Recent Responses
Why is it that no matter what language is spoken or what culture you come from, the Moonlight Sonata is perceived as a sad song (an assumption of mine of course)? What does that suggest about the nature of music, and its correlation to humans that seems to transcend national barriers? Do animals or non sentient creatures recognize these emotions, or would an alien sentience? Jon
Joseph G. Moore
November 17, 2006
(changed November 17, 2006)
Permalink
I'm not sure the Moonlight Sonata is perceived as sad by every person in every culture. This is an empirical question: our perception of music's expressive features has some dependence on the musical culture(s) with which we're familiar, though I gather there's greater cross-cultural un... Read more
I have recently been reading in Richard Dawkins' book, the idea that God being both omnipotent and omniscient is a contradiction. I think it is something along the lines of: if God is omniscient then He already knows how He is going to deploy His powers, which means He is effectively bound to act in a certain way -- meaning He is not omnipotent. But I'm not sure I've totaly got my heads around the concept. Can anyone add anything more?
Alexander George
November 16, 2006
(changed November 16, 2006)
Permalink
Many people think that God's having foreknowledge of my actions is incompatible with my acting freely. The argument you describe applies this reasoning to God Himself: His foreknowledge of His own future actions would render Him unfree. So either God is not free to do whatever He plea... Read more
What do legitimate philosophers think of Ken Wilber and his brand of pop philosophy/psychology? Wilber claims to have developed a framework that situates and contextualizes all of the world’s wisdom traditions and, by containing them, claims to have transcended their insights to a greater vision that can alone perceive their limitations. If Wilber (and his disturbingly devoted followers) are anywhere close to right, it would seem vital that every human involved in the search for truth should know him and his work, but he is virtually unknown outside of his undeniably new-agey audience. Does he have anything substantial to offer?
Alexander George
November 16, 2006
(changed November 16, 2006)
Permalink
Philosophy is a bit like pornography: hard to define what it is, but one knows it when one sees it. There is much that passes for, or is called, philosophy in contemporary culture that has little substantive connection to the texts, questions, arguments, currents, and tensions that I... Read more
In a critical thinking textbook I’m trying to study from, there is an exercise which gives groups of three different independent reasons from which I must select the one which supports a stated conclusion. For example: Conclusion: Blood donors should be paid for giving blood. (a) The blood donor service is expensive to administer. (b) People who give blood usually do so because they want to help others. (c) There is a shortage of blood donors, and payment would encourage more people to become donors. (Anne Thomson, <i>Critical Reasoning - a practical introduction</i>.) For each question I must pick the answer which could be a reason for a conclusion, say why it is the right answer, and why the other options are wrong. I’ve had absolutely no problems selecting the correct answer, but I can’t seem to say why. It would seem that I could easily say THAT a particular reason gives or doesn’t give support to a conclusion, but I can’t seem to put into words HOW or WHY. So my question is, why and how do reasons support conclusions? Or what does ‘support’ or ‘gives us reason to believe’ mean? Or why and how do conclusions 'follow' from reasons? Thanks.
Daniel J. Velleman
November 19, 2006
(changed November 19, 2006)
Permalink
One way of further spelling out Alex's standard for deductive inference ("if the reasons are true then the conclusion must be as well") is to use the idea of "possible worlds"--different ways that the world might be. To say that if the reasons are true then the conclusion must also... Read more
Is there a way of thinking that does not separate the profession of prostitution to that of say marriage or similar relationships people have together? And if so, how do they come to this conclusion? Personally as an ex-prostitute myself I see no difference, save for length of contract.
Alan Soble
November 16, 2006
(changed November 16, 2006)
Permalink
See Friedrich Engels (philosophical collaborator of Marx): In capitalism, marriage degenerates "often enough into the crassest prostitution"; the married woman "only differs from the ordinary courtesan in that she does not let out her body on piece-work as a wage earner, but sells it once an... Read more
Are there many instances in science (or other disciplines) of Occam's Razor being wrong? What prompts this question is the recent thread in the Religion section about Katrina and the problem of evil but I didn't post it there because of the 'faith' issues of some respondents and philosphers quoted. No visiting alien intelligence new to our planet would plump for, say, Islam though they might have their own non-Occamish explanation I suppose. I mean, generally, does the law of parsimony hold water?
Marc Lange
November 16, 2006
(changed November 16, 2006)
Permalink
Whether the "law of parsimony" works depends on what it says. Broadly speaking, it says that we should prefer a simpler explanation over a complicated explanation of some phenomenon, all other things being equal. This leaves a lot unspecified: What makes one explanation simpler than another... Read more
How do you explain the creation of the creators of the universe? It's all well and good that someone or something created the universe, but what created that, and how?
Alexander George
November 14, 2006
(changed November 14, 2006)
Permalink
You might look at Question 241.
Log in to post comments
Considering Evolution as a mechanism ensures the survival of the fittest gene pools, and well over 90% of all species ever to have existed have gone extinct, is it right for humans to put such an effort into preventing species from going extinct? Obviously excluding cases where the threat of extinction comes from man made causes such as pollution or destruction of their habitat, the theory of evolution would suggest that if a species naturally goes extinct, it's for the best.
Peter Lipton
November 13, 2006
(changed November 13, 2006)
Permalink
Best for whom? The enviroment may change so that a particular species of tree is no longer very successful at propagating itself. If we do nothing, it will go extinct. But it might be much better for us if we did not let that happen, because the bark of the tree contains a chemical that... Read more
The Jesuits said 'give me a child until the age of seven and I will give you the man'. From my 25 years of teaching children aged 5 -7 years, I would argue that there is little that teachers can do to change the impact of genetics on the character of the young child. In my experience a child with parents who are honest/dishonest, caring/bullying, selfish/generous usually demonstrates the same characteristics from an early age. It was reported in the press this week that scientists have discovered that even facial expressions that run in families result not from mimicry but from family genes. Science is discovering more and more that in the nature versus nurture debate it is 'nature' that has the greater influence over our characters. My question is this: If we are the victims of our genes can we truly be held culpable for our misdeeds?
Peter Lipton
November 11, 2006
(changed November 11, 2006)
Permalink
Your question raises a number of interesting issues, but I will here just ask one brief question in return. If we were more victims of our environment than of our genes, could we then truly be held culpable for our misdeeds?
Log in to post comments... Read more
I am thoroughly confused by the ethics of vegetarianism, which to my mind seems more of a religious objection towards eating meat than a scientific point of view. Recently I attended a lecture by Peter Singer (<i>Animal Liberation</i>) on the ethics of eating meat. One thing he did not address was differentiating between the 'killing' of the (sentient) animal and the 'eating' of it. OK- so here is my question: is it ethical to eat roadkill, or animals that have died of "natural" causes or of "old age"? Further to this, is being killed by a human primate not a "natural" cause of death of a cow? If humans shouldn't kill cows to eat (because we know better), perhaps we could let lions kill the cows, then we can eat them afterwards? Isn't it unethical to tell people in the developing world they shouldn't eat meat? - especially when a huge percentage of women in the developing world are iron deficient? Thanks, Grant M.
Sally Haslanger
November 29, 2006
(changed November 29, 2006)
Permalink
There are at least three different kinds of argument in favor of vegetarianism, and each of the arguments have slightly different implications for what is OK.
One argument is concerned with human health (so is more prudential than moral). The idea is that eating dead animals is not h... Read more