Recent Responses
I'm trying to gain a non-trivial understanding of the Law of Identity, in Logic -- what it MEANS. Is the emphasis in "Daniel equals Daniel" on the "equals", or on the two "Daniels" on separate sides of the equation. Does this law entail, for example, that if I cloned myself, I would be equal to my clone? Certainly at least in one way we are not equal - in that we take up a different area of space. If, on the other hand, it just means I am equal to myself, then why place two "Daniels" on separate sides of an equation - like the clones, they take up different space (on the page). What then is the usefulness of this law? When is it used and what does it accomplish? What does it mean for something to equal something else? And why are dialectical, continental philosophers - those heretics with the platitudinous, lazy thoughts - always trying to chip away at the iron armor of this law that seems so obvious as to need no defense? Finally, what would fall if this law fell?
Alexander George
September 26, 2007
(changed September 26, 2007)
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The Law of Identity states that each object is identical to itself -- hard to deny. "Daniel is identical to Daniel" is a particular instance of that Law.
Your clone is not identical to you: if you and your clone we're alone in a room and we counted the number of objects in the room,... Read more
Why might there be no category for metaphysics on the AskPhilosophers site? Has metaphysics as a subject been disregarded, disproved or abandoned by philosophy? If so or if not, what relevance does it have within contemporary philosophical discussion?
Alexander George
September 26, 2007
(changed September 26, 2007)
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Metaphysics is indeed a central area of philosophy: you will rarely find a philosophy department that doesn't have a course (or many) in metaphysics. We've chosen not to use the name here because it probably doesn't mean anything to someone who doesn't know much about philosophy. I... Read more
How could we distinguish facts and interpretations of facts? Some say that facts are given, others say that they are constructed by theories. Could we still say that facts are independent or previous to theories?
Allen Stairs
September 25, 2007
(changed September 25, 2007)
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The tricky thing about this issue is to decide what the issue is. Some people seem to want to say that all facts are constructed, but I've never really understood what this is supposed to mean. Let me yank at a few threads and see if any of them are connected to the worry.
Some facts dep... Read more
Many people reject the death penalty on the grounds of mistakenly taking the life of an innocent person. Why then do we allow abortion? If no one is certain when life begins, isn't to accept abortion an acceptance of mistakenly taking the life of a person?
Allen Stairs
September 25, 2007
(changed September 25, 2007)
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I sometimes call this the "Ronald Reagan argument"; President Reagan was fond of a version of it that, as I recall, had to do with a man in a ditch who might or might not be dead. That also raises a preliminary issue. The question presumably isn't whether the fetus is biologically alive;... Read more
Does the study or the practice of Social Work raise interesting philosophical questions? If it does, would these questions be placed only in branches "more practical" like political philosophy and ethics, or also in branches "less practical" like epistemology and philosophy of science? There could be a "philosophy of social work", or would it have to be a smaller point in other discipline?
Allen Stairs
September 24, 2007
(changed September 24, 2007)
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Since I don't know much about the training and practice of social work, I can't offer a direct answer to your question, but perhaps a couple of thoughts might help you decide what you think the best answer might be.
Disciplines like physics, biology and psychology have a fair bit of the... Read more
Karl Marx based his claim that all workers are exploited within capitalism, upon the assumption that the value of a product is basically determined by the amount of labour put into it. More specifically, the value of a product equals the cost of raw materials, usage of means of production (both factors are more or less constant) and then extra value added to it because of labour (e.g. coffee is worth more than the mere sum of water and coffee beans; the extra value is created by grinding the beans, ...) The point then is that a worker's wages are typically less than the extra value of the product added by labour. Hence the worker is performing some of the labour for free, hence exploitation. Now my question: I can see the reasoning behind this, but I question the assumption that the value of the product is determined by the amount of labour put into it. For example, suppose one worker is digging for gold, while another one is digging for stone. Let's say the labour they do is roughly comparable, yet surely the value of the product will be much higher in the first case? Does this invalidate Marx' theory, meaning that workers are actually not exploited? Probably not, but where do I go wrong?
Oliver Leaman
September 21, 2007
(changed September 21, 2007)
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Surely the value of a product is far more than just the value of the labour involved in it, as the example you produce suggests, even for Marx. Workers are exploited if they are not paid what they contribute to increasing the value of the product. The arbitrary difference between the va... Read more
I am a student at Lafayette College and last weekend, we celebrated Marquis de Lafayette's 250th birthday. Is such a celebration valuable to Marquis himself, even when he is dead? Since we are all going to die, should we all try to make an effort to be remembered by future generations? To whom is that valuable? Thank you.
Peter S. Fosl
March 7, 2008
(changed March 7, 2008)
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My hometown is Bethlehem, PA, and I spent plenty of time around Lafayette and downtown Easton growing up, so I had to respond to this. I hope things are well there with you. I agree with my colleague Amy Kind that people can harmed (or benefited) even if they're unaware of it, and so in a sense... Read more
Does a person have any moral/legal OBLIGATION to have sex with his/her partner in a relation of marriage? Thanks.
Alan Soble
September 17, 2007
(changed September 17, 2007)
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I'm back, after only three days of teaching, grading, and occasionally goofing off. Here are a few thoughts about the issue and Professor Haslanger's reply to the question.
(1) Professor Haslanger writes, “Certainly there is noobligation to have sex with someone you don't desire outside o... Read more
I have heard that Descartes' "cogito ergo sum," while intuitively compelling, is actually a logically flawed argument. Can someone explain how/why it is logically flawed? I have heard the argument that anything that has any properties at all has the property of existence automatically, so existence is not a substantive property (have I put that correctly?). Even if that is true, why should it matter so as to make the cogito argument flawed? And are there any other, perhaps better logical arguments against Descartes' proposition?
Gloria Origgi
September 16, 2007
(changed September 16, 2007)
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Descartes' cogito is perhaps the best known argument in the history of philosophy and one of the most discussed. Criticisms are many, even in Descartes' times (Gassendi replied to him by saying that "ambulo ergo sum" is as good an inference as "cogito ergo sum" - which is in line with t... Read more
Anyone presently in college probably knows students who have take drugs like Adderall to help them study (I should add that whether all of these actually suffer from ADD is often doubtful). Should this be considered unethical? There's an obvious comparison between drug-use of this sort and steroid-use in professional sports, but I've always been suspicious of this analogy.
Allen Stairs
September 15, 2007
(changed September 15, 2007)
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Let's set aside the case of people who really have ADD and who use properly-titrated doses of stimulant medication. It's hard to see what the ethical issue could be in those cases. What about people who don't have ADD, but use stimulants to boost attention?
There's an amusing old quote... Read more