The following two things are certainly possible: 1. We can pick up information through our eyes or other sense organs without really thinking about it, and without even noticing what it is before us. As I pass through a crowded market, for example, there are many sights and sounds that affect my senses without my being conscious of them. 2. We can observe an object or a situation without using any words (even to ourselves) to describe what we see. I can study the surface of a rock, for example, without applying any labels to what I see. What is more controversial is the possibility of consciously attending to something without categorizing it in any way. Some philosophers (myself included) think that being conscious of an object and/or its properties requires us to categorize our sensations in a way that enables us to compare them with other objects and/or properties. In order to notice a strange object in the market, I must recognize it as having a particular shape, or a particular color...

Here is a simple response, which I think is true: Language shapes our understanding and our perception of reality (different words will cause us to focus on different aspects of the world around us) and reality shapes our language (different environments will cause us to adopt different words). Speakers of different languages all belong to the same world, however, for there is only one world. Here is a more complicated response that may do a better job of addressing your concern: When people use different words to refer to the very same objects -- a bug, a chair, a curtain -- the differences in their view of the world can seem trivial. But when different languages focus on entirely different things (even the words for objects such as bugs and chairs can have importantly different associations in different languages), they are bound to reflect important differences in the worldviews of the relevant speakers. In some cases, the different views may be quite compatible because they simply attend...

Your question is about the relation between aesthetic value and moral value. Must something with great aesthetic value also have moral value (or, at least, not be morally harmful)? Some traditions of thought (within art criticism as well as within philosophy) insist on a sharp separation between aesthetic value and moral value -- allowing the rap music you mention to be aesthetically great but morally despicable. Other traditions consider aesthetic value and moral value to be inextricably linked -- treating the moral failures of a piece as aesthetic failures as well. Within either tradition, you may be right to praise the rhythms and sounds and creative imagery of a piece while denouncing the values it espouses, but according to the first tradition its moral failures has no bearing on its aesthetic worth, while according to the second its moral failures will always detract from its aesthetic worth. Likewise, within either tradition, you may say that a work that has moral value is a better work...

It might help to think of such faith as akin to trust. We can trust a hunch about who will win a game without knowing that we are right; and we can trust a stranger to help us without knowing that they will do so. Some philosophers think that such trust can be reasonable because our unreflective inclinations are usually based on some information, whether or not we recognize what it is. The hunch about the winner is based on something we have observed, perhaps unconsciously; and the expectation of a stranger's help is based on some innate recognition that most people are 'programmed' to be helpful to others. Other philosophers think that such trust can be reasonable because it tends to tip the balance in favor of the state in question -- the trusted player being more likely to win in virtue of our trust, and the trusted stranger more likely to help in virtue of our trust. Thus, while we may sometimes trust as a way of evading either the effort or the anticipated outcome of carefully...

Generally, feeling that something is true is a reason to believe that it is true (since our feelings are frequently based on true observations and ideas), but it is not a sufficient reason (since our feelings may arises from wishes rather than observations, and since there are many observations and ideas that are not reflected in our feelings). Insofar as you want to arrive at a warranted belief, rather than trying to analyze your feeling (which is extremely difficult to do honestly, and well), you should consider a wider range of feelings, and observations, and ideas in relation to each other. This is not something that can be done in a moment, and it cannot be done according to a rule; but it is the only way to be fully reasonable about your beliefs. It is certainly possible for feelings to reveal profound truths -- even if their truth cannot be established or confirmed by feeling alone. A feeling of horror, for example, may reveal the deep immorality of certain...

Procrastination sometimes occurs because our immediate, short-term desires prevail over our calculations concerning longer-term costs and benefits. This does not make us into what Frankfurt calls "wantons", since we are still capable of reflective reasoning and we are still capable of being guided by such reasons. It just means that we sometimes suffer from a 'weakness of will'. (Explaining weakness of the will would require a much longer discussion.) Procrastination is sometimes quite reasonable, though. First, because the farther we project into the future, the lower the probability of the anticipated costs and benefits. Doing a chore now, while I am alert and happy might be less onerous than doing it later, when I am tired and crabby; but the farther I project into the future, the more doubts I should have about whether I will be tired and crabby when I do the chore, whether the chore will still be annoying, and whether it will even need doing. The current pleasure of doing something...

There is a wealth of psychological theorizing that can help to clarify the many ways in which memory works, or fails to work. Philosophers can sometimes help to clarify the possibilities, though. On the assumption that a memory involves the retrieval of information about an event that has occurred in one's past, there are at least three different possibilities: 1. The information trace has been eliminated. This would be the case if the part of one's brain that stored the information has deteriorated to the point where it no longer contains the relevant information. 2. Your access to the information (or a certain type of access to the information) has been lost or lessened. The information is still stored, but the processes that enable that information to be recalled, or reactivated, have ceased to operate. 3. The information continues to play an active role in your thoughts and feelings, but you are no longer aware of its role.

The answer to your question will depend on what counts as a fact. Certainly it is possible for people to observe the same state of affairs while reacting to it differently. You observe the same wallpaper as I do, but you like it while I hate it. Or we both observe the same behavior on the part of a friend, but you find it wierd while I find it normal. On the other hand, if the likability of the wallpaper is itself a fact that you (alledgedly) observe, then you and I do disagree about the facts when I find it hateful. Likewise, if the wierdness of a friend's behavior counts as a fact. Rather than argue over what counts as a fact, it is probably best to recognize that different people will focus on different facts (without disputing the facts that others focus on), and that different people will value the same facts in different ways (without disputing others' descriptions of what they value). This does not mean that our focus of attention or our valuation is purely subjective, or that...

Compare the case of pain to the heat of spicy curries or steamy saunas: I recognize certain green curries to be just as hot/spicy as certain red curries, but I have a higher tolerance for the heat/spicyness of green curries; and I can tolerate steamy saunas better than in dry saunas even when I experience them as equally hot. I am not less sensitive to the heat of green curries or the heat of a steamy sauna, but I am not bothered by them as much as I am bothered by the heat of spicy curries or dry saunas. Why isn't pain like this -- tolerated differently in different forms, or by different people, even when the amount or degree of pain is recognized to be the same? You might think that pain just is intolerance, and that the degree of one's pain is equivalent to the degree of one's intolerance, so that finding a sauna less intolerable should be equated with finding it less painful. But since the two words, "pain" and "intolerance" are used in rather different ways, and since (as you...

I agree with Allen Stairs comments about the logic and the possibility of dreams within dreams. I wonder, though, whether your question is also about the possibility of different "levels" of reality. When we 'wake up' from one dream into the reality of another, are we shifting from one level of reality to another or are both dreams equally unreal? There is certainly a tradition (in philosophy and in religion) that embraces the idea of different levels of reality, and that often characterizes the move from one level to another as being like awaking from a dream. From any particular standpoint, however, there seems to be a single line that divides what is real from what is unreal. So from my current waking standpoint, the dream within a dream is just as unreal as the dream that contains it.