unenlightened

I missed this folly. It does not have those premises, which I can demonstrate by adding them. c3. If A and B, then C. p1 & p2. A and B. c1 Therefore C...

If only folks would accept that Britannia rules the waves, the fish would be exploited in a controlled and sustainable way, by the Prince of Wales, pr...

RIP John Berger, damn commie, and general trouble maker. If you haven't and are interested in art, society or almost anything, have look at Ways of Se...

Wishing you all a really expensive new year.

Indeed, detachment from the world in that sense is a nonsense. Rather the ending of detachment is the goal of Buddhism. I wonder if it is clear that p...

One can note that the extremes of left and right in the persons of Stalin and Hitler are similar in many repugnant ways. I don't see the need to call ...

Back in the day, people used to call themselves fascists, so it was easy to tell. These days people call each other fascists, which is another use of ...

What I am doing is replacing premises with conditionals, as I said. And in so doing, I weaken the conclusion - making it conditional. The argument has...

Here is the classical logical syllogism: p1. All men are mortal. p2. Socrates is a man. c1. Socrates is mortal. And here is the single premise form: p...

p1. Everything it says in the bible is true. c1. If it says in the bible that Moses was a basket case, then Moses was a basket case. I propose that th...

And the answer is always Donald Trump.

Stress is the result of conflict; in physics it is forces in opposition, in psychology it is emotions in opposition. In rossii's comment above, one ca...

Unless it is myself, I am not qualified to judge. It is not myself. I feel there is a difference between philosophy and Top of the Pops or the Olympic...

Thanks for that superbly clear and concise exposition.

You might like to look at Pirsig's Lila.

I've always wondered how one does that. If fear were like a pair of shoes, one could easily leave it by the roadside, but alas, I find it is more like...

There is perhaps more of a natural equity of needs than of means. Rocket scientists and shit shovelers both gotta eat. So there is no injustice in bei...

A grater is in part the sum of its holes. Happy holly daze.

I would suggest the homunculus problem. To what are representations presented? Any theory of mind is a representation of mind to itself, and so must n...

Everyone is dependent all of the time on others; the road-mender, the shop assistant, the farmer, the computer programmer, the long-suffering parent. ...

There's this excellent game you can play with a lively 2 year-old where you try and build something with wooden blocks, and they try to knock it down....

You cannot prevent folks from holding preposterous self-agrandising views. But I would point out how feeble it is to call censorship every time a publ...

Well I certainly didn't give anyone permission to delete my highly original and insightful responses.

Actually, the air pressure is decreased as the balloon is inflated,because it is maintained by the skin, which becomes thinner. It's counter intuitive...

I am well aware that some people have these thoughts, that that they are bitter cranks or unenlightened or whatever. I have exactly been saying that i...

Yes, but not particularly self-esteem. The esteem in which I hold myself is not actually the topic, nor even whether it is justified or unjustified. B...

Fuckin ell. , get a grip. You're the one quoting Jesus and talking about sin. Preachy is yourself, not me. So now you're saying that accepting that we...

Well that's interesting. I thought that was an injunction rather than a method. So is your claim that one cannot love another without first thinking o...

I wouldn't go that far, but I think it is a principle that applies to peer to peer communication, and very definitely not to exam questions.

It's time contemporary mental health thinking let go. Yes, when one looks at the extreme, one can see clearly that self-esteem is a debilitating disto...

To understand one's capabilities and limitations is not a matter of self-esteem. Perhaps I can't feed myself because I have lost the use of my limbs, ...

Yes, I probably have lots of goals, one of the least of which is to compose posts. It was an example. But I don't see why I have to be thinking about ...

There is little unintelligible about the ducky. Rabble rousing is a well known, tried and trusted technique that is quite well understood. But even if...

Well of course, I myself see myself as acute, sharp and fine, 8-) but my own condition is entirely beside the point, except just now to illustrate how...

I disagree. Why does one need it? For what? Can one not tend the garden or wash the dishes without?

How would one know? Stanslaw Lem explores the idea of unintelligible intelligence in Solaris, but apart from engendering a certain humility, I don't s...

Yeah, but apart from mathematics, and laying the foundation for science, and setting out the foundations of knowledge, what did Descartes ever do for ...

Yes, I think we agree. All I mean by 'true', is that there is presumably a fact of the matter. Perhaps I am, as it happens, more clever than average, ...

That was rather my point. High self -esteem might lead to happiness - lets suppose. But if Ithink I am the Good Samaritan, or the uber-mensch or whate...

We philosophers prefer justified true self-esteem to high self-esteem. Which is of course the reason most philosophers are unhappy.

Interesting to see that what's what consists to a large extent of what most people thing is what, or think ought to be what. A higher percentage than ...

The only reference I can find to 'logical entity' is in a javascript programming tutorial. Otherwise, an entity is a thing that actually exists, and l...

The death or not others is surely a trivial difference compared to my own death. My own death is in my language an act of identification. Rome, as the...

It's not uncommon or peculiar. Think of the thousands of soldiers walking into machine-gun fire during WW1. All it requires is an identification with ...

Five pages of what in a generous mood I will call 'philosophy' seem to demonstrate what is intuitively and by definition the case, that one cannot dis...

People do feign falling in love, and people who are lonely and hungry for love will fall for the deceit enthusiastically, almost conspiring to maintai...

Well I apologise if I misled you. I assumed you had some familiarity with the psychological terminology. But the difference is not all that huge. The ...

There is something, but not everything, to be said for the view that sanity/madness is relational. To call someone, or some behaviour insane is to adm...

I think you need to look at that again, and see if this bears any relation to what you think Jesus was like.

One form of mental illness in particular. The mad axeman is mainly, but not entirely a myth with respect to schizophrenics, but I'm not sure what you ...