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Cuthbert

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My own understanding is a bit shallow but I'll just go with the flow.
December 20, 2021 at 16:11
Philosophy is very broad. Laws and constitutions are built on philosophical foundations. Philosophy includes questions of moral responsibility, human ...
December 20, 2021 at 09:16
In: Truth  — view comment
I think you're implying that if Trump was eating taco with the crew then the statement that Trump was eating taco with the crew is true. Truth is to s...
December 19, 2021 at 11:30
(THN 1.4.7.9; SBN 269)
December 19, 2021 at 09:08
Hume wrote something along the lines of thinking about scepticism all day and then going out to play billiards without the least doubt about the exist...
December 19, 2021 at 09:05
"Is there a way to describe various finite quantities without going right to numbers?" - answer, yes there is: we can talk about 'lots', 'few', 'big',...
December 19, 2021 at 09:00
It will become an everyday experience before very long. Then you will start to enjoy it. Then you will come to expect it. Then you will be a grumpy ol...
December 15, 2021 at 09:24
To the puzzlement of many men, women want fairness and justice and they also appreciate it when others are kind and considerate. They like to have equ...
December 14, 2021 at 09:15
Whenever someone talks cheerfully about colonising Mars, they are usually thinking about somebody else living there and not thinking what it would be ...
December 12, 2021 at 12:24
"I had an ineffable experience." "Wow, me too! I wonder if we both had the same experience." "I would think so. One ineffable experience is much like ...
December 12, 2021 at 12:08
Amalac Very interesting lecture. "There are no essences: things are just what they are." The knock-down slogan against essentialism. An essentialist m...
December 08, 2021 at 18:43
One thing we want to achieve is preservation of the phenomena. Is the sentence "Socrates wrote The Republic" using the name "Socrates" correctly to re...
December 08, 2021 at 17:58
I have to admit I do not really know what it means for words to have an essence and yet things not to have an essence. If the essence of "Socrates" is...
December 08, 2021 at 17:37
If there are no essences, then it's not essential for a chair to be made of a physical substance or to have more than two dimensions. This is one of t...
December 08, 2021 at 15:36
The scout master is a character in Catch 22. Anyone who works for long enough to become an Eagle will have grown too old to become an Eagle. You can o...
December 07, 2021 at 10:08
I only dropped in because I thought we'd done with Goebbels and had gone on to the general question. I've tried Moore. I've tried Swift. I've tried Pl...
December 07, 2021 at 09:57
That is a beautiful question. It is the one asked by Swift: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/829/829-h/829-h.htm Contrast Plato: “It is appropriate for...
December 07, 2021 at 08:51
You are right to object. I was quoting from wikipedia as an authority. That should have made me at least pause. On the general question, whether you c...
December 06, 2021 at 18:28
Goebbels probably never said that. But you have read in so many places that he said it that you now believe he did say it. Constant repetition will ma...
December 06, 2021 at 15:12
Since we and our acquaintances and credit companies know exactly who we are outside the philosophy lab, why do we struggle with the question when we s...
December 03, 2021 at 11:16
I'm sorry to break this news, Tom Storm, but that may be the first step on a road to becoming a stand-up comedian. The second step is wanting to share...
December 03, 2021 at 10:01
In: Why am I?  — view comment
That would explain why I didn't get the body I wanted. Too slow of brain to get the good one. Only myself to blame. :cry:
December 02, 2021 at 17:18
In: Why am I?  — view comment
There was a really nice body I was going to choose to be in but someone else got it first and I had to settle for this second-rate body. If that sound...
December 02, 2021 at 10:56
In: Why am I?  — view comment
Other related puzzles. Why is the time now? Why is my brother always in a place he can call 'here' and I am also in a place I can call 'here' and yet ...
December 02, 2021 at 09:59
Oh gosh, I've never seen that. I laughed from start to finish. Thank you. I guess you know Jonathan Miller as Bertrand Russell? https://www.youtube.co...
December 02, 2021 at 09:14
My feelings exactly until a new breed of stand-up appeared which consists of very witty treatment of serious subjects - basically, excellent lectures....
December 02, 2021 at 09:10
Ok, I think I get it. I shouldn't be looking for philosophers doing stand-up. I should be looking for stand-ups doing philosophy. That's a great idea!
December 01, 2021 at 13:01
By the locked-in-the-library theory we can never know whether what's in each others' heads are sights and smells and sounds or something else or nothi...
November 30, 2021 at 15:56
That doesn't sound like naivety to me. I think the naive realist believes that, when she sees a chair, then, absent any good reason for thinking she's...
November 30, 2021 at 11:36
Two sayings from the 1970's - are they still current? "If voting changed anything, it would be illegal," and "Whoever you vote for, the government alw...
November 29, 2021 at 15:09
...except when two people agree, I guess. I mean, two people saying "Hey, I love avocados too just like you!" are not necessarily trying to have a fig...
November 29, 2021 at 11:39
I wondered about that as well. I think the charitable reading is that the OP's question is limited to those opinions that make us angry or upset.
November 29, 2021 at 10:14
I think that's a very good point For example, people get furious at anti-vax (or pro-vax) opinions, aware as we all are of uncertainties that could af...
November 29, 2021 at 09:27
True. And other people voted for it, organised it and went to fight in it. Other people thought that John Lennon and Bob Dylan were useless hippies or...
November 28, 2021 at 16:44
Another threat to democracy I hear about is people lumping together opinions they disagree with as conspiracy theories held by gullible, ill-informed ...
November 28, 2021 at 15:58
Ok, but it keeps coming back. Descartes has been dead a long time and we still worry about brains in vats. The flies get out of the bottle and then a ...
November 28, 2021 at 09:21
He is addressing the question whether all his experience might be a mere figment of his imagination, including his own hands. Well, here's one hand. I...
November 25, 2021 at 09:56
I mean the famous 'proof' of an external world. "Much of the lecture is devoted to working out what counts as an ‘external object’, and Moore claims t...
November 24, 2021 at 16:09
The spirit of G E Moore is upon my shoulder. If there is no external world, then I'm not posting these words on PF.
November 24, 2021 at 12:23
I think naive realism can cope with only certain changes in air pressure being perceived by us as trees falling. As I understand it, naive realism is ...
November 23, 2021 at 10:09
You don't seem mad and you're definitely not a fool.
November 19, 2021 at 17:03
Forcing anything on anyone tends not to endear them to it. If creators do not bear responsibility for the harm caused by their creations then God's of...
November 19, 2021 at 13:33
Yet you invoked Erin Hunter in your example. If I had invoked Eric Hunter as the author you would have had good reason to correct me: ''No, it's Erin,...
November 19, 2021 at 09:12
Ok, I think my naivety can withstand this pressure. Yes, we can say that Potter exists in one way and Rowling in another. Existence is a predicate. Al...
November 18, 2021 at 16:08
`To be naive for moment, predicates tell us something about things. The apple is red. When I learn that J K Rowling exists and that Harry Potter doesn...
November 18, 2021 at 10:38
Thank you for your clear and patient explanation. Frankly, I had no idea. To me, this is a new aspect on Plato. Perhaps I have the wrong view - or an ...
November 16, 2021 at 18:03
That is a great detailed summary you wrote, very clear. I have to admit I don't see where the dialogue is going - Is it aiming to leave us in aporia, ...
November 16, 2021 at 02:12
Goodness. What did Adam say in reply? Do tell.
November 16, 2021 at 01:54
I agree - but there is too wide a scope for disengenuity. I buy a top range brand new bike for £50 online. Turns out it was stolen. How could I possib...
November 14, 2021 at 09:06
You mean Finnegan's wake or someone else's?
November 12, 2021 at 16:58