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I teach a sophomore level course at a public university and recently asked two questions on an informal evaluation of the course: How concerned are you with getting all of the points you deserve on every assignment? and How concerned are you with getting more points than others who did less work on every assignment? Students responded with a number on a 7-point scale such that 1 = not at all and 7 = highest priority. I thought the responses to the two questions would be highly correlated and that I could use this information to point out that giving unearned points to one student is unfair to the rest of the class. However, there was almost no correlation between the responses (r=.08), the mean response for the first question was very high (5.8), and the average for the second question very low (2.1). The question: is it possible to make sure every student gets all the points they deserve without also making sure they get more points than students who did less?
Jyl Gentzler
October 14, 2005
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It seems to me that your students’ position is very reasonable on oneunderstanding of what you mean by “less work.” Students come intovarious classes with different levels of preparation and skill, and so,it will take “less work” --i.e. “less effort”-- for some students, forexample, to answe... Read more
Do you think "philosophy" defines a set of knowledge (facts, data, beliefs) or a system of thought ("if we approach this problem philosophically...")? I think the discipline is unnecessarily saddled with the idea that only 'weighty' questions fall in philosophy's domain. Why don't we see more mundane questions? Is a philosopher really only qualified to answer questions about the finite set of categories on this site?
Alexander George
October 14, 2005
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Philosophy is one of the few disciplines (the only discipline?) thestudy of whose own nature is still part of that very discipline. Youcan investigate the nature of chemistry, but that's no longer part ofchemistry. You can reflect on the nature of religious belief, butthat's no longer to... Read more
If everything so far found in reality has been captured in words, and words are built upon letters which are also a creation of man's imagination, is not everything a construction of the human mind to categorize the world, to make it familar and give it definition? Given that this is true, then are not most if not all philosophical questions (made up of our tools of language) redundant and pointless because they are rendered meaningless by the fact of their imaginary basis? So the only real questions of philosophy should be only those relating to emotions like hunger, satisfaction, pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness? Everything else is metaphysical .... so rights and freedoms, ethics and morality is all relative to the extreme and basically non-sensical. What is the answer?
Peter Lipton
October 14, 2005
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Whenever we talk about representations (and philosophers can't stop talking about them), it is important to distinguish between the representations and the things they represent. Representations, such as sentences and thoughts, are human products, but what they represent need not be. You... Read more
Is there a such thing as nothing? If you say "I'm not doing anything" you are always doing something: sitting, standing, floating, breathing, laying; and if you say you can't see anything that's a lie also because you can see black, white. So what is your opinion?? Panku Zina -14
Alexander George
October 14, 2005
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There is no thing that is nothing. To say that nothing is in the room is not after all to say that something is in the room, namely nothing. That's a confusion: see Question 49 for some discussion. You're right to observe that when someone says "I'm doing nothing", they're always doin... Read more
Is religion a result of evolution? I mean, is the human kind fitter and more surviving by being religious?
Peter Lipton
October 14, 2005
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This is a matter of dispute. First of all, there is dispute over whether religion has any innate component, for example whether there is an innate predisposition towards religion. Second, if there is an innate component, there is a further dispute over whether this is present because it is... Read more
What is the difference between ethics and morality?
Roger Crisp
October 14, 2005
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A distinction is sometimes drawn between ethics as concerning all the values or goods that might be instantiated in a person's life (well-being, friendship, virtue of character, aesthetic qualities, and so on), and morality as the narrower domain of moral obligation only (right and wrong, wha... Read more
Is there any evidence that colors are the result of micro-physical properties? That, for example, all blue things have a certain structure (texture?) in common that accounts for their being blue.
Peter Lipton
October 14, 2005
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The answer to this may be yes and no. Yes, colors are or are caused by micro-properties of the surface of objects, but apparently quite different micro-structures may correspond to the same perceived color.
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I believe that I am the only thing that really exists. I think that my friends and people I meet are versions of myself if I had taken a different path in life. I could be anyone and I can understand even the most ridiculous of ideas. It seems like a negative view but I am convinced that everyone or everything I encounter is to benefit me in some way. I don't believe in good or bad. Nor emotions or science. Just nature. I was created and all I am here to do is survive as long as possible. Period. No silly questions about the meaning of life or what is my purpose or am I a good person. Life isn't a gift it was just something that was possible and eventually happened. I think people like to lie to themselves to forget the fact that they are basically useless. I apologize for making this sound negative and too long. I guess my question is how can anyone prove to me that they really exist?
Peter Lipton
October 14, 2005
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Your question reminds me a little of the story Bertrand Russell told about the philosopher who claimed that solipsism -- the view that only you exist or anyway that there is no reason to believe anyone else exists -- was obviously the correct position and she couldn't understand why everyone... Read more
Is the underlying mathematics of string theory both complete and consistent? If it is, then apparently Gödel was wrong; if it is not, then how can it be a theory of everything? Would not an endless string of metatheories be needed for sufficiency? If not, what did Gödel, Tarski, etc. miss. Dave
Alexander George
October 14, 2005
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I don't know anything about string theory, but I assume that itemploys rich enough mathematics that, were we to articulate thatmathematics in a formal system, Gödel's 1931 Incompleteness Theoremwould apply to it to yield the result that, if the system isconsistent, then it is incomplete,... Read more
As science progresses, it seems that it starts to infringe more deeply on philosophical questions - things like the anthropic principle in physics or neuroscience's discoveries about consciousness. What are things that scientists can take from philosophers? Also, do philosophers have an obligation to look into the science if it impacts their area of expertise?
Alexander George
October 14, 2005
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Perhaps philosophers can offer the scientist clarification of some of the concepts or claims in play in his or her theories. For the most advanced sciences, like physics, such insight typically does not lead to any change in the practice of the working scientist. (That said, some philo... Read more