Recent Responses
Do games rest on an unresolvable contradiction? On the one hand, they are social affairs, designed to unite people. In chess clubs, for example, people of all ages, races, creeds, etc., come together and enjoy each other's company. On the other hand, games are competitive affairs, appealing to our most raw and neanderthalic impulses to clobber our enemies. To become good we must prey on and exploit every weakness of the opponent, and to do this we must make him the enemy, else we won't be motivated.
Peter Lipton
March 29, 2006
(changed March 29, 2006)
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A knife may be used by one person for farming and another person for killing. There is no contradiction here, it's just that the same thing may serve different purposes at different times. Moreover, you may play a game both for the purpose of trying to win and as a social affair, at the same t... 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
It seems like a lot of authors of literature have studied philosophy, and mention philosophers in their novels, and use philosophical ideas in their novels. It's almost as if they thought the knowledge of a lot of philosophy was a pre-requisite to writing a good, interesting novel. On the other hand, I can hardly think of examples of the other way around -- famous philosophers having studied lots of literature and talking about it to inform their philosophy. Do you agree that this is the case, and if so, why might it be? Is literature, which some might say contextualizes philosophy by placing it in the context of a world or a character's life, an outgrowth of philosophy? Is it taking philosophy to its logical conclusion, or to its next step?
Douglas Burnham
March 29, 2006
(changed March 29, 2006)
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That's a lot of fascinating questions. I'm not sure, though, that your initial empirical observation is valid. Sure, there have been many novelists with an interest in philosophy; but there have also been many philosophers with an interest in literature. You only have to look at Plato and Ar... Read more
I recently decided to change jobs; I had to go through a lot of interviews at various competing firms. In order to keep my job search secret from my current employer, I had to make (often false) excuses to leave work early / take long lunch breaks / take afternoons off work. Was it ethically wrong to do this?
Thomas Pogge
March 28, 2006
(changed March 28, 2006)
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I don't see a serious ethical problem with taking a long lunch break, assuming you worked a little longer at the end of the day as needed. Nor is it wrong to take an afternoon off, assuming you properly advised your employer to give him/her a chance to book is as a half-day of vacation. So the... Read more
It's plausible that medical advances will mean that, probably at a huge cost, we will be able to extend our lives a lot longer than people used to expect to live. I'm thinking something like 500 years or so of quality life. Presumably limited resources and things would mean that less children would be born, or that most people on earth would be stuck with poor and shorter lives. Would it be wrong to make use of such an opportunity?
Thomas Pogge
March 28, 2006
(changed March 28, 2006)
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If the very expensive life extension you envisage is available to all, one might defend it as a permissible collective choice. Of course, there would be fewer births, and fewer deaths, each year -- perhaps just 20 million annually instead of 125 million on the assumption of a steady human popula... Read more
Why does Thomas Hobbes choose "Leviathan" as the model for his Commonwealth? It is, after all, an Old Testament sea-monster that God will slay at the end of conflict. It does not seem a very promising image for an argument in favor of civil society.
Bernard Gert
March 27, 2006
(changed March 27, 2006)
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In the last paragraph of Chapter 28 of Leviathan, Hobbes explains why he chose "Leviathan" as the model for a commonwealth. "Hitherto I have set forth the nature of man, whose pride and other passions have compelled him to submit himself to government, together with the great power of his govern... Read more
Should we consider technology to be no more than just applied science? I often become discouraged that many of my "techie" friends have rather simplistic views of technology. Most would never consider that nearly all technologies, if examined more critically, contain some kind of implication for the human condition. Certainly, technologies always have some human element embedded in their very structure? Is this right?
Peter Lipton
March 27, 2006
(changed March 27, 2006)
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Since technologies are designed by humans and for humans, it is difficult to see how they could avoid the human element, at least twice over. Moreover, technologies have unintended consquences that also influence us, sometimes in profound ways.
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This is in response to the question about Hellen Keller and whether or not there is thought without language [http://www.amherst.edu/askphilosophers/question/459]. How could a thoughtless person ACQUIRE language? It seems that the process of learning a language (or anything else, for that matter) would require thought. Doesn't this argument prove that thought exists prior to language acquisition? The same can be said of babies. Not many would argue that pre-verbal babies are incapable of thought. Otherwise they would never learn anything.
Richard Heck
March 27, 2006
(changed March 27, 2006)
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Many philosophers and psychologists find this argument compelling. I, for example, am a philosopher who finds the argument compelling. (See also Jerry Fodor, The Language of Thought, for an extensive discussion of this kind of consideration.) But not everyone finds the argument compelling, and e... Read more
If numbers are infinite how can we call anything truly accurate? How can any number exist (i.e. 1 or 17.8732)? It's an infinite regression. You could always make your measurement more precise. Thanks.
Richard Heck
March 27, 2006
(changed March 27, 2006)
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Your question concerns real numbers and measurement of physical phenomena using them. The question would not arise if we were talking about non-negative integers and the use of such numbers to answer "how many" questions, like: How many panelists are there on askphilosophers.org? The answer "39"... Read more
It's safe to say that Electricity has no feeling. and that a dead body has no feeling. And that a live body that's in a coma has no feeling. Therefore is it not also safe to say that a soul must exist? There has to be something to make a person a person. We cannot have "minds" and "thought" if we are only electricity and cells. Correct?
Richard Heck
March 27, 2006
(changed March 27, 2006)
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I'm not sure I follow this argument. People who think there are no such things as "souls" think human beings are living creatures, and to be a living creature is not just to be "electricity and cells" in the sense that I,for example, am not a dead body over here plus a generator over there.
Now... Read more