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Suppose you have been wrongly accused of murder. You know you are innocent but you also know that the states attorney believes you are guilty. The attorney offers you 25 years if you plead guilty but If you go to trial you will be executed if you are found guilty. You are unsure of your chances of winning the case so to prevent the possibility of death you accept the plea. Does the fact that you chose the plea bargain mean that you acknowledge that it is better to have a plea bargain than not have a plea bargain? If it is better for you to have it than not have it then does that mean that someone who would consider such a plea bargain to be coercion is wrong?
Allen Stairs
August 29, 2013
(changed August 29, 2013)
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Given that I'm in the rotten situation of being charged with a murder I didn't commit, it may be a good thing for me that I can avoid being executed. But I'm in a rotten situation; all things considered, my situation is bad. It's bad even if I would be a fool not to accept the plea deal. It's... Read more
Are definitions always human made? If so, do they not exist on non-human planets?
Stephen Maitzen
August 29, 2013
(changed August 29, 2013)
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I strongly doubt that all definitions are human-made. Given the staggering number of stars that astronomers say exist, it seems highly likely that intelligent life has arisen in at least one other place -- intelligent life capable of creating languages and capable of creating explicit defin... Read more
Does what I think affect what I do or does what I do affect what I think?
Allen Stairs
August 29, 2013
(changed August 29, 2013)
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Both, surely. Is there any reason to think otherwise?If I think there's a mugger around the corner, I won't go there. (What I think affects what I do.)If I'm prejudiced against midwesterners and I end up working with several smart, interesting, friendly people from that part of the country, wh... Read more
Do all philosophical problems reduce to the metaphysical question of "why"?
Stephen Maitzen
August 29, 2013
(changed August 29, 2013)
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Not as far as I can see. Indeed, I highly doubt that we've discovered all of the philosophical problems there are, and I'd be very surprised if the problems we have discovered all reduced in that way. What makes you suspect that they might?
Consider, for example, the Paradox of the Heap: If... Read more
According to consequentialism, is it less immoral to steal from a multi-billion corporation like Walmart than it is to steal from a corner grocery store?
Oliver Leaman
August 29, 2013
(changed August 29, 2013)
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Not really, since the theft affects the thief as well as the immediate victim of the theft. Walmart's profits will not be much affected by an individual minor theft, whereas a small shopkeeper might be affected in a more major way. Since I am harming someone much more in stealing from the lit... Read more
Are there any philosophers who deny that the principle of explosion is a valid principle while at the same time both being not accepting of a paraconsistent logic and being accepting of the Law of Non Contradiction?
Richard Heck
August 27, 2013
(changed August 27, 2013)
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According to the article on paraconsistent logic at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "A logical consequence relation, ⊨, is said to be paraconsistent if it is not explosive." So denying explosion just is accepting a paraconsistent logic.
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This might be a weird question, but I'm wondering if there is some kind of philosophy of fashion. Has anyone ever commented on what the goal of fashion is, what it means to express a style, or our relationship to style? I guess if you take it to be art, then the realm of aesthetics can get at some of the questions that I sense there might be well enough. I don't know very much about fashion, so how it is thought of is interesting to me, and I haven't yet come across much philosophical thought on the subject. Maybe it is not in the realm of philosophy?
Oliver Leaman
August 25, 2013
(changed August 25, 2013)
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There are books on the topic, Fashion: a philosophy by Lars Svendsen, Reaktion Books, is a good read, I have used it for teaching also. Not only is there a philosophy of fashion, there is also of course fashionable philosophy!
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What characteristics essentially define an immaterial soul? I've heard philosophers define a soul as being an immaterial substance which possesses a range of mental capacities or dispositions, but they never really define its internal structure. Immateriality is merely a negative attribute, but I am looking for a positive characterization of the soul. Souls have the essential capacity to have consciousness (as souls can be unconscious or conscious), but what intrinsic feature(s) of the soul explains this?
Allen Stairs
August 23, 2013
(changed August 23, 2013)
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The term "soul" is a sort of a place-holder for a certain kind of something-we-know-not-what that may well not exist. That's the reason why there's not much to be said. The "definition" you cite is really just a way of fleshing out what people have in mind when they use the word "soul." It's n... Read more
What's the relationship between Greek Drama and the sorts of dialogues that Plato wrote? What are the origins of the genre of philosophical dialogue?
Nickolas Pappas
August 23, 2013
(changed August 23, 2013)
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This question is harder to answer than it might look, partly because of our incomplete information about Greek drama. Another problem is that many people who address the issue elide from laying out the factual information we have available to us, to interpreting that information into a the... Read more
I am reading Neitzsch's "Human, All Too Human", in one of his aphorisms he states that logic is optimistic. Does he mean that it would be foolishly optimistic to trust logic or in its truth? Or does he mean something else I just can't seem to understand?
Douglas Burnham
August 22, 2013
(changed August 22, 2013)
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Thank you for your question. I'm guessing you are referring to aphorism 6 in the first volume. You are certainly right to call Nietzsche up here -- the reference to the concept of optimism is not at all clear. In fact, it goes back to an earlier book of Nietzsche's, The Birth of Tragedy. (... Read more