Recently, Nate Silver won acclaim by correctly predicting the electoral results for all fifty states. If one of Silver's predictions had failed, however, would that have shown that he was wrong? I mean, I take it that Silver's predictions amount to assignments of probability to different outcomes. Suppose that I claim that an ordinary coin has a 50% chance of landing head or tails. If a trial is then run in which the coin lands tails three times in a row, we wouldn't take this to mean that I was wrong. Along similar lines, then, would it not have been possible for literally all of Silver's predictions to have failed and yet still be correct?

I know affirming the consequent is a fallacy, so that any argument with that pattern is invalid. But what what about analytically true premises, or causal premises? Are these not really instances of the fallacy? They seem to take its form, but they don't seem wrong. For example: 1. If John is a bachelor, he is an unmarried man. 2. John’s an unmarried man. 3. Therefore he’s a bachelor. How can 1 and 2 be true, and 3 be false? Yet it looks like affirming the consequent. 1. X is needed to cause Y. 2. We’ve got Y. 3. Therefore there must have been X. Again, it seems like the truth of 1 and 2 guarantee the truth of 3. What am I missing?

In my cross-cultural psychology class, we learned about the emotion "schadenfreude": to take pleasure in someone else's misfortune. If feeling this emotion goes against an individual's beliefs about themselves, i.e., that they are a good person, then isn't it possible that they would deny that they experienced this; doesn't this mean that our own personal experiences are not verifiable and therefore unknowable?

I am researching for a book on Shamanism and neo-Shamanism and an issue that emerges from this work is that of ownership. Neo-Shamans (i.e. Euro-Americans who are creating contemporary expressions of shamanism) are accused of cultural appropriation and theft of ceremonial forms. Such activity is defined as colonialism. My question is how do we determine who owns what in this scenario? I don't mean this in a legal sense necessarily. More, is there a moral or ethical justification for stating that traditional indigenous Shamans are right? How would one define such a moral or ethical right. I guess I'm asking in an absolute sense who owns what and how do we justify such ownership: what does philosophy have to say about this?

I have read that the statement "There is no absolute truth" is self-refuting because it relies on absolute truth to be true. I have also read that the idea expressed in the previous statement commits the fallacy of begging the question. I am thoroughly confused by the debate here...?

there has been talk about the use of dogs in medical detection of cancer and also dogs are being used to monitor the sugar levels of people with diabetes 24 hours a day. i was wondering what ethical issues there are surrounding the use of dogs in such a way, ie should we be breeding dogs specifically for use in hospitals and other moral dilemas. also the uk will not accept the use of dogs to detect cancer because there has been little study on how it works i was thinking is this relivent when this could save lives?

I've heard, in the pre-Internet era of the 80s and early 90s, that because of academic specialization and professionalization in philosophy, one would be really hard pressed to discover a non-academic personal kind of philosophy like the kind found in Kierkegaard's journals and self-published writings in the 20th century. But now with the Internet in the 21st century, it seems that non-academics can put forth one's philosophy in blogs, websites and forums and even self-publish their own philosophy books and ebooks on online publishing sites very inexpensively. So, my question is can one discover a great philosopher like Kierkegaard in our digital Internet era? And more importantly, will we?

Could you please recommend about some books or paper which deals with the question of the meaning of being true? I mean - What does it mean to say about something that it is true?

I recently read an article in the New Yorker about a sex offender who had a preference for 13-14 year old girls. One of the things that struck me was when one of the psychologists noted that he was under the delusion that 13-14 were capable of consenting to sex. While I don't personally find 13-14 year old girls desirable it seems strange to say that they are unable to consent to sex. What makes them unable to consent to sex? Is it because they don't understand what sex is? What understanding of sex does a 13-14 year old not know that an adult doesn't? It seems like an interesting claim to say that 13-14 has a fundamentally different understanding of sex than am adult. Of course most have not had experience with sex but nobody thinks that it's wrong to have sex with a virgin. Most 13-14 Year old girls do fantasize about sex though. Aren't there some feminists who believe that the idea of an age of consent is oppressive to women because it treats young girls as incapable of consent? Afterall, we often see...

I have some questions with vegetarianism. The main thing is that I do believe that animal suffering is a bad thing, but I don't think that that is a reason for people not to eat animals. I'm not asking here about the whole issue, but only about the following real case: I own a small piece of land which has been mostly unused. Last year, I bought a dozen of chicks, gave them a nice place to live, bought them some grain, gathered other kinds of food for them (plants, insects, snails, etc.) and took care of them generally. Now I have a dozen of chicken that I am about to slaughter and eat. Is there a reason for me not to do so?! Should I feed them eternally? Should I free them so that a car will smash them? Shouldn't I have bought them in the first place?