Recent Responses
I have an opinion I'd like some feedback on. My view on war is generally that it's a bad idea. Aggression against another country or similar entity is difficult to justify. However the fact remains that an outside force can invade and make war on your country. My opinion on this is that an invader should be destroyed completely. Ruthless exploitation of any weakness, and use of any weapon is completely justified to expel the threat, at least until they have ceased their aggression and given back any territory gained. After that it would be difficult again to justify continuing the use of ruthless tactics in an act of aggression towards your enemy in their own territory. My idea of using complete force against an aggressor comes from that you didn't make war on them. They brought war to you. For example, if you were being violently mugged, it would be justified to kill your assailant. However, it would be unjustified to go out and kill someone just because they might mug you. Or, if you were mugged and you used force to defend yourself and did so successfully, but the mugger escaped, it would be unjustified to seek them out and kill them, since there is no longer the threat of being mugged by them. What do you think on this?
Andrew N. Carpenter
May 24, 2008
(changed May 24, 2008)
Permalink
I agree with the thought that being the subject of aggression does not necessarily license extremely violent responses like killing, and I would add that pacifists believe there can be--depending on the exact pacifist views being considered--principled and/or pragmatic reasons for refusing to... Read more
Can you think of a single justification for your existence that Harry Potter couldn't use? "I think, therefore I am" doesn't work, because Harry thinks, but doesn't exist.
Jasper Reid
May 24, 2008
(changed May 24, 2008)
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We have to take care over the interpretation of positive assertions about fictional characters. Consider the sentence "Harry Potter wears glasses". There seems to be a sense in which this is true. We might wish to say, for instance, that Harry Potter wears glasses but Ron Weasley does not. But there... Read more
Considering Descartes' malicious demon idea, is it possible that we could be manipulated in such a way so as all our beliefs are false? I'm thinking that we'd already need some true beliefs in order to have false ones. To be fooled into thinking that pig beards are shorter on Tuesdays I'd have to have true beliefs about pigs, beards, length, and Tuesdays for example. Can I infer then that the overwhelming majority of our beliefs must be true?
Andrew N. Carpenter
May 24, 2008
(changed May 24, 2008)
Permalink
As Richard suggests, the success or failure of arguments of this sort depends on the success or failure of arguments about the nature of the content of our beliefs and other thoughts.
So, for example, in his later writings Davidson made clear that his account of (as he called it) the veridi... Read more
I am about to start college and plan to do either an English honours course or a philosophy honours course for my graduation. But my parents are not quite supportive of this as they think that I am working myself into a dead end and these courses won't get me a job and are completely pointless. I am unwilling to do something more "career-oriented" as my interest lies in the aforementioned subjects. Am I being impractical by doing so as I don't have any long term goals? Will I repent my choice later?
Andrew N. Carpenter
May 24, 2008
(changed May 24, 2008)
Permalink
As Question 2110 makes clear, the value of studying philosophy extends far beyond "career-oriented" preparation.
Iwould also emphasize, however, that studying philosophy constitutes extremely strong preparation for many careers because itprovides you with superb opportunities for skill devel... Read more
I am about to start college and plan to do either an English honours course or a philosophy honours course for my graduation. But my parents are not quite supportive of this as they think that I am working myself into a dead end and these courses won't get me a job and are completely pointless. I am unwilling to do something more "career-oriented" as my interest lies in the aforementioned subjects. Am I being impractical by doing so as I don't have any long term goals? Will I repent my choice later?
Andrew N. Carpenter
May 24, 2008
(changed May 24, 2008)
Permalink
As Question 2110 makes clear, the value of studying philosophy extends far beyond "career-oriented" preparation.
Iwould also emphasize, however, that studying philosophy constitutes extremely strong preparation for many careers because itprovides you with superb opportunities for skill devel... Read more
I studied philosophy in university and I recall that one of my tutors for symbolic logic was trying to walk me through a problem by saying that if you have a large enough set of premises, two of them will inevitably contradict one another. I've always had trouble understanding (and consequently, accepting) this proposition because: if one conceives of reality as a set of claims (e.g., I am right-handed, electron X is in position Y, 2 + 2 = 4, etc.) there are an infinite number of "premises" to the "argument" that is reality and consequently reality is self-contradictory. Am I missing something here? Can you explain which of us is right about this and in which sense? I should mention that I don't necessarily have a problem with reality being self-contradictory, but that really throws symbolic logic out the window (and doesn't throw it out the window at the same time)! Thanks to all respondents for their time. -JAK
Alan Soble
May 23, 2008
(changed May 23, 2008)
Permalink
Maybe the tutor was thinking something like this (I seem to recall it from Popper). Let's consider only atomic (simple) contingent propositions (A, B, C, ... , Z) that are logically independent of each other. The probability that an atomic contingent proposition is true is less than 1 and greater tha... Read more
Does it follow from materialism that we should be able to infer literally anything there is to know about a person's consciousness (feelings, memories, etc.) from publicly observable facts about their brain and body? If we had perfect neurological knowledge, is there anything that might yet elude our observation?
Joseph Levine
May 22, 2008
(changed May 22, 2008)
Permalink
Since you said "literally anything", almost all philosophers would agree that the answer is "no, it doesn't follow from materialism". For one thing, there are facts about consciousness, memory, etc., that depend upon facts external to the body. So, for instance, whether I really remember an event... Read more
I have an opinion I'd like some feedback on. My view on war is generally that it's a bad idea. Aggression against another country or similar entity is difficult to justify. However the fact remains that an outside force can invade and make war on your country. My opinion on this is that an invader should be destroyed completely. Ruthless exploitation of any weakness, and use of any weapon is completely justified to expel the threat, at least until they have ceased their aggression and given back any territory gained. After that it would be difficult again to justify continuing the use of ruthless tactics in an act of aggression towards your enemy in their own territory. My idea of using complete force against an aggressor comes from that you didn't make war on them. They brought war to you. For example, if you were being violently mugged, it would be justified to kill your assailant. However, it would be unjustified to go out and kill someone just because they might mug you. Or, if you were mugged and you used force to defend yourself and did so successfully, but the mugger escaped, it would be unjustified to seek them out and kill them, since there is no longer the threat of being mugged by them. What do you think on this?
Andrew N. Carpenter
May 24, 2008
(changed May 24, 2008)
Permalink
I agree with the thought that being the subject of aggression does not necessarily license extremely violent responses like killing, and I would add that pacifists believe there can be--depending on the exact pacifist views being considered--principled and/or pragmatic reasons for refusing to... Read more
Considering Descartes' malicious demon idea, is it possible that we could be manipulated in such a way so as all our beliefs are false? I'm thinking that we'd already need some true beliefs in order to have false ones. To be fooled into thinking that pig beards are shorter on Tuesdays I'd have to have true beliefs about pigs, beards, length, and Tuesdays for example. Can I infer then that the overwhelming majority of our beliefs must be true?
Andrew N. Carpenter
May 24, 2008
(changed May 24, 2008)
Permalink
As Richard suggests, the success or failure of arguments of this sort depends on the success or failure of arguments about the nature of the content of our beliefs and other thoughts.
So, for example, in his later writings Davidson made clear that his account of (as he called it) the veridi... Read more
Why is question-begging considered a fallacy when it embodies a deductively valid form of reasoning?
Peter Smith
May 21, 2008
(changed May 21, 2008)
Permalink
Perhaps this just reflects that the notion of fallacy (in the broad sense) is used in a fairly catch-all way. Let's say (as a first shot) that a fallacy is someflaw in the structure of an argument which prevents its givingrationally persuasive support for its conclusion. And let's distinguish that fr... Read more