Book V, and are also significantly represented in the metaphysics of the Divided Line passage in Book VI. I agree, however, that they also appear in the theory of higher education Plato discusses in Book VII.
I can't speak to how Plato's theory of Forms... Read more
There are numerous examples of injustice in America (blacks treated unfairly in the criminal justice system, torture of detainees, etc.) and Americans generally seem to be more or less okay with this (shown by lack of a consensus of moral outrage). Yet, Americans also profess to believe in human rights, the constitution and principles of justice for democracy and the criminal justice system. I doubt that conducting a poll, many Americans would disagree with these principles. Why does our theory not match our practice? Can it be the case that American's truly don't believe in justice for all, if it can be violated so blatantly and without major objection from the public? And if it's the case that we truly don't care about justice then why not change theory? Or, if this is not the case, then why are people so apathetic? Is it even human nature to care about virtues and ethics? Or is it something that can only be achieved through active reasoning and pursuit of knowledge? How can I be happy in a world like this?
Nicholas D. Smith
May 20, 2010
(changed May 20, 2010)
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You are right that there are very high levels of hypocrisy in the US: our actual behavior often fails miserably to cohere with our announced values. But you should also recognize that some of the problems you mention are extremely intractible and may be extremely difficult to remedy. Have we... Read more
How would Kant resolve the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy?
Nicholas D. Smith
May 20, 2010
(changed May 20, 2010)
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Kant emphasized what he called the "categorical imperative," for which he gave two formulations. The formulation that seems most plainly to apply here is that we should be able to universalize into a maxim whatever decision we make in individual moral decisions. In this case, the question is... Read more
What is the correct resolution to the Fermi Paradox? As I understand it, the Fermi Paradox is physicist Enrico Fermi's acute observation of the discrepancy between the apparent high probability that extraterrestrial civilizations exist elsewhere in the universe, and the lack of empirical evidence of their supposed existence. It seems to me, that the Fermi Paradox is not a genuine paradox, as it neither commits self-reference nor leads to infinite regress. Any attempt to resolve this so-called paradox just needs to give an explanation for this discrepancy, but how does that contribute towards resolving the paradox? It seems that even if we were to make contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, the paradox would still be unresolved, so can there be any wholly satisfactory resolution to this paradox? Perhaps I just have the wrong attitude about it... I'm interested in seeing what other philosophers think about the Fermi Paradox, so that perhaps I may be assisted in developing my own stance on this issue.
Marc Lange
May 20, 2010
(changed May 20, 2010)
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I don't know what the precise definition of a "paradox" is, but roughly speaking, it is an argument that begins from premises that are too obvious to deny and ends by deriving from them a conclusion that is too ridiculous to accept. (Did Bertrand Russell say that somewhere?) By this standard, a parado... Read more
However hard I try, I cannot shrug off the impression that philosophy asks all the truly important questions, but has always been somewhat vague when it comes to giving staightforward answers to those very questions. Do people have to turn to religion to get final answers? Because one thing is for sure: they are looking for those final answers.
Charles Taliaferro
June 19, 2010
(changed June 19, 2010)
Permalink
I might add a modest point that could be helpful: It may not be helpful to see philosophy on the one side and religion on the other side of a great divide in terms of "final answers" and the offering of clear answers. Many philosophers today and in the past have adopted religious conviction... Read more
Suppose I agree with theists that "God exists" is a necessary proposition, and so is either a tautology or contradiction. That seems to indicate that the probability of "God exists" is either 1 or 0. Suppose also that I don't know which it is, but I find the evidential argument from evil convincing, and so rate the probability of "God exists" at, say, 0.2. But if the probability of "God exists" is either 1 or 0, then it can't be 0.2 - that would be like saying that "God exists" is a contingent proposition, which I've accepted it isn't. How then can I apply probabilistic reasoning to "God exists" at all? If I can, then how should I explain the apparent conflict?
Charles Taliaferro
June 19, 2010
(changed June 19, 2010)
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Interesting points. I take it that the most reasonable reply for a defender of the ontological argument to make is to claim that Prefoessor Smith's world is not in fact possible. If one can make a case for abstracta (properties or propositions necessarily existing) then there cannot be a w... Read more