According to Kant intuitions without concepts are blind. I'm not sure I understand this but suppose the color red is an intuition and the awareness of the color as red or a more rudimentary awareness of the color red is the the concept. Couldn't it be argued that Kant is wrong because without a rudimentary awareness of the color red there would no red at all? Or was that Kants point? It seems to me that the "concept" of red is a precondition of red as much as the intuition and that Kant seems to suppose that they are at least theoretically seperable.

I am confused about Aristotle's virtue ethics as it applies to Aesop's fable of the boy who cried wolf. Since he was telling the truth the second time, is it actually the townspeople who are behaving immorally by ignoring him? Just because the townspeople could not instantly verify the veracity of his testimony (which can be independently verified), is that really a sufficient reason to let the sheep die? By Aristotle's reasoning, is the boy (an occasional liar) just as immoral as the townspeople (by negligence)?

In his "Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason", Kant argues that it is possible for people to become moral by following the example of Jesus Christ. How then would he comment on Abraham's actions during the Binding of Isaac? Isn't Abraham treating Isaac as a means to an end, even if that commandment is from God during a time when Jesus was not yet born? In other words, is Jesus just one example of moral guidance out of many and there is no one true religion; that is, anyone else can serve the same role?

I've read many here who say that everyone alive who thinks critically is a philosopher, not just those who have published academic articles and books. Isn't this a dangerous and incorrect notion since it gives credence to the fact that Mao Zedong is just as much a philosopher as Kant? Many PhD holders in science wouldn't consider themselves a scientist if they don't work in science. How frustrated are professional philosophers in that the masses throughout history have accepted so much "bad philosophy" and cannot recognize exactly what philosophy IS and what its aims (if any) are?

The Symposium seems to be more of an artistic intellectual exercise than a philosophical treatise and philosophers generally see it that way but The Republic is taken literally as a philosophical work. Why is that?

Is it appropriate for philosophers who specialize in specific branches of philosophy to comment on philosophical branches outside their field of training? By analogy, a professional chemist would almost never publish books or articles in computer science. Why then should we even consider the political theories of Noam Chomsky (a linguist and philosopher of language) instead of those of Machiavelli or Leo Strauss? Or the moral writings of Bertrand Russell (a logician and philosopher of science)?

Which top philosophers, Pre-1850, have gone along with David Hume's "Theory of Causation"? Would Descartes be a good example to start with while I'm reading up on the matter?

When Plato wrote The Republic did he ever spell out that he was expressing his own ideas rather than Socrates? Did people ever attribute the ideas in The Republic to Socrates? Did Plato in any way encourage that misunderstanding by not spelling out that The Republic expresses his own ideas? Why do we think that these weren't Socrates ideas if Plato presented them as such?

I am really fascinated with Hume's discovery that an "ought" cannot be derived from an "is." However, I've also read that the argument of Hume is a failure. My question then is, what can be the most reasonable response to this accusation of Hume? Is he right or wrong on the matter?

How would Plato, Socrates, or Aristotle feel about guns and gun control?