Philosophy Now Forum

Education as described in the Republic is reserved for the few, the auxiliaries, and from these few, education in the highest things is reserved for a much smaller number, the guardians. The auxiliaries and guardians are those who serve the city. The majority of citizens do not receive any education...

Kayla: what is the big deal with JP? The big deal is that he is has been influential. I do not know if he is a genuine sophist, but the extent to which he may believe what he says is secondary to the fact that he has a large devoted following that accepts his pronouncements without objective critica...

Eodnhoj7: The foundation of all morality is premised in metaphysics as strictly "being qua being" as an act of reflection. What does this mean? The question of the being of being is reflective, but to be is not to be reflective unless reflection is essential to the being in question. Being...

Caputo’s notion of the weakness of God is linked via Derrida to Lurianic Kabbalah. Luria’s notion of ‘ tzimtzum ’, God’s self limiting, leads to a need to repair the world, ‘ tikkun olam ’. This is man’s task. It is a call to action. So, to answer the question, if God is weak then man must act. It i...

Troll: The issue requires a long preparatory teaching, a training, and a trained acumen that can freely judge of the arguments, all that is not available to Harris. How is it that you know what is not available to him? The concept of substance as it is used with regard to the Eucharist is not arcane...

Troll: Harris is mistaken because by "literal" he can only refer to the judgment. I look, and I say, there is the wafer. He doesn't move in the interpretation of beings that includes ousia. Harris quotes the Council of Trent: I likewise profess that in the Mass a true, proper and propitiat...

Transubstantiation is a change in ‘ousia’, that is, a change in the being or substance or essence (literally, the “what it is”) of bread and wine. What they become is no longer bread and wine but the actual body and blood of Christ. How it happens is a mystery, but that it happens is taken to be tru...

We currently live in the dawn of artificial intelligence. We are not very far from machines who could become indistinguishable from humans. You might get an answer from a machine that would be indistinguishable from an answer from a human. But then you have already made a distinction that would not...

Why would anyone who takes this idea seriously be posting on a public forum?

Troll: If one said the most intelligent thing when in a great rage, that would be no defect of the thing said, would it? What one might say and one what one does say are two different things. If and when you say the most intelligent thing we can discuss it. I think you are under the spell of a defun...

The concept of God in some form is necessary for those who desire God. The desire creates a reality, for a desire must be a desire for something; but it forgets its origin and calls it “reality”. Because this is what it desires it creates the illusion of unchanging stability, certainty, and meaning....

Troll, it is evident that your emotions are standing in your way of a rational discussion of emotions. Is it some particular trauma that has led you to make claims about: academic charlatan's assumed conventional Pseud's Corner-worthy spiel or is this just your own example of such? So, this is the s...

Londoner: Isaiah 45:7 " I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." More usually 'calamity' or 'disaster' which makes more sense when contrasted with 'peace'. I think the relationship between peace and evil can be seen in the follo...

jayjacobus: All the ideas on this thread are in the right direction, but the real practical question is "who will protect us from evil in real life". NOBODY is not a reasonable answer. We must protect ourselves and each other. There is just too much evidence to the contrary to hope that Go...

Londoner: Isaiah 45:7 " I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." More usually 'calamity' or 'disaster' which makes more sense when contrasted with 'peace'. The problem is what has come to be associated with the term ‘evil’. What...