Ludwig V

This is a very strange debate. You seem to be arguing that the world is going to hell in a handbasket because of the dominance of liberalism. But I be...

I can see that it is not part of the first level. "Semantic interpretation" looks like the second level. For what it's worth, I think reference is on ...

Thanks for this. It does make sense. I'll have to take it for granted that there are no other successful interpretations. I know that logicians accept...

I think you are missing an important point. For many in the aftermath of the two world wars, it was clear that the Grand Narratives that they had inhe...

I mean the latter. Raw perceptions are a myth - a construction from our recognition that there are interpretive processes at work. The moment that the...

.. and you interpret all that in dualistic terms. But that's an interpretation, not a fact. I'm not a subjectivist and I don't doubt the validity of p...

Do you mean that our experience confirms it? If not our experience, then what? I think you will find it more helpful to think of that idea as a model,...

I agree with you about what really matters, but your downright no to the question about these experiences seems to me to be over the top. So far as I ...

@"banno" If I may chime in with a related question. I seem to be missing an understanding about what a property is. I can see that whatever name that ...

I see that. But then, it seems to me to be a matter of how one thinks about it, or perhaps what question one asks. "Homer" designates just that person...

Well, there are a number of issues. Every problem in philosophy seems to have its own foundation. Which of them is fundamental? That depends on the co...

I think we can say a little more than that. One issue is that we can't just abandon our fundamental, taken-for-granted beliefs. Descartes, for example...

Posted prematurely. Sorry.

Yes, that's true - provided we have established that the animal in question is a tiger. But perhaps it only seems to be a tiger and the seeming we dis...

Of course, that is just an outline of the big picture. I don't disagree with it, exactly, though there are a number of devils in various details. But ...

Well, I guess your argument would work, provided we can fix the reference of X without appealing to any of the properties of X. But most people would ...

OK. It's just that I'm not sure that it does work. But perhaps that's beyond our scope here. There's something very odd about saying that we learn wha...

Are you suggesting that you think it is not a tough question? If so, I would love to know more. Well, the cloud issue is just a sorites paradox. You'r...

Forgive my ignorance. That suggests that you have an independent definition of "extensional context". But I thought that intersubstitutability was the...

Personal experience and cultural mediation are the basis for all beliefs, aren't they? So why do you distinguish between false religious beliefs and t...

I see your point. It's an important feature of most (all?) religions. Lots of different kinds of ways. I don't see that as a problem, in itself. It's ...

Well, agreement on the epistemology would be good. It would be even better if that agreement gave a basis for tolerating other religions. I realize th...

I agree with a lot of what you say. I guess that, for a non-believer, a religion or ideology, can be regarded as about life-style and practice. Howeve...

I'm afraid I was not very clear here. My immediate point was that dialogue between believers and non-believers cannot take place, or cannot take place...

That's another way to come at the subject. There's room for both, I think.

Interesting question. I was thinking about the question whether religion is a force for good. My answer is that there are lots of other similar questi...

Well, of course. What else? It seems to me that any serious attempt to answer it, will have to include emprical data, as well.

It depends how you interpret and apply them. More specifically, it depends you treat people who violate your principles. Ask yourself why the allies w...

I agree whole-heartedly that the notion that one has grasped an Absolute Truth is extremely dangerous. It makes it impossible to acknowledge and toler...

The British Constitution is a wonderful thing. Strictly speaking, the royal family are entitled to vote; it's just that they think it would be tactles...

Sorry. Posted prematurely by accident.

Yes, but the outcome of having a speech impediment as an adult might well rest on both causes interacting, not only after birth, but even before (poll...

It seems to me that the project of disentangling nature from nurture is extremely difficult, if possible at all. The two interact during the whole of ...

Yes, I agree. All very interesting. I wonder who does the specifying and adjusting? In real life I think that there is a great deal of consensus devel...

Yes. You do well to ignore them. That's part of it, which the secularist has, just as much as the religionis. But Berkeley attributes more to the reli...

That's all very well. But doesn't he recognize that all these freedoms are heavily qualified? I found Prospect Magazine 2018 - Rawls' Justice as Fairn...

Of course. Both are equally human. Adopting a world-view, such as a religion, does not change that, except perhaps for some people, at the margins. Fo...

Quite so. But that's where the analysis in terms of world-views shows an opportunity. The quotidian is what the religious and the secular share. It is...

That's a brilliant question. I offer three answers. 1. Both saints and sinners would have the same choice - heaven for comfort and hell for company. (...

I do agree. One can only go over the same argument so often. Reducing religions to a single proposition distorts them and makes them almost pointless....

Does tolerating different views necessarily mean reconciling them? Surely, if they could be reconciled, tolerating them would not be necessary. (One o...

I may be confusing liberalism proper with the neo-liberalism of the seventies, which, in my book, is a very peculiar variant of liberalism. I realize ...

I don't know about wrong-headed. But I do think there are difficulties about understanding it, especially as the liberal view seems to suggest that so...

For my part, I find the slogan "freedom" annoying in this context because of it's extreme myopia. It is all too easy in the context of a society to no...

If the punishment prescribed for various crimes is disproportionate, then it is unjust punishment. Mercy doesn't come in to it. Very neat. But you are...

There's a good case for saying that if such promises are entirely one-sided, they are flawed. God does propose a covenant with Israel. But it is a pre...

You are quite right. But it seems to me, nonetheless, that there are important differences between the suffering of those who are in hell because they...

It is sad how often it is the deep questions that get postponed. This one is so deep that I have no idea how to approach it.

It depends what you call philosophy and what you call religion. Boethius (and many others in his time) certainly thought that philosophy could provide...

I'm not sure that we can identify a clear distinction between faith and trust on this basis. But I do think that there is an important difference betw...