Recent Responses
How seriously is the idea taken that the passage of time is a purely subjective phenomenon? (I just read Palle Yourgrau's book on Gödel, who apparently came to such a conclusion via the theory of general relativity.) How might such an interpretation relate to Kant's view of time?
Lynne Rudder Baker
October 24, 2005
(changed October 24, 2005)
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Many philosophers in the past half-century or so, especially those influenced by physics, have taken the passage of time to be wholly subjective. Physics (Newtonian as well as Einsteinian) appeals to temporal relations like 'earlier than' or 'simultaneous with', never to an ongoing no... Read more
5 divided by 0? Personally, I believe that it is infinite based on the idea that division is just repeated subtraction just like multiplication is repeated addition. For example, in 4/2, it's pretty much like saying how many times can you subtract 2 from 4 before you get to 0.
Daniel J. Velleman
October 24, 2005
(changed October 24, 2005)
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I would give a slightly different moral to Peter's story. Mathematicians could have defined 5 divided by 0 to be infinity--one of the wonderful things about mathematics is that we can define things however we want. However, what Peter's proof shows is that if you define division by 0... Read more
Why are all people sometimes mean? Robert (12 years old)
Alan Soble
October 23, 2005
(changed October 23, 2005)
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My daughter Rachel, who is now 12, used to watch the Rugrats--she was, maybe, 6 at the time. Often she asked me, "Daddy, why is Angelica so mean?" All I could muster, back then, was something about how difficult a question that was to answer. But we went back to the question as she got older.... Read more
If you go back in time and kill your former self, would it be suicide or murder? What if you went forward in time and killed your future self?
Joseph G. Moore
October 23, 2005
(changed October 23, 2005)
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It's not clear that you can go back in time and kill your former self: a former self that doesn't get killed seems required for your presense at his side, contemplating the crime. This is a version of the grandfather paradox (you can travel back and talk to your own grandfather, but not k... Read more
I was just discussing with a friend the concept of a perfect world. We were trying to define what would be a perfect world. I thought the perfect world would be world with a healthy balance of life and death, a healthy balance of war and peace, not enough food and not enough of other resources, and a healthy balance of one's own pain, and a world of distrust on top of that. But my friend seemed to hold a different view of it - a perfect world, to him, seemed to be one where there was always enough food, a world without death, a world with no war, and a world where you could go anywhere and trust every single person. We argued for a couple hours, but it was clear at one point that we had reached a stalemate. What do you guys think? What would be defined as a perfect world?
Jyl Gentzler
October 30, 2005
(changed October 30, 2005)
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One way of thinking of a perfect world is as a world that cannot be improved upon in any way. There are no problems to be solved, because everything is as it should be. But paradoxically, perhaps, such a perfect world would not be perfect for us. We’ve evolved to be the ultimate problem so... Read more
Why are philosophers these days so concerned with fleshing out possible rules for concepts (e.g., Crispin Wright's analysis of intentions)? Do they believe that people actually follow these rules? But how can that be if most (if not all) people can't even say what these rules are precisely? And wouldn't a more plausible answer be found in our being conditioned to behave in certain (imprecise) manners with certain words or phrases, much like, e.g., learning to use our legs to walk? If so, shouldn't this be more a matter of empirical investigation (on the level of science) than this sort of conceptual analysis?
Richard Heck
October 23, 2005
(changed October 23, 2005)
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I'm with Mitch and Peter, so far as what they've said goes. But neither of them answered your first question: Why do philosophers go in for this kind of thing in the first place? The answer is that philosophers who do go in for this kind of thing think that, if we could articulate the rules... Read more
I've been away from academia since I dropped out of philosophy grad school in 1997, so I'm out of touch with recent developments in philosophy. What are the most significant philosophical books or papers of the past eight or so years? (My main areas of interest in grad school were metaphysics and philosophy of language, but I'd be interested in your answer whatever your specialty.)
Richard Heck
October 23, 2005
(changed October 23, 2005)
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Philosophy tends not to move terribly quickly, and it's always difficult to tell, from "up close", what will prove to have been important. That said, however, there have been some important developments in philosophy of language (one area you mentioned over the last decade). It's less a matt... Read more
It seems ever since Wittgenstein there has not been much of a stir in the philosophical world (not to undermine the work of any contemporary philosophers). Some say that his work marked the "end of philosophy." In what sense did he put an end to the discourse? Do you expect there to be a future philosopher who will have an impact quite like that of Wittgenstein, or say, Nietzsche, Kant, or even Aristotle? Moreover, are there any contemporary philosophers who are on this path? In which field(s) do you think a paradigm shift of this sort will occur?
Richard Heck
October 23, 2005
(changed October 23, 2005)
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It's certainly true that people have said this kind of thing about Wittgenstein. But if his work did mark the "end of philosophy", not very many people seem to have paid that fact much attention. I suppose someone might say that, if only we understood Wittgenstein's work properly and appreci... Read more
What would be the generalized philosophical view on the use of drugs and alcohol? Would it depend on the school of philosophy one finds himself in or do most schools have a similar opinion?
Richard Heck
October 23, 2005
(changed October 23, 2005)
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I'm not sure that any particular philosophical orientation would dictate a position on the use of drugs and alcohol. Philosophical theories, especially in ethics, tend to operate at a high level of abstraction, and their impications for such practical questions tend to be very difficult to d... Read more
Are "we" our brains controlling a "shell"? Or are our brains more like independent beings, and we ourselves are the shells?
Richard Heck
October 23, 2005
(changed October 23, 2005)
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Even the Great Dualist, Descartes, who regarded mind and body as two completely different kinds of substances, did not want to regard the relation between the mind and the body as like that (his analogy) between a captain and a ship. A person, according to Descartes, is a "union" of mind and... Read more