ask a question

recent responses

all topics

info

⚲

Philosophy

Why is Buddhist philosophy consistently ignored by contemporary Western philosophers, especially when there is so much truth and logic to the epistemological and metaphysical systems of the traditions, such as the Madhyamaka school?

Thank you for your message. I don't fully agree that Buddhist philosophy is consistently ignored by contemporary Western philosophers. While Buddhist philosophy is not a topic in the main stream of philosophical discussion in Western, English speaking countries, it does garner some attention. For instance, the philosopher Jonathan Stoltz at the University of St. Thomas has published articles such as the following: "Buddhist Epistemology: The Study of Pramana," Religion Compass 3 (2009), 537-548 "Concepts, Intention, and Identity in Tibetan Philosophy of Language," Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 29 (2008), 383-400 "Gettier and Factivity in Indo-Tibetan Epistemology," The Philosophical Quarterly 57 (2007), 394-415 "Sakya Pandita and the Status of Concepts," Philosophy East & West 56 (2006), 567-582 So too, Mark Siderits (now teaching in Hong Kong, I believe) has written excellent book, _Buddhism as Philosophy_, that covers many themes...
Philosophers

Anachronism aside, can Socrates be considered an analytic philosopher?

Thank you for your question. If analytic philosophy is understood as a way of engaging with philosophical questions that emphasizes clarity, rigor, and the giving of reasons for what one asserts, then Socrates has a good claim to count as an analytic philosopher. On the other hand, if analytic philosophy is construed as a logic-chopping activity obsessed with definitions and minute distinctions, then Socrates would probably not count as an analytic philosopher. I would like to think that analytic philosophy is better described by the first rather than the second account, though I admit that to outsiders, the second account may seem apt. More important, we see Socrates in many dialogues challenging his interlocutors to clarify themselves, to give arguments for their views (and he gives plenty of his own), and to face up to the consequences of their positions. That is a great deal of what modern analytic philosophers aspire to. If there is a difference between Socrates' approach and what is dominant...

Thank you for your question. If analytic philosophy is understood as a way of engaging with philosophical questions that emphasizes clarity, rigor, and the giving of reasons for what one asserts, then Socrates has a good claim to count as an analytic philosopher. On the other hand, if analytic philosophy is construed as a logic-chopping activity obsessed with definitions and minute distinctions, then Socrates would probably not count as an analytic philosopher. I would like to think that analytic philosophy is better described by the first rather than the second account, though I admit that to outsiders, the second account may seem apt. More important, we see Socrates in many dialogues challenging his interlocutors to clarify themselves, to give arguments for their views (and he gives plenty of his own), and to face up to the consequences of their positions. That is a great deal of what modern analytic philosophers aspire to. If there is a difference between Socrates' approach and what is dominant...
Art
Beauty

Hello Philosophers. My question regards to the philosophy of art. Were there any other philosophers that outlined essential criteria relating to beauty or other ways of critiquing an artwork like Kant had the 4 criteria for beauty. Thanks Callum, 16.

Hello, Callum; thanks for your question. Before Kant, there was a tradition in Enlightenment thinking about the nature of beauty and how we are able to perceive it. This tradition often referred to what was called the "faculty of taste" to distinguish this form of perception from other so-called faculties. The history runs roughly from Lord Shaftesbury, through Hutcheson, Burke, Hume, and then through Kant to Schopenhauer. A useful overview of this trajectory is in a book by George Dickie called _Evaluating Art_. Yours, Mitch Green
Language
Logic

A statement P about a single element in a dual or multiple set does not seem to logically exclude P applying equally to other elements in the set; yet we often talk as though "P is true of X" implies "P is not true of Y (or Z)", when X, Y, and Z all belong to some grouping. For example, take "Men work to support their families". Does this logically imply that women do not work to support their families? What about "African Americans suffer from discrimination"? Does this logically imply that Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and white Americans (among other racial groupings) do not suffer from discrimination? Such objections are often raised in discourse. Given (x, y), "P is true of X" is thought to imply "P is not true of Y", or "Not-P is true of Y". If there is no logical exclusion above, what are these objections targeting? Is it a question of salience, rather than logic?

Thank you for your good question! Answering questions of this general type has been a big concern of the field of philosophy of language for the last few decades. One way of starting to understand where this tradition is coming from, is to distinguish between the literal meaning of a sentence, and the meaning that a speaker using that sentence is normally thought to convey. So suppose that you often has unkempt hair. One day you show up with nicely combed hair and I remark, "Your hair is combed!" Now it will be natural to take me to be *suggesting* that your hair is normally not tidy. But this is no part of the literal meaning of the sentence. If it were, then I'd contradict myself by saying, "Your hair is combed, though of course it is normally tidy." This might be an odd things to say, but it isn't a self-contradiction like, "Bob is a bachelor, but he is married." So we can distinguish between what a sentence usually means and what a person uttering that sentence might be conveying,...
Language

I understand that generalizing from one example can be fraught with problems; at the same time, here is an experience that might bring some clarity to the question, "when we think, do we have to think in words, or can we think without using words?" Years ago, our family went to a state park. we were walking along a paved path near the edge of the cliff, and the place at which we were walking had a fence along the edge of the path because the cliff edge was quite close there. My wife, myself, my 2-1/2 year old daughter, and 16-month old son were strolling together, and my son toddled along ahead of us until he was about 18 to 20 feet away. He was past the end of the fence, because the fence stopped once the cliff edge was eight feet away from the path. My son stopped, looked at the end of the path, then looked back at me, made eye contact, and grinned. Right after that I had a blur of sensory impressions; after which I saw my right hand clutching the front of his overalls. I was on my stomach around...

Thank you for your question and the very dramatic example! Your question is, "When we think, do we have to think in words, or can we think without using words?" I take your example to be one in which you seem to have been thinking but not in words. You then break down your first question into two, one of which is about the significance of self-reported events; the other is about whether response mechanisms should count as thought. About the significance of self-reported events. I'd say that in philosophy and even more in psychology, self-reported events don't carry a great deal of weight. However, your example is one that any student of human behavior knows happens quite often. Furthermore, if someone were to doubt that claim, we would have a good sense of how experimentally to settle it. About the second question: I would say that a majority of scholars concerned with cognition and action would agree that you did not verbalize much of anything to yourself in the process of...
Children
Education
Philosophy

Why is philosophy not taught in high school? I have heard some arguments against it, but they all seem pretty poor such as: "parents would not like their children questioning their views". It seems like philosophy has a lot to give in a high school setting, at the very least classes like Critical Thinking would give students tools for assessing arguments. I could understand if most people went on to college, but many don't and it seems like some of the skills which philosophy bestows could greatly benefit our society. I really don't see why professional philosophy has not ventured down this route. I would be very thankful for any insight on this topic. Thanks, William P.

I'd like to add that there is a small but growing movement in support of secondary-level philosophical education in the U.S. I myself have started the High-Phi Project (www.high-phi.org) and we work in conjunction with such organizations as PLATO (http://plato-apa.org/), and the Squire Family Foundation (http://squirefoundation.org/). Many of us involved in these organizations share your view that secondary education in the U.S. would be enhanced with more philosophy. However, Professor Greenberg is right to point out that as of now, many schools lack an incentive to add this subject to their curricula because there is little incentive to do so. In addition, many teachers lack formal training in philosophy. We are also trying to rectify that with such things as an upcoming NEH-funded Summer Institute for high school teachers: http://high-phi.org/neh-seminar/. Mitch Green
Philosophy

What is the role of games in philosophy? I mean both games in general, and specific games, like Chess or Go.

Games have a variety of roles in philosophy that I won't be able to discuss adequately in a brief answer. However, I'll try to give you some useful examples. Lewis Carroll, who was a logician as well as being the inventor of _Alice in Wonderland_, used chess pieces as characters in his fiction. Just as famously, Wittgenstein drew an analogy between language use and the playing of a game. This analogy was aimed in part at resisting the ancient tradition of thinking of language as primarily a vehicle for describing the world. Instead, Wittgenstein was in effect urging, language is primarily a social activity, and describing the world is just one of many of the games in which that social activity partakes. (I wish I knew of a case in which the game Go made a serious appearance in philosophy, but alas I do not.) Also, the *theory* of games, that is, the field of mathematics known as game theory, has been influential in fields such as ethics, the philosophy of language and more recently the...
Knowledge

Some people attack faith on the basis that it is "wishful thinking". But what is actually wrong with wishful thinking?

Thank you for your nice question. We normally think of our beliefs as things that ought to be responsive to evidence, and only to evidence. So for instance, most of us would agree that it is not a proper reason for thinking that smoking is not harmful to my health, that it makes me feel better to think so. Rather, most people would probably criticize me for thinking something on the basis of what I want to be true rather than in light of how the world is. Again, we would probably criticize an adult (though perhaps not a child) for believing in the Tooth Fairy, if his or her reason for so believing was that doing so makes her feel better. After all, wishing something to be so doesn't usually make it so. (Possible exceptions to this rule have to do with our own behavior: wishing to go outside to enjoy the weather might induce me to go outside to enjoy the weather, but this sort of case seems far removed from the topic of your question.) So wishful thinking seems to be what some philosophers...
Beauty
Language

There is this idea that languages can be judged and valued - take the very stereotypical image of the proud French person praising their own language's beauty and warmth while explaining that English is an impure, soulless and emotionless tongue with "stolen" vocabulary. Is the idea that languages can be judged and praised/scorned (sort of like works of art) rooted in a theory of linguistic aesthetics? Has such a theory ever been articulated? More to the point, are there any general justifications for such views, or are words really just words?

You ask, first of all, whether the idea that languages can be judged and praised/scorned is rooted in a theory of linguistic aesthetics. Well, that might be one basis on which to evaluate a language; there may be others, such as those I'll mention below. Also, I don't know of any substantial theory of linguistic aesthetics. However, one can imagine some of what such a theory might say. For instance, just as we can find a line of a poem beautiful because of its sonic properties, we might want to say such a thing of a sentence of a certain language. If a language L is one in which such sentences are commonly found, while another language L' has sentences line that rarely, but a lot of other sentences are are percussive, gutteral, or in some other way less beautiful, that would be a reason for judging L to be superior to L' on aesthetic grounds. That would not for a moment prejudge the relative merits of the two languages on other dimensions, such as clarity. For hints of a line of thought along...
Rationality
Suicide

Hello, My question is the following: If a mentally and physically healthy person considers his/her life as meaningless and worthless, would that constitute a rational reason for him/her to commit a suicide.

Thank you for your question, which in spite of its brevity brings up a lot of hard issues. I won't try to answer it directly, but just add a few considerations: 1. Considering one's life to be meaningless doesn't show that it is. It may contain sources of meaning that one has not yet appreciated or even conceived of. Also, a person's like may have little meaning to *her*, but a lot of meaning to others, such as parents, friends, etc. In that case, it may have more meaning than one thinks. 2. Meaning can take a lot of different forms. People often wonder about "the" meaning of life, and this suggests that for a life to be meaningful, there has to be one big thing that is its meaning. But this is questionable. After all, in principle there could be a lot of different things that give life meaning, and they might not be intertranslatable into each other of commensurable. A walk in a forest on a crisp fall day, holding a lover's hand, appreciating a novel, having a child, all...

Pages