After reading so many eulogies for Richard Rorty lately, I'm interested in learning more. What would be a good starting point for reading Rorty for a layman who took a handful of college philosophy courses many years ago?

If I for example went out in my car and somebody pulled up at a junction waiting for me, do you think his life would be different later on because of the wait at the junction, thus altering the time to get to his destination and also the chain reaction of other people delaying or speeding up their journies? In other words, is everything meant to be, like the order of the universe? (Note you could have missed an important event by answering or not answering this question.)

Hi- I got this question from Harvard Econ. Prof. Greg Mankiw's blog. He got it from Richard Rorty. Here it is: "Aliens from another planet, with vastly superior intelligence to humans, land on earth in order to consume humans as food. What argument could you make to convince the aliens not to eat us that would not also apply to our consumption of beef?" What's the answer!?!?! Thanks!

My girlfriend likes to hang out with some people at our school who like to call themselves whores, sluts, and the like. They will sit around and say things like "Gee, you're such a slut! Don't give me that look, I'm just a whore as well!" They also don’t care when other people refer to them in the same manner. This kind of talk really bothers me; I find it insulting, demeaning, and distasteful. It has only been leveled at me once before I told them not to include me in it, and they have honored my request. The thing is, I just find it downright impolite, and it drives me crazy to hear them talk like that. It is not at all an accurate description of any of them, they just do it for the hell of it, I guess. Now, my question is, am I being too sensitive? It has nothing to do with me directly, but it still bothers me and makes me feel uncomfortable. I just do not see the need to be like that at all, it just seems pointless and demeaning. Do I have the right to feel so strongly about it and be hurt that my...

I can just about fathom how Catholics consider the early 'termination' of an embryo or a foetus murder but the birth control dictate flummoxes me. They can't seriously be suggesting that every spermatozoa exists for the sole purpose of impregnating a women and that denying them access to the uterus is a sin. This has to be a very bizarre and damaging interpretation of Biblical Scripture and not one shared by other Christian sects. Orgasms are genetically encoded to further the survival of a species. The fun element is a plus but reproduction is not the be all and end all - monkeys and people would not masturbate otherwise. And wouldn't involuntary nocturnal emissions by male Catholic celibates suggest this is just a natural thing, independent of religious strictures? Is there any justification for such a belief beyond the Bible and is such a belief at all tenable in philosophical terms?

I have been reading Kant recently and have wondered what his stance would be on homosexuality, not in marriage, but just in general. It seems that he would say it is immoral because it goes against one's duty, since if everyone was homosexual, there would be no new babies. Can this be true? Is there something else in Kant's thinking that would contradict this?

Why are performance-enhancing drugs seen negatively for athletes, but no problem for musicians? Why do we worship The Beatles (big-time drug takers and their creativity amplified substantially through drug use) and attack Ben Johnson?

Can there ever be a meaningful distinction in science between the "unknown" and the "unknowable"? I see no reason why science should not,in 100,000 years or so, unlock what now seem to be unknowable questions like the nature of a Prime Mover, if he exists, simply by accruing more and more knowledge of the universe. We know pretty much what happened a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang and we acquired this knowledge in about 100 years so why assume everything before that is unknowable? Surely the scientific method would insist that this is "presently unknown". Is it that metaphysics and the persistence of religious belief color our approach? Is "unknowable" even a valid term in philosophy, and, if so, what definitive, unassailable examples are there of it (which would also apply, say, 100,000 years from now)? Thanks in advance.

First, congratulations for the website. I'll try to phrase my question in an intelligible way: How do we realise, if we ever really do, that we are mortal? Indeed, until we are dead, at which point we are not conscious anymore, we have no affirmative knowledge of the fact that we are mortal. Is it an inferrence made from our observation of the world, and of the idea that we are no different? Or is it something that is culturally acquired by social influences - in which case I should maybe seek answers from social anthropologists? Could then it be considered more of a presumption than a realisation? And yet it is holds such a grip on people that it would be hard to suppose it is a mere presumption. Thank you. Olivier

I've been thinking about how people generalize all the time when trying to figure out if something is moral. Let's say I enact some form of vigilante justice, like shooting some criminal at large whom I know will repeat heinous acts if unstopped. Naturally I would find myself on trial and would face some variation of the argument: so do you believe, then, that everyone should take the law into their own hands? It seems that this generalizing argument/question flows naturally from the demands of logic. But I think it's a perversion of thought and distortion of morality. Why would Justice be so limited a concept that it must bow in all instances to some simply statable, spiffy sounding, ostensibly proceeding from almighty logic claim like the generalizing one? I feel that I can answer "no" to this question without surrendering my belief that what I did was right. It shouldn't involve me in any contradiction (nor would it be a huge deal if it did) to claim: what I did was right, but I don't believe...