Recent Responses
Is truth binary? Can there be degrees of truth? Must we say a statement is either true or false? In everyday conversations we do say things like “The story is only 30% true.”
I'd say yes, truth is binary.
Stephen Maitzen
January 28, 2021
(changed April 28, 2023)
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I'd say yes, truth is binary: there are no degrees of truth in between 0 and 1. For two reasons, I think that every proposition has exactly one of two truth-values, true or else false. (1) I'm not aware of any problem in logic or philosophy whose solution r... Read more
Let ‘B’= to be; let ‘~B’=not to be. P1: B v ~B P2: ~B C: ~B P2 is the negation of the left disjunct in P1, not the affirmation of the right disjunct in P1. P1: To be or not to be. P2: Not to be. C: Not to be. It seems to me that, argumentatively, there’s a difference between affirming ‘not to be’, the right disjunct, and negating ‘to be’, the left disjunct. It just happens that, in this case, what’s affirmed and what’s negated are logically equivalent. Is there a convention for conveying that argumentative difference? Also, can you recommend any articles or books where I can learn more about issues like this? Thank you very much :)
Interesting question! I think
Stephen Maitzen
December 31, 2020
(changed December 31, 2020)
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Interesting question! I think you're right that there's something peculiar about this disjunctive syllogism:
(1) B v ~ B
(2) ~ B
(3) ~ B
You say that (2) must be the negation of (1)'s left disjunct rather than the assertion of (1)'s right disjunct, even thou... Read more
I'm confused about the nature of antecedents and conditionals like: (i) "Only if A, then B". I was told in my logic class that antecedents are always sufficient conditions and consequents are always necessary conditions. But if that's the case, then the antecedent in (i) "Only if A" is a sufficient condition. Particularly a sufficient condition for B. But saying "Only if A, then B" means that A is a necessary condition for B as well. So it appears that the antecedent in (i) is both a sufficient and necessary condition. But that doesn’t seem right, given that (i) is equivalent to (ii) If B, then A. And this means A is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for B. Option 1: Maybe antecedents only are sufficient conditions in simple conditionals like (iii) “If A, then B”; but they aren’t sufficient conditions in conditionals like "Only if A, then B". That might be right. Option 2: On the other hand, we might say "Only if A" just seems to be an antecedent but isn't really. That would retain the intuitive idea that antecedents are always sufficient conditions. This might be right. Which option do you think is right? Or is there another option I'm not seeing? Thank you!
Like you, I'm puzzled by the
Stephen Maitzen
December 31, 2020
(changed December 31, 2020)
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Like you, I'm puzzled by the form of the conditional "Only if A, then B." It doesn't seem to be idiomatic English. One might say "Only if you go to the party will I go," but one wouldn't say "Only if you go to the party, then I will go." That would be un... Read more
I am personally a determinist but one thing that has confused me is how can determinism and morality co-exist? If determinism is true, then how can we possibly judge the morality of a choice that someone was destined to make?
When you say you are a
Allen Stairs
December 3, 2020
(changed December 3, 2020)
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When you say you are a determinist, that could mean various things. It might mean that the world is governed by deterministic laws, but by itself that doesn't answer the question of whether we are free or morally responsible. Incompatibilists say that determinism in thi... Read more
Hi, I'm a college freshman taking my first philosophy class. My professor takes points off my essay for grammatical mistakes I made. I disagree with this approach. Isn't the idea the most important, more so for philosophy?
I'm with your prof.
Allen Stairs
November 26, 2020
(changed November 26, 2020)
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Funny you should ask. It's grading season and I've spent a chunk of my day reading essays by freshmen. Some are pretty well-written; others not so much. I'm with your prof.
If I sent a paper full of bad grammar to a philosophy journal, it would either be rejected or... Read more
I'm something of a nihilist, but with that I've lost is the reason to care about stuff, even myself and my loved ones. Why should I care about anything?
There is an interesting and
Jonathan Westphal
November 26, 2020
(changed November 26, 2020)
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There is an interesting and much-discussed piece by Richard Hare called "Nothing Matters", in R. M. Hare, Applications of Moral Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 32–47). Hare develops the point that 'My wife matters' does not have the same sort o... Read more
There is an infinite number of words - "ONE", "TWO", "THREE"... etc. Every word has a definition. Every definition consists of letters. There is a finite number of arrangement of letters; thus there is a finite number of definitions. Thus there is at least one word that doesn't have a definition. Paradox?
There is a finite number of
Stephen Maitzen
November 19, 2020
(changed November 19, 2020)
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There is a finite number of arrangements of letters; thus there is a finite number of definitions.
Is that true if we're allowed to use each letter an increasing number of times? If our stock of letter tokens increases without limit, then can't the number (and... Read more
Say I have a sequence of numbers - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. I add 1 to 7 to create the next number in the sequence,8. The sequence is finite. I add 1 to 8 to get the next number in the sequence, 9. The sequence is finite. I keep on going... At what point does my sequence become infinite? How can my sequence ever become infinite?
I assume that there's some
Stephen Maitzen
November 19, 2020
(changed November 19, 2020)
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I assume that there's some nonzero minimum time, however brief, that you require to perform each step of addition. In that case, you will never produce an infinite sequence of numbers: that is, there is no finite time at which you will have produced an inf... Read more
Hey, I've come to the conclusion that every person has their own truth. At the same time, the fact that 2+2=4 is quite obviously a truth. But if someone was to say that 2+2=3, and they believed it to be true, it is their own truth. Does that mean, that whatever we might think is true, no matter our conviction, we can never be sure of it's validity. Or maybe that everything is true, which in turn would make nothing true. Or might it be something else entirely?
I've come to the conclusion
Allen Stairs
November 19, 2020
(changed November 26, 2020)
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I've come to the conclusion that you may be confusing "has their own opinion" with "has their own truth."
2 plus two is 4, whether someone believes it's 5 or not. If they believe that it's 5, this is their (very confused) belief, but what in the world do we... Read more
A painter painted a masterpiece to express his observation of the world. However, everyone's understanding of the same works is quite different, and the painter is not sure whether his or her works are reflected in others. The original meaning of some ancient paintings has long been unknown, or gradually distorted in the history of interpretation. What is the meaning of painting? Just speak to oneself? Can the meaning, or beauty, be transmitted among different people?
One needn't know who first
Peter S. Fosl
October 30, 2020
(changed October 31, 2020)
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One needn't know who first coined a word or even how it was originally used for that word to be meaningful, and similarly the fact that the origins of ancient artworks are murky doesn't entail that they are without meaning. The original meaning may be lost, bu... Read more