Search found 15 matches
- Fri Aug 12, 2016 11:17 am
- Forum: Ethical Theory
- Topic: Do you know your own self-interest?
- Replies: 210
- Views: 48396
Re: Do you know your own self-interest?
you must see things as I see them or I'll kill you... history never repeats... -Imp "Seeing things as I see them" only means a bad thing if the thing you see is different from the thing I see; if they're the same, then there's no problem, agreement can be reached, and whoever was wrong si...
- Fri Aug 12, 2016 10:50 am
- Forum: Epistemology - Theory of Knowledge
- Topic: What is truth?
- Replies: 666
- Views: 140420
Re: What is truth?
The common sense understanding of truth is the correspondence theory of truth. From now on referred to as CTT. If the CTT is true,what does it refer to? Another CTT? Depending on your perspective that is a tautology or an infinite regress. So what is truth? PS;The CTT is the theory that a propositi...
- Fri Aug 12, 2016 10:35 am
- Forum: Ethical Theory
- Topic: Do you know your own self-interest?
- Replies: 210
- Views: 48396
Re:
Hey, Prof, what if a jackass like myself refuses to abide by your or Hartman's notions of what constitutes 'value'? What if such a person digs in his heels and asserts 'I'll damn well decide for myself what or who is or isn't valuable and I'll do so by my own standards, thank you very much.' What h...
- Fri Aug 12, 2016 10:28 am
- Forum: Philosophy of Language
- Topic: Apologies
- Replies: 152
- Views: 36465
Re: Apologies
Apology, like many other social rituals, is promissory . By apologizing, we make it clear that we're not going to do the bad thing we apologized for again, so that we become predictable as a good-behaving person again, not only with the person we're apologizing to, but to observing others who might ...
- Fri Aug 12, 2016 10:15 am
- Forum: Metaphysics
- Topic: Getting Beneath Language
- Replies: 31
- Views: 8245
Re: Getting Beneath Language
For a long time I thought of language in a later-Wittgensteinian sense, as chess-like use of symbols/sounds/bits etc., according to rules, to do things. Now, I'm more in the old-fashioned frame of thinking of language as an expression of thought. Seems to me that those are not mutually exclusive op...
- Fri Aug 12, 2016 9:59 am
- Forum: Metaphysics
- Topic: Dualism?
- Replies: 152
- Views: 34363
Re: Dualism?
I was thinking about dualism recently and I find it problematic. Lets start with definition of dualism. Dualism is a system of belief which claims that both mind/soul and matter are real. Mind however is not material hence it does not have any location. The problem I am facing is how one can relate...
- Thu Aug 11, 2016 3:53 pm
- Forum: Ethical Theory
- Topic: On the future of Ethics
- Replies: 10
- Views: 4432
Re: On the future of Ethics
Comments welcome.... My feeling is that an advance of ethics towards a more scientific understanding, is in the direction of understanding that ethics is and must be fundamentally egoistic, eudaimonistic . There are two huge mistakes that have run through and corrupted nearly all ethical discussion...
- Thu Aug 11, 2016 2:57 pm
- Forum: Metaphysics
- Topic: Dualism?
- Replies: 152
- Views: 34363
Re: Dualism?
I was thinking about dualism recently and I find it problematic. Lets start with definition of dualism. Dualism is a system of belief which claims that both mind/soul and matter are real. Mind however is not material hence it does not have any location. The problem I am facing is how one can relate...
- Thu Aug 11, 2016 10:37 am
- Forum: General Philosophical Discussion
- Topic: Solipsism
- Replies: 30
- Views: 7589
Re: Solipsism
The problematic around solipsism can arise from two sorts of reflections, the idea that what we perceive in the first instance is mental, and the idea that the totality of my experience could be "like a dream". But the latter is just a poetic way of saying the former. If you don't think th...
- Thu Aug 11, 2016 10:14 am
- Forum: Epistemology - Theory of Knowledge
- Topic: What is the structure of uncertainty?
- Replies: 22
- Views: 8525
Re: What is the structure of uncertainty?
There are several different kinds of certainty. One kind relates more to perceptions of basic facts, another important kind relates to the degree of justification you have for a belief (which must be carefully distinguished from the evidence you have for a belief - evidence relating to probability, ...
- Wed Aug 10, 2016 10:51 am
- Forum: Epistemology - Theory of Knowledge
- Topic: How do we know our reasoning is valid?
- Replies: 40
- Views: 12640
Re: How do we know our reasoning is valid?
Recently I have been wracked by global scepticism, are we brains in vats, were the world and all our memories created last Thursday etc. I found that with the use of certain logical tools like Ockham's razor and abductive reasoning that I could dispel some of these sceptical doubts. But how do I kn...
- Wed Aug 10, 2016 10:28 am
- Forum: Metaphysics
- Topic: What Ideas Struck You Hardest in Philosophy - Some "Chapman's Homer" Moments
- Replies: 7
- Views: 2573
Re: What Ideas Struck You Hardest in Philosophy - Some "Chapman's Homer" Moments
I think my biggest philosophical epiphany of recent times has been my escape from the fly bottle of the problems (such as global scepticism) set up by representationalism (roughly, the idea that ruled modern philosophy for a long time, that we immediately perceive our perceptions, and the external w...
- Wed Aug 10, 2016 10:17 am
- Forum: Metaphysics
- Topic: Getting Beneath Language
- Replies: 31
- Views: 8245
Re: Getting Beneath Language
For a long time I thought of language in a later-Wittgensteinian sense, as chess-like use of symbols/sounds/bits etc., according to rules, to do things. Now, I'm more in the old-fashioned frame of thinking of language as an expression of thought. Formerly, that idea seemed to be countered by Wittgen...
- Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:31 am
- Forum: Metaphysics
- Topic: ''Something'' and ''Nothing'' are the same ONE
- Replies: 130
- Views: 31288
Re: ''Something'' and ''Nothing'' are the same ONE
See how they are the same one except one is rejected in favor of the other. They're not the same though, one is nourishing (which is why you're inclined to want it), the other isn't. They're made of "the same" matter, in a sense (whatever that basic constitution of matter is), but the mat...
- Mon Aug 08, 2016 10:20 am
- Forum: Introduce Yourself
- Topic: Hi everyone!
- Replies: 1
- Views: 1402
Hi everyone!
I'm a refugee from Philosophy Forums, which, sadly, seems to be having a bit of an ongoing digital seizure. As an occasional addict of philosophical discussion, who's currently in an addicted phase, I NEED MY FIX NAAAOWWW!!!! So I'm dropping by to check you guys out :D I'm a 57 year old amateur who'...