Do students of philosophy have much to gain by travel, study abroad, or cultural immersion?

A quick addition to Professor Heck's response. Most but not all of the usual list of 'great' philosophers have been travellers. Kant is the most notorious exception. But he lived in a cosmopolitan sea-port, and 'cultural immersion' came to him rather than he to it. I say this only in order to remind us that knowledge of other places and peoples does not have travel as either a necessary or perhaps even a sufficient condition. To broaden your excellent question, it is also the case that many philosophers have had second jobs, so to speak. (Or even that philosophy was never their first 'job'.) It is a relatively recent phenomenon that a philosopher will be attached to an institution of higher education, and that she will pretty much only teach philosophy at that institution. If travel and cultural immersion tends to be a good thing for philosophers, it might also be worth asking whether working in Universities tends not to be.

Is there really such a thing as being selfless? Every scenario I can think of proves otherwise. Such as someone holding a door open for someone else going into a building. They either expect a thank you or want other people to think they are a good person. Does this make the word selfish essentially meaningless?

Well, yes and no. What is likely the case is that our actions all have many motives, only some of which we become aware. Holding open the door could be habit, and in that sense motiveless; or the motive could be the negative one of guilt at not holding it open; or the other person could be attractive, or important; or, as you say, the motive could be the reception of thanks; or it could be a dutiful, selfless act. This complex of motives yields at least two interesting philosophical problems: first, if and how one can train one's habits and develop one's virtues, so that non-moral motives have less effect upon one's actions. In short, so that one is not a slave to one's own impulses. Second, the question of whether a genuinely selfless motive is possible at all, and whether it could ever be a dominant or determining motive. Your 'every scenario' argument seems to be a good one, but can be turned around. Many a scenario in which you see a selfish motive - such as greed - could be read...

Are there any arguments for the existence of an objective morality that are not religious?

Gosh, plenty, although it does depend upon how strictly you are defining ‘objective’ and ‘religious’. Let us say by ‘objective’ we mean: not entirely dependent upon an individual’s whims, circumstances, or desires; and by ‘not religious’ we mean: not justified through faith in a divine being. Then, Aristotle’s ethics (virtue ethics), Kant’s, and Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism all qualify. However, if by objective you mean ‘an object of scientific enquiry’; and if by ‘not religious’ you mean ‘unrelated to any idea of spirituality whatsoever’, then the list is a shorter. Utilitarianism might still qualify. Some would call that its great strength; others its great weakness. Aristotle, on some interpretations, might squeak through; Kant would not. Interestingly, Nietzsche lumps all of these together with more obviously religious beliefs, because for example they all involve idealisation, which he argues itself can only be justified through a kind of faith. On the other hand, he says...

Hello. Thank you for reading this. I'm in grave need of philosophical counsel please. I cannot 'get' the distinction between 'a priori' and 'a posteriori'. It seems to me that anything that is known must be, in some way, related to experience. I'm troubled by this thought experiment: If a baby was born with a terrible genetic condition which excluded all the human senses, what would the child 'know'? Without the 'experience' of the senses, what could the child ever know? Not even syllogism would be possible; without experience, language would not be available to the unfortunate child. And I imagine that this would be true of numbers too. Yours truly, Blunderov.

Consider the following quotation from Kant: There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. […] [I]t does not follow that it all arises out of experience . ( Critique of Pure Reason , B1) The point being made is that, of course, your unfortunate child would have nothing to think about without sensory input. But nevertheless, given experience, it may be that the mind makes an a priori contribution to that experience. By the way, I must disagree slightly with my colleagues writing below, at least as far as the interpretation of Kant . From the point of view of Kant, the justification account in Frege oversimplifies matters. This for three reasons. First, because on Kant's analysis there must be at least two distinct a priori grounds, neither of which can ground the other (sensibility and understanding). Thus, for Kant, we must not conflate the distinctions a priori/ a posteriori and analytic/ synthetic. Second, because an analysis of these grounds...

Is a poem about nature beautiful because of its form, or is it beautiful because it reminds us of the beauty inherent in nature? Philosophers tend to equate aesthetic beauty with the form of a work of art and our 'interests' get in the way of appreciating the form. However if this is the case why is there not more beautiful poems about rubbish dumps and oil spills.

A great question! There may be a middle ground to the answer. Beautiful natural objects, and beautiful poetic objects, might both be considered beautiful because of complex or harmonious formal properties that evoke certain responses (this is, roughly, Kant). If this is the case, the a beautiful poem about something ugly would function differently from a beautiful poem about something beautiful. In the former case, the beauty would be purely formal; in the latter, it would be in part representational. Again, a great question, although I suspect it might also be misleading. Many well-known poems about nature are not actually about nature in a straightforward sense. Poems are rarely like landscape paintings. (Come to think of it, neither are landscape paintings.)

Do you think it is a bad thing that musical genres are fragmenting? In the past there were clear movements in music, Baroque, classical, Romantic. As time goes on, movements seem to become more specialised, with the Beatles and rock then split into punk, metal, indie, dance, hip-hop, soul, nu-punk, nu-metal. Each movement seems to be targeted at a sub-section of the population, and so music is losing some of it universal themes. Music created with less artisic merit and effort is reaching the public. Is the inevitable result of new technology, or the rise of an instant gratification cuture that wants to listen and create without any serious effort?

I'm not convinced that European music ever had the clear periodisation that you describe. 'Baroque', 'Classical' and so forth tend to be descriptions applied by historians of music after the fact. In fact, at any one time, there were thousands of composers, working to specialised markets, with different players (large, small, amateur, professional, private, or public) and publishers in mind, with regional styles, and so forth. It may well be that the music scene you describe will, a generation from now, be seen as much more simple and homogeneous than it now appears. History naturally simplifies music just as it naturally simplifies philosophy. Is there more variety now, do genres ‘fragment’ more quickly? Probably, but this may be only a matter of degree, rather than an essential change. Nor am I convinced by the argument that the pursuit of a public, or the employment of new technology, are new phenomena. There were, and still are, ‘artists’ more concerned with making music than with having...

I often find myself thinking what really distinguishes Humans apart from other animals. If it is intelligence (high or low is irrelevant, it is still an inelegance) then this statement isn't true since we know that there are numbers of highly intelligent species including birds (non-mammal). So I came to conclusion that the only thing that does separate us is art, or perhaps understanding the value of art. But to contradict myself I keep flashing back on various images and video clips of cats or other animals "painting" on the canvas. Do you think in your philosophical opinion do these animals go through similar (high or low is irrelevant) process of appreciating art.

A fascinating question. I suspect that art appreciation might well be important, although perhaps only as a symptom of an underlying difference. Let's look at the question more generally. It is important for us to know what are the essential differences between humans and other animals for two reasons. First, because it is an important part of understanding who we are. Second, because we eat animals, wear their skins, keep them in zoos, experiment on them and so forth -- all things that we tend to feel are morally wrong with respect to human beings. Philosophers, then, tend to be divided into three very general camps. 1. Those who believe that there are morally significant differences between human beings and animals. 2. Those who believe that there are not such differences, and thus tend to argue for animal rights. 3. Those who feel this is the wrong question to be asking. Here, we'll ignore the third group, for simplicity. The most common distinctions given by...

In many introductory text that take a topical approach to understanding philosophy theology is not listed as a branch of philosophy; however, the philosophy of religion is. Why is that? This is especially confounding in that texts that take an historical approach always include a section covering Scholasticism.

You are right, it is confusing, isn’t it? I guess the simplest answer is that theology is thinking of a broadly philosophical type that takes place within the framework of a given religion or set of beliefs. Whereas, the philosophy of religion is thinking that takes place, as far as possible, outside of or independently from any particular theology. Within the European tradition, and prior to the Reformation, by far the dominant religion was Christianity, and it was at least to some degree homogeneous in its beliefs. So, up until the 15 th Century or so, theology and philosophy of religion overlapped so much as to be often indistinguishable. After the Reformation, however, it became necessary for philosophers to think about religion from a point of view outside either Catholicism or Protestantism, and a more recognisable form of philosophy of religion emerged.

I have a question about something Nietzsche said in Twilight of the Idols . Under morality of physicians he writes "... some advice for our dear pessimists and other decadents. It is not in our hands to prevent our birth; but we can correct this mistake- for in some cases it is a mistake. When one does away with oneself, one does the most estimable thing possible. one almost earns the right to live." Is Nietzsche advocating suicide for weak-minded people? joe s.

As always with Nietzsche the context needs to be reconstructed. The passage as a whole is addressed to physicians, but the claim you quote is addressed to ‘pessimists’; to those who would renounce life and its values, while continuing to live . Nietzsche is simply asking such pessimists to take seriously their own position. However, we shouldn’t miss the irony of the last phrase: ‘one almost earns the right to live’. Pessimism, on Nietzsche’s analysis, is actually a kind of perverse clinging to life, defending one’s mode of life. So, to be capable of ending it would also mean to not be a pessimist. It would be a contradiction in act. To my mind, the dominant idea in this section, and a beautiful one at that, is the notion of ‘death at the right time’, earlier. This is an affirmation of a generalised suicide, of ‘death chosen freely …[that] makes it possible to have a real leave-taking’. He contrasts this with a Christian attitude towards death, as the last chance to repent, as the...

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