Another pre-Socratic approach was to say that the Parmenidean One exists but there happen to be lots of them. Each 'den' ("thing" - made-up word, oppo...
We keep trying to get rid of Platonism (understandably, for all its faults) and it keeps coming back (understandably, for all its attractions). https:...
I think this step seems intuitive to us but it isn't the direction that Plato took. In his view the Forms were all that existed and the only things ab...
A building differs from a nest in this crucial way. The building is created by humans (so it is art, artificial). The nest is created by a bird. The b...
Art - anything created by humans Nature - everything else Unnatural, artificial - anything not produced by nature Equivocation - saying different thin...
Any problem that cannot be solved by tap dancing is not worth solving. That's Rogers-Astaire's first law. The second law is that anything you can do I...
Perhaps they can care and also get paid. They care enough to organise their lives in such a way that they can continue caring, which means paying the ...
There are areas of knowledge (e.g. arithmetic) where we seem to make stuff up (square roots of negative numbers) but we seem unable to make stuff up j...
Not at all. The evidence for trusting vaccination is far stronger than any reasons for mistrust. As you say, anti-vaxx is minority and my 'for every p...
For every person who says "Anti-vaxxers must be brainwashed conspiracy theorists" there is another who says that "Vaxxers must be brainwashed establis...
Another explanation could be that they are not mad, insincere or brainwashed or a PR stunt. It is that their views differ from yours and that it is po...
Turning the question round, why did philosophers give up poetry and start writing in prose? https://www.academia.edu/187810/Was_verse_the_default_form...
An unwelcome truth is that the folk who are wrong can equally be ourselves. Charitable understanding of another's position does not presume a possible...
True. I'm suggesting that whilst it cannot stop us making the same presumptions, it is an opportunity for us to stop of our own accord. That may in so...
Other people will presume that we are crazy, evil, brainwashed, hypocritical or dim in order to believe what we believe. I don't think there is anythi...
Zeno had four paradoxes and he needed all of them for the reason you suggest. He assumed that time is either discrete or continuous and time likewise....
'Epistemic identity' is when you can't tell two things apart. So if God and Chance are epistemically identical then you can't tell which created the U...
First there's a cat independent of your experience. Then there's no room independent of your experience. Where does the cat live? Just as shrugging of...
Take a walk outside the philosophy studio for a minute. I am not the same as my brother. Now go back inside. Whatever account of identity we come up w...
OK so far. Whoa! Who broke the window? It was either my brother or it was me. You can't tell from observation which of us did it. Therefore my brother...
If you can accept the conclusion that communication is impossible, why attempt it? No conclusions are inevitable if words do not make sense, even to t...
How do we deal with the problem of private language? If naming-words refer necessarily to internal phenomena - all singularly private and mutually inc...
I'm looking forward to the video at leisure but this leapt out for attention. Isn't it an indexical (context-dependent) utterance? The second utteranc...
The Ambassadors by Henry James It is one of the funniest books I have ever read. James recommended reading it slowly, perhaps five pages at a time. I ...
True. In that case 'I might be a brain in a vat' does not refer to a brain or a vat as we understand them, which is Putnam's argument. On Paris, yes, ...
That is interesting. If vat-world concepts correspond with trans-vat concepts, then the name 'Paris' in both vat-world and trans-world refers to Paris...
Perhaps we have to give big pharma the credit because otherwise we might have to thank the Government - and that is unthinkable. In the UK this conver...
You are right, it is remarkable. My guess is that they managed it by developing good products which provide more benefit and prevent more harm than an...
It's Putnam's argument informally expressed. But there is an answer: "If I accept the argument, I must conclude that a brain in a vat can’t think trul...
The second video looks at the paradox in depth and more seriously and without the teasing. You're right about the disinformation and I would think in ...
You can play a variety of chess with new rules that the queen can move only two squares in any direction and there are no pawns. But you can't do any ...
Then the sun goes round the earth. That's how it seems and if what seems is all there is then that's how it is. It's a revolution - or perhaps a count...
Ok, let it be so, brain in vat time again and all aboard for the ride. But if my brain is a brain in a vat it would not be a brain as I understand bra...
I wonder whether the guy who looks after the brains in vats is ever tempted to let one of them in on the secret. I think about that guy sometimes. Lon...
In other news, I am going to vote for anyone who has not voted for themselves. Fortunately I did not submit a story and so just manage to avoid Russel...
Some evidence shows that W struggled to make this distinction. https://intelligentmeasurement.net/2008/04/28/tonsils-run-over-dogs-and-comparisons/ De...
True. If you have kids in order to improve the quality of conversation at home then you're taking a gamble. If you go into school teaching in order to...
Yes, I agree. I stated the criticism about vagueness but finished 'I tend to think not' as my post was long enough already. 'Vague' can be a pejorativ...
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