I'm not sure that you mean by "this". For me, what is most interesting is the difference between two representations of the same event. Assuming that ...
That's perfectly true. What's interesting is the different take on the trial. I sympathize with him. Seventy was a great age in those days. It is stil...
I don't understand the rules of this game. However, I recommend that Icarus stops looking for the last step down and starts looking for the first step...
Thanks for the references. I knew it was in the NE but had forgotten which book(s). Well, it is certainly possible that this is a Taming of the Shrew ...
You could be right. If the name Xanthippe was just dreamed up by Xenophon that the idea that there's something else going on here would have some legs...
I also agree, though sometimes my conscience pricks me. Someone should, at least from time to time, try to introduce a little doubt into their thinkin...
It looks like a simple question, but it isn't. I wouldn't want to reply without looking up his argument for a start. One reply might start from the ar...
I also like it a lot. But commitment is tricky. I don’t think one can do it in advance. No matter what ceremony is supposed to establish the commitmen...
I think that's a false opposition and that the test of time is not so much whether the text is right or wrong, whether on its own terms or ours. It is...
True. But this is short talk for the BBC, not a scholarly disquisition. So the assumption that her audience would assume that she was talking about ma...
It seems rather unlikely that Midgley was talking about marriage ancient-Greek-style. Wouldn't the natural assumption be that she meant marriage 20th ...
I'm sorry I missed that. The idea that the panic about Communism that prevailed in the USA after WW2 affected philosophy is attractive. But it doesn't...
True. But perhaps their attachment to ataraxia or apatheia shows their attitude to it. Yes. But I think that putting her point in this rather abbrevia...
Midgley does try to give a balanced view. The difficulty is that it is quite hard to see her diagnosis as less than sweeping. What isn't recognized he...
I've always been curious about philosophers in particular and academics in general. They make great play with the idea that dispassionate evaluation o...
Yes, quite so. What makes a particular use suitable for the occasion? Berkeley is quite open about why he thinks his criterion for existence or not. I...
I should have explained myself. To exist is one thing, and Berkeley gives me no reason for supposing that existence of anything depends on being perce...
I'm sorry. A misunderstanding. I thought your reference to the subject/object relationship was to subject and object in the general, grammatical sense...
Fair point. But I'm not comfortable with it, whoever is doing it. It is purely rhetorical and has no proper role in a supposedly rational discourse. M...
Cutting out the dithering and getting on with it has much to be said for it. I'm quite good and patience and circumspection, I suppose, but I'm absolu...
I'm sorry I have ignored this for so long. It got swept away in all the other stuff that's going on. Start with the 17th century:- That's all fine. I'...
It seems to me that neuroscience (and psychology) have changed the game. It has been pretty obvious for a long time (over a century, I would say) that...
"Framework", just like "language-game" and even "Language" and "language" and "dialect" are most at home in an approach that looks for structures. And...
Are you suggesting another framework? There's an interesting discussion to be had about translation between languages/cultures of colour-words, includ...
Yes, I know that understanding of causation exists - I've seen it one of Hacker's books - I forget which. I am increasingly sympathetic, but have not ...
I was expounding, not evaluating, so I'm able to agree with your critique in many ways, though I'm not particularly wedded to Aristotelianism. Yes. Bu...
I agree with you. However, @"Fooloso4"'s points about the way she makes her point are also important. The issue crops up all the time in reading texts...
Certainly. You may think me lazy, but here are some extracts from the Treatise that should (I hope) explain what you're asking about. On the cause(s) ...
I'm afraid I'm not quite on board with this. It makes sense on its own terms. I thought matter was posited to account for things persisting through ch...
I'm glad you enjoy my efforts. I find mutual enjoyment is by far the best basis for an interesting discussion. However, I would have to take issue wit...
Perhaps I wrote that sentence a bit carelessly. I would have to read up to respond to your point properly. Thanks for the reference. Quite what Berkel...
Perhaps mess and muddle is an inescapable part of human life? And then, the attempt to escape also becomes an inescapable part of human life. Perhaps ...
I may be making too much of it. However, I'm sure that Midgley did not think that this piece was in any way a replacement for Descartes' writings. Wel...
H'm. It depends on what you count as an argument. I probably have a more relaxed view of what constitutes an argument than you. But there is a tricky ...
You don't need to be charitable. I knew it was not quite right when I wrote it. But I couldn't think of anything better. Still can't, for that matter....
So? One has to be very careful here. "Granny Midgley" does capture something about her approach. But it risks being ageist and sexist at the same time...
Something needs to give. For my money, it is the neglect of the elementary point that both "substantial" and "real" do not have a determinate sense ou...
There are many words of which it is futile to ask what their meaning is. These terms are among them, in my view. (I don't even really understand what ...
You are right that we should not divide philosophers into good eggs and bad eggs, though that can make for a more exciting read. There can be both use...
Thanks for the overview of Aristotle. It does make sense overall, doesn't it? Your version makes him seem much closer to Plato than some others that I...
Yes, indeed. If that passage had been taken more seriously, the history of philosophy might have been very different. Yet, he is so insistent on his s...
I'm inclined to agree with you. But, on the face of it, that wouldn't be the gist of Descartes' argument. He is quite explicit:- But then, there is th...
You are right. In the first place, the colleges which were and are the primary scene of social interaction among students in that university were segr...
Yes, quite so. But, without wanting to write the book, I would want to high-light Martin Luther as a critical figure in that change, and add that quan...
I read this as about a specific group of women students in a specific situation. In that situation, I can well imagine that mutual support was more im...
Yes, things have changed and are changing in the professions. You may be right about the glass ceiling. But I'm sure are also aware that there are peo...
"Complicated", it seems to me, understates the difficulty. We look to biology to provide an objective basis for cultural stereotypes. But our cultural...
That helps a lot. The point about commitment is that it is authentic and so part of my essence. (Am I free to abandon my commitments? If so, how are t...
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