I am relatively new to philosophy, as I am in an introductory philosophy class. My question is what made Francis Bacon's scientific method scientific since he was a lawyer or more into politics being he was more a political person than a scientist? I guess what I am saying is why is Francis Bacon's scientific method considered more scientific than it was political? Thank you.

How can I define myself? I'm basically a combination of cells created by DNA instructions who react to stimuli. Can I take credit for anything I do if everything I say, believe, and do is based on my genetic make-up and environment? Furthermore, how can I ethically love someone for reasons that aren't their doing? My parents tell me not to love someone for things they can't help, such as looks and intelligence, but you can't help anything you do. If I donate to charity, that's not really 'me' being a good person, it's my body reacting to my surroundings and determining it would be a good contributor to my overall survival. Is there a 'me?' Please help!!!!

I guess some philosophers discuss whether in some exact location there is only one object, a statue, or two objects, the statue and the stone it is made of. Are there well-known philosophers who argue that this is a false question, a mere matter of choice of words, that there is no criterion to distinguish one object from two objects? Thank you.

Does allowing one's child to become obese constitute child abuse?

Hello, i was recently in a discussion regarding Kant's moral duties, and whether Kant would follow society's laws before following the duties derived from ethics. If a law in a society state "that it's a righteous sanction to torture another human being if this has broken the law", would Kant say; follow that law!. Or would he point out that his moral laws is dissimilar to that of human society? My argumentation rested on the relativity of cross-cultural law-systems, and thus, the universality of Kant's Maxims.

A question like this was posted in Askphilosophers some months ago but was never answered, so I'll try it again. What kind of knowledge is chess knowledge? Some of it is deductive (e.g., if I move this piece over there it will be checkmate, given the rules of chess), but it is not possible to assess openings and middlegames deductively, since the number of possible positions until checkmate or draw is way too large for them to be computed. Some knowledge of chess players is empirical or has empirical grounds (e.g., if I play this opening my opponent will be worse, since s/he is not used to play it), but this is not exactly "chess knowledge", it is some application of "psychology" or common sense (there is also chess history, and that's empirical). Chess is mostly a non-physical matter, it is the abstract product of some rules and their possible applications. Anyway, chess players and other chess experts seem to know many chess things about openings and middlegames. If what they know is not empirical nor...

Is inter-country adoption immoral? (I'm a college senior doing an independent study on Korean transnational adoption and the Korean diaspora.)

Selfishness is considered bad in society, and my parents tell me to be as selfless as possible, but how can it be possible to be selfless? I think selfless can be traced back to our instincts. We had to work for ourselves in order to survive and reproduce so life can continue. Eating is selfish, because it's benefiting ourselves only. That food could feed other people. If I donate to charity, is that not also selfishness? I donate so I feel like I can contribute to the world, and so I can feel better as a person. That means that the donating was purely in my own interest. If a parent throws themselves in front of a car to save a child, I think the root of their action is actually selfish - they don't think they could live knowing that they could've saved the child but didn't. What's your view on this? Do you think there's such thing as being selfless? If so, how can I live selflessly? Am I just thinking about all of this completely wrong?

Is it right to call a believer rational even if she cannot prove articulately or give good arguments for her belief in God? Let's just say I ask a believer "Why do you believe in God?" and she simply answered, "Because I've experienced God's grace in my life," and she needs no arguments or other evidences for her belief, is her position justifiable? I personally thinks it is but if that is the case, then what would make belief in God irrational, if simply certain personal experiences can justify such belief?

Reading Wikipedia and a bit of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, I learn that, for most philosophers today, the distinction betweem analytic and synthetic truths or falsities is no longer acceptable. For them, there are no analytic truths. This rejection originates in Quine. I wonder if that is really so. Is there anything synthetic in mathematics? Is there anything synthetic in the thought that all birds are birds, or that all brown balls are brown things? How do philosophers argue that these truths are synthetic?