Recent Responses
I was perusing the site, and I came up with this weird thought: Can a person think about the thought that they are thinking? Because at first I thought no... but then I thought by posing this question I was thinking about what I was thinking... but I started to doubt my thoughts... so I thought it might be a good idea to get a second opinion.
Richard Heck
October 11, 2005
(changed October 11, 2005)
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Might the question have concerned self-referring thoughts? Viz: Is it possible for me now to think about the very thought I am now thinking?
But, if you think about it, I just did. So it is.
I can do it again: I think that the very thought I am now having is a true one. Is it?... Read more
What question/s do philosophers tend to be asked and/or which ones do they tend to answer?
Peter Lipton
October 9, 2005
(changed October 9, 2005)
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Watch this site.
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Is tiredness an emotion, and if not, why not?
Alan Soble
October 9, 2005
(changed October 9, 2005)
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There is nothing quite like a swift kick to the fanny to get one energized. I thank Professor Gentzler for arousing me from my stupor. All I did last night, of course, was to suggest that tiredness was not an emotion because it didn't look much like standard emotions such as anger, remorse, and... Read more
Why should society put such a high value to the act of taking an oath. Oath to say the truth, Oath to become a Citizen, Oath to take an office, Oath to serve a commission, etc. Oath is only as good as a person taking the oath, so what is different about a person expressing an opinion or a belief and doing it under oath? Is our society correct in accepting a higher level of integrity or commitment because of the ceremonious nature of it? After all, it is not difficult to act out an oath as a matter of convenience and not have any sincere feelings about the act.
Richard Heck
October 9, 2005
(changed October 9, 2005)
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One way to think about oaths would be to regard them as a ritualized form of promise. If so, then one aspect of these questions is: What's the significance of promises? There's a difference between saying that one plans to do something, which can certainly create reasonable expectations and mo... Read more
Loyalty. Is it unethical to move loyalty to another sports team just because the current team you're rooting for isn't doing well?
Alan Soble
November 3, 2005
(changed November 3, 2005)
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Most fans of the New Orleans Saints (football team) remained loyal to 'dem Saints even though the Saints were almost always a losing team. Loyalty in The Big Easy for the Saints was fierce. But now that Katrina has destroyed much of New Orleans, the team's owner, car franchise hot shot Benson... Read more
How widespread is the use of deontic logic? Hrafn Asgeirsson, Iceland
Richard Heck
October 9, 2005
(changed October 9, 2005)
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So far as I know, deontic logic has never entered mainstream work on moral philosophy. One of the key ideas of deontic logic is to allow for impossible (combinations of) obligations. My sense is that, while there have been proponents of the idea that there could be such things (notably, Bernar... Read more
(1) What is a question? (2) Are there sentences that have the grammatical form of a legitimate question, yet nevertheless fail to be legitimate questions? (3) Does this sentence (i.e., (3)) have the grammatical form of a legitimate question, yet fail to be a real question?
Gabriel Segal
October 9, 2005
(changed October 9, 2005)
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The word 'question' has several senses. In one sense it is a grammatical term referring to sentences of interrogative form. In another sense it is a semantic term, referring to the sort of thing that could be the content of an interrogative sentence - as in "The question that 'What is the mea... Read more
The mathematical examples used to support the notion of chaos in nature (e.g., fractals resembling coastlines) seem at times to have more the force of analogy than scientific persuasiveness. Is there currently a philosophical debate over the veracity of chaos theory?
Richard Heck
October 9, 2005
(changed October 9, 2005)
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I'm not a philosopher of science, so I have no first-hand knowledge here. But a search of Philosopher's Index turned up a review by Jeffrey Koperski, in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2001, of Peter Smith's Explaining Chaos. I also found a few papers on the relation between... Read more
A man calls a woman a whore, and is promptly beaten by the woman's husband. The husband justifies the beating as an appropriate response to disrespect. His friends agree. Are they correct?
Richard Heck
October 9, 2005
(changed October 9, 2005)
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That response seems a little extreme to me. I would have thought it fairly obvious that the husband should (and would) be arrested for assault and battery.
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Recently a friend had an operation in which she was given medication to make her forget the operation (it was an eye operation done under local anaesthetic, and apparently the "scalpel coming at your eye" memory causes nightmare reactions). So, she must have had an instant of terror on seeing the scalpel cutting into her eye, but now has no recall. If so... was she ever terrified? If there is no memory of it whatsoever, can we call it terror? If so, how do any of us know that we haven't been similarly terrified?
Gabriel Segal
October 9, 2005
(changed October 9, 2005)
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I concur with Amy. We suppose that the eye operation itself took place, even th0ugh the patient forgot about it afterwards. It is natural to suppose that normally, in these cases, the experience of terror takes place at a specific time during the operation. So it is natural to suppose that t... Read more