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Metaphysician Undercover

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Sure, each case has a number of differences from every other. That is why I think your procedure of singling out specific cases and claiming "morally ...
October 19, 2024 at 02:16
There is idolatry, which is a case people praying to something other than God. If God can answer prayers why not something else as well?
October 19, 2024 at 02:09
You can pray to anything, it need not be God, it's called idolatry. So one might believe, that if you simply pray, in general, to no specific divinity...
October 19, 2024 at 01:31
I think we need to consider "context" as the entire work, "The Republic". This is what I said earlier, we look at the whole, and try to see how the pa...
October 19, 2024 at 01:20
I would not attach too much specific importance to these words. These are generally emotion based concepts, and the words for feelings are used in a v...
October 18, 2024 at 11:22
The inverse fallacy is the perfect example of the need for skepticism. When we establish a cause/effect relationship between two types of events, A an...
October 17, 2024 at 11:11
I'd say that's quite the feat. The envy is showing.
October 17, 2024 at 01:57
The first premise is the product of an inversion fallacy which I explained on the first page of this thread. There is an assumed cause/effect relation...
October 17, 2024 at 01:46
OK, so now you accept that teaching someone something (providing the location in your example), actually is causal in a morally relevant way. I'm glad...
October 16, 2024 at 11:00
I believe we can take modern usage of "necessity", and divide it into two principal categories. We have on the one hand, what is said to be "necessary...
October 15, 2024 at 11:18
Those are the raccoons of the world. Uncouth is an understatement.
October 15, 2024 at 01:19
The point though, is that the order in which the souls get to choose, is dictated (necessitated) by the lottery, which as a lottery, appears as random...
October 14, 2024 at 23:34
We could take that route, but I think it would prove disastrous to consequentialism. Consider that if we maintain such principles, that there are nece...
October 14, 2024 at 12:22
I see what you mean. Your explanation shows the argument to be invalid though, because it puts a second instance of the same fallacy, in the second pa...
October 14, 2024 at 11:42
I think it actually is the same, just different names for the same problem. The quote I took from Wikipedia concerns what happens when the problem is ...
October 14, 2024 at 11:35
The myth is concerned with decision making and I think the big issue is the relation between possibility and necessity, and the role of each in the ar...
October 14, 2024 at 02:12
The premise states a conditional concerning "if God does not exist". We cannot proceed logically, from that premise to make any conclusions about what...
October 14, 2024 at 02:02
You might notice the basic principle of Aristotle's doctrine of the mean at 619a: "And we must always know how to choose the mean in such lives and ho...
October 14, 2024 at 01:15
Sorry, sloppy mistake, or a strange sort of typo, in my last post. The question was meant to be, how do you proceed from the premise "if God does not ...
October 14, 2024 at 00:12
How do you conclude "God exists" from this? Since the premise is "If God exists..", doesn't the conclusion of "God exists" involve an inversion fallac...
October 13, 2024 at 17:12
The myth is excellent for bringing out the juxtaposition of necessity and possibility, and ultimately how this relates to choice or selection. The ass...
October 13, 2024 at 12:40
OK, so the key phrase is "not wholly determined by preceding events". I would say that "determined" is the type of concept where we would say that an ...
October 13, 2024 at 12:14
Thems fightin words. I love it. Carry on please.
October 12, 2024 at 22:06
I believe, that it is this way of looking at things which is what leads to confusion. Instead of looking at the work as one united fiction, parts tied...
October 11, 2024 at 11:45
Get used to it. You could make an interesting math problem, using some laws of statistics, to determine how many different ways you can say the exact ...
October 11, 2024 at 11:17
The entire proposal is imaginary, that's pretty clear. To say that one particular aspect is a fiction within a fiction is not really meaningful. You a...
October 11, 2024 at 10:56
Yes, that would be a good idea. I cannot follow what your saying now, so maybe a definition, or even a description of what you think free will is. You...
October 11, 2024 at 02:21
The guardian class is the middle class. Philosophers are the ruling class. Do you think that the ruling class is supposed to be male only?
October 10, 2024 at 21:47
Or, as mentioned above, it may be typical Platonic irony, taken to the extreme, the boundary of hypocrisy.
October 10, 2024 at 16:35
I think that's an important point. Plato was not advocating an all out ban on the creative arts. Music actually plays a very important role in his pro...
October 10, 2024 at 11:30
Right, I was trying to clarify Plato's argument. If you don't agree with it, maybe you could provide an argument for the other side, attempt to refute...
October 10, 2024 at 01:52
There's going to be a lot of them flying around, so watch out. Ever wonder where all that stuff that gets washed out to sea in these huge storms ends ...
October 10, 2024 at 01:27
That is because I want premises for the purpose of proceeding logically. If we allow the ambiguity of words meaning numerous different things, then we...
October 10, 2024 at 01:22
Being "inspired" does not equate with being able to represent the divine. The principal force of Plato's criticism of Homer is related to how Homer re...
October 10, 2024 at 00:50
I agree with this. What Plato's describes here is the logical procedure toward the separation between human ideas, and the separate or divine Forms, w...
October 09, 2024 at 11:42
OK, but since "freedom is restricted" is a blatant contradiction, and you seem to believe that "restricted" represents the truth in this matter, we ne...
October 09, 2024 at 11:21
I believe the best representation of this three-fold distinction is like this. The basic example consists of three beds, one made by God, one made by ...
October 09, 2024 at 02:06
When someone forces someone to do something, they are using the physical forces of the universe to their advantage. So from the perspective of the per...
October 09, 2024 at 00:36
Lol. Now that's contradiction if I've ever seen it.
October 08, 2024 at 11:14
That's human nature, people hold fast to the beliefs they have. Because of this, I think moral philosophy is the most difficult field You are not list...
October 08, 2024 at 11:08
Final cause is defined by Aristotle as that for the sake of which. The example given is that health is the final cause of the man walking. Why is he w...
October 07, 2024 at 10:58
I think the principle of plenitude actually is important to Aquinas' version of the cosmological argument. Basically, if all existence is contingent e...
October 07, 2024 at 01:30
I didn't see any need to comment on the Aquinas quote. He was explaining what you and I both agreed upon, that Aristotle said we understand the meanin...
October 07, 2024 at 00:44
We can take this as a true proposition, that the consequences of our actions are caused by our actions, and apply it as the foundation for a moral phi...
October 07, 2024 at 00:11
The old principle of plenitude, to the rescue. Given enough universes, one's got to produce intelligence. Given enough monkeys with typewriters... Typ...
October 06, 2024 at 23:40
OK, if I still have your attention Paine, I will continue. Right, this is the point I was making, the different senses of potentiality. That is what h...
October 06, 2024 at 22:52
You misunderstand what Wittgenstein was saying. It is not the case that philosophy is in need of therapy, it is the case that philosophy is the therap...
October 06, 2024 at 12:06
That's the trend, leave room for the prequel. Biologists should get themselves up to date with the modern trends, and instead of leading people toward...
October 06, 2024 at 11:30
Your interpretation of "sharply separates", when Aristotle is talking about the difference between a definition, and understanding by analogy, is a fa...
October 06, 2024 at 02:00
The point is, that in the chapter you quoted, Aristotle says we refer to analogy to understand the sense of "actual" which is implied in a particular ...
October 05, 2024 at 03:43