You and your friend are on to a great topic that has a long and important history. The term art is derived from the Latin term for a principled way of making thing or in Greek from the term techne ... from this standpoint in the ancient world the term art would be shorthand for a work of art ore that which is produced through principled activity ... In the ancient world, art was understood to involve imitation a painting of a horse should in some way offer us an image that imitates what it would be like to see a horse. As time moved on, we started to think of works of art as not imitations but as expressions of feelings or ideas. Your friend is on to something important: some works of art are intended to be and actually are making statements and to do so with creativity. One of the two most famous, well known paintings in the world are Michaelangelos ceiling painting of the creation. One may see this as both a work of creativity and expressing a doctrine ...

I go on to recommend some other texts below and address the topic of philosophical disagreements and consensus, but first a comment on Stephen Maitzen's observation about not being under any obligation to believe either side in a dispute over theistic arguments. I am not disagreeing with Stephen on this, but I do wonder about the general point of when one might be obligated to come to terms (oneself) in believing one side or another in a philosophical debate.... Here is a suggestion: Let's say you have been appointed the task of establishing a university in a developing nation in which there are different religious communities (Christian and Islamic or Hindu and Buddhist, for example). You have enough funds to establish sound programs in engineering, the sciences, languages...and now you are considering how much to devote to a philosophy department and, perhaps more specifically, you must decide whether that department or a religion department should include scholars who are well trained and are...

Interesting! I suggest that one needs more of a foundation or framework to infer from someone having intelligence or some other talent, ability or good (such as beauty) to the conclusion that one has certain obligations to one's society. There are foundations or frameworks to consider: in a case where a person comes to have some good like intelligence through the sacrificial contributions of others (imagine one's family and community pool together resources to pay for your medical education and you have the medical skills and intelligence due to others), a person may have a debt of gratitude (of some kind) to benefit those who helped one. Or an intelligent person may have an obligation to contribute to her or his community if she has volunteered or promised to do so or perhaps everyone in a community has agreed to donate their time and talent to the good of group as a whole. In the last case, perhaps someone who is intelligent or talented at building roads might have an obligation to offer to build...

Probably one of the main reasons we shy away from talking with others about sexual attraction unless we are doing so with a partner in a sexually intimate relationship or conversing with a therapist or discussing medical issues (from STD s to pregnancy to birth control) or advising a friend who has asked for advise, is because we see sexual matters as amazingly / profoundly personal and we would find it positively intolerable being told by all sorts of people whether they find you sexy or not. Imagine that in the course of sitting in a coffee shop for an hour you are set upon by hundreds of people who tell you all about their sexual desires as grandmothers who like to have sex while cooking apple pie, former medical students who were expelled from medical school for public nudity, lawyers who have been accused of sexually harassing interns, politicians who will say anything or do anything to get your vote, two tax collectors who have strange, contagious rashes all over their hands and faces and want...

Great question! Some preliminary thoughts: Racism seems to involve treating a group of persons who share an ethnic identity with derision, disrespect, and partial disadvantage. Accounts of racism today are controversial, but I propose that a comprehensive account of racism should involve both action as well as attitudes. What you write suggests that one reason why racism is inappropriate / unjust / wrong, is that persons cannot help being a certain ethnicity. I suggest, however, that racism would be wrong whether or not one could voluntarily adopt or abandon a race or ethnicity. If I converted to Judaism and, in the eyes of the world I became Jewish, anti-semitism would still be wrong even though I could have remained a Christian. In a related way, I suggest it would still be wrong to discriminate against homosexuals whether or not a person can choose whether to be homosexual or not. It should be added as a side point that the very category of "race" is vexing. Some think of race as a...

Yes The clearest case of when you would need to be both a historian and a philosopher is when you write a history of philosophy. Expertise in both fields would also be highly valuable in writing philosophy of history. Apart from these two categories, the blending of philosophy and history (or the virtues of being both a philosopher and a historian) may vary. Consider matters from the standpoint of history: When would a history (or a historian) be aided by philosophy? Because one may write a history of any number of things (persons, events...) from a history of warfare to a history of agriculture, it may not be obvious when philosophy comes into play. Off hand, it seems that some philosophy will be inevitable in any history insofar as the history reflects a view (or a philosophy) of evidence, explanation, relevance, reasons and causes. But there are cases when philosophy seems more explicit as in a history of the French revolution versus a history of the first cities in the world. From the...

The philosopher Peter van Inwagen is rather skeptical about such relations. Although I may be wrong, but I think he is quite reluctant to believe that (strictly speaking) there are gross macroscopic objects like books and chairs and statues. These "objects" can (in principle) be described and explained in terms of simpler parts and things. I am not sure that terms like "statue" or "marble" are just a matter of words without any clear understanding of criteria / criterion of application... It seems like common sense that one might destroy a statue without destroying the material that makes up the statue. A philosopher who is highly respected but sometimes severely criticized in such matters is John Searle who (in my view) has done great work on identifying how objects exist in our "social world" as constructions through shared intentions and how some objects are not so constructed. The general area of philosophy that explores the relationship of objects and their parts is called Mereology. An...

That is a very timely question, as the philosophical world in the USA has been jolted awake recently with reports of sexual harassment charges against philosophy professors (e.g. at the University of Colorado). I am not aware of any studies that compare the wrong-doing or vices of "specialists" in ethics with any other area in the humanities, sciences, and arts. It would not shock me if the percentage of courageous, just, and compassionate persons and the percentage of wicked, nasty persons and those in between were the same among those who study ethics as those who study law, medicine, history, psychology and so on. This is partly because studying, teaching and contributing to the field of ethics can be done in an intellectually vigorous fashion, with historically well-informed precise arguments without requiring that persons undergo deep self-questioning (am I really being a good father? am I condescending with those whom I disagree with? etc) and careful deliberation and action that is morally...

Great question. As a small point at the outset, I think that both the IRA bombing and the bombing by al-Qaeda are equally wrong, and wrong in targeting the military as well as civilians. Neither cause amounts (in my view) to justified use of violence, and the bombing seems senseless not just ethically but given the strategic aims of the IRA and al-Qaeda. In both cases, it seems there is evidence that The Troubles would have ended earlier if non-violent means were used, and the same for the use of terror by al-Qaeda. But there is some ethical difference in the two cases. If the IRA phone call was made so late, that there was no way to evacuate anyone, the cases are identical. But if the IRA' s call was made to insure (or make unlikely) that lives would be lost and so the bombing would only destroy property, then such a practice seems less cruel than bombers who intend and take every step to wound or kill others. In fact, given the strategic ends of al-Qaeda, they may be motivated to...

Excellent question. "Feminist Philosophy" as a title covers a range of types of philosophy that are united in the goal of offering a critique of patriarchy and exploring the positive contributions philosophically that are made in light of being female (in terms of both gender and sex, and in terms of the extent to which gender is a social construct, etc). I take your point about why the term "feminist philosophy" seems out of place with the nature of philosophy because the term denotes advocacy and commitment to a particular position, rather than a more open-ended inquiry into questions of gender, sex, social realities, and the like. But I suggest that the term is no less philosophical than terms like 'Marxism' or 'Marxist philosophy' or 'Kantian philosophy' and the like. Perhaps your concern is (at heart) the worry that if a person is a self-described feminist philosopher (or Marxist or Christian or Idealist ...philosopher) this suggests that the person is no longer open to alternatives. Good point....