Philosophy Now Forum

Maybe I should have said "I'm convinced."

Mea culpa.

Thedoc's got a point, I think. But I'd be mighty surprised if it turned out to be one we have to worry about. The Secularization Hypothesis is old school, as is generally realized among sociologists today. A great quantity of sociological research is currently focusing on explaining why secularizati...

Lev: Thanks for the comprehensive and relevant answer, but after a week of waiting I think I've lost the will to live. I quite understand. Debating on this forum can have that effect. The discussion level falls quickly to the puerile here. And while I have found two or three excellent conversation p...

Hello, Lev. You're looking for someone to defend Plantinga's view of belief in God as "properly basic"? Okay. But first we'd best define "properly basic," because your respondents so far don't know what that expression means, and that is causing them frustration. That's why they'...

I am quite fascinated by this: the death of the possibility of explaining anything in spiritual and metaphysical terms! It is not really that 'God has died' but that language and concept have no way to explain to the self, to the ego, just what in fact is being talked about! So, we either resort to...

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity...

Sure.

I was reassured by an earlier poster (see upstream, if you care who) that Rand's Objectivism was grounded, rationally legitimated ethics.

In a subsequent message, it was supposed if I didn't think so I must not have read Rand.

I called the poster's bluff.

Sorry, Hex...

You're way off topic.

Do you have an explanation of Rand with regard to Hume?

Ummm....

I'm sorry, Hex...was this a free floating observation, or are we to understand it as connected to Rand's problem in some way?

You mean I'm to assume the old legal principle "Silence betokens consent"?

And yet there were, at one time, those ready to leap to the defense of poor old Lady Rand...

How sad that she must now find herself a widow.

Well, then you and I just don't agree about that. I don't fault a man for stating his position. To me at least, Aidan's been a straight-shooter. I can respect that. And in any case, I don't always have to agree with the position a man takes to respect the man. Positions change. Character less so. So...

No, I'm not talking about Theism (though I often do, of course). I'm just asking what Rand's got to deal with David Hume's challenge. As you can see, the answer at present seems to be that she's got nothing. And if that's true, then what ArisingUK suggested, namely that Rand... [In] "The Virtue...

C'mon, all you Randians.

I know you're out there; I can hear you coughing uncomfortably...

Step up and defend the old gal.

Damsel in distress....Surely some one can save her...

What can you find from her that's any better on the Is/Ought issue?

Now, now, Mickthinks... I've talked to Aidan offline a bit, and though he does not share my views he is a decent chap. I'm not sure he's actually wrong in a great deal of what he says here. I quite understand his disgruntlement with the conversational style that (alas) is typical of this discussion ...

Sure. I'm in no hurry. But let me help you out, since your Kindle is on the fritz. This is her treatment of the issue Hume raises: ...the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is determines what it ought to do. So much for...