I suppose an 'ism' is, roughly, a general outlook, a point of view, an underpinning theory, an overarching framework of assumptions. It is possible to...
".....the god-like super-beings we are destined to become...." But I have heard this rhetoric before and I have seen what happens to the ones who fail...
There is the loony left and there is also the gibbering swivel-eyed right. The main reason for this is that it's easier to call people names than to l...
The family who just moved in will learn that there are some people who want them dead and others who will expel them if they say nasty things. What a ...
No. It's really interesting. For example, Moore's paradox. I agree with the general direction of your solution. When I say 'It's raining' then I'm per...
Aristotle means one-to-one correspondence between 'problems' and propositions. He is defining a technical meaning of 'problem' to refer to yes / no qu...
Although on reflection I'm not sure I agree with myself entirely.. A statement a belief can presuppose another statement or belief, I think.... It's s...
Yes, there are things wrong with it and you've summarised two of those things. It's probably worth pulling them out separately. One is the problem of ...
Only people may suppose or presuppose. An act or process of becoming ("to become...presupposes") may imply or entail something. But an action or a pro...
Yes, and that self-exoneration is another thing that most of us share with X. We try to duck responsibility by pointing to circumstances or other peop...
I mean we all struggle with distinguishing what is in our control from what is not and what is comforting and helpful to us from what is damaging and ...
If the illness is like diabetes, then just as diabetes is incurable but can be managed by rational behaviour, e.g. compliance with a medication regime...
It's nice to know we are more privileged, better informed and cleverer than future civilisations. We have already established that we are far smarter ...
Some awkward ones to add to the Zeno card: The Heraclitus card is a member and is not a member of the pack. The Russell card both is and is not a memb...
Democritus was laughing because his atomic theory was intended as a joke and everyone took it seriously. If he had lived another 2000 years or so he w...
No. It's saying that it cannot be the case that A equals B and that A equals C and that B does not equal C. 'A' is a brain state and 'B' and 'C' are t...
No, neurons don't think. Here's a thought experiment to establish that. Brain A in Human A. Brain A is in state S in 2018. Human A is wondering where ...
I wish I could get elected simply by people reacting against other people who don't like me. I find it easy enough to get disliked and so success shou...
Perhaps he hated someone so much that he could gas them without caring who else got gassed in the process. No more devious motive needed for explanati...
Food for thought. Assad would have to be some kind of wildly crazy person to use chemical weapons whilst he is winning the war. Who would imagine that...
That approach appeals to the core vote. He is the brave soldier at the frontier fighting against the self-serving hypocrisy of federalism. It's the Ci...
Maybe if you had said all that in the original post you wrote and not tried to cram it implicitly into the single question Do Black Holes S*ck? then i...
Ha ha! I too remember reproachful looks from tutors, um, 40 years ago in my case, and I too wish I could pursue the discussion with more confidence ra...
How did you interpret the reproachful look? It might have meant "Aristotle solved this problem a long time ago, so there's no need to go over it all a...
I think the first trouble with the argument is that it slips from comparing humans "in many ways" to comparing them in one vague general way - "better...
Sure, but the general point that "modern physics is up to its eyeballs in metaphysical commitments it has nothing to say about" perhaps applies. I hea...
I think the idea of an initial singularity entails that the principle of sufficient reason is false but I've never seen a discussion of that problem -...
Sorry about the demeaning tone, Rob. I hid it behind Wittgenstein but it was there. That is a fact and cannot be denied. Irrefutable, even if I tried ...
I quite like heebie-jeebies. The word, not the experience. As we are posting gifs lifted from the internet of 1994, here is a dancing garden gnome: Da...
I'll go for 2 + 2 = 4 or, if you prefer, 2 + 2 is not equal to a million camels. It's a sign that you are "doing philosophy" that you would even consi...
I refer again to Graham Greene. Yours is the question he addressed in The Human Factor. How can a British government end up killing spies on its own t...
Oh yes. From the Shoutbox 2 days ago, by Hanover: "So what I've been doing is I hold the victim's nose, offer three quick thrusts, remove my hand and ...
wonderful word and brilliant object https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00st9z8 Christians, eh? Don't they consume human blood and flesh in their ceremo...
Democracy is not desirable in and of itself; there is nothing worthwhile in the idea of "one person, one vote" besides the pragmatism behind it. One w...
"The barrier can be so low that practically no one fails to meet the requirements." Yep, that suits me. A barrier so low that everyone gets over it is...
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