Does infinity exist?

Why are the laws of logic considered to be truth preserving? I would have trouble accepting any theory that says these are mere conventions of men since they all seem to have a universal application and do describe realtiy as we know it. Did God make these laws like other grand laws of the universe or did they just appear or create themselves?

I have been reading the recent discussion about whether "facts" can be "rational" or "irrational" http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/2829). Professor Rapaport suggests that philosophers use facts differently than most non-philosophers. Facts, he says, "simply 'are'". They are not like beliefs, which are more like sentences. His statements have left me very confused. The Earth is round. Is that a fact? We all die. Is that a fact? Seems to me that it is. And it's simultaneously a sentence. I don't see how a fact can be anything but a sentence. But suppose facts are not sentences. They are situations. One big fact would be the way the world is, I suppose. A smaller fact might be the way my room is right now. Fine, why can't situations be "rational" or "irrational"? I think very often we come upon a situation and say things like "This situation is totally crazy", by which we mean, it is irrational. As the questioner said, dictionary.com defines "rational" as "agreeable to reason". ...

I read recently a comment by a philosopher that Karl Popper's "falsifiability" theory is considered obsolete. Is this so? I always found it to be quite useful. If it's obsolete, what rendered it so, and by what was it replaced?

Is it immoral for a health insurance company to refuse to cover a person with a pre-existing condition?

Why is viability used as a standard to decide whether a fetus can be aborted?

Recently I read an article in a newspaper about belief in God. The author was quite disparaging about atheists, maintaining that they have some essential flaw in their make-up. The author could not understand how anyone would chose to not believe in God. I am a Catholic and was always taught that "you must believe in God" and that "disbelievers would be punished". I was frightened by this and by the story of Doubting Thomas who didn't believe that Christ had risen from the dead as I knew that I wouldn't have believed that purported fact either. My question is can you choose to believe? I would think not.

When is rational to say "I do not have an explanation for this event, but the explanation you propose is not a good one." For example, my friend (hypothetically) believes there are ghosts in her house. As proof, she tells me some weird stories of things that happened in her house. I can't think of any good explanations for the things that happen in the stories. Nonetheless, can I still dismiss her conclusion that ghosts are in her house?

Is it more important to spend one's time developing the skill of articulating one's positions precisely, or is it more important to spend one's time thinking about the content of important questions? Is it more important to spend time revising one's philosophy paper repeatedly so that one ensures that every choice of word is as perfect as possible so as to avoid any confusion or ambiguity, or is it more valuable to spend one's time thinking about questions? Obviously both are important, but which one is more so? And when the panelist responds, could s/he please indicate if this is a personal opinion of his/hers, or whether his/her response speaks for all philosophers (or most). Or, perhaps there is an agreed upon argument to establish which is more important? It seems to me that this latter possibility would be the most philosophically rigorous. Surely as philosophers and professors of philosophy many of the panelists have an opinion about this; I would greatly appreciate if the philosopher who...

Members of the Abrahamic faiths believe that we are all children of God and all equal in the eye of God. Therefore our lives are sacred and have an inherent equality of value that is beyond price. However, if God does not exist then a human life cannot be sacred. In this context can its value be beyond price? And if not, upon what basis should its value be calculated? It appears to me that if a human life has no inherent value then its only value is its social value, which for most purposes is its market value. But in that case there are categories of person whose lives cost more to society at large than they personally contribute, so that their social value is negative. And so logically it would appear on grounds of economy and social utility, and upon Darwinian principles of survival of the fittest, that such lives should be eliminated. Upon what rational grounds could one dispute this?