I think there can be cases in which reflection can destroy knowledge, yes. Most epistemologists these days are fallibilists, which is to say that one can know something even if what warrants their belief does not guarantee certainty--could be (but is not) mistaken in some way. So one way someone could lose this sort of knowledge would be by reflecting on certain other intuitions most of us have about vulnerability to error. For example, can you really KNOW that something is true if there is even a one in a million chance that you are mistaken in believing that thing? I can easily imagine someone with low enough cognitive self-esteem--"Hey, maybe I'm wrong !!!" or "I'm so stupid, why should I believe that I am getting anything right, even though it really seems in this case I have it right!" and so on--that one could actually talk themselves out of knowing something because one would come up with some reason for thinking they were (or might be) wrong when in fact they had it right all along and...

As a parent myself, my first reaction to your question is to say that it sems to me confusion about what is best for one's children is more the norm than the exception. Hardly a day goes by in my own case in which I feel profound uncertainty about how I should handle the wonderful and terrible project of parenting! So take whatever I say now with a boulder of salt, because, as you see, I regard myself as deeply in the dark about such things, at least as much as you feel you are. It does seems to me, however, that there will prove to be increasing limits on the degree of control you will have over this issue, and so you should right now be thinking of something like an "exit strategy," by which I mean that you should be considering what you want your daughter to be able to think and do for herself (and without any interference from you) in regard to her relationships with boys in the coming few years. Then, think of ways you can help her to achieve the sort of prudent and deliberative...

One becomes a philosopher in some sense simply by engaging in philosophical reflection. If you are visiting this website, you would already seem to be on your way to becoming a philosopher, if you are not already one. I will take your question more narrowly, therefore, to be about joining the ranks of professional philosophers. By "professional philosopher," I mean one who iss either engaged in teaching philosophy at some level (only rarely below the college or university level, I'm afraid), or advancing the field in published philosophical research, or both of these. For this level of engagement in the profession, what is needed is education and luck. The education necessary will nearly always include completion of some graduate degree in the subject of Philosophy (MA for teaching at the junior collegel level or below; Ph.D. for teaching at more advanced levels). The luck required is finding a job where someone will pay you to teach philosophy (and many highly qualified people who...

Yes, at least theoretically. An example of how this might be is given in the first of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes asks us to consider a world that is governed by a kind of evil god who delights in nothing more than making us believe what is false. In such a world, we would be able to find no evidence at all to debunk the falsehoods to which the god inclined us. Descartes challenges us to see if we can be absolutely sure that we do not actually inhabit such a world! Modern popular culture has taken up this scenario in various entertaining ways. I think it is fair to say that the worlds imagined in "Total Recall," and "The Matrix" are excellent examples of scenarios that raise the theoretical possibility of false belief that is (at least for those who don't escape the Matrix!) invulnerable to refutation.

Most philosophers (including several you have no doubt heard of, such as Plato and Aristotle) who have thought that happiness was the appropriate goal of a good life have not understood the goal they had in mind as a purely subjective state, so I would encourage you and your friend to consider the possibility that it is not simply feeling happy that matters, but actually being a certain way. Consider the case of a drug addict who is provided a lifetime supply of his or her drug of choice. If you wish, imagine miraculously finding a way to ensure that the addict's life and physical health would in no way be threatened--his or her expected life span would not be shortened, nor would the lifelong addiction threaten the addict's physical health in any way. In short, the addict could go through life high as a kite with all other necessities provided with indemnity against any of the usual deliterious affects of drug-addiction. The case I am asking you to imagine is probably impossible...

Given how dense and how brief these passages are, it will not surprise you to find out that scholars debate virtually every aspect of them, so bear in mind that whatever I say is probably contradicted somewhere by someone else! But I think the answer to your question is that Plato is talking about both visible things, and also such things as the Form of the Good, as the part of the parable of the cave that takes place within the cave is supposed to represent the world of the sensibles. Plato intends to compare the two worlds, via the parable, to show not only how much more intelligible and reliable the things "outside the cave" of sensibles are, but also (somehow--scholars really debate this point) why and how it is that spending time outside the cave makes the ex-prisoner a better judge of things when he or she goes back inside the cave (though it takes some time for the returners to adjust again to the gloom). These "returners" will eventually be the philosopher-rulers of the state...

I think the only honest answer to your question one can give is this: Despite all efforts by scholars to determine the outlines and limits of "Plato's Theory of Forms," these continue to elude us, precisely because Plato never articulates them in a way that settles the matter. In some cases, this is because Plato only manages to allude to "the Forms" without filling in enough of the necessary theoretical details. But in other cases, he seems to supply different theoretical details in different works--in other words, what Plato tells us about the Forms does not always seem to be consistent. He does explicitly mention the things you call "abstract ideas" (though I think he would not be entirely comfortable with this description), such as beauty and justice. In Book X of the Republic , he also mentions a Form of Bed (or Couch), and other Forms for particular things in the world are also mentioned in various Platonic works. I am aware of no places where Plato explicitly mentions a Form for a...

Nothing is easy in this subject! I think most people find the promises inherent to monogamy to be moral ones--though some philosophers have questioned whether promising to another exclusive access to one's own body is one that actually can be morally made. The tricky part lies in finding (and then explaining the morality of) the correct position between extremes that do not look correct to most people. At one extreme, most of us do not think that even an uncoerced agreement to become another's personal possession (as a slave, for example) is acceptable. At the other extreme, we do think that refusing to agree to take part in a sexually exclusive relationship with another--monogamy, in other words--on the grounds that no one has a right to expect such exclusivity from us, is also inappropriate. So the general question goes something like this: How much limitation of personal autonomy are we morally prepared to sanction by the agent's own willing forfeit of that autonomy to another's exclusive...

Let's go slow here. First, philosophers generally distinguish between the validity of an argument and the soundness of an argument. A valid argument is one whose inferences are of a truth preserving form. In other words, in a valid argument, if the premises are true, the conclusion will also be true, in every case, and without counter-example. A sound argument is one that is valid and also has all premises true. If one has a sound argument for one's position, it should be game over. But... Unless arguments are already in the formal language of logic, establishing even validity can be difficult, because there are different ways of translating natural languages into formal logic. Participants in any verbal or oral debate might not share the same agreement about how such a translation should be done. And this is not even the main problem here...once you get into debates about interpretation regarding the truth of premises, especially on very abstract subjects, where all of the...

I don't quite catch the description given in "indescribable." What positive information is provided? Of course, one might also now wonder precisely what it is we are talking about--because if it is truly indescribable, it sounds like there's not much to say. If so, 'nuff said!