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I understand your preference for Evidentialism, I just don't see how it applies here. Neither Idealism nor Realism have any more reliable source for t...
December 12, 2017 at 16:37
Sorry, I mean the following; 1. We enter adult life as Realists for whatever reason (evolution or indoctrination). My test with the laptop the if prov...
December 12, 2017 at 13:35
No, my premise is that no one has yet provided any evidence that materialism causes any harm or can be proven logically impossible. Those two things m...
December 12, 2017 at 09:39
Yeah, I'm a big fan of both James and Pierce. " What difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true? ...
December 12, 2017 at 09:28
Exactly. If the lives of the Idealist and the Realist are identical in behaviour then they are not functionally different and the distinction is point...
December 12, 2017 at 08:30
You have misunderstood what I said. "Courage is when the desire to help out-competes the desire to remain safe.". The two competing desires in that se...
December 12, 2017 at 07:45
Thanks. I will enjoy reading it.
December 12, 2017 at 07:40
It's not contrary to many, this is the fundamental tenet of analytical philosophy, it quite well supported, but it is the second option I describe. Yo...
December 12, 2017 at 07:38
Simple, such a belief has been entirely harmless for the (more than I'd care to mention) years of my life so far. Can anyone say the same of Idealism?...
December 12, 2017 at 07:10
Begging the question is a statement where the conclusion is presumed to some extent in the premise. I haven't provided you with my premise, just my co...
December 12, 2017 at 07:05
Is there some way you could provide links to these threads, the case for what benefits alternatives to Realism bring is exactly what I've been asking ...
December 11, 2017 at 18:58
No, I'm asking you if you have a better alternative to Realism, not a better justification for a belief in it. The reason I'm asking is because the qu...
December 11, 2017 at 18:32
If we define a moral thing as a thing which has some properties (x,y,and z), then (presuming we all still agree it has those properties), it is possib...
December 11, 2017 at 18:18
Nope, not getting any of that, are you saying it isn't a valid ideology, or it isn't one amongst many? Those are the only two assertions contained wit...
December 11, 2017 at 11:22
Exactly. We might well conclude that we can't trust our eyes or that materialism might not encompass all there is, I'd entirely agree, but it's a very...
December 11, 2017 at 11:11
As reliable as any other, that's the point. Your instincts are there already, for whatever reason, call it hardwiring, call it indoctrination, but the...
December 11, 2017 at 10:35
Care to explain how? How does one avoid ideology? That's the question I've been trying to address here. What does not having an ideology look like. Wh...
December 11, 2017 at 10:27
What I'm saying is that in order to describe any action as moral we must presume at least the 'goodness' of the outcome and it must be an action which...
December 11, 2017 at 08:42
"I perceive something" still presupposes realism (that the something exists). "I experience an internal sensation, one I've come to associate with per...
December 11, 2017 at 08:14
I'm not talking about how he got his job, I'm talking about why there is a movement within epistemology to take his views seriously, but not those of ...
December 11, 2017 at 07:48
Yes. The question was what's wrong with that? Where's the epistemological or moral error? Dawkins has taken an issue - say contraception - he's decidi...
December 11, 2017 at 07:44
I think he might be, yes, but let's not dwell on that. You're right it was a poor analogy because what I'm trying to say is that the reason the Pope i...
December 10, 2017 at 21:07
Great, that's at least tangible, so could you explain why you think the theory that children naturally, instinctively understand the data they receive...
December 10, 2017 at 18:04
Right, so back to my earlier question of what does skepticism look like then? You seem quite convinced that there's not enough skepticism but I'm lost...
December 10, 2017 at 16:51
It is that people are harmed (or rather society's well-being is harmed) I completely agree with your definition that immoral behaviour has to produce ...
December 10, 2017 at 13:55
Yes, that is exactly what I think, the only evidence that has ever been put forward to suggest otherwise is that they make decisions they later regret...
December 10, 2017 at 13:05
But that's what virtue ethics is. Planning to murder someone would harm your character because the sort of person who would murder someone isn't the s...
December 10, 2017 at 12:36
Simple - That education is not about sitting in a school room learning History and English Literature, that it can be about working at a rewarding job...
December 10, 2017 at 12:03
Absolutely, I just doubt your ability to do so better than the general prescription that thousands of years of cultural and biological evolution plus ...
December 10, 2017 at 11:18
Fine here's one directly on children, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26370881, though I'm not sure why you would think one on adults wouldn't app...
December 10, 2017 at 11:09
Yes but chess strategies are hardly ever in the form of "when the Queen is here, move you pawn here" they are in the form of generalised strategies ex...
December 10, 2017 at 09:50
http://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/2653704/patterns-sedentary-behavior-mortality-u-s-middle-aged-older-adults. Sitting for too long causes demonst...
December 10, 2017 at 09:32
So having a child do healthy satisfying, and rewarding outdoor work on, say, a ranch would be a bad thing, but physically imprisoning then in a school...
December 10, 2017 at 08:56
Firstly, that Dawkins might be hypocritical in his use of morality does not refute the argument, it just dodges it. Let's say Dawkins never wrote the ...
December 10, 2017 at 08:41
This is basically the case that I'm trying to make against consequentialism. From where did we acquire the crystal ball with which we determine that t...
December 10, 2017 at 08:33
Yes, I do, but that doesn't cause any problems for the definition of courage if you also accept the point I've made about multiple desires competing, ...
December 10, 2017 at 08:20
Yes I do mean the whole "default position deal". Earlier put forward Plantinga's rather weak argument in favour of of his theism and seemed to suggest...
December 10, 2017 at 08:12
I mean that which is typical of it's class, the conventional meaning for the word 'classic', not 'Classical' as in the historical period. I'm sorry if...
December 10, 2017 at 08:00
I'm not sure how this makes any difference ethically, we can't all have power either so the rich are still taking from the poor, if I extend my list t...
December 09, 2017 at 18:25
The "action" I'm referring to is that by which others are being judged to be not skeptical enough, the post started by (and I've interpreted many of t...
December 09, 2017 at 18:16
I agree, and I'm not so sure is is tangential to this discussion. I think it relates to 's second assertion that "we cannot even locate a reliable sou...
December 09, 2017 at 12:13
I think you'd have to divide the payment into two parts. I'm not an economist, so I wouldn't claim to know the economic implications of such a payment...
December 09, 2017 at 10:54
I think this is still true of the type of skepticism being discussed here, it's just that one of the "kinds of things that ‘everyone knows’ to be true...
December 09, 2017 at 08:44
I'm glad you're still interested. As I wrote earlier, I'm a compatibilist which means I don't believe in free will, not I don't believe in any kind of...
December 09, 2017 at 07:57
The key question is not what we should doubt, but what doubting looks like. How would one tell that I doubted the entirely physical nature of existenc...
December 08, 2017 at 20:00
Indeed, that's what I meant by 'under-defining' but you explained it much more clearly, thanks.
December 08, 2017 at 19:47
I don't deny that adults have non- or anti-realist views, to do so in the face of overwhelming evidence would indeed be absurd. I'm talking entirely a...
December 08, 2017 at 16:21
I thought we were talking about the rich, if he gave it all away he wouldn't be rich any more, would he?
December 08, 2017 at 16:02
I didn't mention anything about sources of wealth, I said that no-one wants just money, they want the stuff money can buy. What's the use of the milli...
December 08, 2017 at 15:00
I understand the logic of what you're saying, but it isn't very convincing, it's a story that makes sense - realism is like santa claus, we don't ques...
December 08, 2017 at 14:56