What does the term 'circular' mean in the context that it is used here on this web site?

Hi, Isn't rationality highly overestimated in our western culture? The more I think about it, the more I'm getting convinced that the real 'processing' power resides at a less conscious level, in our neural network which can 'reason' with incomplete and inconsistent data in 'real time'. This power is sometimes called intuition or common sense. I believe that intuitive knowledge is the foundation for cognitive knowledge. It delivers the axioms for our rationality. And these axioms are much more than just: "Cogito ergo sum" ... Are there any philosophers who adhere this idea? Thank you very much, Eric

Does the phrase "Who are you...," when used as an argument against someone's suggestion, hold any logical merit? Must one necessarily hold a position of authority (i.e., paid teacher, paid philosopher, etc.) to afford logical advice on any given subject? If not, how can this phrase be rebutted to a certain satisfaction of the one who spoke it (assuming the speaker of the phrase is a logical listener)? -Kemp

Hi, I was thinking about the "This statement is false" paradoxon and so I came to: What about the "This statement is paradox" ? It means that I, the statement, can't be true or false. I find that odd. ..Jumping (1) Layer of statements: "I drink coffee" (2) Layer of statements about statements: " is true/false" (3) Layer of statements about statements about statements: " is paradox/not paradox" or is it: " is true/false-determinable/finite or not" Statements of (1) can state every possibility of language. Statements of (2) state if statements of (1) correspond with reality/each other. Statements of (3) state if statements of (2) are self-referential? finite? Where are my mistakes :p? Or which books do you advise me to read? Err..Which question should i ask? Does (3) "exist"? Is the idea of layers a bad idea? Simon

Quine's Paradox (“yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation” yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation) doesn't seem to me to be a paradox. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me like it's asserting nothing but the fact that it's false. For something to be true OR false, there must be some other claim made. When I look at the statement, it seems to me that it's not talking about anything but itself -- like an indirect self-reference. It seems to me to have no content but its own claim that it yields to falsehood, and would therefore neither be true nor false. Have I made a mistake in my reasoning/logic?

Why is the Law of Contradiction so important to Philosophers? Can its truth be proven? What are the consequences for philosophy of an answer to the question, what's at stake? Thanks so much for your help. Krystle

What is the principle underpinning logic's rules aimed at avoiding contradiction? We know that contradiction is "bad", e.g. if a line of argument can be reduced to the statement A & ~A, (or if such an assertion can be extracted from an argument) the argument may be invalid. Where does this principle that contradiction leads to invalidity come from? Is it a "just because" axiom? Is it from overwhelming empirical observation? (I've certainly never seen something that both is and isn't at the same time.) More broadly (if this isn't too much) what is the relationship between basic concepts in epistemology (non-contradiction and cause/effect) and axioms of logic? What metaphysical connections or bindings exist between axioms of logic, epistemology, and objective reality? Thanks

In a critical thinking textbook I’m trying to study from, there is an exercise which gives groups of three different independent reasons from which I must select the one which supports a stated conclusion. For example: Conclusion: Blood donors should be paid for giving blood. (a) The blood donor service is expensive to administer. (b) People who give blood usually do so because they want to help others. (c) There is a shortage of blood donors, and payment would encourage more people to become donors. (Anne Thomson, Critical Reasoning - a practical introduction .) For each question I must pick the answer which could be a reason for a conclusion, say why it is the right answer, and why the other options are wrong. I’ve had absolutely no problems selecting the correct answer, but I can’t seem to say why. It would seem that I could easily say THAT a particular reason gives or doesn’t give support to a conclusion, but I can’t seem to put into words HOW or WHY. So my question is, why and how do...

Suppose some condition A is identical to some condition B; to be concise, let's write A=B. It seems obvious, then, that A is necessary and sufficient for B; or more compactly, A B. On the other hand, that implication's converse (i.e. that A B implies A=B) seems like it isn't right, because we can easily come up with counter-examples. Take my mother, for example; she is always saying, "eating spinach everyday is a necessary and sufficient condition for becoming strong." In other words, she claims that you will become strong if, and only if, you eat spinach everyday. Surely it does not follow that becoming strong is identical to eating spinach...right? Now I am tempted to consider the question in the context of sets. Suppose you want to prove that two sets S and T are equal. Then it is sufficient to prove that membership in one follows from membership in the other, and vice versa. I.e. x is an element of S x is an element of T. So it appears that the "=" relation follows from " " relation. ...

Are slippery slope arguments ever non-fallacious? Or, put another way, should we ever find slippery slope arguments persuasive?