I'll let Louise respond on her own behalf, as far as her own position is concerned. But, if I may address the second question, in a spirit with which I think she'd agree.... Yes, of course, date rape, and hazing, and binge drinking, and the like are all serious problems. But the question is why one should suppose that philosophy classes are the right place to address them. I think it's asking a lot of philosophy—not to mention of philosophy professors—to suppose that it—and we—are in some special position to instill wisdom in our students. Certainly, if you ask me what I'm trying to teach the average student in one of my undergraduate courses—the one who's not a major or, perhaps, is but is headed to law school or the business world or what have you—I'll say I want them to learn to read and listen well, and to think and express themselves clearly. And one would certainly hope that these skills might help people live their lives better. But, however clearly I can think (and I don't even manage...

I think the really deep question here is why incestuous relationships seem so morally problematic, quite independently of the child-bearing issues. Here are a couple thoughts. The case of parent-child incest is clearly the most problematic, even when the child is of age. And here, I think the source of concern is power. It's not that it seems utterly impossible for the child, in such cases, to give truly informed consent, but one might wonder how free (or well informed) that consent could be. It's not unlike, that is to say, supervisor-employee or teacher-student relationships, except, of course, that the parent-child relationship is far more intimate and, as a result, far more is at stake for the child. What, then, about sibling-sibling relationships? Here, there probably aren't the same kinds of concerns as with parent-child relationships. But, continuing the work-world analogy, it is perhaps worth noting that many companies bar relationships between co-workers as well as between supervisors and...

Sentences of this kind are sometimes called `Liar setnences', and they give rise to the Liar paradox. What is "weird" about such a sentence is is that, if it is true, then it follows that it is false, and if it is false, then it follows that it is true. Or, at least, that's what intuition suggests. That seems to imply that, if the Liar sentence is either true or false, then it is both true and false. If so, then either one has to deny that the Liar is either true or false or accept that it is both true and false. (There are other options, in fact, but I won't discuss them here.) I'm not sure what "ambiguous" sentences you have in mind. Perhaps you mean sentences like "John is bald", where one might have the intuition that he sort of is and sort of isn't. But does one have any inclination to say that he sort of is and isn't ? I don't think so. So my own sense, for what it's worth, is that this intuition isn't very robust. And, in any event, we don't seem to have any inclination to say that, if he...

From any point of view, I think the question here ought to be: What way of teaching such material will make it most likely that students will learn it? But that's not a question a philosopher is well-placed to answer. Someone with expertise in education would be the right person to ask.

Philosophy is a very diverse discipline. It's practiced in lots of ways, and with a focus on lots of different issues. Some philosophy is intensely mathematical; some has a strong focus on science; some is more humanistic; some is, perhaps, even spiritual. But I don't know that anyone would suppose philosophy had any sort of "spiritual persuasiveness" special to it. See question 1350 for additional remarks.

Metaphysics, as it was originally understood, was 'meta' to physics. That is, metaphysics was concerned with general questions about the nature of physics or, again, with foundational questions about physics. That's certainly the sense you get from Aristotle's Metaphysics , which I think is where the term originates, but also from Descartes and many of the other early modern philosophers. I don't know about the medieval Christians. But even they might fit this mold insofar as their loftier speculations are, ultimately, driven by concerns about the foundations of physical science.

I'll just make a few comments about this. I don't have much detailed to say about it. First, I'm not sure that "scientists" do insist dogmatically upon a materialist frame of reference. A broadly materialist—or, better, naturalistic—orientation is hardly optional within the practice of science itself , but there are plenty of scientists whose conception of the world as a whole is a bit more expansive. I don't say this to congratulate or insult anyone, just to note it. That said, it is true that some people, some of them scientists, do sometimes try to push materialism beyond the bounds of scientific practice. The important thing to note is that, in doing so, they are pushing a bit of scientific methodology beyond its natural home. I take it that this is Feyerabend's point, one he makes in characteristically colorful language. But that point has been made by several others, too, sometimes in more local ways. I'd strongly recommend, for example, some of Noam Chomsky's writings on naturalism.

The laws concerning statutory rape—laws that make it a crime for anyone to have sex with a person under a certain age—are justified by the belief that people under a certain age cannot give informed consent to sex. It seems reasonable to suppose that this is true, though the age in question might be a matter of debate and, in fact, the laws in different countries, and even in different US states, set different ages. So one might regard it as silly that the law in some particular jurisdiction regards a 17-year-old as incapable of informed consent, and I'd agree with you. But it's not at all obvious what the age-limit ought to be. That said, however, it is important to note that it is not the relative ages of the parties to the act that are relevant but their absolute ages. The reason "society" sees nothing worthy of legal intervention in a sexual relationship between a 60-year-old and an 18-year-old is that it regards the 18-year-old as capable of informed consent.

The short answer is this: If it's true now that you're going to lose a finger next year, and if it's impossible to lose a finger unless you have a hand, then it is true now that you are not going to cut your hand off before next year. Or more simply: If it's true now that you are going to have a hand next year, then you are not going to cut off your hand before next year. Obviously, this poses a familiar question about free will: If it's true now that you are not going to cut your hand off before next year, isn't it also true that you do not now have a choice whether to cut off your hand? I think it's probably fair to say that most philosophers would answer "No" to this question: You do have a choice. But that's a somewhat different problem.

Whether your empirical speculation is correct, it is of course not for philosophers to say. So let's focus on the question. Let's suppose it turns out that women are intrinsically more intelligent than men. Should women then be accorded special treatment as regards education? To suppose it would be just to accord women special treatment in this situation, one must suppose that it would be just to treat me a certain way simply on the ground that I was a member of a group that, as a whole, had certain characteristics I may or may not myself share. For note that it is consistent with the supposition that women, as a group, are intrinsically more intelligent that men, as a group, that I am the most brilliant person in the world. Why I should suffer some educational disadvantage in this case is very unclear. In short: Unless the differences between the groups are so large as to be essentially exclusive, then differential treatment is unjust, because it results in differential treatment of ...