PossibleAaran

Let's try defining "need" by starting with the notion of purpose. You only need X for some purpose or another. For instance, you need food, but you on...

You can't philosophize about the content of empirical sciences. The philosopher doesn't tell you that Caesar crossed the Rubicon or that the earth is ...

Couldn't you procede inductively? Ask a large and hopefully representative sample of people and infer that what they say is likely what everyone would...

The Relativist would immediately run into the objection that when he says "I don't believe in truth", he means to state something which is true - name...

Here is what I think I disagree with. Why does saying "I know there are no Gods" or "I know there is a God" require more substantiation than "I know t...

My question to you is: why is it unacceptable to say something like "I know that God exists" or " I know that there are no gods" without having absolu...

Some interesting issues get raised here. I am not sure at all that the "casual" and "philosophical" distinction makes sense, but let's see what can be...

"Knowledge" as you are using the word, requires complete certainty. Nothing wrong with that, but your claim that noone knows whether God exists is not...

I sort of fell into Philosophy after having a bad experience with Psychology at University. I stuck with Philosophy, I suppose, because although a lot...

I don't think prison population as such is a particularly good argument for the superiority of anybody in any respect. There are all sorts of reasons ...

Not at all. Is my bedroom contradictory because it has a red pillow and a different not red pillow in it? The pillows/beliefs are distinct objects. It...

As far as I can see, there is no actual contradictory state of affairs in this example. There is the computer and it's program. There are various maps...

thanks for the clarification Andrew. Yes that is exactly what I meant to say. Yes smart people deny the law of non-contradiction, but even they do so ...

I would maintain that at least the law of non-contradiction is indubitable in just this sense: it cannot intelligibly be doubted. Try to imagine any s...

The thread is 3 months old, so the last two posts were probably a necro. But since they have been allowed so far, allow me a reply to Pattern Chaser, ...

Hi again Blue Lux, The abstractions are based on observation of patients who present with common symptoms. That is to say, the application of the abst...

Could you cite an article in a reputable Psychology journal that makes synthetic a priori judgements? Psychology as I've studied it is thoroughly empi...

Hi Andrewk. Several people here hold the view that philosophical arguments about the existence of God are pointless because they don't convince very m...

Hi Ram, The problem I think most people are having with your post is multifaceted. You claim that there is a big "hole in Materialism", but there are ...

Seems easy enough to be an Agnostic to me. Suppose you hear a set of arguments in favour of God's existence and a set of arguments against. You find b...

Hi insightfully noted that your discussion of free-will vs determinism fails to appreciate a third position which is very popular in Philosophy at pre...

Many philosophers insist on debates about the meaning of words. I once got into a debate with my old PhD supervisor about the worth of the mass of lit...

That is right, but power is not the only criterion of explanation. Simplicity is another and I argued that RL is simpler than BIV. But I understand no...

According to , an idea is transcendentally stupid if and only if it is trivial, arbitrary and He implies that the discussion in another thread about t...

The curious thing about your reply Pattern-chaser, is that you assert that we cannot make a justified conclusion about whether BIV or RL is true, but ...

I see. I think you miss all of the historical and philosophical significance of discussions about BIVs. The hypothesis isn't discussed because some fa...

"Entirely arbitrary"? You mean that there is no reason to believe that we are BIVs?

And what I can't help continue to ask is: why do you think the question is "a bunch of crap"? PA

I don't understand your point. Do I have a good reason to believe I am in my apartment or not? If I do, I have good reason to believe I am not a BIV. ...

It isn't a disjunction its a conditional, isn't it? Anyway, what motivates it is quite simple. A brain in a vat is, obviously, a brain in a jar of che...

I am not sure I follow. If I am in my apartment then I am not a BIV. So if I have good reason to believe I am in my apartment I can simply deduce that...

I have good reason to believe that I am in my apartment. I look around and I see all of the furniture, the walls, the windows. Out of the window I see...

Oh silly me! That could be so, but the simpler explanation is that the queen is what she looks like she is. A human. PA

So the problem is that the question is about what isn't the case as opposed to what is the case? If I had raised a question using the positive mood in...

In a broad logical sense of "can", any question "can" be dismissed, but it doesn't follow that they should be. I take it you didn't mean to make that ...

I agree with others that the point you are making is quite insignificant to the point of the discussion. The OP wants to discuss this question: is the...

I found your OP admirably frank. Many people, when asked what logical reason they can give for dismissing the BIV hypothesis, will almost never just s...

I largely agree with you. I'll just quibble a bit and add something else. . Except for David Lewis and a few others, most philosophers do not think th...

I take this to mean "are perceptual experiences reasons for beliefs?". I think the answer is "yes" and that such reasons are neither circular, infinit...

As you no doubt expect, I disagree with your short assessment of the project Descartes takes up. I also disagree that "everything is based on opinions...

I don't just think that your position here is odd. I think its incoherent. Take any proposition, P, which most people believe is objectively true. You...

I will divide our issues in to three parts: the difference between scientific answers and philosophical answers; whether any philosophy is any better ...

Great discussion. A lot to think about. When we began I thought you were maintaining that all philosophical questions could be answered by science, bu...

The distinction you made earlier between facts and useful perspectives has vanished. The "fact of the matter" side has collapsed into the useful persp...

Isn't it objectively true that there are mountains on earth? Isn't it objectively true that you exist? That I exist? Aren't these 'fixed realities'?

Do you just find it useful to believe that there is no fixed reality, or is it a fact that there is no fixed reality?

The examples you choose create some difficulties. My goal here is just to understand what your distinction between fact of the matter questions and un...

The regress argument is something which analytic philosophers discuss. The argument makes assumptions about the meaning of "knowledge" and "justificat...

So there are questions of this kind and there are questions about "the underpinnings of reason". The questions above are questions about which there i...

I think you misread my post. I wasn't attacking religious believers at all. I didn't call them dogmatic. I said others call them dogmatic. I used the ...