Recent Responses
Should you always expose the truth to the ones you love, even when it may do them harm by knowing?
Peter S. Fosl
October 26, 2007
(changed October 26, 2007)
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No, I think there are times when it's better to conceal the truth. Part of wisdom in ethics involves not just being truthful but knowing when and how the truth should be told. Mind you, there are good reasons for being maximally truthful; but they do not count in every case.... Read more
Living things have perception. When a sensory cell is disturbed, a chain reaction is caused which sends the sensory data to the brain where, through very physical means, it is analyzed and thoughts and emotions are created. If this is all done by physical means, by the complex physical reaction which is the nervous system, do seemingly non-organic things such as my computer have perceptions as I do?
Saul Traiger
October 25, 2007
(changed October 25, 2007)
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If your question is whether “yourcomputer,” which I take to be an ordinary personal computer, has perceptions asyou do, then the answer is clearly “no.” Your computer has input devices suchas a keyboard, and possibly a scanner, a video camera, and a microphone. Such input devices transducera... Read more
How do you read philosophical texts? Do you try to outline its structure and the parts of its argument from the beginning? Or do you first give the text a quick reading to get a general picture of the whole? Do you approach philosophical articles differently from philosophical books? Finally, if the work is a difficult one from the history of philosophy, do you rely heavily on secondary literature or do you try first to approach the work without the aid of others' interpretations?
Douglas Burnham
October 24, 2007
(changed October 24, 2007)
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My personal strategy, regardless of whether something is a short paper or a book or a difficult classic, is to sit down in a quiet, comfortable, brightly lit place with a large cup of tea, and read. But this may have to do with the fact that I like comfortable places and I like tea.
Much... Read more
Are there as many true propositions as false ones? More of one than the other?
Daniel J. Velleman
October 22, 2007
(changed October 22, 2007)
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A few comments on the answers from Professors George and Pogge:1. If two statements are logically equivalent, do we think of them as expressing the same proposition or two different propositions? If we think of logically equivalent statements as expressing the same proposition, and w... Read more
Are there as many true propositions as false ones? More of one than the other?
Daniel J. Velleman
October 22, 2007
(changed October 22, 2007)
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A few comments on the answers from Professors George and Pogge:1. If two statements are logically equivalent, do we think of them as expressing the same proposition or two different propositions? If we think of logically equivalent statements as expressing the same proposition, and w... Read more
During free time at my place of work, the faculty often get together for some intense rounds of "Boggle". In case you're not familiar, this is a game where letters are randomly arranged in a square, and then the players are timed as they try to form words using only adjacent letters. Because the scores are often so close, much debate often arises as to what constitutes a fair word. For example, can "er" be added to any verb to make it a noun, such as to "dare" or "err" to make "darer" and "errer", one who dares, and one who errs, respectively? Also, would a word like "beated", which is not in the dictionary, be acceptable if someone had heard it used, say in the following case: "after the eggs are beated...". What about sounds like "purr", or "whizz"? What are the criteria for determining if something is a word? Whose say should be taken as authoritative? Thanks!
Allen Stairs
October 20, 2007
(changed October 20, 2007)
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Let's start with "beated." On the one hand, it's a word as opposed to a punctuation mark or a pony. But that's not what you want to know. Your question is something like: is it a word in English? And so the more general question is: when does a potential word count as a "real" word in a lang... Read more
Are there as many true propositions as false ones? More of one than the other?
Daniel J. Velleman
October 22, 2007
(changed October 22, 2007)
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A few comments on the answers from Professors George and Pogge:1. If two statements are logically equivalent, do we think of them as expressing the same proposition or two different propositions? If we think of logically equivalent statements as expressing the same proposition, and w... Read more
Suppose that a fetus is at a stage when it is considered permissible to be aborted. Suppose that the woman bearing the fetus decides, for some reason, that she would prefer that the child be born with no arms. To that end, she takes some kind of potion, and the child is later born with no arms. I think that most people would feel that the woman's action was wrong because it was wrong to deprive the child that was born of his or her arms and their use. But if that's true, why is it permissible to deprive the child that would have been born of his or her body and its use?
Jyl Gentzler
October 18, 2007
(changed October 18, 2007)
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You might also find helpful the responses to a related question: http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/1247
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Many thought experiments in ethics involve truly bizarre scenarios (Frances Kamm, for instance, talks about putting $500 into a machine which mechanically saves children). Do the panelists think that overly contrived examples, too far removed from ordinary experience, lead us in the wrong direction and should not be used? Or should a rigorous philosophy of ethics account for all scenarios, including ones which almost certainly will never occur?
Allen Stairs
October 17, 2007
(changed October 17, 2007)
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While agreeing with everything in Thomas's characteristically clear-headed response, I would add just one note that may bear on your worry. There are philosophers who think that if a thought-experiment is too far from our ordinary experience, then our intuitions about what we should say abou... Read more
Many thought experiments in ethics involve truly bizarre scenarios (Frances Kamm, for instance, talks about putting $500 into a machine which mechanically saves children). Do the panelists think that overly contrived examples, too far removed from ordinary experience, lead us in the wrong direction and should not be used? Or should a rigorous philosophy of ethics account for all scenarios, including ones which almost certainly will never occur?
Allen Stairs
October 17, 2007
(changed October 17, 2007)
Permalink
While agreeing with everything in Thomas's characteristically clear-headed response, I would add just one note that may bear on your worry. There are philosophers who think that if a thought-experiment is too far from our ordinary experience, then our intuitions about what we should say abou... Read more