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Cuthbert

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My favourite is Latin 'negotium' - roughly, 'business', from which 'negotiation' etc - is 'neg..', not, and '...otium', leisure. Work is viewed as the...
July 08, 2021 at 07:48
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July 06, 2021 at 13:57
Perhaps it's not them. They may have a better grasp of the problem than you. But by 'you peopling' them you'll never find out. What is it with you peo...
July 06, 2021 at 11:37
Possibly. When we've all gone I'll let you know. Oh, hang on....
July 06, 2021 at 08:16
A world without humanity would be somewhat like the kind of world we live in because the world was already here when we subsequently arrived to live i...
July 06, 2021 at 07:25
There are three kinds of midwife. The realist announces the baby's sex according to what it is. The anti-realist announces the sex the way she sees it...
July 05, 2021 at 08:45
Good idea for a survey. Can we divide the results between those who actually are brains in vats and those who are not?
June 22, 2021 at 16:43
I would say it is because what we find intolerable, but nevertheless have to tolerate, is our inability to persuade others about matters that are so o...
June 22, 2021 at 11:32
Too much dialogue of the deaf signalled in that article. Analytic philosophy: "You must think like us because that is what 'thinking' is". Critical ra...
June 22, 2021 at 08:15
But it occurs to me that's not what you are asking. You are not asking how our mathematical intutions relate to experience. You are asking how all our...
June 22, 2021 at 06:16
I thought it was just me pacing out the central circle of a football pitch toe to heel, circumference then diameter, then spending the rest of the wal...
June 22, 2021 at 06:11
'If the Bible isn't a magical book, Christianity evaporates. If the Qur'an isn't a magic, Islam evaporates. And when you look at the books and ask you...
June 21, 2021 at 16:13
I always worry that the anthropic principle explains nothing by explaining too much. The reason the world is just-so is because, if it weren't, then w...
June 21, 2021 at 15:30
According to my parents, it was the only book that would get me to sleep. The profound impact was that I was not put up for adoption, I suppose. https...
June 21, 2021 at 15:22
There exist, as you say, many important and mysterious things we cannot explain. It does not follow that, for some important and mysterious thing we c...
June 21, 2021 at 15:14
Benkei, no, no, at least mostly my fault - online discussion does not signal irony well...!
June 21, 2021 at 09:14
True, that's why I described the argument as 'false'. Just to make my opinion perfectly clear, there is genocide occurring in China against the Uyghur...
June 21, 2021 at 07:04
https://www.thelehrhaus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/p07xhc68.jpg Well, they are alive. Therefore (compare the false holocaust-denial arguments) the...
June 19, 2021 at 17:37
Disruption for sake of disruption is no joy, but I'd say disruption can have a role and has a long history in dialectic. "Several times in the course ...
June 18, 2021 at 08:59
"I still don't care - but I want to ... attack - is that wrong..?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeGECVrclgM
June 18, 2021 at 08:28
I think you're saying that one condition of perception is material interaction. True enough. No eyes or no light, then no seeing. Then you seem to say...
June 17, 2021 at 09:23
I hate thought experiments. If I see a fat man on a bridge I run away. I refuse to listen to bat detectors in case they start sharing their experience...
June 16, 2021 at 11:07
In: Euthyphro  — view comment
Even if God is omniscient and the rest the question remains: "Does God love X because X is good; or is X good because God loves X?" The problem is eth...
June 15, 2021 at 13:40
"Infinite infinities equal finite space? How?" Integral calculus is how. I think 3blue1brown's 'essence of calculus' is a really good exploration of t...
June 14, 2021 at 13:33
As a footnote to some of this discussion, I would say that Aristotle did not subscribe to a theory of truth that could be well described as a 'corresp...
June 02, 2021 at 08:26
Also, suppose distance had a length. Then if distance got shorter or longer, the whole universe would get bigger or smaller together and no impact. Th...
June 02, 2021 at 07:08
Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua it is es...
June 02, 2021 at 06:55
Well I cannot find the reference if it exists but I've heard attributed to Wittgenstein this illustration of Kant's idea. Imagine this conversation: "...
June 02, 2021 at 06:14
"Don't you believe the science?" is sometimes a call to shut up when authority speaks. It is sometimes a call for ignorance to shut up when good autho...
June 01, 2021 at 10:01
The banks used to swagger about the virtues of freedom in financial markets. Then 2008 happened and they rushed to hold on to nanny's skirts. I don't ...
June 01, 2021 at 09:49
"All I ask is for two things: 1) what metaphysical problems do you think can be resolved by analyzing our language and 2) which metaphysical questions...
May 30, 2021 at 09:39
Ha ha! I think you've caught me out speculating now. (Remembering an earlier reminder to stick to the text....). But I think it's worth thinking about...
May 27, 2021 at 17:11
It has MICE in it so it can't be all bad.
May 27, 2021 at 17:01
Yes, I was thinking about Protagoras, for example. I was also thinking about the Athenian culture that Plato was unhappy about: the society that put S...
May 27, 2021 at 15:25
On second thoughts I might stay out of it. I'll see how it goes.
May 26, 2021 at 10:37
Prejudice is a feature of attitudes, outlook, beliefs. Racism is unjust discriminatory practice and behaviour based on race. It gets complicated becau...
May 26, 2021 at 10:35
"I always judge people by their character". Zenny, me too. Then sometimes I'm caught out not doing that and having prejudices just like everyone else....
May 26, 2021 at 08:43
Perhaps a time will come when people will be judged by the content of their character and not by the colour of their skin and when people will attribu...
May 26, 2021 at 07:59
I was thinking of the problem raised in the last para I wrote. A purely logical basis of arithmetic is apparently not possible. Perhaps psychology has...
May 26, 2021 at 06:44
Pluralism is nothing but a bunch of distinctions without differences. Reductionism is nothing but over-simplification. This thread is nothing but a ti...
May 25, 2021 at 12:34
Psychologism is a word that attracts a sneer from some but it's not all bad. "......Husserl’s first published monograph, Philosophy of Arithmetic, whi...
May 25, 2021 at 12:00
Perhaps each can be the subject of the other and neither is prior. On the one hand, philosophy of perception, concept of mind. On the other, for examp...
May 25, 2021 at 09:51
"..why do humans have the belief that there is some entity or entities outside of their own species that have influence and determination of their bei...
May 24, 2021 at 12:11
Wayfarer: Yes, I think you are right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_set
May 24, 2021 at 12:02
."..there couldn’t be such a set, because it would have to include itself." Sets can include themselves. E.g. the set of sets with more than one membe...
May 24, 2021 at 08:51
I think it's the intuitionist train of thought. If no ethical statements are true, then not only is it not true that murder isn't wrong but also: murd...
May 17, 2021 at 10:56
"Concepts such as 'Beauty' don't exist by themselves, do they ? They arise from the real world - we create such - why ? " This is a viewpoint that Pla...
May 13, 2021 at 12:14
The 'no pleasure without pain' question is an example of a bigger issue for Plato. No pleasure without pain; no large without little; no beautiful wit...
May 12, 2021 at 11:24
On the other hand, some casual misogyny in chats between men brings it bang up to date.
May 12, 2021 at 11:18
"If...then..." does not always operate as you might expect. "If p, then q" entails "if not-q, then not-p". But e.g. suppose if you want an eclaire (p)...
May 11, 2021 at 09:47