I'm going to be a senior in high school and I've found philosophy podcasts to be a great way to sample the thoughts of famous philosophers without having to drudge through esoteric forests of essays. Between listening to Philosophy Bites and Nigel Wharburton's reading of his book Philosophy: The Classics, I've become familiar with a bit of Hume and Kant. It is probable that I have misunderstood much of the material of the podcasts, so the material of this question does not reflect in any way the reliability of the sources. As I understand, Hume proposed the a priori and the a posteriori, the latter constructed by experience. Kant then respected the two categories but divided them into analytic a priori, synthetic a priori (new after Hume), and synthetic a posteriori. What interests me is the problem of "the missing shade of blue." Because all ideas originate from experience, even simple ones like fundamental colors (or shades of them), then are not all colors a posteriori? For they cannot be a priori in...

I have two questions about hunting and fishing: First, is it is ethical to use powerful machinery and high-technology to find and harvest fish and game? Second, is "professional" fishing ethical? It is unlikely that the human race would have survived without the dietary protein derived from hunting and fishing. At some point, hunters and fishers became "sportsmen" as well as providers, but still universally accepted the ethical principle that one must kill or catch only what would be used as food for the family. For my 70 years thus far on this earth, I have sought and caught fish to cook, and eat; and I have hunted and killed game birds and animals to cook and eat. Any excess has always been given to others for consumption or preserved for future meals. I regard this practice as ethical and in a proud human tradition dating from as far back as ancestry can be imagined. My hunting has always been on foot or horseback, sometime accompanied by a dog, and my fishing from the bank or in a small boat...

Has there ever been shown to be an effect without a cause? Is it even possible for there to be an effect without a cause? If this is not possible, does that prove determinism is true, at least what I believe is called "Hard Determinism?" And even if you can't prove that there can never be an effect without a cause, isn't probability justification enough to make any belief other than determinism ridiculous?

We're told that all matter in the universe is "expanding", presumably due to residual energy release created by the "big bang". But what (or perhaps more importantly "where") is the universe expanding into? I'm not approaching this from an astrophysical perspective, but from an ontological one. Namely, if all matter in the universe is expanding into the vacuous nothingness, and the universe is surrounded by nowhere, then how can something (the universe) exist in nothing and nowhere?

When I was a child, I wanted to know what forever was. I would sit and concentrate -- think and think and THINK -- until finally I felt what may have been a glimpse into something infinite. It was jarring, intense, and pretty incredible. What WAS that? Have other people had this experience?

Duty, engagement, rules, living a life "conditioned" vs. one free, maybe unconventional, following our own inspiration even if it doesn't seem supported by what we call "common sense". Many of us live a life that often is the result of choices influenced by many different conditionings, sometimes unhappily. It is not easy for everybody to understand what one really wants for himself in this life, and strong moral conditioning prevents radical choices. Where I should find more about this topic ? Thank you.

Is there a correlation between intelligence and morality? I can imagine an intelligent person giving a sophisticated analysis to a complex moral question before acting as warranted by his/her analysis. On the other hand, I can imagine a person of lesser intelligence acting in a moral and caring manner without much reflection, because he or she has been raised to be kind and considerate, and because kindness and consideration have always been part of the person's personality. Conversely, it is pretty easy to see examples of immoral behavior from both more intelligent and less intelligent people as well. It seems logical that intelligence would confer a greater ability to be moral, but everyday life does not seem to show any firm correlation between the two.

Does philosophy concerning music have any worth or substance? Or is music simply too abstract for there to be any meaningful philosophical insights gleaned from it?

If you alter someone's brain (by surgery, head injury, drugs, etc.) so that their personality changes markedly as a result, is there a sense in which you've effectively killed her?

I have one question concerning about lines in mathematics. My teacher told me that two lines of different lengths are made up of the same number of points. he told me that if we placed one above the other and join its end points and extend it they will meet at a point (for eg.) R. he told me that we can prove that by joining one point of the longer line to the shorter line and then to the point R and by continuing doing the same. If we do so we will feel that it is made up of the same number of points. But in my view if we place one line above the other and join its end points then both the line would be slanting towards each other (because one is longer than the other). If we remove those points and the line that we joined then equals will be left because we are removing the same number of points. If we continue doing this by drawing parallel lines then both of them will meet at a point on the centre of the shorter line and if we stii continue drawing then the lines will meet at a point such that it...