Do you think _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_ is categorically a philosophy book, or because it's a novel, it cannot be in that classification? Marty C.

On the back of my teenage daughter's school textbook is a statement (by the publisher) "Do not over analyze". My daughter asked me what it meant but although I have come across this statement before I am not sure what it means - I think it means not to keep analyzing someone else's behaviour in order to find a motive but I'd like to be sure. In the case of philosophy aren't we meant to analyze thoroughly - so does one come to the point of over analyzing in this context?

This question might not be appropriate, but I'll try anyway. How is it that the precise meaning of the Waverly passage in Russell's "On Denoting" remains notoriously unclear? Russell died in 1970; I'm incredulous that while he was alive no one simply asked him what he had meant. I am similarly amazed whenever there are exegetical questions about the work of any modern philosopher (e.g., Quine).

I was looking at earlier questions in your Perception section and was intrigued by Prof. Moore's answer to the one of the car driving down the road and appearing to get smaller with distance (http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/548). He said that the size of the real car is an intrinsic property of the car, but the size of the apparent car is a relational property of the real car, and subtly so. I wish he would explain this subtlety, because I just don't get it. I can see that the distance between the car and the observer is a relational property: the relation is the distance, and its terms are the apparent car and the observer. But how can the apparent size of the car be a relation? The apparent car has an apparent size which, it seems to me, is just as much an intrinsic property of the apparent car as the real size of the real car is an intrinsic property of the real car. I am also fascinated by the question that he did not answer: at what distance must the car be for us to see its real size?...

First of all, Congratulations on this excellent website. It is a pleasure to discover a place on the Internet where the public may present philosophical questions for review by experts. My question is in regards to selflessness and selfishness. I view self-sacrifice as noble and a moral good, and that selfishness is repugnant and a moral wrong. With this in mind, I would like to ask about how to counter an idea posed in a quote by Ayn Rand: “Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it? If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it? Does virtue consist of serving vice?” Can this view of selflessness be countered? I am essentially concerned about if an act of selflessness/self-sacrifice merely allows a selfishness elsewhere to be validated and to profit. Does a selfless act, by necessity, exist with and serve a selfishness?...

It is well understood that we are prone to have certain "biases" in our perception of the world, which are caused by some form of highly relative sociocultural conditioning or another. With that in mind, how could we be sure that we can trust our perception of objective reality? Wouldn't that "complete perspective" always out of reach, because with all our sophisticated science and knowledge we are still just human subjects experiencing the world as members of a particular set of social conditions? Also, what about the bias of human perception itself, compared to animal forms of perception which might rely on completely different systems of space and time? Like, the fly that only lives for a day or two, or giant squids who live at extreme temperatures and pressures for 100 years or more. The point is that it seems like a truly comprehensive system for understanding and categorizing objective reality into workable concepts would have to account for the fact that we are limited to our experience as...

In support of the argument to design, people often remark that the order seen in nature is "improbable" and so requires a special explanation--i.e., a designer. But if order is seen throughout nature, in what sense is it improbable?

Could a big computer solve a philosophy problem?

"In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance” (Henry Miller). Is this true?

My friend and I were discussing the nature of justice and we couldn't define it in a way that differentiates it from revenge. Both involve the idea of causing pain/suffering to the perpetrator of a crime since he/she has caused a certain amount of pain/suffering to a person or society. Is the only difference that justice is supposedly 'objective' in the sense that non-involved persons determine the amount of suffering the perpetrator should receive as opposed to the 'subjective' nature of revenge when the victim decides? This led us to wonder what is the opposite of justice/revenge and we thought it might be mercy, when you do not inflict suffering on the perpetrator. My friend pointed out that each Muslim prayer begins with "In the name of Allah, the most just and most merciful". Is it possible to be both just and merciful at the same time? Isn't there a contradiction there?