The choice of an example in support of a philosophical position, or the choice of a counterexample to criticize a philosophical position, depends on the topic under investigation. If we were wondering whether two individuals could be physically identical but mentally different, for example, we might need to resort to the exotic twin earth examples found in the literature in the philosophy of mind. It is a good policy to avoid gratuitous exoticism, however, and instead use examples that involve familiar circumstances and contexts when possible. The reason for this is that in philosophical discussions the aim is to find as much common ground as possible. If examples used to ground a position are themselves controversial, then it will be more difficult to advance an argument based on them than if more familiar, accepted examples are invoked.

Neon red is simply red light emittedfrom an enclosed clear transparent vacuum tube containing the element neon, towhich an electrical current is applied. Neon actually emits a red-orange color.Other colors can be obtained by introducing other gases in the enclosure andalso by changing the color of the tube. What you may be asking about is thedistinctive glow emitted from a neon tube. The red of a neon tubeappears different from the red of a painted surface, for example. Differentmaterials emit or reflect red light in different ways, and our visual system issensitive to many of those differences.

You’ve stumbled on one of the most important andenduring topics in philosophy, as well as onto the central question: What isthe nature of the necessity in causal relationships? Philosophers agree that untilthe work of David Hume, many philosophers took held that the necessity of aneffect, given its cause, is logical necessity. If the cause is present, then itis logically impossible that its effect must follow. If I let my keys drop froma height of one foot, then the keys must fall. But you rightly note, as Hume did, that the necessity claim means thatit’s logically impossible for the keys not to drop, and you well ask: How do we determine logical impossibility? Hume argued that the testfor logical impossibility is inconceivability: Can we conceive or imagine thekeys not dropping? Sure – we can imagine that the keys remain suspended, or that they “fly” left, right, or up. So it is possible that the effect will not follow, and whatever necessity there is whena cause brings about its effect, it...

Computers have found their way into philosophy over the lasttwenty years or so, though philosophers disagree about the significance of thisfact for philosophy itself. Many philosophers see technology merely as an aidto productivity. There probably aren’t many professional philosophers who stilluse typewriters; most use computers for writing, and e-mail and the web for scholarlycommunication. The use of “Web 2.0” tools, such as blogs, wikis, and the likehave been adopted by still a minority of philosophers, and there remains a fairdegree of skepticism about the usefulness of such tools for research purposes.The availability of online access to many journals is a great help, thoughaccess and availability varies widely by institution, and by journal. There areonly a handful of “online only” journals. No established hard-copy journal thatI know of has gone exclusively online, though most have made back issuesavailable electronically, often through jstor.org or other aggregators. Use ofthe web by...

The fact thatyou're talking about Descartes and the cogito witha friend is an excellent start. It is certainly a main part of theproject of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy to prove that one can have knowledge of a world which extends beyondone's awareness of oneself as a thinking thing. I would recommend acareful reading of that work, with particular attention to the thirdMeditation, where Descartes explicitly considers and rejects thesuggestion you've hinted at, namely that the existence of a worldoutside oneself follows from the fact that the world seems to imposeitself on us, often against our will. Descartes rejects this argumentbecause it is possible that such ideas could still be invented by us,and only appear to issue from outside us. This point is made inpreparation for the proof of God's existence in Meditation 3, whereDescartes argues that when one reflects on the content of one's mind,only our possession of the idea of God requires that there...

You raise a number of controversial questions about therelationship of language and thought and the possession of thought bynon-adult humans and non-humans. You suggest that babies and animalscan think. Do you think babies at any age can think, or just babieswho have reached a certain level of cognitive maturity? Do you thinkall animals can think, or just some? Do oysters think? It appearsthat you attribute thinking to any organism that can sense. But mostphilosophers think that there is a distinction to be made betweensensation and thought. An organism may be able to feel pain, forexample, when it has certain unfortunate interactions with itsenvironment. But it doesn't follow that that such an organism isthinking about it'senvironment. The sensation isn't a thought or a representation of theenvironment, but just a feeling caused by the environmental stimulus. This is a difficultphilosophical distinction, one which has exercised many a greatphilosopher, and there's good...

I recommend taking a look at Fred Feldman's book Confrontations with the Reaper: A Philosophical Study of the Nature and Value of Death (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). It covers many of the issues mentioned by Mitch Green. But make sure you read the Preface, where Feldman explains the circumstances that motivated him to take up the issue.

When Kant was asked why he never married, he said that when he had the inclination, he lacked the means, and when he acquired the means, he no longer had the inclination.

If your question is whether “yourcomputer,” which I take to be an ordinary personal computer, has perceptions asyou do, then the answer is clearly “no.” Your computer has input devices suchas a keyboard, and possibly a scanner, a video camera, and a microphone. Such input devices transduceranalog physical processes into discrete digital symbols, and those symbols arestored in various locations in the computer and then can be manipulated inconcert with computer programs and further input. Your brain also takes inputfrom external physical stimuli such as light, sound waves, etc. It alsotransduces those signals into other forms, typically chemical and thenelectrical signals. Those electrical signals – action potentials, are then propagatedto other locations in the central nervous system. So both the brain and yourcomputer transducer signals and do things with them. One could call bothprocesses “perception”, though the actual mechanisms in your pc and your brain arefunctionally different, and it is a bit...

Let’s begin by asking where the copy of the software on the Internet came from. Presumably someone purchased a licensed copy. Typically, commercial software licenses limit further reproduction and distribution. So the original purchaser agreed to the conditions of the license, and consummated that agreement when installing the software. More directly: The purchaser promised not to further distribute it. So you’ve come across this software on the Internet, and you know that its availability is the consequence of someone’s broken promise. You did not make the promise, but you are knowingly benefiting from someone else’s moral failure. Compare the situation from buying a used car from someone who stole it, and you know the car is stolen. You may know as well that the original owner is fully covered by insurance, and will not suffer any financial loss. Is it morally o.k. to buy such a car? Does it matter that you wouldn’t have purchased the car from another source because you aren’t willing to pay the market...