What is the essential relationship between rules of grammar and a living language? Is it primarily descriptive or prescriptive? I am fluent in 3 languages, and it seems to me that native speakers, especially in Chinese, rarely know much about the "rules". Native speakers, instead, are confident. They don't worry that what they say is "wrong", and they're also inventive and creative. American kids are fond of saying about someone that "so-and-so is boss". It seems to me there are many instances now of nouns being converted to adjectives: so-and-so might also be "legend", for instance. Native speakers don't fear that they are "wrong". Does grammar play catch up, like law with technology, or does grammar just unctuously go on insisting that such statements are "wrong"?

I am close to someone with Asperger's syndrome. Do you think Philosophy would be a good field for someone with asperger's to look into? Do you think there's a higher prevalence of it among the philosophy community than other disciplines? In reading through responses, it does seem like there are a lot of superficially logical replies that would feel, to an outsider looking in, on the range from emotionally insensitive to passive-aggressive. It seems that the field encourages ruling out replies based on emotion, being purely logical, which would suit an aspie perfectly. Thanks for your thoughts!

Recently a 19 year old woman killed herself after she was taunted by her high school classmates for doing a porn. The while situation makes me angry and upset. (though looking at the reported online comments they don't seem as bad or as I voluminous as you might imagine, and they were not all directed her. So there may be some other issues) Maybe it makes me angry partly because I often watch porn with women of that age but part of me feels uncomfortable about it because I don't know how it affects their lives or if they are doing it with a sufficiently developed sense of ownership about the consequences that decision may bring. But really should I feel bad for watching porn with younger women or should I direct my feelings toward a society that is unfairly judgmental and hypocritical about sex?

I am trying to understand the idea behind the question of the meaning of knowledge. I'm confused by why the usual meaning of something we remember having encountered before requires further definition. I guess I'm asking if philosophy has no acceptance of the usual common meanings? How does such a definition as "true verifiable belief" (if I remember that right) satisfy more than our commonly shared meaning? After all, I have knowledge of a lifetime of experiences and feelings and impressions and ideas that cannot possibly satisfy those criteria. Does that mean that philosophers claim that my memories are not knowledge? I have the same problem understanding the need for "defining" existence as {I think therefore I am." It seems more sensible to me to reword it as "I am therefore I think." Can you explain the most basic conception of philosophical inquiry? Is it simply a game?

In paradoxes such as the Epimenides 'liar' example, is it not sufficient to say that all such sentences are inherently contradictory and therefore without meaning? Like Chomsky's 'the green river sleeps furiously', it's a sentence, to be sure, but that's all it is. Thanks in advance :)

In writing mathematical proofs, I've been struck that direct proofs often seem to offer a kind of explanation for the theorem in question; an answer the question, "Why is this true?", as it were. By contrast, proofs by contradiction or indirect proofs often seem to lack this explanatory element, even if they they work just as well to prove the theorem. The thing is, I'm not sure it really makes sense to talk of mathematical "explanations." In science, explanations usually seem to involve finding some kind of mechanism behind a particular phenomenon or observation. But it isn't clear that anything similar happens in math. To take the opposing view, it seems plausible to suppose that all we can really talk about in math is logical entailment. And so, if both a direct and an indirect proof entail the theorem in question, it's a mistake to think that the former is giving us something that the latter is not. Do the panelists have any insight into this?

How would a legal philosopher deal with the trolley problem compared to a moral philosopher? Would he come to a conclusion that is neither switch nor not switch? That is, either choice is equally legal?

This is a question about philosophy. Reading the beginnings of Wikipedia's timelines of Eastern and Western philosophers, we find Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Guang Zhong, Confucius, Sun Tzu and a few more as the first philosophers. By the time these guys lived, there were other written non-fiction (or allegedly non-fiction) works. What is the difference between philosophy and the other non-fiction stuff (especially in those times)?

I've been reading Polanyi's book on Tacit Knowledge. Can anyone update me as to the current philosophical status or consensus on this concept, or the (I assume) related concept of intuition? Polanyi also argues that the existence of tacit knowledge dissolves the Meno paradox and supports some appeals to authority. Any update on the status of these views? Thanks!

I have 17 years I am really into philosophy . I would give everything to go and study it . But there is one problem. My parents doesn't know where can philosophy take me(job , career ) . I never thought about it so if you could help me PLS