Help me to understand this quote from Voltaire: "The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great." I already tried to understand it, but I can't find a consensual thought of it. With the best regards from Portugal, Olímpio P.

Hi. This is a question on the nature of Reality, or rather Actuality. I say Actuality, because I like the distinction that Kant makes between Appearances he calls Phenomena, and things in themselves he calls Noumena. Anyway he ends up saying we can never know the thing in itself, i.e. actuality, but only our experience of reality, i.e. appearances. What I would like to clear up is if there is a way to experience the thing in itself, or whether we have to accept on good faith that actuality exists independently of us, and that it stops with I think therefore I am. In short is there an answer to the sceptics? My question has been fueled by the book, _A Beginner's Guide to Reality_, by Jim Baggott, which ends in "it depends on what you believe", which doesn't really do it for me. Cheers, Pasquale

Hume showed that belief in induction has no rational basis, yet everyone believes it and in fact one can't help believing it. How then can one criticize religious belief, the person who says "I know my belief in God has no rational basis, but I believe it anyway"?

After discussing Socrates and his views on the state in Crito, a question came to mind. How would Socrates behave in 1930's Nazi Germany when the time came to join the military? Would his sense of right and wrong win out over his loyalty to the state? Or would he feel too great a responsibility to the state, as he clearly seems to in Crito, to put his personal choices and morality over it? Thanks, Jan-Erik

I have a question about Descartes' response in Med. VI to the dreaming argument. It seems to me that his knowledge that he is not dreaming any set of beliefs is based upon the knowledge that his current experiences are consistent with reality, which relies upon the knowledge that he is not dreaming his set of beliefs about reality. Would it be accurate to accuse the response of circularity?

I am a Chinese undergraduate girl living in China and planning to have further study abroad. For preparation, these days I try to know ABC about Western philosophy, but I find it hard to start. Considering my major is in the field of engineering, I am not sure whether or not Western philosophy will play an important role in my future life in the US or Europe. Could you tell me how much Plato's or Socrates' thoughts have influenced Western people's way of thinking, and how the philosophers' thoughts have exerted an significant influence on various aspects of Western people's life? Could you please enlighten me what should I prepare pertaining to philosophy before going abroad? Thank you ever so much. =)

Would Immanuel Kant oppose alternative rock? If we were to universalize the maxim "It is permissible to listen to alternative rock" then "alternative" rock would become mainstream, since everyone would listen to it. This of course creates a contradiction, implying we have a perfect duty not to listen to alternative rock. (I'm not trying to be silly. I think I've wildly misinterpreted Kant, and I was wondering if you could clear it up.) You might say that just because alt. rock was permitted, that doesn't mean everyone would listen to it. But if stealing was permitted, it doesn't logically follow that everyone would steal. (Same goes for lying.)

Over a year ago, I read Quine's Two Dogmas for a philosophy class. One part in it makes the step from talking about meanings to abolishing meanings and talking only about synonymy. I never quite got that. I mean, if there are two things similar (or the same) about something, don't they each have to have those things? If two pieces of string have the same length, they have each have a length, and they happen to be the same. Likewise for any other properties I could think of, such as color, volume, mass, etc. I don't see how sameness could not imply those "intermediary entities" which are the same. Thanks.

Does Rawls consider inborn abilities an important determinant of social status? I haven't read his entire text in A Theory of Justice, but when he mentions the veil of ignorance, is he considering social status more or less a matter of fate?

I'm a 17 year old guy studying philosophy A-levels in my school in Britain. Last year, during the first year of the course, we looked at the Republic, and several of Plato's ideas. One of these was the Theory of Forms. The theory seems to make sense to me, but he starts talking about the Form of the Good. As far as I can tell, although the Forms are argued for rationally, and make perfect sense, the whole idea of the Form of the Good is just mythos; only used because society talks about 'the Good'. But it would make sense to me to say the ultimate Form is the Form of the Form. Am I right here?