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If you put a banner in front of a mirror, it flips the left-right axis, but not the down-up axis. Why don't all directions have equal merit in the universe? How does this relate to the time dimension -- is it also special in the same sense? The reason I'm asking this is that my intuition is that every dimension should ...
When we try to define time, we define it based on an event which happens periodically. For example, in a clock,we say that the time elapsed is 1 minute if the second hand completes 1 revolution. Here we define time based on the periodic motion of the second hand. From Wikipedia, Motion is defined as: Motion is a chang...
How should we characterize the relationship between mathematics and philosophy of mathematics? Specifically, in what ways might the study of philosophy of mathematics make a mathematician better at his work, and which contributions from philosophy of mathematics might be considered the most critical or urgent to mathem...
I'm interested in reading some good books/pieces/essays about self-worth (ultimate meaning of life, learning, working, etc). It's hard to precisely define the topic, but anything you think is relevant is appreciated. Thanks.
I know that ontology is a sub-field of metaphysics. But I can't see the difference between them. I mean ontology is defined as "The study of being and existence", and metaphysics is defined as "fundamental nature of being and the world"; is there a difference between these two definitions?
Is there any common fallacy that might fit the following 'syllogism'? X is important, or urgent Therefore, X Here's an example of a conversation where this could come up: It's conceivable that our sales dropped last month (but we won't know until our quarterly statement). Sales are important! Therefore, we should se...
Self referential statements can be paradoxical as known since ancient times. (Some of this basic paradoxes had immense impact on my own field -mathematics.) Of course, paradoxical self-referential statement plays a role also in humor. The following conversation artually took part in a department meeting two decades ago...
A "privative" has been defined as a word expressing the absence of something. As such, a privative word signifies a non-existing thing; for example, cold is (arguably) not a thing, but is rather the absence of a real, existing thing (heat). It seems to me that the truth is merely the absence of all lies, and as such ca...
Winston Churchill famously quipped, "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." Plato also seems to have held such a view, where he wrote in The Republic that "philosopher kings" should lead city-states in a sort of oligarchical system. Although Socrates, Plato, and Arist...
I've been following some online discussions about the current economic situation. There are a number of solutions proposed to the economic malaise across much of the developed world, but one idea that captures my imagination is the idea that our current economic situation is making the notion of "full employment" obsol...
According to the understanding of Nietzsche's superman did Hitler live up to Nietzsche ideal of the superman? (IMPORTANT NOTE: I am by NO means a Fan of Hitler this is a question of scholarly interest)
Most philosophy begins with a question. I'm wondering why certain questions provoke more profound thoughts than others. What characteristics do good questions share with each other? How can we go about finding worthy problems to seek solving? For example, questions of ontology have led to much stimulating thought: What...
The type/token distinction appears to be generally explained in terms of objects. A given Honda Accord is, e.g., a token of of the type "Honda Accord". However, the literature I have read seems to do little to explain how such a distinction could/should be applied to events. Can anyone direct me to resources that discu...
The SEP article on Zombies writes: Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures used to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike those in films or witchraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there i...
How do you make the distinction between philosophy and religion? Are there some philosophies/religions that are hard to categorize as being one or the other?
I have a handful of friends who are strictly vegan, and I talked with each of them before about their views. At least 3 of them have said to me that under no circumstance would they eat an animal or use an animal product (say, for clothing). This is nonsensical, right? There are no real justifications for this, as I un...
I've been planning to read some of Kant's work for a while, but have no idea where to start. Which of his writings would be a good initial introduction to his philosophical views?
On the one hand, when you download music you are merely making a copy of something. You aren't depriving someone of a physical object. You aren't really taking anything. On the other hand, when you download music you are doing something that someone who owns the rights to it has forbidden. You are violating copyright, ...
I should first point out that the title is more to capture a common occurrence of the broader idea I want to address in this question. It is also somewhat incorrect in that—at least in the US—I'm not sure it's actually illegal to download music without paying (per se), but rather to share it. But the law here is irrele...
Stated more generally: Are there entities whose claims—by the nature of their existence—are outside the scope of rational inquiry? Consider the example of the Abrahamic God, the relevant matter not that he's omnipotent or omniscient but that he exists on a whole different level than mere humans. Does his position make ...
It is assumed, for the purpose of this question, that Charles Darwin, in the 19th Century, formulated the concept of "Survival of the Fittest". Penned in his book "The Origin of the Species", which is internationally renowned, the theory is that each creature alive on Earth today is the way it is because it has evolve...
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophys entry on Lucretius has: "First comes, in effect, Lucretius' ontology. Nothing comes into being out of nothing or perishes into nothing. The only two per se entities are body and void; all other existing things are inseparable or accidental properties of these (Lucretius' own ter...
It occurred to me some time ago that fear is the result of a lack of control, and try as I might I cannot conceive fear existing without this vacancy. Looked at from the other direction, in a situation where you feel completely in control is it possible to still be afraid? Furthermore, a lack of control is not always a...
What is the meaning of the Greek word θυμοειδής (thumoeides or thymoeidês) in Plato? (I believe it occurs in the Phaedrus and the Republic.) What is its etymology? It apears to me to possibly come from θυμ- (roughly passion) and εἰδ- (knowing or seeing), but I'm not sure that's right. What is the significance of this w...
What is the/a definition for the term 'context'? The term is used everywhere, and the dictionaries only give a description of it's meaning.Definitions for other terms such as concept, perspective, etc, should be derivable from such a definition of 'context'. To make my question clearer, this question about alternative...
This question seems to either be at the forefront or the background of countless philosophical enquiries. Much has been written on Wittgenstein's rule paradox (e.g. Kirke's Wittgenstein: On Rules and Private Language," as well as many others). Here is Wittgenstein's rule paradox: §201. This was our paradox: no course ...
It is generally considered beneficial to discover some scientific law or invent an object that is said to further the state of mankind. All inventions and scientific discovery hinges in some way on past knowledge. Since knowledge is so instrumental to any form of advancement, are all facts worth knowing? EDIT I've been...
I am fascinated about the implications of quantum mechanics to philosophy. Where can I find good references to the philosophy of quantum mechanics, and its implications for realism/antirealism, holism, contextuality, causality, determinism, probability theory, consciousness and mysticism? A physics based reply is very ...
You are driving in a car and see a woman standing in a bus stop trying to hitchhike. Is it ethical to give her a lift? I can think of two reasons against: 1) By giving her a ride, you are actually encouraging her (and maybe others) to hitchhike more. Since hitchhiking can be dangerous (someone might try in the future t...
In Aristotles' Metaphysics the following can be read: Met. I 981a: […] αποβαίνει δ` ἐπιστήμη καὶ τέχνη διὰ τῆς ἐμπειρίας τοῖς ἀνθρώποις. […] but really science and art come to men through experience. For him, science is a product of experience (empeiría). So for Aristotle non-empirical sciences (e.g., if Euclid p...
Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy has always intrigued me. And it seems to still have a lot of influence over certain politicians and thought leaders. Have any philosophers taken up the mantle where Objectivism left off and built on top of what Rand produced? If so, where should I start reading? Edit: I guess I need...
It seems to me that property cannot be considered an intrinsic part of human nature, not in the way life is, for example. Property defines a relationship between two objects that only has a basis in the minds of humans themselves. So, the question is, is the defining of this relationship a "rightful" mental act? I.e....
Is every person who has ever questioned what they did or what they are going to do a philosopher? Does this idea fall under philosophy in any way, or is it merely a semantic debate?
This is a question in response to this other one that I asked. I didn't really get a satisfactory answer, mostly because it seems like Rand's work is largely ignored by academics. The highest voted answer starts with "you'll be hard-pressed to find a serious philosopher who takes Ayn Rand seriously". Why is this the...
The way things are traditionally presented about time, there is the present, the past is fixed, and the future is open. The second law of thermodynamics is invoked. But how can we be so sure the past is fixed? Some musings on this topic can be found on this blog post. The past is fixed because there are memories and re...
Are there any current day Philosphers who still follow the Tabula rasa approach in the nature versus nurture argument and how do they explain the heritability of traits?
What are the relative merits of the different philosphies of time. Presentism states that only the present now exists, a la Julian Barbour. Eternalism posits an object spacetime stage where everything is already laid out simultaneously. The growing block universe states that only the present and past exists, but the fu...
If you consider a human and a very smart computer, you have no trouble turning off the computer but most people would consider "turning off" a person to be bad. If a computer becomes as smart as a human, you still intuitively know [citation needed] that turning off the computer is not a bad thing to do and turning off ...
I hear a lot about employers not paying employees for training. They want employees to pay and earn the skills for themselves, during their own time. But, if companies do provide training, they tend to treat the knowledge and skills earned as an intellectual property of the company. According to that premise, if the co...
Wikipedia says: In the same way, "all men are mortal" is unfalsifiable: even if someone is observed who has not died so far, he could still die in the next instant. By contrast, "all men are immortal," is falsifiable by the presentation of just one dead man. The statement P: All men are mortal. is equivalent ...
I was wondering what are some proposed solutions in the literature to the following, well-known paradox: Say two rational, intelligent players A and B stand in front of a stack of 100 coins, and play the following game: each turn, a player may choose to pick up one coin, giving the other player the next turn, or picki...
This has been a particularly difficult section for me. Please forgive me if things sound opaque, but Kant is a particularly difficult writer and my reading is hurt by the fact that it isn't occurring in an institutional setting. But enough disclaimers. I'll start by backing up a bit and providing my reading of the prec...
As far as I can see, there are no significant arguments against the principle that all events have a cause, which is to say the principle of sufficient reason. (It's important to note that the seemingly identical idea that all effects have causes is a circular argument based on the mutual definitions of "cause" and "e...
I have been reading through "Autopoiesis and Cognition" by Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela. One of their goals in defining autopoiesis and the supporting concepts of simple and composite unity, structure, and organization seems to be to have a better language for expressing questions about what it means to...
People often talk about the "end" of physics, but what about an end of philosophy? Let me explain. My philosophy professor said that philosophy is kind of the parent discipline of all fields of inquiry and when philosophers clarify and refine questions well enough, they are spun off into their own disciplines. I find...
I recently heard a science podcast in which Josh Knobe was interviewed about experimental philosophy. It seemed like a pretty cool field. Is experimental philosophy considered legitimate by the philosophy community or at least a decent number of philosophers? And would reading his book on Experimental Philosophy be ...
If you consider the God of the bible to be real (talking about Christianity), then the existence of God is relevant to you because he can do miracles, change your life for the best, and allow you to experience eternal happiness in heaven. The same thing applies to some or most other similar religions. However, since th...
After doing some research on Heraclitus, I noticed that a few of his views are very compatible with quantum mechanics. For example, he is paraphrased as writing: Into the same river we both step and do not step. We both are and are not. Based off my limited knowledge of quantum mechanics, this can be viewed as somewh...
Do you enter a Social Contract described by Locke/Hobbes by using government services or must there be a more significent entrance into this Contract?
When watching this speech by the Atari founder, he says (at 09:19): If you're a true existentialist [...] you want to have an interesting life. Thus, if someone says he or she is an existentialist, in the way he did, what might this mean in essence? I looked at the Wikipedia article for Existentialism; yet I'm still ...
Let's say a student researcher at a university is given notebooks to lab take notes about the research during their time as a researcher. This student does so well that they are hired by a research company for a career. The student tries to take the notebooks full of notes with them but the university says they can't b...
Having read Penguin Great Ideas : On the Shortness of Life, I am keen to read further works of Seneca. Can anyone recommend any publications? I have stumbled upon Anger, Mercy, Revenge (Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca) which looks promising. I am also interested in published commentaries on the work of Seneca.
Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty ruler, an unknown sage-whose name is self. In your body he dwells; he is your body. There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom. And who knows why your body needs precisely your best wisdom? (Chapter On the Despisers of the Body) I be...
I was arguing with my father about the nature of the human mind. I believe that a man is not born with a predetermined skill, such as painter or composer, and that through hard work and dedication, a man can learn to be just as great as Beethoven or Einstein. My father argued on the other hand that men like Einstein an...
Many religions believe that their holy book is the literal word of God (and not the word of the messenger). For instance, the announcement of "new rules" for humanity, such as Quranic injunctions like no drinking, no gambling, no charging interest, compulsory wearing of headscarves for women, etc, are believed to be Go...
Although this may seem as a trivial question (not a trivial answer) I think to fully understand the question takes some serious thinking. Here I don't mean symbiosis as just existing near each other, I mean a form of mutualism. Many aquatic species experience this. When considering the concept of enforced symbiosis - t...
I see that fragments from Kant's "Critique of pure reason" are usually referenced according to the pagination of the first or second edition (Axxx or Bxxx respectively). And my translation does not have that information. Are you aware of some pagination table that allows to locale (albeit approximately) chapters/secti...
Let's assume that God created man for no reason, that there was no purpose (or goal or plan) to our general being. If there was no overall purpose to our being, then the only thing we can say about our purpose of being is just to be, and that's it. Our purpose would be then just to be, to eat so that you may be, and to...
Cancer researcher, Doctor John Wynn gave an interesting talk this year. In it he argues, in short, that it is the fact of our mortality that gives our lives meaning. Which philosophers have discussed this notion, and what conclusions have they come to?
I'm gearing up to explore Nietzsche for the first time in a junior undergraduate 19th Century Euro Thought class, and I'm interested in exploring a specific question regarding the meaning and origin of suffering. Actually, I'm only interested in the origin of suffering if it relates to the way we now conceive of suffer...
I have a question related to the philosophy of time. If something happened, but all memory traces and records of it has been wiped out, with not even indirect records left for forensic experts to uncover, did it exist? If a tree fell in a forest millions of years ago but no one was there to hear it, and the tree rotted...
A very common question is, "should there be a death sentence?" I was brought up to defend the opinion that the government cannot do something that it itself considers illegal, unlawful and immoral. Which makes perfect sense, until you put things in perspective. What is the point of laws and rules in a society? Surely, ...
I have read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead and also working through Atlas Shrugged. What are some philosophical arguments against Objectivism? NOTE: I am NOT a philosopher.
While most religious belief systems affirm the existence of certain things, the belief system of (natural) science tends to deny the existence of certain "not-reproducible" things. Let's look at two examples to make this question more concrete. There are many examples in fiction of interactions of no longer living pers...
What is a “monad” as introduced by Gottfried Leibniz in his Monadology? What is the purpose of monads for Leibniz' philosophical arguments? EDIT: I've found basic definitions like those found in the comments, too. However I also found rather confusing properties of monads, like they where "living mirrors of the univers...
I'm taking a course at university about philosophical reasoning / argumentation. The professor came up with an example where formal logic was wrong: If Dave is in London, then he is in England. (p: D. is in London, q: D. is in England; p -> q) If Dave is in Paris, then he is in France. (r: D. is in Paris, s: D. is i...
I'm watching lectures of prof. Jay L. Garfield named "Meaning of Life: Perspectives from the World’s Great Intellectual Traditions". The first three lectures are discussing Bhagavad Gita. Two ideas (among others) I've learnt from those lectures are: Each life is significant ("each life has its place") Everyone has the...
In this question, I will make a slippery slope argument. It's probably fallacious, but your task is the identify the point where one step does not inevitablly lead to the next step and explain why not. Here are the steps to the argument: Skepticism asserts that "knowledge is conviction based on a reason so strong th...
This is a followup to a previous question that suggests that skepticism leads inevitably to moral relativism. In this question, I'd like to look further down the slippery slope and think of the children! This argument is probably false, but I'd like to know where we ought to halt the slide: at what point does one ste...
Is there any published research which attempts to establish a possible link between extreme patriotism and institutionalized racism? What do they conclude?
I learned the definition of “knowledge” of justified true belief. I wonder whether it is important in any branch of philosophy? If I think about information per se, this boils down to technical details which are analyzed in mathematics and computer science. Belief is something to be examined in psychology and theology....
Nietsche, as others before and after him (its roots, I am told, are in the West Asian tradition) , espoused the idea of an ever repeating clockwork universe, in which all lives are led over and over; each time identically. In choosing this view, one is compelled to a love of Fate, to -in the language of Zarathustra- ch...
If an individual believes that it's OK to break a law for personal reasons, does moral consistency require that he should be accepting of other people's law-breaking? For example, is it morally inconsistent for a thief (who believes his crimes are justified in some way) to criticize a murderer? What about if I said it...
Recently, I read the following comment: If you aren't pissing someone off some of the time, you're not doing anything very useful or interesting. The context was that some people were pissed off and the implication was that therefore something very useful or interesting had caused that anger. Now I'm pretty sure the ...
Note: I originally posted the question in meta.math.stackexchange.com but I reckon this would suit a more philosophical audience so I am posting it here. Background: I am a 28 year old undergraduate at a college majoring in mathematics with goal of specializing in philosophical aspects of it. There are certain books a...
Berkeley holds the world together by saying it is God's idea. But how can we explain the shared world of experience in an atheistic idealism like Schopenhauer's?
Realizing its importance in intellectual history, I am considering an intense study of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. However, I wonder what the current status of the text is? To clarify: has it survived the scrutiny of philosophers since its publication in 1781, or are there (generally agreed) major flaws in the tex...
I am aware of the way Western philosophers define rationality but I do not know whether Eastern philosophers define it. Are there any differences between the Eastern and Western philosophical traditions on what constitutes rationality? And if so, what exactly are those differences? If it is too much to ask for wha...
Does ones support of legalized abortion or same sex marriage imply that this reflects the person's personal morality or can the personal sphere and public sphere be separated? For example a religious Catholic person feels conception is the beginning of the life of the child as a moral principle,yet this person still do...
What came first, language or consciousness? Has any philosopher said that language gives us consciousness by allowing us to communicate with ourselves and therefore giving us choices that we did not have before? And on the other hand, what has been said to support the thesis that consciousness is necessary first in ...
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind. (Aristotle) UPDATE: As Michael notes below, a better translation of the above is in Rackham (reproduced from Michael's citation): This isn't a better translation as Michael is wrong about it being a misquotation. It's a mild paraphrase of a sentence from Aristotle's Politics...
Is Time Just A Trick Of The Mind? (read article) Carlo Rovelli, one of the founder of Loop Quantum Gravity theory likes to think so. Furthermore wikipedia entry highlights: This position has lead him to face the following problem: if time is not part of the fundamental theory of the world, then how does time emerge? I...
Jacques Derrida's 1988-89 seminar on "The Politics of Friendship" centers itself around a quotation attributed to Aristotle, found in Diogenes Laertius (V, 1, 21) and later quoted by Montaigne ("On Friendship", I, 28) "O my friends, there is no friend." Needless to say, Derrida spends much of the seminar working out...
Are there any references in Corpus Aristotelicum to suggest whether Aristotle was aware of Buddhist teachings or Eastern philosophy? Aristotle travelled to Asia Minor at one stage of life, left a voluminious treatise, yet it is interesting there is no shred of evidence alluding to Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tsu or other ea...
In spite of reading the SEP entry under Contradiction several times I have difficulty distinguishing between the two. We can translate the Aristotelian language, with some loss of faithfulness, into the standard modern propositional versions in (4a,b) respectively, ignoring the understood modal and temporal modificati...
In an ethical sense (i.e. not metaphysical), could God be equated with mankind? Many of the religious duties of people towards their god could as well be interpreted as duties towards their peers, e.g., the commandment not to kill. Of course, some metaphysical questions could not be applied to this allegory (e.g. manki...
To quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Here Aristotle recognizes four types of things that can be given in answer to a why-question: The material cause: “that out of which”, e.g., the bronze of a statue. The formal cause: “the form”, “the account of what-it-is-to-be”, e.g., the shape of a statue. The ...
Context: I was reading http://www.mitmunc.org/committee/HRC. In it selling organs selling organs seems to be thought of as an a priori wrong. I was somewhat surprised at the assumption that organ selling is bad. A consequentialist argument could be made that it will lead to black markets and theft. But most interpreta...
I just watched this TED lecture (very scary) is this ethical?
One of the criticisms of Aristotle's final cause category is that if a thing has a purpose, there must exist some entity that has intention to set up that cause. Generally speaking, skeptical thinkers reject any sort of positive, universal teleology on the grounds of Occam's Razor: until we can show that someone has d...
I realize that it's in nearly all of his works that he does this, but does anyone happen to know in what sections of what books? I understand there's a great critique of Christianity in Human, All Too Human, section I, in places. I'm not talking about his doctrine of the death of God, but rather his critique of Christi...
I have been reading Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and my question is how does he come to realize that we can't have a perfect language. For instance I would say math is a perfect language because one can never mistaken 5 to mean 3 or addition to mean subtraction. Math in my opinion, perfectly represents ...
When I was taught about Aristotle and Plato, the picture I got was very much like this image from a Raphael fresco: Usually Plato is said to be pointing to the heavens, which represent abstract Forms, while Aristotle gestures to the Earth (or possibly breaking the fourth wall and indicating the viewer) to symbolize hi...
Aristotle is generally considered a genius of towering stature and the depth and breadth of his work are testament to this; however, by most accounts, and despite being progressive in many ways, he can be portrayed as a bigot. By today’s standards his views on women and other races would, for the most part, be regarded...
What philosophical problems are there with obtaining knowledge by picking the correct or closest answer from a small set of solutions? And further, what are the problems/justifications for judging knowledge based on the democratization of questions and answers instituted by such methods as "up-ticking" a question or an...
From a historical perspective Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus or even the more "modern" ones like Descartes, Bacon, Nietzche etc. are very important, but aren't philosophy textbooks today way more valuable to read and learn from?
I have dipped into the Metaphysics pretty extensively, and I know that he uses a number of fascinating methods for decomposing arguments in that book. No wonder St. Thomas Aquinas read it while he was imprisoned. The book is a cerebral tour de force. One of the above mentioned methods for decomposing arguments is geome...
I have read most of Aesop's fables. (I liked some of them, though for more of the same with twice the punch, I prefer Sa'di's Gulistan.) I have read the Poetics from cover to cover, but I don't remember the fables of Aesop being mentioned. Maybe I dozed off? I know for a fact that he does discuss that ancient text, but...
Al-Jahiz is one of the philosophical superstars of Arab literature. Not only did he write an enormous number of books, but his output was remarkably diverse. Besides a great number of satires, he wrote books on rhetoric and philosophy. And he is well-known for having said that he preferred Aristotle to the Qur'an. Unfo...
Even so I admit that the statement "All sciences use the same fundamental approach - the scientific method" may be true or false, it is not obvious to me whether it is actually true or false. I looked up both "science" and "scientific method" in wikipedia (I'm not a native speaker). I learned that "scientific method" i...

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