Recent Responses
Can anybody who thinks about philosophical qustions become a philospher? Likewise, is it necessary to have an academic background in philosophy to be considered a philospher?
Charles Taliaferro
November 18, 2014
(changed November 18, 2014)
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Great questions! Certainly, "philosophy" can be understood as an academic discipline. After all, there are graduate degrees in philosophy that are offered by academies in most countries around the world; there are official philosophical organizations such as the American Philosophi... Read more
Are we really obliged to help the poor? What is the main reason for helping them without a bias in religious beliefs?
Allen Stairs
November 14, 2014
(changed November 14, 2014)
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Let's ask a simpler question: is it a good thing to help the poor? By and large, the answer seems to be yes. And it seem even more clearly to be yes when you think particular cases. If someone is poor because they're the child of poor parents, or because they're disabled, or elderly, or un... Read more
If we have no free will, then is the entire legal system redundant since no one can be held accountable for anything since no one has control over their own actions?
Consider two worlds, in one
Jonathan Westphal
June 16, 2015
(changed June 17, 2015)
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Consider two otherwise identical worlds, in one of which determinism is true, and in the other of which it is not. In the second world there is freedom of the will. What difference does this make to the legal system and the moral system? Ex hypothesi, none. When I... Read more
Greetings. My four-year-old daughter asked why she could not "see" god. My response at the time was something like the following. God is one without a second and undifferentiated. For one to "see" something it is necessary to distinguish that object from others. God has no other from which it can be distinguished as separate and distinct. Abstract, yes, but at least I avoided using terms like "transcendant", etc. I wanted to give her a thoughtful answer even if hard to grasp. How did I do?
Stephen Maitzen
November 13, 2014
(changed November 13, 2014)
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I confess I have trouble grasping the answer you gave. You wrote, "God has no other from which it can be distinguished as separate and distinct," which seems to imply that God isn't distinguishable from you or from anything else there is. Did you mean to give your daughter the impressio... Read more
Suppose we are to believe that the soul exists. If the body is extinguished upon death, then is any type of afterlife in which the soul survives impossible? To me, the body is the soul's material basis; the soul is the functioning of the body. Consequently they cannot be regarded as separate since they are but separate names referring to a single object. For example, the soul is to the material basis as sharpness is to a knife; the body is to its functioning as knife is to sharpness. "Sharpness" does not name knife nor "knife" sharpness. Nevertheless, without sharpness, there is no knife; and without a knife, there is no sharpness. I have never heard of sharpness surviving the destruction of a knife; how then can we accept that the soul survives after the body has died? Or is soul something else?
Nickolas Pappas
November 13, 2014
(changed November 13, 2014)
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This is a terrific question, even though you must admit that you are assuming all sorts of things: above all that the soul is the functioning of the body, and that the body is extinguished with death. One important tradition in thinking about immortality of the soul refuses to accept t... Read more
Is kissing a person on the lips other than one's spouse cheating? What about not on the lips? Does location really matter when it comes to kissing? I don't think it does, and even when it comes to major slip ups as much as penetrative sex, I don't think that's cheating either because promises are but a CONDITIONED vow of not doing any of those things. Because promises between a couple are usually not very precise unless lawyers are involved, I think the greater subject of importance is whether the other person FEELS betrayed and whether there are romantic feelings beyond sexual ones. A condition/promise, I think, even in marriage, is, "I love you so long as you fulfill and do such and such...conditions according to MY needs of such and such." So in other words, because you slept with another person, that does not mean you do not love me, but it does mean you do not love me "to the best of your ability" and so "I would like to change that fact." Do philosophers care for human feelings?
Charles Taliaferro
October 31, 2014
(changed October 31, 2014)
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In answer to your first question ("Is kissing a person on the lips other than one's spouse cheating?"), the very idea of "cheating" (conceptually) involves breaking a rule or agreement or promise, and so kissing someone other than one's spouse on the lips would be cheating if you had a... Read more
Hello, My name is Kyle, I'm a physics student. I have zero training in philosophy, save for an introductory philosophy course in my freshman year. I've been thinking about something quite frequently, and would like to hear an opinion from somebody who is knowledgable in the subject; The mind and the ego is a construct of the brain( at least as far as I know), and it's experiences. And I think it's fair to say that the brain is a clever organization of atoms, in what is essentially a computer. It has memories, which I think forms the ego, in a seemingly contiguous storyline. The hardware of the brain is however constantly changing, with atoms being lost and gained, through cell death, reproduction, respiration, and other biochemical functions, and yet our subjective experience remains. Suppose this effect is recreated in hypothetical setting where it is possible to create an exact replica of a person(A) to an artificially constructed person (b). Now, the copy is an exact replica, with every electrochemical charge in the brain at their respective locations. The copy(b) would be finishing the thought that person (a) was thinking at the start of the process, with every memory in place. Suppose the process kills person (a) leaving only person (b) who feels as if nothing happened. This process is analogous to the natural biochemical exchange discussed before. This thought experiment leaves me a bit puzzled as to the implications on the ego and subjective experience. If anyone could derive a conclusion, I would love to hear.
Allen Stairs
October 30, 2014
(changed October 30, 2014)
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Good for you! You've stumbled on a central question in contemporary philosophy, and the thought experiment you offer is very similar to ones proposed by (among others) philosopher Derek Parfit, whose views on this question are much-discussed. The problem is what makes someone the same person... Read more
Should philosophers be able to speak as well as they write? For most people, speech is a more common form of communication in day to day life than the printed text so it bothers me whenever I watch online philosophy talks or even live philosophy lectures just how boring many philosophers deliver their material. There are exceptions of course (John Searle comes to mind) but is this because philosophers think being charismatic or funny somehow detracts from the material itself?
Allen Stairs
October 30, 2014
(changed October 30, 2014)
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"Should" is a bit strong here. Some people have a talent for public speaking; some don't. My unscientific canvassing of my own experience suggests that there's more or less no correlation between how good a philosopher someone is and how good they are at public speaking.... Read more
There is this theistic meta-ethical view according to which there can be evils in the world only if there is an orthodoxly conceived monotheistic god that is the ‘ground’ for the distinction between good and evil. On this theistic meta-ethical view, doesn't it seem that there is something incoherent in the attempt to argue from the relevant premises in arguments from evil to the conclusion that there is no orthodoxly conceived monotheistic god? Asserting "evil exists" seems to prove the existence of god and make the problem of evil self-refuting.
Stephen Maitzen
October 30, 2014
(changed October 30, 2014)
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If the distinction between good and evil depended on God's existence, then -- yes -- there would be something wrong with arguing from the existence of evil to the non-existence of God. For if (a) the existence of evil logically implies the existence of God, then (b) the existence of evil... Read more
Some time ago I came to know about two horrible stories that happened in my city, one leading to the death of a young child, the other about a 12-year old raped by a 16-year old. Of course, events like these happen everywhere, all the time. We know about major wars and famines, but horrible suffering is happening somewhere at any time. My question is how should we (people who have more or less privileged lives) live with it? I'm not interested in religious answers or worldviews. I guess trying not to think about other people's suffering is not an acceptable response. The other extreme attitude, to go and try to fight suffering where you're more needed, with all your means, is something for saints, not something you could tell everybody to do. The problem is that intermediate ways also seem disrespectful towards those who are suffering most, and if they are the only possible reactions they should still leave us unhappy.
Charles Taliaferro
October 26, 2014
(changed October 26, 2014)
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Very tough questions that have implications for any person who knows of situations you describe --and those situations that are more extreme as well as those involving less violence. You note that you are not interested in a response that appeals to world views or religious teachings... Read more