Recent Responses
Personally, I think that through careful rational analysis we can go out and discover the way the Universe actually is and, although we might make many blunders and mistakes along the way, we do get closer to finding out the truth. However, I have been told this is an old fashioned view (I think Enlightenment rationalism was the term used), that I should go and read Richard Rorty (still meaning to do) and that what we really do as individuals is to make truths which are unique to ourselves and only true for us and hence the Universe is subjective. So my question is this, is there 'a way things are' or 'the truth' so to speak, that we can go out and find (or at least try to) or do we rather 'make truths' which are only 'true for us'?
Lynne Rudder Baker
January 19, 2006
(changed January 19, 2006)
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Most philosophers today in the English-speaking tradition agree with you that truth is not just subjective. But there is a lot of room between thinking that there is a single, complete true description of all reality and thinking that truth is just what we make it. For example, you... Read more
A barman is asked by a more senior member of staff who is currently off duty, but noticeably intoxicated, for a drink. The law states the illegality of serving to someone who is intoxicated, but the managers not only insist upon the bartender serving the member of staff but also state that they will serve him if the bartender refuses. Given this situation, how might one attempt to address the problem of 'the right thing to do'?
Bernard Gert
January 19, 2006
(changed January 19, 2006)
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The morally right thing for the barman to do is to refuse to serve the clearly intoxicated senior member of the staff. He should also try to persuade the managers not to serve him. This answer assumes that it is true that the more senior member of the staff is clearly intoxicated. Given the... Read more
Are theism and atheism mutually exclusive positions? This would seem to be the case if theism is understood to be the presence of a belief in god and atheism is the absence of a belief in god - there is no middle ground. So where does agnosticism fit in? Even Bertrand Russell sometimes couldn't decide whether to call himself an atheist or an agnostic.
Bernard Gert
January 19, 2006
(changed January 19, 2006)
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Both theism and atheism presuppose that there is some clear meaning to the word "God." However, this does not seem to be true. For Spinoza, God has none of the personal characteristics that the God of various religions is supposed to have. Spinoza has been called a pantheist, and another vie... Read more
Can it still be called love if one loves someone but that person does not love one back? Or does love need the equal affection of two people in order to be considered genuine and whole?
Alan Soble
January 19, 2006
(changed January 19, 2006)
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The question is whether love must be reciprocal (reciprocated; mutual; bidirectional) to be love. The obvious answer is "no": I can love my child without my love being returned with equal affection or at all. Indeed, that seems to be a (good) parent's fate. But perhaps what you are talking abo... Read more
I have never studied or even read much about philosophy but am very interested in it. The thing that I have always wondered is this: Has the study of philosophy over the centuries actually made the world a better place, in terms of practical everyday living for average people, or is it just a luxury subject that some people enjoy thinking about? If it has improved the world, in what tangible ways? Or does anyone think philosophy has any negatives or that we'd be happier and less worried if we didn't think about it? I used to be a Christian and at that stage of my life I confused philopsophy with religion. But now I am an atheist and, taken overall, I think religion has made the world a worse place to live. Its contribution to art and other positives such as its acts of charity are outweighed by the wars it has caused and acts of inhumanity done in its name and by its need to control peoples' minds and actions. Now I understand the difference between philosophy and religion, but I am not sure what impact philosophy has on us in the here and now.
Bernard Gert
January 19, 2006
(changed January 19, 2006)
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Philosophy takes a long time to have any influence, but eventually it may. For example, Hobbes and those English philosophers, like Hume and Mill, who were greatly influenced by him, affected the English language in a way that allowed morality to be distinguished from religion. This is very... Read more
I have no belief in a god or gods or an afterlife. I often struggle with the question of being. Why are we here, is there a reason or purpose or is it just chance? Tony Ross
Bernard Gert
January 19, 2006
(changed January 19, 2006)
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If you mean by "is there a reason or purpose?" did someone have a reason or purpose in creating the world, that presupposes that someone did create the world. All the evidence we have shows that this is not true. Reasons and purposes presuppose beings that can have them. Whether you came abo... Read more
I was looking out the window of a bus yesterday and noticed the hoar frost on the snow bank. It's beautiful - it looks like the pelt of some huge beast or maybe alive, like coral. I started thinking of other beautiful things in nature like snow flakes and the patterns that frost forms on car windscreens, and not just freezing water examples but the shapes of trees, the songs of birds (okay, maybe not everything - e.g. the caw of a crow isn't necessarily beautiful but it doesn't hurt the ears either). Why do we find things in nature beatiful? Thanks, David
Oliver Leaman
January 19, 2006
(changed January 19, 2006)
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Why shouldn't we find things in nature beautiful? I am actually very impressed with the caw of the crow, which to me is a sublime sound. There is no requirement that something be humanly constructed for it to be beautiful, many would say quite the reverse.
Log in to pos... Read more
What is a "disposition"? Philosophers seem to use the word a lot, but I do not understand why. For example, to say that "Thunderclouds have a disposition to produce lightning" seems to say little more than "Thunderclouds produce lightning". What is the "little more", if anything?
Marc Lange
January 19, 2006
(changed January 19, 2006)
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Consider a match. It has the disposition -- the power, the capacity -- to produce fire. But suppose that as a matter of fact, the match is never struck. So it never, in fact, produces any fire. Yet it still had the power to produce fire. "This match produces fire" is false, yet "This match has... Read more
I once took a graduate course in education in which I was the only non-teacher. One day, I disagreed with something said by another student, and her response has always baffled me. She said: "Who are you? You can't question me until you've walked in my shoes." In other words, she felt that I was unqualified to question her, to cast doubt on anything she said. Who was I to say? Well of course her response was nonsense but how so? As a matter of logic or illogic, was her remark an example of an appeal to authority? She certainly felt that she was an authority.
Jyl Gentzler
January 27, 2006
(changed January 27, 2006)
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I have such a visceral reaction to your fellow student’s comment. I just want to slap her on your behalf, which of course I’d never do, but I’d want to! But then I wonder what your comment was. Maybe she was just verbally slapping you, and while verbal slapping is no better than physical... Read more
Is it true that in science 'theoretical' means 'non-empirical'? If so, are theoretical entities radically imperceptible? That is, although we can perceive the effects of theoretical entities, we can never perceive the entities themselves. For example, theoretical temperature is average kinetic energy of molecules, which we cannot perceive, but we can perceive its effects as thermometer readings and sensations of hot and cold; or mass is imperceptible but we can perceive its effects as forces of weight and inertia.
Alexander George
January 17, 2006
(changed January 17, 2006)
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Sometimes, philosophers use the term "theoretical" to apply to certain statements in a scientific theory. Sometimes, they use the term to apply to certain entities whose existence is postulated by a theory, viz., those entities that are not directly observable. In the latter sense, the... Read more