I've just returned from holiday. On the flight back I noticed that the seating rows were numbered from 1 to 33 and on further inspection that there was no row 13 marked (presumably through superstition). So there were actually 32 rows. My questions are: Does row 13 exist even if it is not numbered? Is there really a row 33, or is it merely row 32 given an incorrect name?

Why is there no universal definition of philosophy?

Do these two sentences mean the same thing?- a) If I feel better tomorrow, I'll go out. b) Unless I feel better tomorrow, I won't go out.

I'm 16 and have been studying philosophy for awhile. My question is when does a statement reach the point of 'absurdity'. For example, of the two statements, 1) My dog ran around the yard. And 2) My dog ran around the block with a big purple hat and green trousers. Number 2 seems the most likely not to have happened or seems 'ridiculous' by those who hear it. At what point does a statement cross the line of making logicalls sense to pure ridiculousness?

Why should the value we place on freedom of speech extend to cover insult and ridicule, given that these sorts of speech aren't obviously constructive?

Why is the sorites problem a "paradox"? Isn't it fundamentally a problem of definition?

It seems to me that a lot of basic philosophy is about definitions of abstract words. So, Plato might have asked what courage or love are, Enlightenment philosophers might have been interested in what freedom is, more modern philosophers might inquire what science is. I guess I'd like to ask a two-part question. The first is what the difference is between the sort of definition a philosopher might give and the sort of definition a lexicographer might give. What are philosophers doing that lexicographers aren't? The second is, if it's fair to say that philosophers are interested in defining abstract words, well, is the task inevitably culturally and temporally specific? I mean, does the Latin word "pulchritudo" really mean the same thing as the English word "beauty"? Does the Greek "aletheia" really mean the same thing as "truth"? And couldn't the meaning of a word like "freedom" change over time?

Hi there, I have a very basic question about Frege's object/concept distinction. Please don't make fun of me as I'm new to early analytic philosophy. This question has been bugging me for a while, so I'd appreciate a thorough answer. In sentences like "the cat is grey" or "the cat is in the park," do the words 'the cat' designate an object? If you were to formalize these sentences, I would think it would go as something like: there is some x such that x is a cat and x is grey/in a park. There wouldn't be a uniqueness clause, I would think. If the words that designate an object have to pick out something unique, does that mean the words 'the cat' cannot designate an object (since they are not specified enough)? If they don't designate an object, then what is their logical status? Thanks.

I want to define something which I'll call object X. I have to come up with a sentence, but how can I tell that the sentence will be right? I can't compare my attempt with the definition of X of course, because there is no definition of X - the definition of X is the very thing I'm trying to find out. It seems I have to know what X is in order to find out what X is - paradox?

Is there really a strong distinction between understanding what a proposition means and believing or disbelieving it? It strikes me that if I believe a proposition while my opponent does not, one way to explain the disagreement is to say that he misunderstands either that proposition or some related proposition. And so if we really did both understand all of the propositions in question, we'd have to agree about them as well.