Metaphysician Undercover

No challenge is too great for the cosmetic industry, so there is no such thing as "aesthetically-challenged".

I think pageantry has always been an important part of musical performance. You'll find that it pervades and persists throughout time, from the liturg...

Oh I think we should all fear the wand waving Wafarer.

Well pull out that banning stick, and we'll see you in the Bannings thread, where you can display some gumption and muscle.

There is no basic problem here. All that is required is good honest observations, and this is fundamental to science anyway. So, in the same way that ...

Keep up the good work Wayf.

I would like to see a study on the effects of placing cats under video surveillance. We know from reality TV shows that creatures tend to act differen...

The way I see it is that there is in human beings, a base animal instinct toward false fronts. It may be derived from competitive factors, fear, or wh...

Yes, I'd agree to that. I think we adequately understand each other. I'll tell you what I think is the principal point of difference between my perspe...

The problem though, is that it is only a possibility, that I am trying to deceive you. And you state a conditional, "if you are trying to deceive us.....

I think there is a very clear difficulty here. A "narrative" is a description of events occurring in a chronological order. We can produce a narrative...

This is difficult, and I am trying to understand exactly what is meant here. The last line suggests a clear division between belief and values, as if ...

The problem is that "potential" is a very difficult concept, and it's meaning will vary greatly depending on its ontological context. So, the way that...

Isn't that the point of such a discussion, to explore the interpretations of others? If I don't "double down" (which really means explain why I interp...

This is why human understanding of sense objects is always deficient. The intellect understands a form which is distinct from the form of the sense ob...

I think that this is an idealist principle which accounts for the assumed fact that an object is a creation of the human mind. The act of individualiz...

I believe this is the issue of "authenticity", which Heidegger dealt with to a considerable extent. You might think that the individual can look at on...

I disagree with the generality of this statement. It is very clear, that many things will stimulate numerous people. So many things constitute stimuli...

This seems to show that Kelly is fundamentally wrong, if you've made an accurate representation. The most formative period in a person's life is befor...

I'm not familiar with any authors who have taken this perspective directly. Is this a sort of negative pragmaticism? Pragmaticism takes the desired en...

Uh-oh, does my refusal to accept the Americanism of my spell-check subject me to the possibility of banning? I always thought "practice" is a noun and...

We've already explained to you why this cannot be the case. It is a false premise. Now I've moved on from that, to describe the difference between a p...

What I said, is that if "this lectern" is identified by essential properties, then "this lectern refers to a type rather than a particular. That is be...

The need for this judgement, as to which properties are essential and which are accidental, is what is eliminated by the law of identity. This law put...

Oh I strongly agree, it's very important, not a snoozer. In this world of electronic communication we need to practise the skill of respectfulness, be...

When the object "requires a new description", it is because it has changed, therefore it's not "at the same time". It's not at the same time, it's ove...

I believe that the issue here is that face to face discussion is fundamentally more civil than the distanced interaction on a computer screen. When we...

Matter and form are combined in the material world. A material object has both matter and form. This principle is known as Aristotle's hylomorphism. I...

Yes, each thing is identical with itself, everything is what it is. And, things are changing as time passes. Therefore being identical with itself, or...

This is the problem, isn't it? The noise is occurring within, and we don't even need the outside to have the infinite feedback referred to by Art. One...

The way I see it, numerical values are values just like ethical values are values. So there is a broad meaning of "value", which is roughly speaking, ...

I'd agree with this. It is actually quite common to have beliefs without logic or evidence to support them. You do realize that mathematics works with...

You continue to demonstrate that you have no idea what the law of identity actually states. You state your rendition as "A=A", but you continue to sho...

This is the difficulty. The law of identity allows that a thing could continue to be the same thing, despite undergoing change. That is the temporal e...

In exchange, you can call me "the obfuscator". That's fun too. Sorry, @"Jamal", I've gone off topic and need moderation. Someone needs to summon @"the...

@"Wayfarer" Do you mind if I refer to you as "the woo-peddler"? That's a fun name. It beats "the crank". I see why @"BC" changed names.

I agree. I don't see the point. They just start calling you "the crackpot" or "the crank", or some other name, when they'd prefer not to engage with y...

But this is what leads to misunderstanding and confusion. That's what Plato showed in his dialogues. Different people all 'know how to use' the same w...

That's right, as it should be, as Janus indicates. That's because if the lectern we are talking about is in the other room, it is a different lectern ...

I think the common standard is to attribute personal preferences to genetic predisposition. This predisposition may get amplified through practise and...

We've had a similar situation in Canada, spats between manufacturers and retailers. Recently Loblaw (Canada's largest grocer) refused to stock Frito-L...

I think that the vast majority of knowledge is not "about reality". Knowledge mostly consists of how to do things. You being pragmatist must recognize...

Being made of wood is not essential of being a lectern. However, if we are talking about a particular thing, that lectern in particular, then every pr...

The problem is that science consistently employs speculative metaphysical propositions, in the form of the hypotheses which it tests. The scientific m...

Kripke's misuse of "necessary" is very well displayed at the point where he states "if the table is not made of ice, it is necessarily not made of ice...

I would say that blind spots are intrinsic to the nature of theoretical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge has limitations, and when the knowledge is pu...

Actually it's your conclusion which is non-sequitur. The scientist, just like everyone else in the world is confronted with problems which are not sci...

Sure, but we need to differentiate between being valid and being sound. From what I understand, valid logic means that the conclusion follows necessar...

You seem to misunderstand. Neuroscience has a blind spot, I think that's obvious, as described by the analogy of @"Olivier5". Having a blind spot, wha...

We could start with the basic fallacy, non sequitur, which means that the conclusion does not follow from the premises, or that the reasoning is not v...