Recent Responses
I believe modern Western philosophy is more a tool for reasoning than a body of doctrine, i.e., you apply it to whatever subjects crop up. Here comes my irreverent question. What do professional philosophers like yourselves do at barbecues when someone states an opinion? Do you subject it to rigorous philosophical analysis (this might not win you friends) or just chow down and let it go? And if the discussion was about something like the advisability of invading Iraq or otherwise, what could a philosopher offer that anyone else could not? This question is not a put-down - you must encounter a lot of idiocy in everyday life such as creationism - so what do you do in such situations? It must get frustrating at times! I am sure you all have robust senses of humor, however, and can handle this stuff and my genuine inquiry.
Marc Lange
November 22, 2008
(changed November 22, 2008)
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Well, I can't speak for other "professional philosophers", only for myself.
One thing that philosophers can offer is a capacity to recognize an argument's logical structure and whether arguments of that structure are good-- and, if they are not good, to make clear exactly why they are not go... Read more
What is defective about reasoning in the following way. Say I flip an ordinary coin and it lands heads 20 times in a row. Then I say: "Well, this combination of 20 flips is as likely as any other combination of 20 flips, so it's not so strange."
Marc Lange
November 22, 2008
(changed November 22, 2008)
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This is an excellent question. You are right: getting heads twenty times in a row is exactly as likely as, say, HTTHTHHTTTHHTHTHHTTH.
However, 20 heads is much less likely than (say) 10 heads and 10 tails. There are many more twenty-flip combinations that yield 10 heads and 10 tails than tw... Read more
I remember reading that Descartes considered animals as nothing more than automata incapable of experiencing pain because they do not possess "souls" (define that!). Viewing this favorably you could say he was an intellectual living in a rarefied world of his own, simply a product of his age. Less intelligent people of his time, however, liked, say, dogs and understood that if you kicked them and they howled and ran away then they were experiencing pain. Was there something the matter with Descartes and his view of animals if he couldn't make this simple connection, so clearly cognate with the human experience of pain? I know Hume had problems with causation but surely not in such a painfully obvious empirical manner!
William Rapaport
November 22, 2008
(changed November 22, 2008)
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Actually, it was because Descartes thought that animals lacked language and reason that he believed they were mere automata. (I say "mere", because we need to leave open the option, supported these days by, e.g., Daniel Dennett, that we are automata!)
As for "experiencing pain", we... Read more
Is there any objective, scientific way to prove that we all see colours the same? I know it's one thing for two people to point at an object and agree on its colour, even the particular shade, but there's no way that I can tell whether or not the next person in line sees everything in shades of greys, or in negative. We can even study how light interacts with objects and enters our eyes, without truly knowing if one person would see everything the same if he suddenly were able to see though another's eyes. So, is there any proof that we all do see colours the same? Maybe even proof or evidence to the contrary? If that's so, I must say that you're all missing something great from where I can see.
Jonathan Westphal
November 21, 2008
(changed November 21, 2008)
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There are objective scientific tests which show that we don't all see colours the same, such as the Ishihara test for colour vision. Most people don't even see the same "colours" out of both eyes. For many people the left eye might see things more saturated than the right. The questio... Read more
Is it possible for the constituent parts of a conscious being to be conscious themselves? Can I infer from the fact that I am conscious that the cells which make up my body are not conscious?
Jonathan Westphal
November 21, 2008
(changed November 21, 2008)
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My little toe is conscious, and it is a part of me, perhaps even a "constituent" part. I put in the scare quotes because I am wondering whether "constituent" means "essential"; if it does my big toe is not a constituent part of me. But if "A is a constituent of B" means "A is part of... Read more
What grounds the truth of logical inferences such as modus ponens or hypothetical syllogism? Are these logical truths grounded in "intuition" similar to Foundationalism?
William Rapaport
November 21, 2008
(changed November 21, 2008)
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I hate to sound like, well, like a philosopher, but I think we need to get some terms straight before we begin: Logical inferences such as modus ponens (more properly, rules of inference) are neither true nor false. Truth and falsity are properties of things like sentences, statement... Read more
Help me to understand this quote from Voltaire: "The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great." I already tried to understand it, but I can't find a consensual thought of it. With the best regards from Portugal, Olímpio P.
Douglas Burnham
November 20, 2008
(changed November 20, 2008)
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I am not a Voltaire expert; I can't even find the source of thequotation (putting it back into context is likely to help anyinterpretation), although it is very similar to a line at the end of'Micromegas'. However, for what it's worth, I'll happily share whatI've always taken it to mean... Read more
Hi. This is a question about Logic. I've read in a book by Michio Kaku, _The Physics of the Impossible_, that it may be possible to receive a signal before it was sent. This to my way of thinking would violate the logic behind causality. And yet on a social level we are effected by what happens in the future. An example would be Christmas shopping. My question is can an effect precede a cause, and if so what does that mean in relation to actuality and reality? Cheers, Pasquale
Allen Stairs
November 20, 2008
(changed November 20, 2008)
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We normally assume that causes can't precede their effects, but this isn't a logical truth, and in fact it's possible to tell coherent stories where the principle fails. By "tell coherent stories," I don't just mean tell science fiction. As your author may point out (I haven't read the boo... Read more
If animals have rights, shouldn't they have responsibilities? For example, dolphins have been known to kill porpoises, or even other dolphins, for fun. Do not the dolphins deserve the death penalty for these heinous actions? You might argue that dolphins are not developed enough to have moral responsibility. But dolphins are not developed enough to have morality, why should they be developed enough to have rights? Most animals rights activists (call them ARA's) assert that a humans right to life and well-being comes not simply from being human (that would be speciesist.) Instead, they assert that our rights come from from our functionality or development. Part of our development includes a moral dimension. So by the standards of ARA's, any agent with rights also has responsibilities. I doubt the PETA would approve of me stabbing a porpoise to death. Why aren't dolphins held to the same standard?
Miriam Solomon
November 20, 2008
(changed November 20, 2008)
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Humans have both rights and responsibilites, but other beings may have either, both, or neither. Think of infant humans: they have rights but no responsibilities. As children mature, they get some responsibilites. Mentally disabled adults have rights, but sometimes not the full range... Read more
If I am correct, the opposite of 'A' is not 'B', 'C', 'D', etc., but rather, the opposite of 'A' is 'not-A.' Likewise, the opposite of 'Green' is not 'Blue', 'Orange', etc., but rather, the opposite of 'Green' is 'not-Green.' And the opposite of 'Dog,' is not 'Cat' or 'Whale,' but rather, the opposite of 'Dog' is 'not-Dog.' And so on. However, each letter 'B' through 'Z' is not 'A' (after all, it seems, 'B' is not 'A', 'C' is not 'A'. and so on). Does that mean that 'not-A' is, or can be, or includes 'B' through 'Z'? Thus, does that mean that the opposite of 'A' is or can be 'B', 'C', etc.? Logically, I suppose, letters can stand for anything -- so perhaps 'A' is or can be equal to, say, 'B' and, therefore, 'not-A' would be equal to 'not-B,' so the opposite of 'A' might be 'not-B'. But what about objects that are not logical symbols? Cats and whales or not dogs. So, if the opposite of 'dog' is 'not-dog', and if cats and whales are not dogs, then are cats and whales the opposite of dogs? Am I missing something altogether?
Allen Stairs
November 19, 2008
(changed November 19, 2008)
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The idea of an "opposite" isn't really well-defined. What you're calling the opposite (e.g., "not-dog" as the opposite of "dog") is what a logician might call the contradictory. But even though "opposite"' doesn't have a precise meaning, it's clear from the way that people use the term tha... Read more