Recent Responses
Can there be such a thing as 'progress' in human history? Does time and circumsance have a more than superficial bearing on our beings? Or are we essentially the same regardless of historical epoch or geographical conditioning? I refer to the so-called 'birth of reason' in 17th century Europe, and its so-said 'dawn of modernity'.
Andrew N. Carpenter
January 5, 2007
(changed January 5, 2007)
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I agree with Peter that one need to specify exact criteria for progressbefore making the sort of assessment that you describe. All suchcritiera and assessments will be controversial because our knowledge ofourselves and our histories is limited and controversial, but this byno way means... Read more
Can literature "tell the truth" better than other Arts or Areas of Knowledge?
Peter S. Fosl
January 5, 2007
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It's an interesting question. I note that you don't ask whether literature can "establish" the truth, or "discover" the truth, or "distinguish" the truth. It's also interesting that you ask about "truth" and not "knowledge" or "wisdom"--though you do seem to suggest that literature is one a... Read more
How can one acquire knowledge through emotions only?
Miranda Fricker
February 19, 2007
(changed February 19, 2007)
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The anglo-american philosophical tradition has not been very kind to the emotions until relatively recently, when there has been an upsurge of support for the idea (latent, however, in Aristotle) that emotions can have cognitive content - they can tell you stuff about how the world is.... Read more
Is it much harder to be a philosopher now (that is, to make a contribution to the discipline) than it was 50 years ago? Is philosophy like science in that there can seem at times to be less and less left for us to "discover," over time?
Andrew N. Carpenter
January 3, 2007
(changed January 3, 2007)
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I agree that it is more difficult to gain access to and to contribute to highly specialized and professionalized academic communities than to less specialized and less professionalized ones. Not all fields of philosophy are as highly technical as mathematical logic, but nearly all philo... Read more
My question has to do with moral obligation towards persons not yet conscience or even existent. The question is this, how may I weigh the possible happiness and suffering when deciding how many kids to have? For instance, given the income I make I could make one child very spoiled or I could have many children and spread out the wealth. The dilemma is that these kids are nonexistent, I mean if I really had many kids it would be unfair to spoil one; however, if I only do have one child that I spoil then I am negating the possibility of sharing with other children. To put this question on a large-scale basis we could, as a "global community," let's say, either use our resources to make everyone happy now (hypothetically of course) or continue to allow the population to grow to where there are more people (with the ability to feel pleasure and pain) although now (pretending that) we would share all the resources, of course now there is less so every gets the minimum amount to survive. so how do we measure the happiness of the future? I hope my question was not to confusing. I really appreciate any response.
Andrew N. Carpenter
January 3, 2007
(changed January 3, 2007)
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I think it is extremely difficult to predict future happiness, andespecially so on the basis of expected family income -- human lives arecomplex, and that is a narrow and uncertain basis for prediction. So, Idon't have any philosophical insight about your question as it relatesto expect... Read more
What is the difference between the philosophy of language and linguistics?
Richard Heck
January 2, 2007
(changed January 2, 2007)
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Linguistics is a branch of empirical science. The central questions in linguistics concern how human beings manage to speak and comprehend language. Philosophy of language is a branch of, well, philosophy. Empirical results are relevant to it, but its questions are not necessarily empirical in... Read more
Hi, I was thinking about the "This statement is false" paradoxon and so I came to: What about the "This statement is paradox" <err mmh metaparadoxon>? It means that I, the statement, can't be true or false. I find that odd. ..Jumping (1) Layer of statements: "I drink coffee" (2) Layer of statements about statements: "<statement> is true/false" (3) Layer of statements about statements about statements: "<statement> is paradox/not paradox" or is it: "<statement> is true/false-determinable/finite or not" Statements of (1) can state every possibility of language. Statements of (2) state if statements of (1) correspond with reality/each other. Statements of (3) state if statements of (2) are self-referential? finite? Where are my mistakes :p? Or which books do you advise me to read? Err..Which question should i ask? Does (3) "exist"? Is the idea of layers a bad idea? Simon
Richard Heck
January 2, 2007
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The idea that there is a hierarchy of statements, each saying something about the level below, but none of the lower ones saying anything about the higher ones, is central to formal work on truth. It originates where such work originates, with Alfred Tarski's great paper "The Concept of Truth... Read more
Is it much harder to be a philosopher now (that is, to make a contribution to the discipline) than it was 50 years ago? Is philosophy like science in that there can seem at times to be less and less left for us to "discover," over time?
Andrew N. Carpenter
January 3, 2007
(changed January 3, 2007)
Permalink
I agree that it is more difficult to gain access to and to contribute to highly specialized and professionalized academic communities than to less specialized and less professionalized ones. Not all fields of philosophy are as highly technical as mathematical logic, but nearly all philo... Read more
Students of foreign language often remark that to learn a new language is to acquire a new mode of thought. Do they mean to suggest that certain thoughts are only possible in certain languages? If so, I don't see how this can work! How can I, as an English speaker learning French, discover thoughts in French which I could not have expressed in English? I needed English to get there!
Richard Heck
January 2, 2007
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It is an empirical question to what extent one's capacity for thought depends upon one's ability to speak various languages. See the entry on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on wikipedia.
Regarding your other remarks: (i) It's not obvious that you needed English to learn French, since native French... Read more
Let's say that a virus spread throughout the world and damaged the areas of the brain that are responsible for emotions. The entire population was affected and could no longer experience any emotional reactions, although their reason and intellectual ability was unimpaired. Would morality change if we no longer have any emotional reaction to cheaters, thiefs, inequity, or tragedy? Maybe it's difficult to answer such a hypothetical, but any opinions would be appreciated.
Alan Soble
January 1, 2007
(changed January 1, 2007)
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Emotion-less or emotion-free creatures/beings have been explored in science fiction, including Stanley Kubrick's "2001" and "Star Trek." See what Wikipedia says about the 1956 B&W movie, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Body_Snatchers.... Read more