Valentinus

I always think about Aristotle on this topic. He noted that an incredible amount of work went on behind the scenes to allow something to just be what ...

I think of Wittgenstein as challenging both approaches. There is an impatience with playing dumb about calling for certain explanations and then sayin...

John, thanks for the download but really thanks for the website. I feel like a kid in front of a pile of leaves.

By calling for the two commands to be seen together, I wasn't thinking primarily of whether "theism" was necessary for the love of ones neighbor to be...

If you going to consider the commandment, don't forget the one preceding it: "You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul ...

That is a great challenge. I need to think about that.

My experience may be a bit of an outlier. I read Philosophical Investigations before I even knew about or had read the Tractatus. So my engagement wit...

I am interested. Sam26 has done an excellent job but he just left the forum. I am slowly reading that thread. I guess my first question is why you wan...

Well, it is funny that the one seeking advice is no longer a part of the discussion and what remains are disagreements about the value of reading the ...

hks is just repeating what your fucked up therapist said.

Whoa, who knew you had a whole theory of why people were evil. I am glad I asked. But your answer regarding a solution assumes that we are in a place ...

You made a claim. Defend it against the one you dismissed as having no value.

Other people who do not suffer your problem suffer something that is connected to it.

The reason people started talking about good and evil is not about sharing a list of what most people desire. It started because evil people do really...

Hmmmn. Responsibility is something one experiences so intimately that it is odd how easily it gets blended into other things. Whatever you are going t...

Good and Evil are not just the results of how one values one thing over another. It is not a list of items ordered in rank of descending value. You ca...

No, he was not correct. He was guilt tripping you just when you needed to disassociate what is happening to you from a decision tree that you were act...

Your therapist was putting a lot on you as the master of your fate precisely when you didn't feel in control. I would shop around for other resources....

It is reasonable to expect time and a lot of problems to unwind between changes of legal status and changes in how we live together. Your observation ...

Here is one of Socrates' answers to your claim: "Come then, said I, examine it thus. Recall the general likeness between the city and the man, and the...

Along the lines of "natural law" as mentioned by diesynyang and matt, Diderot also spoke of dignity as a natural right based upon our likeness to each...

Criticism of Plato and Socrates is one of the activities that has been going on since those writings appeared. If you want to argue the matter on your...

Just wanted to say that this has been a very interesting discussion with great observations made from many points of view.

In terms of the Establishment of Religion clause, the shared commons is the absence of a state religion in any civic capacity. In that context, we do ...

If I understand your question, it is something like: is freedom meaningless without the power to change things?

I agree with your argument for a balance between homogeneity and diversity. In regards to Fukuyama's argument, my point is that it is not simply a mat...

They push for cohesion within their group but that can stand in varying levels of tension with the "shared public space" that is specifically kept fre...

Martin Luther King Jr. didn't demand to be treated like white people, he demanded that black people be treated as equal to white people. The signs the...

Another fatal flaw committed by Fukuyama through assigning a divisive animus to all forms of self identification, per se, is that it provides no expla...

Making that distinction is Augustine's purpose for writing The City of God. There are many places where the nature of the earthly city is compared to ...

Fukuyama says the desire to accepted as equal in a society is a cohesive agent and the desire to develop a distinct identity is divisive: "Marginalize...

You cover a lot of ground there, Wayfarer. Without making an argument about anything else, one element Robert Wallace did not touch upon in his intere...

The choice to set up choices to be followed by this procedure is the only "free" one in the system. Strictly speaking, a view of all events being pred...

I think your reading of Hegel accurately reflects his method but also hints at how difficult it is to proceed in a manner that provides "the result al...

The book I linked to has all the books.

I recommend this translation: by Joe Sachs The Republic has 10 books. It sounds like you are looking at editions that publish one book at a time. Kerr...

Where is this mind you speak of? Is it located only inside your skull? How can you tell if you know so little of what is outside of you? If you are ab...

Trump has found his crowd. He taunts them to taunt the others. Pretty simple, really. Existentially, the choice is about finding who will support you ...

Spinoza's Ethics (part 1 and 2) Maybe it is bullshit. But it so successfully circumvents other peoples' bullshit that it gets my attention.

Well, this topic has consumed generations of thinkers. If you are trying to escape from cultures of superstition, Nature is looking good. If the natur...

I agree when Yano says: "From this dynamical perspective, subjectivity and objectivity rather mean which has a stronger role between subject and objec...

I don't have the chops to defend or dismiss the arc of philosophical systems since the appearance of Kant. But your comment does remind me of two teac...

Strictly speaking, Hegel is not agreeing with your first point: "A thing-in-itself would have to lack all determination." (emphasis mine). The "would ...

The chapter on The Critical Philosophy in Hegel's Logic shows Hegel going in the opposite direction from an isolation from experience as suggested in ...

Hundreds (thousands, millions, if you are counting) of years of slavery. How much was enough? Toward what purpose? Stupid stuff we tell our kids. I tr...

I agree with your last sentence. I have trouble with the first one. There are a number of ways to approach this. I propose two of them as possible rea...

It looks like there is some disagreement about what is "inherent." Maybe I am slow and I am certainly new here but I am not getting a self-evident exp...

Isn't Jake asking you a question? If you are putting on shoes, it is time for the other foot.

I am trying to say it's value depends on situations and points of view. There is a way I can understand it as a ladder. But I have seen it as a kind o...