Jamal

The question is whether the mind is an algorithm, meaning the human mind, which m-theory is suggesting might be one of the philosophical implications.

The computational theory of mind is one philosophical view among many, and it's been heavily criticized. If it's your position then cool, but don't pr...

On behalf of the original TPF crew: you're welcome. @"Hanover" was our guiding light, of course. Now there's a true visionary.

(Y) Note that we use a hosted service called PlushForums, which is based on some kind of fork of Vanilla Forums, so I'm not actually a developer of th...

But you only see it if you go to "Mentions" in your profile menu, don't you? Or is it that you're not clicking on the notification and it's still tell...

You mean clear the items in your list of mentions? Not that I know of. Why would you want to do that?

I think I'd class them as philosophers too, though they didn't pursue it thoroughly and decided to change the world instead. There's a fantastic book ...

As for the effect of philosophy on my life, it's definitely changed the way I approach anomalous monism and transcendental phenomenology.

His philosophical method is historical and owes a lot to Marx and Kuhn. He says that there are no transhistorical standards to appeal to in assessing ...

Yes, I did notice that bit, and I agree it's not satisfying. Really it's a different way of putting the point at issue. May say more later.

You beat me to it. On the other hand, most atheists are not philosophers, and we might get a better picture of things by looking at the wider secular ...

I'm a bit confused. Would anyone like to try setting out exactly why a meta-ethics based on an empirical concept of the human form of life is such a b...

Ha! Yeah I hate it when people respond to my posts before I get a chance to correct them.

Thanks @"Pierre-Normand". As you're using Kant's phrasing, shouldn't this be the other way around? "There can be no doubt that all knowledge begins wi...

Here's what I'm thinking about Thompson's argument. I want to agree with the conclusion that we can interpret moral judgments naturalistically, i.e., ...

Nice post McD, and quite familiar to me. I recently noticed Peter Hitchens arguing for the use of the term Judeophobia to describe present-day anti-Je...

Note that I moved this thread to the Feedback category. We aim not to moderate Feedback at all, so you're free to say what you like here. As it happen...

You haven't addressed what I said. If you're only in the discussion to spout your prejudice, don't bother posting again.

Yeah, after reading that bit the first time through I chose to ignore it, as it just didn't seem helpful. I thought I had a decent enough grasp of wha...

Incidentally, my only encounters with virtue ethics have been with Aristotle and MacIntyre, and I like the approach a lot. Although it's a side-issue,...

Thanks @"Pierre-Normand" for a great introduction. The paper's argument is somewhat convoluted, especially if you're like me and you're not familiar w...

So more like a philosophical appropriation or expression of politics, rather than a political appropriation of philosophy.

If I may: I don't disagree with your substantive points here, but I think there's another side to the story, which is that materialism has not--at lea...

Maybe, but I'm quite happy to use it too.

This is an appealing idea, but maybe it's an unavoidable result of the nature of philosophy. The very practice of philosophy is a performative repudia...

I know that's probably tongue-in-cheek, but let me interpret it as making a serious point, namely that one can uselessly call anything reductionist if...

Sure, but I'm playing with concepts. The way we tend to talk about these things might not be the best, and it may be that the philosophical problems w...

Or, developing one of @"Moliere"'s examples, "This table appears like an external object, but is really a product of your subjective experience". Noti...

Everything is mental.

I just want to suggest that if one is arguing for a telos, one can dispense with intention, which has strong connotations of conscious purpose, even i...

I think this could be an important point. One could even draw a distinction that cuts across those which are commonly made around this issue: between,...

This is exactly the problem I have with some of the criticism of reductionism. It must assume that science and materialism are crudely reductionist, b...

A nice critique, and I mostly agree with it. Some scattered thoughts... A response to one of your arguments is that reductionism does not actually ass...

Yes, although in this discussion I think it probably doesn't matter. Ethnicity can be about shared cultural, historical, linguistic or religious pract...

Yes I see, but we're working with some unclear distinctions here, and I suppose I was trying to cover all the bases. In one sense reductionism is a me...

If Jews don't exist, who is the target of the prejudice that goes by the name of anti-semitism? This looks like a way of saying that anti-Jewish preju...

Thompson wins. @"Pierre-Normand" is going to start the discussion thread in a couple of days, so get reading!

(Y) It's a point I've made before, although it should be noted that Dennett does mean it in the strong reductionist sense, I think. What makes the imm...

Good. Welcome to the forum. :) Assuming it doesn't win, I think we should do it next month and not bother with a poll.

Yeah it's a tag search. I haven't tagged anything so far, but it could come in handy. For example, if you write something about site functionality and...

Okay PN, Thompson's back in.

Cool, I'll add it to the list and do a poll soon.

Reading it as a kind of conversation, I'm reminded of moments of intense camaraderie. The enthusiasm is infectious, and it does feel more sincere and ...

Thanks for going into that. It's fascinating, but personally I can't say I've experienced anything remotely as complex and interesting, in terms of pe...

Allow me to ramble about something. Because of my job I'm hardly away from my computer, day and night, but I do make time to go out for bike rides and...

I'm honoured. And though I used to be one of those who defended pornography, I've changed my mind about it now. I think it really is changing the way ...

Another way to do it could be to set up a permanent group dedicated to reading something each month, and once you're in the group, you gotta do it. An...

It's a cunning plan. The democratic charade makes people think they've made a decision even if their choice doesn't win, and once they've made suggest...

Why? might be a good question, but asking Dawkins why there is life is a bit like asking a military historian why there is war: given that there is wa...

So here's a potential list for the poll: Peter Sloterdijk, "Rules for the Human Zoo" GEM Anscombe, "Modern Moral Philosophy" Harry Frankfurt, "On Bull...