Recent Responses
A question about Plato's theory of Forms. From what I've read, a Form is said to be something that is 'ideal' and 'perfect' due to being unchanging and that no object in the physical world (of mimes) can absolutely mimic it to the nth degree. If a Form is 'ideal' or 'perfect' does that mean 'ideal' or 'perfect' in the normative, value-laden sense of those words, or does it mean ideal as in 'abstract' and perfect as in 'precise'? With this in mind, would a person who commits immoral acts have any less of the Form 'humanness' than a person with a good moral compass? Would this apply to other attributes such as intelligence?
Nickolas Pappas
April 18, 2015
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This question is on to something important. The language is a bit inexact, as people’s language tends to get when they discuss Platonic Forms, but that is partly because Plato himself uses broad and sometimes shifting terminology to capture the essence of the Forms. To say the Forms are “id... Read more
Lately, I have been feeling as if nothing in life is really worth desiring. As I was a little alarmed by these nihilistic thoughts, I tried to avoid them. But, in some mystic traditions, this state of "desirelessness" seems to be actively pursued by practitioners. My question is: can my nihilism perhaps have some value, i.e. what is good about the state of not feeling desire?
Charles Taliaferro
April 17, 2015
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There are traditions philosophical and religious- that see value in states of living in which we are not ruled by desires but by reason or wisdom or the Dao, and so on. These traditions are rarely 'nihilistic' however when it comes to values, good and bad or evil, seeking enlightenment, a... Read more
Do rainbows exist? I assume rain drops and sunlight exist, but the rainbow is not a collection of rain drops, nor a region of the atmosphere where passing rain drops get some colour, is it? Should we say that rainbows are optical illusions? Or what?
Douglas Burnham
April 16, 2015
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Lots of things should be said to exist, even though they are not material entities (like raindrops) nor energy forms (like sunlight). We're happy to talk about numbers or abstract concepts as existing, for example, and likewise dreams, or things that happened in the past. We might provisional... Read more
Should the first amendment cover the right to advocate violence? If a person honestly believes that assassinating the president is justified shouldn't that person have the right to express their opinion? I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea that the government should restrict that or ANY kind of political speech. I think that all political speech should be permitted perhaps especially ideas that radically oppose the current state of affairs and I can't think of a more fundamental way of opposing the system than the idea of a violent overthrow of the government or an administration and one which specifies explicitly what that would entail.
Oliver Leaman
April 12, 2015
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I remember in the 1960's there were many political philosophers who argued that the state tolerated opposition provided that it was ultimately not going to threaten the status quo. When liberals complimented their society for its freedom those opposed to them would say that the freedom only ext... Read more
Some philosophers hold views that assert A, and some others, nonetheless called philosophers, the contrary of A. Then isn´t that not just all about the domain of opinion? Some of them well argumented, wise and logically consistent, while others are less so. So can we just say when people think, reflect about things, then they are doing philosophy? Or please tell me the difference that distinguishes one person thinking from one making philosophy. Because if so I feel like that the field "philosophy" is a passepartout word and therefore not really useful or worthy of beeing discipline, it´s just what everyone does in greater or lesser depth (thinking)...and I think I´m wrong.
Oliver Leaman
April 12, 2015
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There are disagreements in many areas of thought, not just philosophy, and historians, physicists, classicists and so on all argue with each other much of the time. The people who work in these areas are all thinking, but philosophers are generally thinking about thinking itself, and not direct... Read more
i loved a guy since one year..i felt he was my life and god.i was so true to him and so he was.we were physically close.we had many dreams about our future,kids,etc.but an unexpected incident happened.his father came to know about our affair.he was completely against our marriage.he threatened his son that he would send him out of the house forever and never talk to him in his life time.we had no choice, but to break. all my dreams were shattered.if i remain unmarried in my life, i would suffer from lonliness, so , i decided to marry the guy shown by my parents(arranged marriage, as i am an Indian girl). Now the problem is, i am guilt struck , i feel that i am cheating the guy whom i am going to marry.i wont reveal to him about my past affair. He marries me with trust onn me and my family.but, i don’t deserve his trust.i feel that moving closely with a man other than my husband as a sin, but everything was unexpected. I believed strongly that i would marry the person i loved, hence i was close to him physically. But i feel guilty that i will certainly cheat the one i am going to marry. Help me please.. what should i do to this guilty feeling?
Oliver Leaman
April 12, 2015
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It is not unusual for there to be conflicts in life, and for us to have obligations to different people which cannot be reconciled. In that sort of situation you should expect whatever decision you take is going to leave you with regrets and doubts about whether you have done the right thing. I... Read more
This is possibly a dumb question, but anyway... If I trade shares for a living, is that an immoral job, given that the activity is essentially gambling, and doesn't create anything or achieve anything useful?
Charles Taliaferro
April 11, 2015
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I think your question is not only not dumb, it raises issues that would take a genius (someone far, almost infinitely more intelligent than myself!) to adequately address in terms of an overall account (and evaluation) of market economies, their values and the different roles they sustain... Read more
There are many fascinating views regarding material constitution. It seems to me that a car, for example, could not be one or several parts, all of its parts laid out in front of you, all of its parts put together, or enough parts put together in such a way that it allow the object to carry out its primary function (transportation). Therefore, it seems to me that a car is merely a fiction or perhaps it is better to say that the car has no independent "essence" that is separate from the parts. I often wonder if human beings are in the same situation as cars. Is it possible that we are also fictions like cars? This seems difficult to believe because we normally view ourselves as being persistent entities that remain the same. Our bodies certainly change and we might grow (or diminish) in intelligence but we still view ourselves as being the same individual. Thanks
Allen Stairs
April 11, 2015
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Good question. Some philosophers would say that we really are fictions in just the sense that you suggest. In the case of our psychological being, the idea that we're fictions has a long history, going back at least to early Buddhism, featuring prominently in David Hume's thought, and continuing... Read more
Is structural discrimination a core belief of feminism? I find the claim that women are through all times and societies worse off than men (like in the question posted on on January 23, 2015; ) an assumption that is ideologically biased and needs further investigation. "Worse off" contains difference in preferences (having to go to war, economically being responsible for a family, being statistically more prone to a violent death). Doesn´t the problem lie more in being tied to a predefined role to which each sex is tied, each one with its pro and contra, with variation across times and societies? thank you!
Miriam Solomon
April 9, 2015
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It is not a core belief of feminism that women are through all times and societies worse off than men. It is core to feminism that sex and gender matter, and that they often shape power relations in a society. There are pluses and minuses to being dominant and to being subordinate. And indeed... Read more
I recently heard it claimed that objectivity in science requires direct measurement of all variables of interest, because we can only validate an indirect measure, or estimate, of some variable by comparing it to direct measurement; without such calibration, a proxy measure is empirically meaningless. I think the latter claim is false (and hence, so is the first). Suppose that in some empirical situation we have reason to believe there is a natural quantity X, the value of which we cannot measured directly, but we have some proxy measure Y which we hypothesise is proportional to X. We also find that the value of Y correlate with directly measurable variables A, B and C, which are believed, on sound theoretical grounds (i.e., parsimoniously consistent with all relevant evidence), to be determined by X. I think this would justify taking Y to be a useful estimate of X, absent evidence to the contrary. I suspect that there are many examples of this kind of reasoning in many different areas of science. I have two questions: first, is my argument sound - and if not why not? Second, can you suggest any good examples (e.g., from physics, geology, astronomy, biology, psychology etc), which illustrate the kind of reasoning I've outlined?
Miriam Solomon
April 9, 2015
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Your specific argument in terms of X, Y, A, B, C doesn't quite work. I don't know what it means to say that "the value of Y correlates with directly measureable variables A, B, C"I think that your overall point is fine. Our measurement of many scientific quantities e.g. Avogadro's number, Plan... Read more