Recent Responses
This is a question about the role of education. I wonder how far is education away from institutionalization? Sometimes teachers think they are helping their students to gain the ability of being free, while in fact they are putting their students into prison by telling them what is the content of freedom. Hope this was not a vague question. And if I am very interested in this question, whose works you recommend to read?
Nalini Bhushan
November 4, 2005
(changed November 4, 2005)
Permalink
Albeit idiosyncratic in some ways, there's a little book byJiddu Krishnamurti, entitled 'Education and its Significance for Life' (1953)that you might enjoy. Krishnamurti was deeply concerned about humanfreedom in the psychological (rather than political) sense, connecting a lossof freedo... Read more
Hello: Plato taught about a realm of ideas vs. a material realm, and the realm of ideas subsequently working as a basis for our ethics. Is this called "Gnosticism" or does Gnosticism build on Platonic thought? What is the platonian teaching called if not gnosticism? Also, do you have any references about links between buddhism and platonic thought? Thank you/ Tony
Nicholas D. Smith
November 4, 2005
(changed November 4, 2005)
Permalink
Gnosticism was certainly influenced by Platonic philosophy, but the two are not the same thing. Rather than going into details here, I suggest that you go to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (advertised on the lower right of this page--just click on it) and look up "Gnosticism."... Read more
In the beginning of <i>The Republic</i>, Socrates demonstrates to Thrasymachus, I think, that his theory of justice, i.e., "do good to one's friends and evil to one's enemies", is false because it may be that one has evil friends and good enemies, or be mistaken about in fact who is our friend and who is our enemy. I wonder, though, about this: We are faced with three potential questions. One possible question is "who are our true friends and our true enemies?". Another possible question is "are our true friends good and our true enemies evil?". A third possible question is "what is justice, considered apart from irrelevancies like our friends?". It seems to me that we are much more likely to be right in our judgments about the first two questions than we are in our third. We might be wrong in all three, of course, but if asked to either 1) accurately identify one's friends and evaluate their worthiness or 2) create a theory of justice, I would suggest that the vast majority of people (perhaps why we are not 'golds') would be more accurate more often handling #1 than #2. What am I missing?
Nicholas D. Smith
November 4, 2005
(changed November 4, 2005)
Permalink
I think the passage you have in mind in one in which Socrates refutes Polemarchus, not Thrasymachus. But at any rate, I guess I don't share your confidence in our ability to judge the first and second questions much more accurately than we can the third. Of course, if we mean by "frie... Read more
Can you have knowledge that is based on a false belief?
Richard Heck
November 5, 2005
(changed November 5, 2005)
Permalink
One can slightly simplify Mark's case as follows. Suppose one believes that p and also believes that q. One therefore believes that p and q, but also that p or q. The disjunctive belief surely must be "based upon" one's beliefs in the disjuncts, but neither of them is essential: The belief i... Read more
Is it always the case that "two wrongs don't make a right"?
Joseph G. Moore
November 4, 2005
(changed November 4, 2005)
Permalink
If two wrongs don't make a right, try a third. I think Nixon said that. But he wasn't the most reliable ethicist, and I can't think of a sitauation in which two wrongs would make a right. A just punishment might seem to come close, but doesn't really: the score may be settled when you've... Read more
I know I feel very strongly about the importance of conserving biodiversity, but I really can't pin down why it is so important to me, or how to make the argument to convince others that it is important. Can philosophy help?
Joseph G. Moore
November 4, 2005
(changed November 4, 2005)
Permalink
Philosophy might help in sifting through the possible reasons for conserving biodiversity--not just diversity of species, but also of types of ecosystems and also, perhaps, of genetic diversity within a species. And what is worrying about our current situation, by the way, is not simply t... Read more
Are there any arguments for the existence of God which the panel would view as philosophically legitimate?
Mark Crimmins
November 4, 2005
(changed November 4, 2005)
Permalink
None. Besides Belgian ales, that is.
I'm a plain old atheist: I don't find any of the arguments I've come across for the existence of something I'd be at all tempted to call "God" even slightly compelling, so I consider myself to have as little evidence for believing that there is such a... Read more
I read Aristotle and Kant in the original languages with enjoyment and profit. But I am finding Hegel extremely difficult to follow. Is there any easy way in?
Thomas Pogge
May 28, 2006
(changed May 28, 2006)
Permalink
Indeed, there's no easy way in. But you would do a great deal better beginning with the Philosophy of Right (or the Phenomenology) than with, say, the Logic. Hegel's Philosophy of Right is hard, but no harder, in my view, than Kant's Metaphysics of Morals or Aristotle's Metaphysics. And the effort t... Read more
Suppose someone is thinking about killing himself. Can philosophers or philosophy give him reasons for or against doing it? Or isn't suicide a philosophical subject?
Alexander George
November 26, 2005
(changed November 26, 2005)
Permalink
Suicide is not murder unless you understand "murder" to mean "to kill a person". But we don't so understand it, as we don't usually speak of the hangman's murdering the convict, or of a soldier's murdering his enemy, or of someone's murdering in self-defense a man who was trying to ki... Read more
The numbers e, i and pi are related. Is this natural or a consequence of the way we do our mathematics? Iain Nicholson
Daniel J. Velleman
November 5, 2005
(changed November 5, 2005)
Permalink
Richard makes a good point, but I still think that I had a good point also, although I may not have expressed it as well as I might have. It is often said that Euler proved that eix = cos(x) + i sin(x), but it seems to me this is somewhat misleading. Many (most?) modern complex analy... Read more