How does who’s doing the philosophy influence how philosophy is done? I read an essay on how the mostly white publishing circle hinders the full expression of diverse voices. “Minority students may be told to scrap what is striking to them in favor of what is striking to the dominant perspectives of their workshops.” I agree. Writing always comes with personal elements. Philosophy in contrast seems more general and impassive. Is philosophy not supposed to be sensitive to racial, class, gender or personal perspectives?

I'm confused about the nature of antecedents and conditionals like: (i) "Only if A, then B". I was told in my logic class that antecedents are always sufficient conditions and consequents are always necessary conditions. But if that's the case, then the antecedent in (i) "Only if A" is a sufficient condition. Particularly a sufficient condition for B. But saying "Only if A, then B" means that A is a necessary condition for B as well. So it appears that the antecedent in (i) is both a sufficient and necessary condition. But that doesn’t seem right, given that (i) is equivalent to (ii) If B, then A. And this means A is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for B. Option 1: Maybe antecedents only are sufficient conditions in simple conditionals like (iii) “If A, then B”; but they aren’t sufficient conditions in conditionals like "Only if A, then B". That might be right. Option 2: On the other hand, we might say "Only if A" just seems to be an antecedent but isn't really. That would...

Let ‘B’= to be; let ‘~B’=not to be. P1: B v ~B P2: ~B C: ~B P2 is the negation of the left disjunct in P1, not the affirmation of the right disjunct in P1. P1: To be or not to be. P2: Not to be. C: Not to be. It seems to me that, argumentatively, there’s a difference between affirming ‘not to be’, the right disjunct, and negating ‘to be’, the left disjunct. It just happens that, in this case, what’s affirmed and what’s negated are logically equivalent. Is there a convention for conveying that argumentative difference? Also, can you recommend any articles or books where I can learn more about issues like this? Thank you very much :)

I am personally a determinist but one thing that has confused me is how can determinism and morality co-exist? If determinism is true, then how can we possibly judge the morality of a choice that someone was destined to make?

Hey, I've come to the conclusion that every person has their own truth. At the same time, the fact that 2+2=4 is quite obviously a truth. But if someone was to say that 2+2=3, and they believed it to be true, it is their own truth. Does that mean, that whatever we might think is true, no matter our conviction, we can never be sure of it's validity. Or maybe that everything is true, which in turn would make nothing true. Or might it be something else entirely?

Hi, I'm a college freshman taking my first philosophy class. My professor takes points off my essay for grammatical mistakes I made. I disagree with this approach. Isn't the idea the most important, more so for philosophy?

I'm something of a nihilist, but with that I've lost is the reason to care about stuff, even myself and my loved ones. Why should I care about anything?

Say I have a sequence of numbers - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. I add 1 to 7 to create the next number in the sequence,8. The sequence is finite. I add 1 to 8 to get the next number in the sequence, 9. The sequence is finite. I keep on going... At what point does my sequence become infinite? How can my sequence ever become infinite?

A painter painted a masterpiece to express his observation of the world. However, everyone's understanding of the same works is quite different, and the painter is not sure whether his or her works are reflected in others. The original meaning of some ancient paintings has long been unknown, or gradually distorted in the history of interpretation. What is the meaning of painting? Just speak to oneself? Can the meaning, or beauty, be transmitted among different people?

Suppose some celebrity has made him or herself more loved and well-received partly by establishing an him or herself as faithful, compassionate husband or wife. If it’s later found out that this celebrity actually leads a messy private life far from the established image, does he or she owe an apology to the public? What if the celebrity never revealed anything about his or her private life or used it to establish some image? Does the public or the media have any right to expose, examine or criticize his or her private life? Some say it’s an inevitable price to pay for the publicity, since they also reaped benefit from it. Is it true?