You are viewing the historical archive of The Philosophy Forum.
For current discussions, visit the live forum.
Go to live forum

charles ferraro

Comments

1. The occurrence of my personal thinking along with the simultaneous occurrence of my personal existing are open to the possibility of complete cessa...
March 06, 2021 at 19:18
1, Semantic distinctions are tangential to the core issue. 2. As a human being, the only kind of thinking I can have both an idea of, and a direct per...
March 06, 2021 at 02:12
The point being that your argument is false precisely because you do not recognize that it must depend upon that experience in order to be true. The b...
March 05, 2021 at 23:44
Technically you're correct. But the whole point of my argument, which you are missing or ignoring, is that your type of exceedingly abstract argument,...
March 05, 2021 at 17:14
I think the following article, although lengthy, constitutes a direct response to your OP. Hope you enjoy it. CRITIQUE OF DESCARTES’ ONTOLOGICAL ARGUM...
March 05, 2021 at 04:40
I believe Einstein is stressing the importance of the role of creative imagination in scientific discovery. However, he did not mean this to exclude t...
February 16, 2021 at 04:29
I subscribe only to the ongoing development of better, more comprehensive, empirically testable scientific theories about the physical universe in whi...
February 16, 2021 at 03:56
A "perfect" circle never existed, does not now exist, and will never exist. It is inherently impossible for humans to experience a "perfect" circle. A...
February 15, 2021 at 21:41
Charles Darwin argued that forms are not divine, eternal, Platonic ideas but natural biological species that originate and gradually develop, one from...
February 15, 2021 at 17:22
Precisely because contingency is an essential characteristic exhibited by the human Cogito Sum that is equal in importance to its indubitable certaint...
February 11, 2021 at 01:29
In other words, for any human who performs the Cogito Sum in the first person, present tense mode, be it performed either in this world or in any poss...
February 11, 2021 at 00:19
Descartes' use of hyperbolic doubt and, in particular, the constant deception caused by the "evil genius," postulated conditions under which it would ...
February 10, 2021 at 16:56
Absolutely it has a bearing. It's simply dead wrong to assert that Einstein relied wholly and solely on reason. He also relied on the experimental res...
February 10, 2021 at 01:46
I believe there was a time when it was thought that someone would be "crossing the line" if they asked the "foolish" question as to whether, or not, i...
February 10, 2021 at 00:32
I don't mean to be facetious, but has anyone actually verified that arithmetical proofs are true in all possible worlds? Have they visited any of thes...
February 09, 2021 at 23:19
I did not claim that there are no necessary truths or that the contingent Cogito can't grasp them. What I am claiming is that there is nothing "divine...
February 09, 2021 at 22:38
The first principle Descartes discovered was the Cogito Sum. But, unfortunately, it was an indubitably certain principle that was inherently contingen...
February 09, 2021 at 21:11
It seems to me that the major opponent to the so-called "perennial" truth of the Aristotelian/Thomistic notion of static, eternal, divinely created, s...
February 09, 2021 at 20:55
If some entity or activity is closed to, not vulnerable to, not subject to, or not susceptible to the possibility of complete cessation, then I consid...
February 09, 2021 at 18:26
But, hopefully, now you have reasons for what you thought. He was a genius!
February 09, 2021 at 04:59
Thanks Wayfarer.
February 09, 2021 at 04:39
Thanks Bartricks! You understood my point.
February 09, 2021 at 03:32
Nowhere in what I have written and posted here, and elsewhere, on this Forum have I ever claimed that the truth of Descartes' Cogito Sum was not an in...
February 09, 2021 at 03:03
Words that perform something in being said, or expressed. Words that create something in being said, or expressed. OK GOT IT! So, then, man is like th...
February 09, 2021 at 01:48
Unfortunately, yes! Unless, of course, someone who fully understands and respects the argument can demonstrate that there is a serious error, or omiss...
February 08, 2021 at 04:38
Too bad you're a pompous idiot. Why don't you grow up and learn how to engage others with civility? Is this direct enough for you?
February 07, 2021 at 18:51
Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Too bad you're incapable of understanding what I wrote. Perhaps your "verbal gymnastics" are better ...
February 07, 2021 at 17:51
I respect your critical position regarding the problem of Descartes' solipsism, but I do not really see what it has to do with any of the specific con...
February 07, 2021 at 17:15
If we are simulated beings, then, by definition, our existence and the existence of our universe is CONTINGENT in the sense that both would be open to...
January 22, 2021 at 21:22
The following explains why I think the Ontological Argument is false. CRITIQUE OF DESCARTES’ ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD That the ex...
January 08, 2021 at 23:20
No, Descartes was not aware of Hinduism. European thinkers only began to translate Sanskrit works during the late 18th and early19th century. As far a...
January 02, 2021 at 18:46
Perhaps, in this world or in the next, I am existing in, or as, someone else's dream; and when that someone else awakens, I cease to be. To put a diff...
January 01, 2021 at 20:23
It seems to me that the question of an afterlife is a curious one because, on the one hand, if I do continue to live after I die, then by definition I...
January 01, 2021 at 19:00
According to Nietzsche, Schopenhauer was an atheistic nihilist because he advocated for the Denial, rather than for the Affirmation, of the Will to Li...
January 01, 2021 at 04:16
The Cogito ergo Sum is not, inherently, an inferential argument. It is, instead, a performative argument. It must be executed by each person, in the f...
December 31, 2020 at 01:27
Being aware of the lessons of history does not depend upon, or require, first being indoctrinated by the extreme leftists, or the extreme rightists. M...
December 28, 2020 at 00:05
And it would appear you can barely write intelligibly.
December 27, 2020 at 23:32
So an exaggeratedly expensive education about "cloud, cuckoo land" which is, for the most part, economically worthless will, nevertheless, provide me ...
December 27, 2020 at 17:54
There is a significant difference between those persons who take courses solely because they delight in learning and those persons who take courses be...
December 26, 2020 at 21:15
According to Sartre, there is a Pre-Reflective Thinking activity (Thinking in the First Degree) which is the ontological condition for Descartes' Refl...
December 26, 2020 at 03:05
Sorry, I think I did reply. Double check.
December 05, 2020 at 19:33
[reply="Philosopher19;47694 Unfortunately, I still can't take away anything truly meaningful from your repeated assertions that "Existence exists," or...
December 04, 2020 at 22:37
You state that "if something is meaningful, then by definition it exists." But descriptions of certain forms of mental illness clearly demonstrate tha...
December 03, 2020 at 16:49
If my consciousness is a thing, then, certainly, it is a very unique and peculiar thing. My consciousness does not exist in one place. In fact, it doe...
December 02, 2020 at 22:43
The activity of thinking (my thinking, your thinking) is not a something with essence (a what), it is not an essential entity; in fact, thinking is, i...
December 01, 2020 at 17:20
Hello Nyma: The paradox you cite is, to me, not a paradox. I am not claiming that "things" can go in and out of existence. Along with Descartes, I am ...
November 30, 2020 at 20:15
\ Please reference my article on this Forum entitled "Why I Think Descartes' Ontological Argument is False" and the associated thread comments and ans...
November 29, 2020 at 23:31
Phenomena are entities and activities encountered by the human brain that exhibit both transcendental and empirical characteristics. Transcendental ch...
November 22, 2020 at 19:55
If I may. Two different subjects: Subject 1. Einstein said he just discovered the possibility of making the abstract Special Theory of Relativity conc...
November 11, 2020 at 04:08
Abstract ideas are neither found, nor made; they are thought. Please explain with greater precision what your statement means which begins with "... b...
November 11, 2020 at 02:47