What, if anything, can it possibly mean to deny the existence of the soul--the one and only thing that we have direct experience of? I can see why someone might deny the existence of a physical universe: we can only experience it as part of the content of consciousness: that is, of the soul. And I can understand why one might question some aspect of the soul: is it material or immaterial, mortal or immortal. But I don't see how one can question its existence without making use of the very thing they're questioning. To deny the existence of the soul seems to require some special definition of "soul"--but what? What is being asked when questions of the existence of the soul are raised? monk Herman Hanover, NM

From what I can gather, you're treating 'consciousness' as synonymous with 'soul'. You write, "as part of the content of consciousness: that is, of the soul." But 'soul' is a much more loaded term than 'consciousness': people tend to use 'a soul' or 'the soul' to denote a metaphysical substance , as Descartes did, whereas they tend to use 'consciousness' to denote an activity , a property , or a state of some substance, even if the substance is a material one. So I think it's better to use the less loaded term 'consciousness' when talking about what it is that we directly experience. I agree that it's hard to deny the existence of one's own consciousness, but there are philosophers who (claim to) deny it. They're discussed in this entry from the SEP (see especially section 3.3). It's a challenging article but worth the effort, I believe. I hope it's helpful. But let me emphasize that one can accept the existence of one's own consciousness without accepting the existence of what's...

Although societal pressures do play a role, does atheism manifest itself mostly due to an inborn lack of religious "sense" rather than hearing the logical arguments against God or a life force? Research has shown that autistic people are very unlikely to be religious. I don't know what phrase philosophers of mind use to describe this, but when we talk about people with a strong sense of humor, people with a weak sense of humor, or people with no sense of humor at all, are we talking about a non-physical and antimaterialist noumenon that can be enhanced with training?

I'll chime in just to say that the first question you asked is an empirical question and therefore not the kind of question that philosophers as such are any better-equipped than non-philosophers to answer. I'd be interested in seeing the empirical data myself. I would say, however, that your first question leaves out a possibility that strikes me as more plausible than the two you mention: as they grow and develop, children tend to imitate their parents and other authority figures, including in their attitudes toward religious matters.

I have been reading a recently published book about the existence of all things (e.g. addressing the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?"), and am struck by an interesting issue I see in the book and others like it. The author interviews philosophers (among other professionals) who often speak about the existence of things based on what one can imagine (e.g. one imagining something about possible worlds). It seems to me that there should be some kind of theory about how thoughts relate to the universe before anyone can conclude things about its nature. I know there are philosophers who have raised the question that the "laws" that govern thought/logic may be very different than the physical laws that govern the universe (and hence whatever theories we have about the world may be nothing more than our own ideas); so why is there such emphasis placed on imagination when discussing metaphysical issues? Why is the intelligibility of an idea about the universe (e.g. whether there are many...

You asked, among other things, "Why is the intelligibility of an idea about the universe...a criterion for determining the truth-value of the idea?" I wouldn't say that an idea's being intelligible to us is a criterion for its being true: that would be thinking too highly of ourselves! But an idea's being intelligible to us is necessary for our determining (i.e., ascertaining) its truth-value and even for our entertaining the possibility that it's true. If an idea is unintelligible to us -- if we can't make any sense of it -- then we can't make sense of the assertion that the idea is true, or even possibly true, or false, or even possibly false. I think we can understand the claim that some unspecified aspects of reality are unintelligible to us. But we can't understand the suggestion that some particular unintelligible claim about reality might be true (or false, for that matter). That limitation applies to science just as much as to philosophy. I suspect that the book you're reading is...

Can a thing being distinct from something else be considered a property of that thing? (If my mind is distinct from my body can "being distinct from my body" be considered a property of my mind. It seems to me that if something is distinct from something else it is separate from it and therefore cannot somehow be considered a property of it. But I have a feeling I am missing something. Thank you Samantha R.

Thanks, Samantha, for your question. You wrote, "It seems to me that if something is distinct from something else it is separate from it and therefore cannot...be considered a property of it." But notice that in the typical case -- and certainly in all concrete cases -- an object is distinct from each of its properties. Any red ball is distinct from the properties being red , being a ball (etc.) that the ball instantiates: the ball is a material object, but its properties are abstract objects rather than material objects, so they must be distinct from the ball. So if being distinct from your body is a property of your mind, it will be distinct from your mind. As I see it, the properties of an object are never parts of the object, so they can be (as you say) separate from the object while still being properties of the object.

If I "zoom out" for a moment, then any deliberations I'm making (well, really any thoughts at all that I'm having) seem like part of a process to which I am just an observer. It is certainly true that these processes are occurring in MY brain, which is part of MY body, however thoughts either come to mind or they don't. I can't help but feel as if the only me that really exists is simply a collection of concurrent processes that, via consciousness, are at times able to observe themselves occurring. And furthermore, given what we know about the fallibility of memory and yet also memory's crucial role in the development of character/personality/identity, etc., I can't also help but feel that what I am is the product of a lengthly string of inaccuracies. Pardon the confused language. It's quite difficult to speak about these matters without necessarily recurring to the very terms and concepts that are in question. What I'd like to know is how I can continue to think about these issues without becoming...

David Hume (1711-1776) famously sought to escape skeptical doubts of the sort you describe by distracting himself from them: "I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther" ( Treatise 1.4.7). But I don't think you have to seek distraction. My advice is to consider carefully (1) what it is you took yourself to be before you began "zooming out" and (2) whether the observations you make after zooming out really do cast doubt on (1). I think careful consideration of (1) and (2) may lead you to regard those observations as less threatening to (1) than they now seem to you. In your question, you concede that you have a brain and a body. You observe that thoughts often come to you unbidden, but isn't it also true that you sometimes can control, to at least some extent,...

Psychosis is often characterized as 'loss of contact with reality.' Three questions. (1) What is this 'reality' of which they speak? (2) Does anybody (even psychatrists) really know enough about this 'reality' to be able competently to deliver a diagnosis under that characterization? (3) What is this 'contact' of which they speak

Your question engages at least three areas of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. The answers are as deep and detailed as those areas, i.e., as deep and detailed as you want to go. But maybe a short answer will do for now. Someone claims, apparently sincerely, that the government is controlling him by means of radio signals sent to his dental fillings. (1) He's "in contact with reality," in that respect, only if the government is in fact doing what he claims. (2) There's no good reason to believe it is, and good reasons to believe it isn't (his relative unimportance, the nature of radio signals, the nature of neurons, etc.). If we're justified in drawing conclusions about any empirical issue, I'd say we're therefore justified in concluding that he isn't in contact with reality in that respect. (3) I'm no psychiatrist, but my sense is that losing "contact" with reality requires being impervious to evidence in a special way; not just any false belief, even if persistently...

If thoughts depend on memories and memories are unreliable then how can we trust any thought? I assume thoughts require memories because thoughts seem to require at least some time to compute, even with very simple thoughts we think thing one at a time - if it's not quite like that I think it's very close to something like that, maybe my whole doubt depends on a dubious connection between thought and memory, I don't know. I think the unreliability of memory is more obvious, memory seems to be something just given to us and we simply have to "trust" it but the possibility of doubt is still there. I recognize that there is some not inconsiderable paradox in doubting the very idea of being able to form a thought and using thought to achieve that doubt but alas... I wonder if this suggests that thought in its truest form is something more intuitive and directly related to a grasp of the present moment than reason as it is generally understand as a discursive process.

Thanks for your question. I'd distinguish the undeniable claim that memory is fallible from the less plausible claim that memory is unreliable . I'm no psychologist, but it seems that the reliability of memory comes in degrees, depending on who's using it, under what conditions, and what its content is. The kind of remembering described in your question -- remembering what I was thinking just an instant ago -- doesn't seem especially unreliable, under favorable conditions anyway. Furthermore, we logically presuppose the reliability of memory in general even as we check whether some particular memory of ours is false: We ask those who are better-positioned what they remember, we trust that we correctly remember the meanings of words they use in their answers or the meanings of words we read in contemporaneous accounts of the event, and so on. Indeed, if we persist for any length of time in our belief that memory is fallible, that too depends on trusting our memory: it presupposes that we...

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