Recent Responses
I believe in allowing other people to live out their respective journeys in life - this requires a lot of tolerance sometimes. How does one reconcile respecting another person's journey with the great harm the person can do in the community by their actions? A right-wing zealot with his/her black-and-white world view versus a left-wing person whose view on life comes with a much more complex color-shaded world view. It is the right winger, that threatens the community with his/her worship of free-market capitalism (which really isn't so free-market), their dependence on lying and twisting the facts to fit their narrow view of the world (they just do it a lot more than liberals), and imposing their heretic version of Christianity on the rest of us. How does one respond ethically to counter the right-wing influence in this country yet respect this person's journey of self-discovery and their contribution (eventual perhaps?) to the community?
Jyl Gentzler
October 8, 2005
(changed October 8, 2005)
Permalink
When you say that you “believe in allowing other people to live outtheir respective journeys in life,” do you make no exceptions? Do youthink that it’s a good idea to let anyone do anything that he or shesees fit? Liberals who are committed to tolerance often draw the lineat actions that thre... Read more
It seems to me that one of the things that philosophy does, at least for me, a beginner, is to expose mysteries where I thought there were none. Do any of you feel the same way, do you like that chill up your spine when you realize what you thought was self-evident might not be? Is the feeling that you have solved the problem more exciting than the feeling of wonder?
Amy Kind
October 8, 2005
(changed October 8, 2005)
Permalink
I think this feeling of wonder is common among philosophers. It's one of the things that attracted me to philosophy in the first place. And many philosophers have commented on this phenomenon -- e.g., William James in Some Problems of Philosophy:
Philosophy, beginning in wonder ... is able to f... Read more
If we built a computer that could analyse our minds, and it figured out how they work and explained it to us, would we be able to understand?
Alexander George
October 8, 2005
(changed October 8, 2005)
Permalink
The great Austrian logician, Kurt Gödel, proved a remarkable theorem in 1931 that he thought was relevant to this question. His theorem wasn't about minds, but with a bit of license, it could be taken to have some implications about them. For instance, this one: Assume our minds are like... Read more
Can Non-Being and Being occupy the same space at the same time or does Being displace Non-Being? Or Does Non-Being displace Being? Does Non-Being even exist?
Alexander George
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
Permalink
How many hands do you have? Two? Or do you havethree? Your left hand, your right hand, and the non-existent third handthat's attached to your head? Obviously, that last "hand" shouldn'tcount. To say that you don't have a third hand isn't to say that youhave a hand that possesses the partic... Read more
Does the future exist in any knowable fashion? If so, can it be known in any absolute way? If not, why do so many of us believe it can?
Peter Lipton
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
Permalink
On one view of time, the future is as real now as the present or the past, much as other places are as real as the place you happen to be; on another view the future is not yet real but will be. Either way, many philosophers would say that we can know some things about it, though Hume's great... Read more
I am trying to understand what nominalism is?
Peter Lipton
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
Permalink
Nominalism is the view that everything that exists is particular. Thus there is no property of being red that all red things share (though there is the word 'red' that we apply to various things).
Log in to post comments
Why does anything exist? Wouldn't it be more believable if nothing existed?
Alexander George
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
Permalink
Whenever anyone would raise this question, my much missed teacher, thelate Sidney Morgenbesser, used to say: "And if there were nothing,you're the kind of person who would ask 'Why isn't there something?'!"
You might also consider looking at Robert Nozick's discussion of thisquestion in hi... Read more
Why does anything exist? Wouldn't it be more believable if nothing existed?
Alexander George
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
Permalink
Whenever anyone would raise this question, my much missed teacher, thelate Sidney Morgenbesser, used to say: "And if there were nothing,you're the kind of person who would ask 'Why isn't there something?'!"
You might also consider looking at Robert Nozick's discussion of thisquestion in hi... Read more
Why should I believe you?
Jyl Gentzler
October 11, 2005
(changed October 11, 2005)
Permalink
Fair enough, Alan. Based on my experience of human beings, the more sociableand cheerful attitude that you suggest seems appropriate as ageneral day-to-day attitude toward others. I’m generally not worriedthat people are lying to me.
But I understood the question differently– not as direc... Read more
What, if anything, can you boil one's self down to, outside any notion of soul or essence?
Jay L. Garfield
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
Permalink
Many philosophers, especially those in the Buddhist tradition (Nagasena, Candrakirti, Santideva,or see Hume for a Western sympathiser), have argued that there is nothing that one can "boil oneself down to," that is, that the self has no existence independent of convention. Others have argu... Read more