Recent Responses
If someone leaves you, can they still love you; and if not, can you stop loving someone or would that mean you never loved them at all? Tyler
Jyl Gentzler
March 31, 2006
(changed March 31, 2006)
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Indebted to T.H. Irwin (Aristotle's First Principles), I would put Aristotle’s point about friendship slightly differently —not that genuine friendship involves constancy, but that the best sort offriendship involves constancy. On Aristotle's view, friendship has atleast two features that lead t... Read more
While on a treadmill at a fitness club, I noticed a woman reading a book with a chapter title, "God Is Everywhere." I asked her how she knew God was everywhere. She said that she knew because she had a strong sense of him. I said that I had the strongest sense imagionable of Santa Clause when I was 8. She said, THAT'S NOT THE SAME THING! However, it is the same thing, is it not? In both cases, the entities are supernatural. In both cases, we have been told by elders to believe in impossible magic with zero empirical evidence. Doesn't it follow then that, just like a child must grow up one day to accept there is no Santa Clause, adults need to come to terms with the truth about their imaginary friend in the sky? Thanks, Jeff
Bernard Gert
March 30, 2006
(changed March 30, 2006)
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If the concept of God that you are considering is simply an adult version of Santa Claus, then you are correct that just as a child must one accept that there is no Santa Claus, so an adult needs to come to terms with the truth that their is no adult version of Santa Clause, what you call "their... Read more
I read somewhere that, in her professional lifetime, Martha Nussbaum has averaged 3-5 published pages per day. This raises two questions: 1) Wouldn't that make her a great panelist candidate for this site (not exactly a philosophical question, I admit)? And 2) what is the relationship between prodigious output of thought and quality/clarity of thought? In trying to read Nussbaum on my own, I find that she has some really great nuggets, but there is a lot of sifting before I find them (_Upheavals_of_Thought_ as a case in point). This seems problematic. Moreover, does the process of publishing sometimes work to diminish originality of thought (generally) and/or dilute the acuminity of thought? I suppose this melds into a third question: how has philosophy changed in relation to the changing dynamic of publishing (from an emphasis on treatises like books to shorter journal articles - and THIS as an effect of 'publish or perish')? And what may we say of this change - is it a 'good' change; what does it say about the current state of philosophy; what does it mean for the wider access to philosophy? People talk about the death of the novel and I guess I also wonder the death of the treatise (of all types) and even the death of the Philosopher - despite (in my opinion) the inarguable relevance of philosophy. I studied philosophy as an undergrad. Thank you for this great site (and hopefully taking my question(s))!
Alexander George
March 30, 2006
(changed March 30, 2006)
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I sent this query to Martha Nussbaum, who was kind enough to reply:
I work very hard, and I never never read blogs or write on them. (I'm answering this question through an e mail message, and I have no intention of ever reading a blog.) I also have been very lucky to have a lot of leave t... Read more
I recently went to gamble at a casino. First timer that I was, I decided to stick with the roulette table. In particular, I decided to only bet on black and red (ALMOST 50% chance of success, as one must also factor the number 0, which is neither red nor black). After a while observing the results board (and not betting), I noticed that what appered to be a chaotic pattern of results, became a pretty steady and predictable 3-reds-3-blacks type of pattern. So I began betting, and, lo and behold, I began winning. Naturally, every now and then I would lose some (sometimes there would be 4 blacks in a row instead of 3)--but, overall, I was winning. Then this magical pattern vanished, giving way to the same chaotic (that is: to my eyes) pattern which I had observed at the beginning. After, say, 1 hour, the 3b-3r pattern was back in place. Days later, I returned to the same casino, and didn't even place one bet: my magical pattern just never manifested itself! Any explanations? I am no mathematician, but is it possible that that pattern really was a pattern and not mere chance? I mean, if I tossed a coin, for every toss there would be equal possibilities for the outcome to be heads or tails; nevertheless, after 100 tosses, more or less, we'll have a result split down the middle: a pattern! Any thoughts? Thanks, a
Peter Lipton
March 30, 2006
(changed March 30, 2006)
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I'm no expert on probability, but I think you have to consider different types of pattern differently. In the case of the coin, a pattern of 50 heads and 50 tails (in any order) is much more likely than 99 heads and 1 tail. But a pattern of first 50 heads and then 50 tails is no more or less l... Read more
I read somewhere that, in her professional lifetime, Martha Nussbaum has averaged 3-5 published pages per day. This raises two questions: 1) Wouldn't that make her a great panelist candidate for this site (not exactly a philosophical question, I admit)? And 2) what is the relationship between prodigious output of thought and quality/clarity of thought? In trying to read Nussbaum on my own, I find that she has some really great nuggets, but there is a lot of sifting before I find them (_Upheavals_of_Thought_ as a case in point). This seems problematic. Moreover, does the process of publishing sometimes work to diminish originality of thought (generally) and/or dilute the acuminity of thought? I suppose this melds into a third question: how has philosophy changed in relation to the changing dynamic of publishing (from an emphasis on treatises like books to shorter journal articles - and THIS as an effect of 'publish or perish')? And what may we say of this change - is it a 'good' change; what does it say about the current state of philosophy; what does it mean for the wider access to philosophy? People talk about the death of the novel and I guess I also wonder the death of the treatise (of all types) and even the death of the Philosopher - despite (in my opinion) the inarguable relevance of philosophy. I studied philosophy as an undergrad. Thank you for this great site (and hopefully taking my question(s))!
Alexander George
March 30, 2006
(changed March 30, 2006)
Permalink
I sent this query to Martha Nussbaum, who was kind enough to reply:
I work very hard, and I never never read blogs or write on them. (I'm answering this question through an e mail message, and I have no intention of ever reading a blog.) I also have been very lucky to have a lot of leave t... Read more
I have recently become interested in the following philosophical idea, and am wondering if it carries much weight. It rests on the idea that there cannot be any such thing as 'religious evidence'. Any religious claim cannot be made without some sort of evidence - this may differ from what a scientist would term 'evidence' as it may involve the mere 'feeling of truth' rather than a demonstratable proof. However, here is the problem that currently interests me. For any religious claim to have some sort of weight, it must rest upon some sort of evidence. The nature of evidence in general is that it is either empirical or theoretical in form - however, the status of the latter is such that it allows for future empirical verification or falsification, and as such does not rule out testing. With evidence, we either demonstrate something to 'be the case' through example, or show how a method carries value. Let me bring in an example of a religious claim: "We look around and see an order and structure to the universe that could only have been brought about by a divine creator, and could not have been the product of chance" - the problem here is how to provide evidence for this claim that does not take a scientific form, and we have two main obstacles: firstly, if we allow 'feeling' to take the status of evidence, then we devalue the notion of empirical evidence because we remove its ability to demonstrate (someone who didn't want to go on empirical evidence would, in this case, not have to). Secondly, we also transform a religious claim into a scientific one by admitting such a notion of evidence, and as such bring about the impossibility of the truth of such a claim. I realise quite how long it has taken me to reach the specific 'question', but I wished to 'show my workings' as it were. The question is: given the above understanding of 'evidence', how can there be any truth in any religious claim or any claim that does not have as its grounding any theoretical or empirical evidence? On top of this, does every religious claim - through its mere utterance or even possibility - undermine itself in the above manner?
Thomas Pogge
March 30, 2006
(changed March 30, 2006)
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As I understand your argument, much of it depends on understanding the predicates religious and empirical as mutually exclusive. This allows you to infer that, if a claim is empirical, then it cannot be religious -- and that, if evidence is empirical, then it cannot be religious. If I wanted to... Read more
I live in France, where, as you are probably aware, many universities have been physically blockaded by students protesting government policy. This prevents others from attending classes and lecturers from teaching, regardless of whether or not they agree with the protestors. Now, it strikes me that these same protestors would complain vehemently and denounce the violation of their own rights and freedoms if the police were to block a road to prevent them from marching down it. Would that be hypocritical of them? Would it not constitute claiming a right for themselves which they have denied to others?
Thomas Pogge
March 30, 2006
(changed March 30, 2006)
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Such hypothetical protest would indeed be hypocritical if the two cases were relevantly alike. But are they? You point out two respects in which the cases are alike: Agents A are blocking the path of agents B, some of whom do not agree with the reasons for A's actions. But the cases may be diffe... Read more
Who gets to decide who is good and who is bad? From:Daniel.H
Peter Lipton
March 29, 2006
(changed March 29, 2006)
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I think that 'decide' can mean two different things here. It can mean who creates the standard of good people and bad people. Or it can just mean who is a good judge of who is good and who is bad. My own view is that nobody creates the standard: what makes somebody good is what they do, not whet... Read more
Child "A" is well behaved because he believes in Santa Clause. Child "B" is well behaved simply because he appreciates the concepts of courtesy and cooperation. Inherently, child B is more moral than child A because child A's behaviour is motivated by personal gain. Thus, isn't it logical to say that an adult who is well behaved without the belief in a god is more moral than someone who believes in heaven? Thanks, Jeff
Peter Lipton
March 29, 2006
(changed March 29, 2006)
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I'm inclined to agree with you that someone who does the right thing because it is the right thing is morally more impressive than someone does the right thing for the sake of some reward. At the same time, you can believe in God (and even believe in heaven), do the right thing, yet not do it f... Read more
I have read, recently, that it is better for a student of philosophy to have completely mastered the secondary literature before moving on to the primary. Is this really the best approach to a philosophical text?
Peter Lipton
March 29, 2006
(changed March 29, 2006)
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Philosophy differs from physics in this respect. If you want to learn physics, you pretty much have to start with textbooks. Indeed you may well complete an undergraduate major in physics without ever reading a research paper. But philosophy is a deep-end-first subject. The text you are reading... Read more