Why does fiction make us feel so emotional sometimes? Rationally, my mind knows that the stories I read aren't true and are all completely made-up, but even knowing this, I can't help but find myself tearing up at certain well-written stories. Is there any reason to feel this way at all or is it all just a waste of emotion?

What happens, morally speaking, if I promise to do something that happens to be slightly immoral? Do I still have some kind of obligation to do it?

i just started reading some philosophy writings and got so mach interested in philosophy.But my assess to books is very much limited and i would appropriate its if anyone can help me with free e-book sites from where i can download some philosophy books. Thanks

I'm finishing Augustine's Confessions. At a certain point, he argues that "shapeless" (I'm not reading an English translation; the Latin word is "informis" ("informitas" as a noun)) physical entities are possible. I didn't understand his argument and anyway can't imagine how some physical body could be shapeless. Perhaps an infinitely large or infinitely small body could be shapeless, but infinitely small things are hardly conceivable. Would you explain me how could some physical body be shapeless? Or perhaps Augustine is talking about something else I didn't get? (it's in Book XIII).

Once in a while I read a philosopher's curriculum vitae on the Internet. Unfortunately, I usually don't find the philosopher's birth year, and most times not even the year of his or her first college degree. Don't you think curricula should have that information? Approximate age is so useful for readers to have "a picture" of the person they are interested in....

Do non-human animals have self awareness?

Hello. Listening to a radio programme about utilitarianism I was struck by the difficulty of making a universal framework fit in our relationship-driven world, and how a concept of egoistic or relative utilitarianism might do this. That is, we maximise utility not equally over everyone but across those with whom we feel a relationship, and to the extent that we do. So, where a utilitarian sacrifices his children to make a small dent in third world poverty but ignores his newly unemployed neighbour because she is not starving, an "R.utilitarian" buys his children the cheaper laptop, using the balance to contribute to the starving and to help his neighbour out with an interest-free loan while she gets back on her feet. I googled every combination of relationship/relative/egoistic and utilitarianism that I could find, and came up blank. Please can you tell me what this theory is called, and who came up with it 200 years before I did? If not, please don't steal it before I write it up ;-)

Does Quine's critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction also apply to circular definitions? For example: a 'bachelor' is an 'unmarried male' seems analytic, and 'bachelor' and 'unmarried male' are synonyms. But consider: 'condescension' means a 'patronizing' attitude. Of course, 'condescension' and 'patronizing' are defined in terms of each other. Are all definitions that are circular in this way still susceptible to Quine's critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction, because they trade on the synonymy of the definiens and definienda?

Justice Scalia famously stated that crosses on graves have, well, crossed-over from an overtly religious symbol to one that may represent any dead soldier. How do philosophers treat such claims? How do we establish when religious practices, symbols, rituals, etc. have entered the secular public domain to the extent that the law can recognize them as such?

If two people share a thought influenced by their shared experiences, would this be considered telepathy? For example, if two people see a stimulus and instantly link that stimulus to a situation experienced with the other person, does it become telepathy because they both think it at the same time, and have some time of relationship?