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I'm struggling to reconcile David Hume's critiques of science and religion. On the one hand, he suggests that our application of cause/effect to natural phenomena is problematic since it ammounts to simply equating the present with the past. On the other hand, he warns us against believing in second-hand accounts of miracles since they are interruptions of natural law. Isn't our use of causal reasoning the way we determine the characteristics of natural law? Is this an inconsistency in his argument and, if so, does he address it anywhere?
If I may complicate things a
Stephen Maitzen
May 7, 2015
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If I may complicate things a bit: I don't question the scholarly accuracy of Prof. Baxter's reply on behalf of Hume, but I'd point out that he attributes to Hume a handful of inductive claims, for example: "We instinctively make and believe...predictions, anyway. We can'... Read more
On April 10, 2014, in response to a question, Stephen Maitzen wrote: "I can't see how there could be any law more fundamental than the law of non-contradiction (LNC)." I thought that there were entire logical systems developed in which the law of non-contradiction was assumed not to be valid, and it also seems like "real life" suggests that the law of non-contradiction does not necessarily apply to physical systems. Perhaps I am not understanding the law correctly? Is it that at most one of these statements is true? Either "P is true" or "P is not true"? or is it that at most one of theses statements is true? Either "P is true" or "~P is true"? In physics, if you take filters that polarize light, and place two at right angles to each other, no light gets through. Yet if you take a third filter at a 45 degree angle to the first two, and insert it between the two existing filters, then some light gets through. Based on this experiment, it seems like the law of non-contradiction cannot be true in this situation. Thanks for any clarity you might bring!
Because the present
Stephen Maitzen
May 7, 2015
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Because the present questioner refers to my reply to Question 5536, I'll chime in here to clarify what I said there.
My point was about the fundamentality of LNC. I wrote, "I can't see how there could be any law more fundamental than the law of non-contradiction (LNC)." I gave th... Read more
Is there a clear way to distinguish physical and non physical things? I'm not implying that there are non physical things. I would prefer if you didn't define "physical" as whatever is studied by physicists.
How about this: All physical
Stephen Maitzen
May 7, 2015
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How about this: All physical things occupy spacetime. But not all nonphysical things occupy spacetime, and maybe none do.
The clearest example of allegedly nonphysical things would, I think, be abstract objects such as numbers and sets. Platonists say that there are infi... Read more
I'm grateful for Allen Stairs' response to question 5821, but he, like Richard Heck and Stephen Maitzen when answering question 5792, ASSUMES that words like "all" have the same meaning in everyday English as they have when used by logicians. That's what seems very strange to me. At least, everyday "all" is ambiguous. Professors Stairs, Heck and Maitzen believe that "all the strawberries he has" always means "all the strawberries he may have", and never "all the strawberries he does have". But look at the latter example ("does have"): you're still using the word "all", but here it is clearly said that he has some strawberries. Why can't that happen (in the right context) with "all the strawberries he has"? By the way, in several Romance languages, there is a difference between (e.g., in Portuguese) "todos os morangos que tem" (indicative) and "todos os morangos que tenha" (subjunctive). Both can be translated as "all the strawberries s/he has", but the first sentence indicates that he (or she) does have some strawberries, and the second sentence says nothing about that. If you need to make the difference clear in English, you'll say "all the strawberries he does have" vs. "all the strawberries he may have". You have to have a special reason to use the subjunctive form (the one that does not imply that he has some strawberries: "all the strawberries he may have") when you're talking about some¬thing you know (whether he has strawberries or not), because in that case you're explicitly refusing to give some relevant information. In English, too, I suppose, when the speaker knows what he's talking about, there must be a special reason for someone hearing him to interpret "all the strawberries he has" as "all the strawberries he may have". Without such reason, it means "all the strawberries he does have". At least I think you should agree that "all" is, in English, ambiguous.
I'm not convinced that your
Stephen Maitzen
May 7, 2015
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I'm not convinced that your expression "all the strawberries he does have" is a recognized way of disambiguating the expression that you say is ambiguous: "all the strawberries he has." When would we use the expression "all the strawberries he does have"? As far as I... Read more
It seems that in order to claim anything is intrinsically wrong, one must assert that some specific thing, be it happiness, duty, eudaimonia or something else, has intrinsic value. I cannot see, however, what logical process can lead one to this conclusion from a materialist perspective. If all that exists is matter, then what kind of property would 'value' be? If happiness, for example, is simply a mental state, no different from sadness or pain, then how can it have the property of 'value', and what kind of property might this be?
If all that exists is matter,
Stephen Maitzen
May 7, 2015
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If all that exists is matter, then what kind of property would 'value' be?
If all that exists is matter, then what kind of property would any property be? I have trouble seeing how any property could itself be a material thing. A red apple is a material thing, but is it... Read more
Is time traveling to the past a logical contradiction? I mean because if I were to go into a time machine tomorrow then the "past" I travel to would actually be the future relative to today.
Defenders of the possibility
Stephen Maitzen
May 7, 2015
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Defenders of the possibility of time-travel usually address this potential contradiction by distinguishing between your personal time (the time kept by your biological clock) and external time (the time kept by the world's calendars). Your departure on a time-travel voya... Read more
is there any philosophical reason to be polite? A lot of being polite is just plain lying--why must the truth succumb to social conventions?
An interesting problem.
Allen Stairs
May 5, 2015
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An interesting problem.
To begin, I'd put the question differently: is there any reason to be polite? Adding "philosophical" in front of "reason" doesn't really help. And of course, there are many reasons to be polite. It helps avoid needlessly hurting people's feelings; it he... Read more
Is it ideal for a person to be in romantic love with someone that that person doesn't find physically attractive? Beauty in my opinion is both skin deep and skin shallow--if beauty is only skin deep and impossible to ascertain without having a conversation, then that seemingly makes most of aesthetics pointless. Skin deep beauty seems to be a misnomer because it doesn't really refer to beauty at all but one's personality. Romantic love is unlike other forms of love in that there is usually a great deal of choice in selecting a partner not to mention the sexual component, so if given a choice between two people who have very similar amiable personalities, but one is more physically attractive, why would one choose to be with the other one? Men who go into relationships with women with no curves or large noses are just practicing a form of self-deception by denying that beauty has ideals.
There are several issues here
Allen Stairs
May 5, 2015
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There are several issues here. Let's see if we can disentangle them a bit.
First, "beauty is only skin deep." I take that to be a way of reminding us that physical beauty isn't the only thing we care about in our romantic relationships. And it isn't. If the most beautiful... Read more
Can a word be used incorrectly and still be 'useful'? I've heard that pragmatists define true statements as those that are useful in predicting future empirical outcomes, to quote Wikipedia. However, I have heard of words being used incorrectly that can still be 'useful' despite being incorrect. The words 'subjective' and 'objective' are often used in everyday language to divide and distingiush things that are 'a matter of opinion' from things that are 'a matter of fact', respectively. Although this is an oversimplified and incorrect use of the words, you can't deny that people still find them useful in labelling 'facts', as distinguished from 'opinions'. It seems that just because a term is 'useful', doesn't make its usage correct. What are your thoughts on this? Thanks.
Douglas Burnham
May 3, 2015
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Interesting question, thanks!
A word used in a deviant way would only have meaning if those who listen or read understand it. For example, I sometimes get confused in casual conversation and come out with a spoonerism -- a mixed up word. Usually, though, my wife understands what I mean anyway, by... Read more
What would Plato say about terrorism, specifically Al Qadea? What would he say about the role of religion in terrorism, as well. Thank you
Nickolas Pappas
April 30, 2015
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As far as the use of force goes, I would be surprised if Plato would have had much to say about what we call terrorism. This is not because he would approve of the tactic of singling out civilians as targets, in the hopes of demoralizing an enemy; but simply because he would take a lot of su... Read more