How could experience ever justify us in revising a putatively analytic statement like 'all bachelors are unmarried men'? I imagine Quine is entertaining the possibility that we may stumble across some married or female bachelors. But how could this ever happen? No one can ever be a counter-example to our statement because to do this they would need to be married or female and would then fail to be a bachelor, that is, a married man. Despite the attention it has received, I find it hard to see the plausibility of Quine's position.

What exactly does Kant mean when he says that we should never treat anyone as a means to an end? Surely there are many situations where I am trying to choose the lesser of two evils. Take a politician for example. He has a certain amount of money to spend on some people, so anything he does will be treating someone as a means to another end, as someone will always miss out at the benefit of someone else (though notice there is no element of selfishness here). I suppose my question is, does Kant mean we shouldn't cause suffering in another for our benefit, or we shouldn't cause suffering in another for ANY end such as for the benefit of another, or does he mean something else entirely? Thanks, Holly M. Fantastic site by the way, I'm addicted.

How can one determine authenticity and authoritativeness? For example, how would you gauge the authenticity of the panelists' responses? Does studying philosophy give the panelists anymore authority to issues like abortion, love, or education than the "average" non-philosopher? Is there not a little ego in that notion?

According to Socrates "An unexamined life is not worth living." How do you examine your life? (I have examined some of my strongly held opinions and tried to make arguments for the opposite opinion and have had a modicum of success but I feel that there must be something more to the process of examining my life.)

Would Aristotle argue that torturing babies is evil in itself, and is not a virtue to be learned?

I would like to find a scholarly article which sheds light on the question whether Socrates' statement "know yourself" has indeed been adopted from the work of Heraclitus.

I believe that Kant defended the "law of cause and effect" by stating this argument: (P) If we didn't understand or acknowledge the law of cause and effect, we couldn't have any knowledge. (Q) We have knowledge. Therefore: (P) we acknowledge the law of cause and effect. Isn't this line of reasoning a fallacy? P implies Q, Q, : P

Can you please give me the prominent scholars of Immanuel Kant especially with regard to his concept of person?

Dear Philosophers, I often hear philosophers say William Shakespeare, Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll, Einstein, etc. are not philosophers, but great thinkers. All of these people have done work, or presented ideas that have deep philosophical meaning that changed the way we view the world. Why are they not philosophers?

What kind of questions did philosophers ask in Ancient Greece?