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If there is a 10 CM ruler and someone ask you how long is that. The answer should be 10CM. If there is a 5 CM ruler and someone ask you how long is that. The answer should be 5CM. Now, If there isn't any ruler and someone ask you how long is that. I should answer 0 or "N/A"? In this case, does 0 and "N/A" have the same meaning?
Richard Heck
May 5, 2010
(changed May 5, 2010)
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Suppose I ask, pointing out into empty space: What color is that apple? I take it that the question cannot be answered, that, to borrow a phrase from Sir Peter Strawson, "the question just doesn't arise". This is because the word "that" is not, in this utterance, used to refer to anything, so there is... Read more
Hello, I am asking this question after reading Richard Heck's answer to the question: 'Can God make a rock both big and small?'. It's more a terminological, really: What is the name of the philosophical approach that asserts logic is a universal law that cannot be broken (not even by God)? Thanks, Amit.
Richard Heck
May 5, 2010
(changed May 5, 2010)
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I'm afraid I don't know the answer to this question. But the discussion of the paradox on Wikipedia is pretty good and might somehow lead to an answer.
If anyone does know or find out the answer, email me and I'll post it here.
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My question deals with consciousness. I believe I understand what it means for me to be conscious of what is occurring around me, but I have the feeling that a lot of this depends on what I believe to be the consciousness of what is occurring (perhaps in an abstract form) around me or a result of something that is or had been conscious in some manner at one time. As am example of what I am attempting to describe, would I even take note of a person in my line of sight if something about that person (could be a very simple thing such as a glance from that person in my direction, the shoes he or she is wearing, or the waves of the ocean) that was somewhere along the line a conscious act of that person or of nature. And then could this be projected to a building or a tree since the tree is a living thing and the building was constructed by people. I know there is a certain vagueness about this question but I do not know how to put it in a more definite form.
Jonathan Westphal
May 1, 2010
(changed May 1, 2010)
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Louise Anthony's reply is absolutely right, though the problem of other minds will be always with us no doubt. I wonder whether there is something else in addition in your mind that lies behind the question. Are you suggesting that whenever I am conscious there is a very interesting cause in the... Read more
A question on translation- is translation at all possible? If I take a poem, and compare it with any translation of the poem, is the poem still the same poem just in another language? Or did the translator create a new poem (with the creative input of reading the original poem). What does translation then mean? What is the work of a translator and how can you educate/teach "translation"? What gets lost in a translation, the essence of the words? What is a translated poem then- words without their essence? I wonder if there is something like "translation" at all. I believe a translator is in the same sense an artist than the poet itself.
William Rapaport
April 29, 2010
(changed April 29, 2010)
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These are all good philosophical questions (as well as practical ones for translators!). I strongly recommend that you read a wonderful book on the subject by Douglas Hofstadter: Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language
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I read somewhere that an ostensive definition is a definition that does not rely (only) on words, but (also) on a gesture of pointing. As far as I can see, however, a gesture of pointing is also a word. It is word in a sign language, or in a language that includes sounds and gestures. Isn't it?
Mitch Green
April 29, 2010
(changed April 29, 2010)
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Thanks for your nice question. Even if a language such as a sign language has a sign that is made just in the way that I move my hand when I point at something, that does not mean that when I am pointing at something I am using a word. Similarly, even if a baby happens to utter a series of soun... Read more
Friedrich Nietzsche introduced the idea of eternal recurrence based on the supposition that if there is only a finite amount of matter in the universe, there are only a finite number of arrangements of that matter, so if time is infinite, each arrangement of matter will be repeated an infinite number of times. Is this argument logically sound? Thanks, kal
Peter Smith
April 29, 2010
(changed April 29, 2010)
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Obviously not! Imagine a world with just three particles in it (not in a straight line). One particle stays fixed, the other two move slowly apart for ever (along the line joining them). The arrangement of the three particles in this finite-matter world -- the size and shape of the triangle forme... Read more
Is it inconsistent to assert that we should withhold judgment on people who act immorally (because we don't know the specifics of their situation) and also that we should praise people who act righteously (even though we don't know much about their situation either).
Miriam Solomon
April 29, 2010
(changed April 29, 2010)
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This behavior strikes me as lacking even-handedness, but not as inconsistent. One may have a view that it is better to risk praising falsly than to refrain from praising at all, and better to refrain from criticising than to risk criticising falsly. It's a pragmatic attitude that makes sense... Read more
Why does it seem that everything that I read in philosophy always uses "she" or "her" instead of "his" or "he"?
Jean Kazez
April 28, 2010
(changed April 28, 2010)
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Hurray for singular "they". Apparently good writers have long used it--
This is not a new problem, or a new solution. 'A person can't helptheir birth', wrote Thackeray in Vanity Fair (1848), and evenShakespeare produced the line 'Every one to rest themselves betake' (inLucrece), which pedants wou... Read more
Why does it seem that everything that I read in philosophy always uses "she" or "her" instead of "his" or "he"?
Jean Kazez
April 28, 2010
(changed April 28, 2010)
Permalink
Hurray for singular "they". Apparently good writers have long used it--
This is not a new problem, or a new solution. 'A person can't helptheir birth', wrote Thackeray in Vanity Fair (1848), and evenShakespeare produced the line 'Every one to rest themselves betake' (inLucrece), which pedants wou... Read more
Society A believes that morally right to sacrifice children to their god. Society B believes that this belief is morally wrong. On what basis can I say that Society B is morally superior to society A?
Allen Stairs
April 25, 2010
(changed April 25, 2010)
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Let me start by saying that on any plausible scenario, I agree with Prof. Smith. There are plenty of good grounds -- he offers three excellent ones -- for thinking that sacrificing your children to the gods is really just wrong, period. The fact that some people think otherwise doesn't by itself... Read more