When I read Shakespeare or Sophocles I feel like I am getting a glimpse into a powerful mythical dimension of fate and synchronicity that those writers seem to have a masterful vision of. However, the mythical dimension of life is more often associated with revealed religion (ie. The Bible, The Vedas, etc) than it is with philosophy. What philosophers have dedicated a central part of their philosophy to explicating those underlying forces of life that are dealt with indirectly in the works of great literature such as Sophocles and Shakespeare? (Aristotle doesn't get deep enough for me but he seems agree that tragedy is about the interconnectedness of forces, Hegel is too hard to read although his ideas about Tragedy being about the conflict of irreconcilable "rights" seems somewhat compelling, Nietzche's take on Greek tragedy confuses me because he is considered an atheist but I don't see how atheism gels with his assertions about Apollonian and Dionysian forces at work in tragedy, Freud sees Oedipus in...

Is having your own biological kids instead of adopting morally wrong? It appears that it is to me because it seems that the world reveals that there are many hungry children out there that need to be adopted, ergo, there is less harm if you adopt. What are counters to my argument, and what is the stance of the academic community on this issue if there is one?

Robert Nozick compared taxes to forced labor, on the grounds that taking money away from people forces them to work for more money. Is forced labor always objectionable? Suppose my city holds one day a year where everyone (with obvious exceptions for extenuating circumstances) is required to pick up litter. Would this be unethical? Is there an important difference between slavery and compulsory labor?

My aunt once complained about how the dumb the janitor of my high school was. He didn't seem very bright to me either. But, why do people think it's okay to put others down just because they are dumb? I am warranted in having less respect for my aunt for being that way or is it hypocritical to be judgmental to people who are judgmental?

Is a person only as valuable as the good he/she produces for others?

Is it unethical to not tell your partner you have herpes if they don't ask? Is it excusable in any way not to do so?

Do false statements imply contradictions? Consider the truth table for logical implication. P...........Q.............P-> Q T...........T.............. T T...........F...............F F...........T...............T F...........F...............T Notice that for a false statement P, the last two rows of the truth table, both Q and ~Q follow. No matter what Q is, it's truth follows from false statement P, as the third row shows. We can therefore take Q to be "P is true." From here it follows that a false statement P implies it's own truth, as the third row shows. Do false statements really imply their own truth? Do they really imply contradictions? Are false statements also true?

I recently had a colonoscopy under an anesthetic that caused complete amnesia. An observer could see I was in extreme pain during the procedure yet I have no recollection. How does a philosopher think about the pain I experienced but do not recall?

Is a person actually ethically obligated from stopping a friend from drinking and driving?

Sometimes people will try to discredit the validity of a scientific experiment by saying that the results don't apply to the real world. Is that a valid argument?