Philosophy Now Forum

Nick, why should anyone care what Plato, Plotinus, Aristotle, Thoreau, Weil said? Can't you think for yourself? Must you hobble around on the crutches of people from the past who may or may not have been good thinkers but were often just wrong? How much of what Aristotle said do you think he got ri...

Nick_A: Apparently you are unaware that Spinoza is a poster boy for secular intolerance. Some quotes from the Stanford Encyclopedia article “Spinoza’s Political Philosophy”: Spinoza’s political philosophy advocates democracy and subordinates religion to the state. At one point Spinoza calls the tas...

So if an asteroid strikes and destroys the earth killing all life upon it, the truth of universal existence existing only as a creation of Man's mind will also be destroyed. The end of the Milky Way and all other galaxies. Since we are no longer alive to argue about it, the universe doesn't exist. ...

Got any evidence that what Spinoza said is true? No. I don't have proof of the following either. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is...

The final victory for Greta and fooloso4. "... Love towards a thing eternal and infinite feeds the mind wholly with joy, and is itself unmingled with any sadness, wherefore it is greatly to be desired and sought for with all our strength." - Spinoza (TEI) Secularism will seek to destroy th...

What does it mean, that “universal laws are the cause of creation”? What “laws?” How do “laws” create anything? The so-called “laws of nature” are not laws at all. They are not prescriptions of how the world must behave. They are merely descptions of how the world does behave. Rorty’s stance is Tar...

What does it mean, that “universal laws are the cause of creation”? What “laws?” How do “laws” create anything? The so-called “laws of nature” are not laws at all. They are not prescriptions of how the world must behave. They are merely descptions of how the world does behave. Rorty’s stance is Tar...

Rorty states: Forget Rorty, Nick, listen to me. There is stuff out there, some of which your senses give you direct access to. There is stuff out there that science has deduced. You / I / everybody takes these two categories of stuff and paints a picture with it, this is our subjective view of exis...

He said the WORLD is out there, independent of us, whether we are dead or alive; just not any kind of truth about the world, contra Weil's mystical mumbo-jnumbo. What is the world without the truth of the world which enables its existence? it doesn't make sense. He is denying universal laws which a...

Since we are no longer alive to argue about it, the universe doesn't exist. I didn't know I was that important. When you die the World/Universe as you perceive it will cease to exist, yes. Rorty states: "Truth cannot be out there—cannot exist independently of the human mind —because sentences ...

Oh, more quotes from Weil! Let me offer some quotes of my own: Richard Rorty: We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that the truth is out there. To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that mo...

Fooloso4 First things first. If you don’t appreciate the difference between the secular (sustaining the status quo of cave life) and the sacred (the means of escape from the human condition creating cave life into the potential for human being) you will never understand Simone or Christianity. From ...

You cannot find one expression of hatred on any of my posts. Hello?? I've been the target of a lot of your hate. It's not just one comment but an avalanche. I remember when your target was "atheists". You could not stop deriding them. Then I said that doesn't include me as I'm an agnostic...

Greta No, you simply routinely spew bile and hatred with occasional interesting snippets from Plato and Simone Weil. The hatred has nothing to do with "secularists" or any other victims of your hate speech. It's you. You can't hide from this with tricky turnarounds. "It's not me, it's...

Greta Double standards. Besides, agape love is naturally always the same, no matter the conduit. But what is agape love and how does it differ from secular love? Christian, as you have said many times. I am not a Christian. I am a pre-Christian. I am attracted to the great depth and purpose of Chris...