Recent Responses
Take the English word "triangle" and the German word "Dreieck". They mean the same. I have two questions: 1. Do these words express the same concept? 2. Is this concept the meaning of these words? I'm not sure, but I think that my questions concern terminology. I guess that what I want to know is if I am using the words "express", "concept" and "meaning" in the way philosophers use them.
William Rapaport
April 5, 2009
(changed April 5, 2009)
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Both 'tri' and 'drei' mean "3", and both 'angle' and 'eck' mean, well, "angle", so on that basis, one can argue that your English and German words "mean the same". They also surely refer to the same geometrical objects, so on that basis they also "mean the same". On the other hand, it's not... Read more
What makes a bottle to be a bottle? The matter that forms it can't represent the actual bottle without the substantial form of a bottle. On the other hand, the substance itself of the bottle has an accidental form. So what exactly happens when the bottle falls down and breaks into small pieces? Is it an accidental change of the form of the substance (Aquino's 'dough' example) or is it a substantial change that leaves behind only the matter of the bottle?
William Rapaport
April 5, 2009
(changed April 5, 2009)
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Here's one quick answer to your first question: What makes a bottle a bottle (more precisely: what makes something a bottle) is whether someone uses it as a bottle, not what it's made of or what its form is. Although the rest of your question is stated in Aristotelian and mediaeval terms o... Read more
I have a question about “ghosts” that I am wondering whether a philosopher or two could help me explain. I know it sounds ridiculous even to bring up the topic, which is why I do so only under the cover of anonymity. Let me preface this by saying, as a law student in New Haven with heavily atheist leanings, I don’t think I’m a particularly stupid or superstitious person. But a few years ago I had an experience it is difficult to reconcile with my worldview. On a lark, a friend and I spent the night in a hotel room in Savannah that was reputed to be “haunted.” Naturally, we were expecting nothing to happen there. But curiously, every time we left the room, something inside it moved. (We would go in the hallway, wait a minute or two, and then re-enter.) A banana from the fruit bowl and a tub of shampoo from the bathroom were placed on the bed; my friend’s underwear moved from one corner of the room to a trash can in the other; my friend’s student ID was removed from his wallet and placed on the floor; the list goes on. We had a video camera with us. Each time we left it inside the room, something moved, but in a small nook of the room outside of the camera’s frame. This was true despite the fact that we left the camera in different locations, covering different parts of the room. (Each time this happened, the camera’s microphone picked up no sounds whatsoever.) Given these facts, the only conventional explanation I can come up with—that staff at this fancy inn was somehow monitoring the room and deploying someone or some thing to move our things—strikes me as highly implausible, not only because it would be flagrantly illegal (a peeping-tom style offense), but physically impossible. Assuming all this is true—which I assure you it is—what are its implications?
Miriam Solomon
April 5, 2009
(changed April 5, 2009)
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Clearly this experience at the Savannah inn is haunting you, if you are perplexed about it several years later! I'm answering as an empiricist (rather than as a dogmatic materialist/physicalist). I'm willing to believe in ghosts if that's where the evidence points. If you really expected nothing... Read more
Given the presence of a large (and increasing) number of orphans and a human populace that is driven (evolutionarily or otherwise) to rear children is it more ethical to adopt orphans instead of giving birth and raising one's own? Indeed, given that only a certain number of people are 'fit' to raise children, is there a categorical imperative (for the ethically aware) to explore adoption before giving birth to one's own children?
Lisa Cassidy
April 3, 2009
(changed April 3, 2009)
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I really like this question because I have often wondered the same thing! What follows is merely an answer-in-progress.
There are several related concerns touching this question. One is to consider resources at the macro level. According to Prof. Singer's book One World, the average American burn... Read more
Can someone please explain the word instantiate to me? The most conherent answer I could find was: to represent an abstract concept by a concrete instance; to create an object. I am sort of confused as to what this means. Thank you.
Peter Smith
April 2, 2009
(changed April 2, 2009)
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I guess that different philosophers adopt somewhat different usages here (it's one of those cases where you have to glean from someone's writings their preferred usage). It will be interesting to see what colleagues say. But speaking for myself, I think I use the word in two different ways.
(A) Fi... Read more
Human beings have a certain self awareness that nobody seems to fully comprehend. Is it possible that plants and animals have this same cognition but are simply limited in their ability to communicate with the physical world? It seems scientifically unlikely but science is built on physical evidence, and thoughts are not physical. They’re metaphysical. So, we can’t really comprehend their nature, right? Are there some theologians and philosophers who’ve theorized that plants and animals have thoughts just like people?
William Rapaport
April 5, 2009
(changed April 5, 2009)
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I would like to focus on your last question: Is it possible that plants and animals have thoughts just like people? Let's take animals first. We are animals, so at least some animals have thoughts just like people. Our nearest animal relatives--the primates--probably have thoughts very muc... Read more
Dear philosophers, I'd currently call myself a 'pseudo-vegetarian', in that I don't eat meat, but I do eat fish and dairy foods, and use other products derived from animals (e.g. leather, wool). I became a vegetarian when I was five; arguably, when it was easier for me to hold a black-and-white moral viewpoint. I would now like to re-evaluate my vegetarianism, so that I can make an informed and (hopefully) ethically coherent decision about the foods I eat and the products I use. Are there any books you could recommend for me to read? I studied some philosophy at university, and would be interested in reading some balanced discussions of animal rights, vegetarianism and veganism. Thank you for reading this e-mail, and thank you in advance for your help.
Amy Kind
April 2, 2009
(changed April 2, 2009)
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Given the difficulty in finding balanced treatments of these issues, you might try to achieve a balance of your own by reading people with strong opinions on either side of the issue. So in addition to reading Singer's Animal Liberation, which is the classic statement of the position in favor of anim... Read more
Richard Dawkins wrote in his “The Selfish Gene,” that people are essentially biological robots. If he is right then all of our thoughts are simply the result of cerebral and neurological processes. Electrochemical signals produced by entirely physical processes. So, assuming he’s correct, then what reason do we have to trust our thoughts and logic? Perhaps what we think is universally true is not, we’re simply programmed to –think- it is? Actually, that’d be a profoundly effective evolutionary tool for preservation of the species. Our emotional values and logic may have developed as a way to augment survival instincts beyond the level of less cognitive organisms, right? So, why trust our thoughts? How do we know our logic is truly logical and not simply an illusion of logic?
Peter Smith
April 2, 2009
(changed April 2, 2009)
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There is a number of issues raised here. Let me make just two points.
First, on the specific idea that "perhaps what we think is universally true is not, we’resimply programmed to think it is? ... that’d be a profoundlyeffective evolutionary tool for preservation of the species." But of course, if... Read more
Dear philosophers, I'd currently call myself a 'pseudo-vegetarian', in that I don't eat meat, but I do eat fish and dairy foods, and use other products derived from animals (e.g. leather, wool). I became a vegetarian when I was five; arguably, when it was easier for me to hold a black-and-white moral viewpoint. I would now like to re-evaluate my vegetarianism, so that I can make an informed and (hopefully) ethically coherent decision about the foods I eat and the products I use. Are there any books you could recommend for me to read? I studied some philosophy at university, and would be interested in reading some balanced discussions of animal rights, vegetarianism and veganism. Thank you for reading this e-mail, and thank you in advance for your help.
Amy Kind
April 2, 2009
(changed April 2, 2009)
Permalink
Given the difficulty in finding balanced treatments of these issues, you might try to achieve a balance of your own by reading people with strong opinions on either side of the issue. So in addition to reading Singer's Animal Liberation, which is the classic statement of the position in favor of anim... Read more
Not to be silly…but if I could build a time machine would it be possible for me to go back in time and stop myself from building the time machine?
Jasper Reid
March 29, 2009
(changed March 29, 2009)
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Not a silly question at all, absolutely not! But the answer is no.
Suppose you built a time machine last year, 2008. Then it is true now that you built a time machine in 2008, and it always will be true that you built a time machine in 2008. Suppose now that, next year, you decide that it would b... Read more