The question of whether there are unconscious perceptions, and if so, their nature, has received considerable attention from philosophers and psychologists from the seventeenth century onwards. One's answer to this question will reveal a lot about one's conception of perception in particular and of the nature of the mind in general. Some care is needed in approaching the question. 'Perceive' is sometimes taken to mean 'be aware of', and if it is so taken, of course one cannot perceive anything unconciously, by definition. Such a definition doesn't, however, dispose of the question, for one can either stipulate that by 'perceive', one means to 'have a mental representation' (for now, let me just stipulate that a mental representation is an internal representation that enables one to have a sense-based perception: the nature and status of mental representations is a topic that deserves considerable attention in its own right): if one takes 'perceive' in this sense, then one can have both conscious...

While I think that Andy is quite right to note that the problem of evil is normally framed in terms of suffering instead of happiness, I nevertheless want to add a couple of remarks concerning the possibility that happiness is the ultimate end of the human being, and how this might relate to the problem of evil, and then to take up the issue of whether human beings deserve happiness, a deep and interesting question in its own right. Philosophers from Aristotle through Kant have taken happiness to be an end, if not the ultimate end, of human beings, although they have cashed out the respect in which happiness might play this role in very different ways. Indeed, Christian philosophers have traditionally believed that the blessed in Heaven will be rewarded with a vision of God that constitutes bliss. Now such philosophers recognize that in this life, at least, human beings may not experience happiness at all, but nevertheless this constitutes no block to their thinking that ultimately the worthy will...

Just an addition to Nicholas Smith's suggestion that in order to avoid adhering to a specific philosophical viewpoint, one adopt a standpoint of 'epistemic humility', which I don't think is that easily achieved. (I, for what it's worth, don't think that one can up and decide to epistemically humble.) Historical, contextual, study of the history of philosophy can help to lead one to take such a position. As one sees the extent to which philosophical questions and answers are deeply bound up with contingent historical circumstances, circumstances which vary greatly from our own, we can come to see not only that philosophical positions developed by 'the mighty dead' were deeply contingent, but also that our own cherished positions themselves are deeply contingent, and may well be bound up with contingent historical circumstances. Reflection on the extent to which philosophy is contextual in this way may well lead one to begin to question the assumptions that we take for granted and that underwrite the...

A thought experiment akin to the one that you propose has been deployed by Derek Parfit, in his classic book, Reasons and Persons , which I highly recommend if you're interested in this topic, in order to argue that personal identity is "not what matters." According to Parfit--I'm simplifying somewhat--if some agent has a perfect duplicate who is psychologically continuous with the agent, then, according to Parfit, even if the agent dies, and therefore the agent's consciousness does not continue, and so s/he does not continue to exist (Parfit is therefore answering question to the negative, and admitting that you won't survive) what's important, namely one's plans, projects, etc., will be continued by the agent's duplicate, and that, again according to Parfit, is more important than the survival of one's consciousness--indeed, in such a case, one shouldn't be worried about dying, because what one values will be carried on (albeit only by a psychologically continuous duplicate of oneself). Now Parfit...

You raise an excellent issue here! It's true that it is often claimed that if determinism is true, and every event--including choices or decisions--is determined by preceding events, then choices will not be free, and hence agents will not be responsible for their choices or decisions, and so the agent cannot be responsible for the actions that follow upon choices or decisions, and consequently, there is no basis for sanctioning the agent for those actions that break the law. It seems to me that the reason that this belief is as common as it is is because philosophers with incompatibilist intuitions think that agents are not free, and, hence, not responsible for their choices/decisions unless either the agent is able to do otherwise or the agent is the ultimate source of her choices. (It seems to me that these conditions are distinct: one might hold that it is a condition on freedom that agents be able to do or choose otherwise than they did without also holding that the agent is the ultimate...

This is a great, and, in light of the fact that same-sex marriage will be legal in New York state in three days, on Sunday, July 24th, a very timely question!! Although some opponents of same-sex marriage maintain that marriage is 'by definition' between a man and a woman, and buttress this claim with an appeal to the Bible, and although both positions have been argued for, perhaps by now even almost ad nauseam , I myself think that what's really at issue here is not the meaning of the word 'marriage', but rather the concept of marriage. What's at stake is whether marriage is a civil contract, in which case it is up to the state to determine what parties may legally contract in this way, or a religious sacrament, in which case it is up to the church--whatever denomination that church may be--to determine who can be joined in this way. I myself am inclined to think that marriage may be seen both as a civil contract and as a religious sacrament, but also think that in a truly secular...

Although philosophy, like most of the 'liberal arts', does not directly prepare one for any career, majoring in philosophy does equip one with 'portable' skills--the ability to read carefully and to think and write clearly--that are useful in many careers. Surveys have shown that philosophy majors are among the top scorers on LSAT exams; I have heard that Wall Street firms like philosophy majors, because they have good analytic skills. I myself think that a Philosophy major is good preparation for almost any career that does not require specialized knowledge, so you should not worry about your future!! (Information on this topic is also available from the American Philosophical Association website, which I urge you to check out.)

The best way to approach questions about the meanings of words is to look in a good dictionary. (This isn't meant to be a smart-alecky response: J. L. Austin, perhaps the foremost practitioner of 'ordinary language philosophy' recommended the dictionary as a starting point for ordinary language investigations.) Insofar as most, if not all, words are to be found in a good dictionary, this is a generalized approach. The reason it may be a useful starting points for the kinds of question in which you seem to be interested is that dictionaries, as Austin noted, reflect the range of meanings, and hence of concepts, that speakers of the language have found useful. The reason that I think that the kind of question you're interested in is more related to ordinary language philosophy than more recent philosophy of language is because I would think that you would find the most illumination in attending to the kind of variation of which terms admit--as manifest in the question concerning different meanings of ...

Synesthesia is a phenomenon in which the activation of one sensory modality leads to experiences in a second sensory modality: one common form of synesthesia is the perception of letters or numbers as inherently colored. This phenomenon has, I think, received relatively little attention from philosophers--although there are related remarks scattered throughout Wittgenstein's 'later' writings--in part because after years of neglect by psychologists, it has only relatively recently begun to receive sustained attention from them. Consideration of the phenomenon may well offer insights into a range of questions in the philosophy of mind, including the philosophy of perception, such as: the relation between different sensory modalities; whether different sensory modalities represent the world differently; and even the nature of consciousness, insofar as one problem for accounts of consciousness is explaining the experience of sensible qualities--sometimes called 'qualia', for qualitative experiences, a topic...

"Private," Hobbes writes in Leviathan , regarding the nature of beliefs, "is in secret free." These words are, I think, absolutely correct, and pertinent in the context of your excellent question, regarding whether agents have a right to hold whatever beliefs they wish, and whether other agents--and maybe even the state--have a right to correct those false beliefs. Hobbes's point is that the state need not concern itself with agents' beliefs, provided that those beliefs are not made publicly manifest; similarly, insofar as agents' beliefs do not interfere with the lives of others, then the state, and indeed, most other agents, have no right to try to change those beliefs. I am inclined to think that this point is broadly correct, since I'm inclined to favor minimal state interference with individuals. There is a question, however, whether agents have an epistemic duty to try to achieve true beliefs. This topic was the subject of an exchange between William James and W. K. Clifford, in which...