Sure, Isn't the concept of karma precisely intended to reconcile the apparently random distribution of good and evil into the mora/ethical order? It m...
Your post reminds me of this quotation from Kierkegaard. Did you have it in mind when you wrote it? (I don't have a proper reference, but found it inc...
I'm afraid that I have some pressing business to take care of. I won't be able to give this the attention it needs for a week or so. So I have to bow ...
I'm afraid that I have some pressing business to take care of. I won't be able to give this the attention it needs for a week or so. So I have to bow ...
Perhaps I just wrote it badly. It wasn't intended as an objection, exactly. The question was genuine - how does emotivism distinguish between emotions...
OK. Then I want to say that when we know what the sign means, what we know is how to use it. That means not only understanding the conceptual structur...
That's a good example. Medically assisted suicide is an even better one. It is (normally regarded as) medically unhelpful (even in contradiction with)...
Well, what you say is not wrong, of course. But I would have put it differently. That I prefer to say that "2+2=4" is a statement in what grammarians ...
That's likely true. As it is, we can name a process, such as a river, and it persists for long enough for our purposes - over generations. Mind you, I...
Of course. I wouldn't have it any other way. I was telling you that that I had a different view. You are right about the Gettier cases, though I sugge...
I didn't write what I said accurately enough. I was thinking only of judgements within an established practice, not of comparisons between styles. I a...
The catch is in "objective". We all think we know what it means. Can we say that electronic devices provide a bridge between the objective and the sub...
I would include insoluble contradiction (normally) as one kind of aporia. I would also include a simple case of ignorance (of the facts in a particula...
It's certainly true that judgements of moral value are different from tastes. Part, at least, of the difference is that we don't censure people who di...
Well, at worst, you're going to get two evaluations of the same justification or of two different justifcations. Two evaluations of the same by the sa...
I found these quite thought-provoking. I'm inclined to think that faith in institutions or people is trusting that they are doing the right or appropr...
Yes, but there's a wrinkle. Obviously, if the justification in question is conclusive, then it follows that the belief is true. But what if the justif...
Perhaps so. Yet rigorously identifying an out-of-tune note still depends on someone knowing how to do it. And identifying the aesthetic quality of mus...
That's correct. Though I don't know enough to pronounce on Eastern ideas, interesting though they are. I got the impression that the idea was that a g...
That's a very attractive view. I wouldn't deny that sometimes people make their own hell, in one way or another, but I can't accept that everyone who ...
Everything gets more complicated when you look at it closely. I wouldn't know how to unpack this. I suppose the idea that God only realized that moral...
That's true. But unless you realize that you are included in the common good, you will mistake your taxea for some kind of charity or protection money...
Yes, the placebo effect is real. Believe it or not, it works even if the doctor expresses some uncertainty about whether the placebo will work or not;...
Provided one accepts that morality is about how people feel, that's perfectly true. That means that the concept of murder has two components - a descr...
Yes. I had in mind the possibility, for example, of someone believing that God is the final authority, but suitably cautious about thinking that they ...
That seems about right. I would argue that as soon as you describe the physical consequences of the act as harmful, you have made a moral judgement - ...
I have a somewhat different idea of emotions. Emotional reactions are reactions to something, some state of affairs, fact, whatever. That's what I cal...
Good point. I should have thought of it. I would agree with you. There's a tendency to use "tyrant" and "sovereign" as boo/hoorah words. I was reporti...
A lot of people are running around claiming that democracy is broken. There is a suggestion that we need a "strong man" leader. I could write a bitter...
It depends how you define your terms. There's a tricky problem here about sovereignty, specifically about the status of the person or body that makes ...
You already did that when you specified "non-tyrannical", didn't you? You are looking at it through the wrong lens. The elected Government is a buffer...
If that's true, then there is at least one moral fact. So I would have to defuse it somehow. I can think of various tactics which might answer. EDIT: ...
Ah, yes - the fact of the matter. To be sure, if it is a question whether the cat ought to be on the mat, there is no fact of the matter. How could th...
It is true that pagan polytheism was a lot more hospitable than monotheism is. Sometimes they found parallels, as in Jupiter/Zeus, Poseidon/Neptune, A...
OK. We are on the same page, in that respect at least. I can even see that the New Testament presents a rather different conception of God from the on...
That does make some sense. Still, I balk at a story of a supposedly loving God destroying the life of one of their followers for a bet? But I think it...
I agree with that if you mean by faith the starting-point of reason. So I wouldn't say that theology is irrational, since it starts from belief in God...
H'm I'm not sure what to make of the last sentence there. But I think you are missing my point. The fireman (person?) heading into a burning building ...
Why so? That makes no sense to me. Well, I don't care that much about the word. I would happily talk about commitment, but then insist of calling what...
So have I, including some people quite close to me. I was a believer at first. Then I started asking questions that were deemed to be "unhelpful". It ...
That's a very hard question to answer. My best short answer is, I think, that what I'm saying is meant as a refinement of what Wittgenstein said, not ...
If we're talking about mathematics as a whole, I agree with you. I'm just suggesting that a bit of flexibility in our language within mathematics is h...
Yes, it can bend your mind. But it doesn't have to. Plus and quus are the same in some instances and not in others. So you can tell which is being fol...
I agree with every word of that, except the word "intuit". But it's just a fancy name for the fact that we agree and usually, but not always, can reso...
The Pythagoreans denied their existence for a long time after they realized the problem. No doubt they were working on arguments to establish that. Th...
This reads as a version of what the monastics are trying to claim when they say their way of life is better than the dancer's. In one way, it's only n...
I was fascinated by this, but I couldn't find anything specifically on it, although there are many versions available. On the other hand, this version...
I can't see an alternative to saying that the numbers are based on counting (apart from some platonic story about how they always already exist, thoug...
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