Philosophy Now Forum

It’s anthropomorphism if we have a belief that plants and animals think and behave like human beings, an attribution of human nature to non-human beings; it’s not anthropomorphism to suppose the other way around, that we human beings, in some respects, behave just as non-human beings do. Suppose the...

4, Live in accordance with nature. Concerning the Stoic thesis, “Live in accordance with nature,” there can be a number of interpretations, but as far as I understand, both the base verb “Live” and the prepositional phrase “in accordance with nature” mean is , whereas this whole sentence is imperati...

3, Is entails Ought . We may think that even when we fall short of the norms, there is no need to come up to the standards, is there? After all, we are what we are and we need not be what we should be in order to be. However, there can be found a paradox in here. That we are what we are means that w...

2, Is comes from ought . When we have too much, we should stop having; when not enough, we should go on getting. After having too much bread for breakfast we should eat less at lunch; having slept too little due to, say, preparation for the exam, we should go to bed earlier. This “ought” can also de...

1, ought can come from is . I think we can say that what we should do can derive from what nature is. Norms can be found in facts. Let's think this way. Jim is a young man and came to like drinking recently. He hasn’t mastered moderation yet. Sometimes he’s got too drunk to walk straight and so has ...

Hi, Immanuel. Thanks for your detailed comment. Ecclesiastes, as you points out, does not concern the mean. So you are right. I just wanted to say that the idea of the mean can be found in it, though partly. When I say the golden mean is the universal truth, I mean the following. The mean is hard to...

Hi. Thanks for your comment! But one of the first problems with the "golden mean" idea is that It quickly becomes implausible, if some values are put into the scheme. For example, what is "too much love," or "too much wisdom"? It's not obvious that everything actually h...

Hello, guys! I’m a middle- or old-aged Japanese amateur philosopher planning to give an online lecture on the Golden Mean, or the Middle Way you may call it in Buddhism. Unfortunately, I’m not so good at speaking, let alone speaking English. I think I need some practice. However, I have no one to ha...

Dear logicians! I think I’ve come up with something beyond the Law of Noncontradiction. Unfortunately, I’m not a trained philosopher, let alone a logician. I’m not sure whether I’m right or wrong, or rather, how wrong I am and how I am wrong. Anyway, here is what I’ve been thinking about. In Plato’s...

Imagination is just one tool for our understanding. We can only have a good understanding of what an object is after we've perceived, conceived, and imagined it. Understanding is the integration. When I perceive a cube, I can possibly see only 3 faces at a time. I begin to see one by one with care, ...

Sartre, in his The Imagery, seems to have said that the function of imagination is 'irrealizing.' As for me, the function of imagination is an attempt to make the incomplete complete, so its essence lies in not 'irrealizing' but in an attempt at completing, perfecting, in other words, realizing.

As far as I can remember, Sartre said that, because of imagination, a picture of Pierre reminds us of Pierre himself. On the other hand, Plato wrote that, thanks to Anamnesis, a painting of Pierre - or anybody - makes us think of Pierre himself, and it is this Anamnesis that allows us to get to the ...

Hi, Nick_A. You are very passionate and knowledgeable. I wish I could write as much and as quick-witted as you. I think you asked some questions, but first I'd like to write about imagination. You asked me, "How much can a seeker of truth rely on imagination?" Imagination is a big issue. I...

I regret to say this, but I’ve got to admit that what I’m writing here is often far from well-organized. I may be giving a lame excuse, but these days I’m working from Monday through Sunday, hardly having any time to make and keep my ideas neat and tidy. Anyway, I think I should keep on going. Imper...

When we find in a beauty some imperfection, we exercise imagination to try to make the beauty more complete and perfect. Since our experience of beauty is subjective, imagination plays a vital role in our sense of beauty. A beauty is the more beautiful through our imagination and participation, from...