I'm finishing Augustine's Confessions. At a certain point, he argues that "shapeless" (I'm not reading an English translation; the Latin word is "informis" ("informitas" as a noun)) physical entities are possible. I didn't understand his argument and anyway can't imagine how some physical body could be shapeless. Perhaps an infinitely large or infinitely small body could be shapeless, but infinitely small things are hardly conceivable. Would you explain me how could some physical body be shapeless? Or perhaps Augustine is talking about something else I didn't get? (it's in Book XIII).

Book XIII is tricky; it is often skipped when people teach Augustine. He is trying to read the opening verses of Genesis in several ways simultaneously. First, to stress the utter dependence of all of creation upon God; second, to integrate into Christianity the basic metaphysics of Plato and Plotinus; third, as a metaphorically compressed history of the church and its organisation. So, creation occurs in two steams -- the spiritual and the corporeal (XIII.2) -- and in each stream in three phases -- original creation, conversion, and formation. The original creation is of that which is formless (shapeless as you translate it); conversion is when the first creation 'hears' the Word of God (that is, it returns to the call of its creator; this is passive for the corporeal, but active for the spiritual); formation is the result. The primary concern of Book XIII is spiritual creation; whereas corporeal creation is dealt with more fully in Book XII. The first phase of corporeal creation is unformed matter, the...

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.

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 interpolating from a shared context. A new word, or a new meaning of a word, might gradually come to be accepted usage more widely. Slang words, in particular, tend to get picked up rapidly in this way. Let us say that the 'correct' meaning and usage of a word is determined by the dictionaries. But a modern dictionary is itself only a reflection of broad usage by speakers and writers. We have to go back quite a way in time to find a dictionary that sets out to adjudicate meanings, rather than simply record or describe them. So, the 'official' meaning of word comes about because of common usage. If enough people use a slang word, it ends up in the dictionary. Dictionaries tend to be a conservative force in...

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?

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 provisionally say that X exists if it were to matter in some way if someone asserted that X did not exist. (This is a pragmatist definition. I'm not endorsing it so much as finding it useful.) If someone said that you DID NOT have the dream last night you say you had, then that would matter, because they would be saying you are lying; if someone says that we have no concept of causation (Hume), then that matters because whole bits of philosophy, and maybe physics too, become valid or invalid. An optical illusion exists because its happening matters to the person experiencing it. (So, even an atheist would have to admit that God existed, because it matters so much to so many that he does; however, the atheist would assert...

Why is such a high value placed in reading the "Classics"? It's one thing to honor the past and honor the fact that, but for those who came before, we wouldn't be where we are today, and another thing entirely to pretend that those "classic" thinkers and thoughts of the past are worthy of the scrutiny of self-respecting truth-seekers today. If I'm being honest, the Pre-Socratic writings are simply idiotic by today's standards, claiming matter is all "water", or "fire", or some other random element. Leibniz, Spinoza, and those guys aren't any better. None of them had even the most rudimentary concept of physics. JS Mill and Kant read like some High Schooler, discoursing at length about Happiness and motivation without even a whiff of suspicion about the basic facts of psychology, treating those terms as if they were transparently obvious, monolithic concepts. Even an idea like the more recently vaunted Veil of Ignorance seems ludicrously vulnerable to someone of even mediocre intelligence, like me. It...

If one thought that the only true goal of philosophy was to describe, as precisely and accurately as possible, using the very latest scientific findings, the nature of the universe or of the human mind, then indeed there would be no need to read the 'classics' of philosophy. In that case, however, I wonder whether one needs philosophy at all, since what was just described is not in essence different from physics or psychology themselves. So, there would also be little point in reading contemporary philosophy. Within the history of philosophy, of course, many have seen their work, or a substantial part of it, in just this way, in part because science and philosophy had not yet fully branched off from one another. Very often, these were first class scientific minds (Aristotle or Leibniz, for example). But their primary interest today is not as scientists. Here are the main ways that I try to 'sell' my students on reading the history of philosophy: 1. The philosopher is not there to tell us...

What do we mean when we say that someone is "ideological"? How does having an ideology differ from simply having a particular set of moral or political views?

'Ideology' is used in a number of difference senses. However, whether within political philosophy, or philosophical sociology, 'ideology' is distinguished from having views, by the extent to which we recognise the possibility of other views. So, suppose I think abortion is immoral. Now, what do I think of someone whose moral views permit abortion? Either, I could believe them to be mad, deceived or perverse. In any case, they are wrong and that's the end of it. Or, although I doubt it strongly, I could think that they might have a point -- that is, it is not in principle impossible that their view is has some merit. In other words, a convenient definition of 'ideology' is that it is a view that excludes the possibility of rational discussion or debate. Ideology may also tend to be 'unconscious', so much a part of one's world view that it isn't even noticed. Indeed, because it is not available for enquiry, there is no need for me to be aware of ideology.

Various experiences, considered good, bad, beautiful, ugly, etc., are believed to give life "meaning." This implies that there is some underlying purpose beyond the natural processes of growth found everywhere in nature. A tree doesn't need to "mean" anything to be a tree...Is this yearning for "meaning" in life simply a human coneptualization and nothing more?

What exactly are meant by the 'natural processes of growth'? I ask because it doesn't seem to me that this is obvious even with respect to trees, much less human beings. Let me give a tree-based example: an apple tree, which I can in fact see through my window right now. My understanding of the science of horticulture is pretty poor, but let us suppose that an apple tree can allowed to grow large but then it tends to die more quickly OR it can be trained so as to be quite stunted, and yet produce lots of fruit, and live for decades. Which is more 'natural'? The first involves less human interference, to be sure; but the second accords with concepts of long life and 'fruitfulness' (reproduction). My purpose here is simply to argue that we are not working with a clear-cut account of what 'natural processes of growth' are. In fact, some of the criteria we might want to use here are just straight-forwardly cultural: the move from formal garden design in the 18th Century, to a more 'wild' style in the 19th,...

Are the intentions of a speaker or writer relevant to determining the meaning of what they say or write? It seems common to suppose so. For example, people will often try to argue for an interpretation of a book by citing statements the author has made about her thought process in writing it. At the same time, it seems obvious that, even if there is merit to this approach, it can only be pushed so far. If J.K. Rowing said, " Harry Potter is really about a time travelling cyborg sent back to 1917 to intercept the Zimmerman telegram--that's what I intended," we wouldn't take her at her word. If she really meant to convey that "meaning" she simply failed. Considerations like this make me wonder if the intention of the author is relevant at all. (After all, it would be kind of weird to suppose that authorial intent bears on the justification of moderate, plausible interpretations, but not on extreme interpretations.)

I really dislike doing this, but variations on your questions have been asked before, and some good answers put up. Please see: http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/3587 Other questions and answers pertain to your broader question, which is not about works of fiction, but about 'speakers and writers' more generally. But I'll add, re your nicely absurd J. K. Rowling interpretation, that even this would have SOME bearing on how we read the Harry Potter books. We might suspect that Rowling was clinically insane, and scour the books for further evidence; we might suspect that she was a prankster, and again scour the books looking for meta-fictional jokes; we might suspect she was writing a time-travelling cyborg novel and looking to promote it, and again we might then return to Harry Potter using it to help us imagine what the new novel would be like. The point is, the author clearly has some connection to the book(s). Either, then, we ENTIRELY discount the author when...

Philosophers have argued that we are not or can not know that we are a substance which remains continuous throught out time. Hume, was especially famous for making that point. What about the fear we experience in the face of certain fates? Any reasonable person would want to avoid being tortured and it would be no consolation to "know" that the person who will be tortured is not the same person as the person who dreads it. This is essentially why I can't agree with Hume. I know it doesn't sound like an argument but it still seems like a persuasive position. Have other philosophers offered that rebuttal to Hume? What could you say to refute or bolster this "argument"?

Thank you for your question. Without a doubt, if you told David Hume that 'I am going to be tortured' he would respond 'For goodness sake, run!' The question is, then: is this response incompatible with his philosophical analysis of the concept of substance? I think we need to distinguish two ways of thinking about 'substance'. The first is substance as metaphysical, as something that exists permanently, without even the possibility of change, as the 'bearer' of properties (Hume has Descartes and Leibniz particularly in mind). The second is a pragmatic sense of substance, as our sense of the identity of things (including ourselves) across time. By pragmatic, I mean that for certain purposes we think of things as basically unchanging, while for other purposes we think of things as not unchanging. For example, if I buy a new car, I consider it unchanging for the purposes of driving every day, staying the same size, staying the same shape and colour. If, however, after a year I tried to return it to the...

I saw a quote once by Nietzsche that was something like "When we try to examine the essence of a reflection in a mirror we see only the mirror, but when examining the mirror we see only the reflection." I would like to find the exact wording but have not been able to find a match with Google. Could you help me?

You are looking for aphorism 243 from Daybreak .Roughly, the mirror is the intellect, the 'things' the world. Nietzsche is making a double point. First, the neo-Kantian idea that all knowledge is mediated, including knowledge of the mediating activity itself. Second, a historical point about broad moves from certain necessary failures within natural science (investigation of things) leading inevitably to a focus on psychological science (investigation of the mirror) and because of necessary failures, back again.

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