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Alvin Capello

['Member']Joined: February 12, 2019 at 22:54Last active: December 05, 2020 at 08:443 discussions86 comments

Bio

I’m interested in Logic/Metaphysics and Animal/Environmental Ethics, and Early Modern Philosophy (esp. Descartes). I also have side interests in Philosophy of Religion.

Favourite Philosopher

Saint Anselm, Descartes, Meinong, Richard Sylvan

Favourite Quotations

“There are objects of which it is true to say that there are no such objects “ :- Alexius Meinong

Discussions (3)

Comments

In: Is Consciousness an Illusion?  — view comment
An illusion is an intrinsically intentional experience that is given to consciousness. So, to say that consciousness is an illusion is essentially to ...
December 05, 2020 at 07:30
In: Suffering and death by a thousand cuts  — view comment
It's a bit difficult to discern an actual argument here, but you seem to be saying that utopia will never be achieved in the future because it has not...
November 20, 2020 at 19:23
In: Suffering and death by a thousand cuts  — view comment
This is almost trivially disproven. A utopia that is reached without any measure of tyranny certainly does not violate any law of logic, and it also d...
November 20, 2020 at 07:09
In: Suffering and death by a thousand cuts  — view comment
That can't be right though; a utopis that no one can experience is not a utopia at all.
November 20, 2020 at 07:02
In: Science vs Creator: A False Binary?  — view comment
If by "creationists" you're referring to the young earth creationists, then I think science has indeed undermined their worldview. But if by that word...
November 19, 2020 at 00:22
In: Suffering and death by a thousand cuts  — view comment
No, I think it should be a voluntary and collective effort. But I wouldn't jump to conclusions by viewing the project as that of an "aggregate utilita...
November 19, 2020 at 00:17
In: I think therefore I am – reduced  — view comment
Here you've broached a subject on which I am woefully ignorant. I find panpsychism to be deeply interesting, but I can't comment on it, since I haven'...
November 18, 2020 at 05:08
In: I think therefore I am – reduced  — view comment
Notice how this relates to your definition of consciousness, viz: If we take this non-standard definition of consciousness on board, then your earlier...
November 18, 2020 at 04:12
In: I think therefore I am – reduced  — view comment
I don't deny that consciousness can be deeply interrelated with self-organization. Indeed, there might not be a single instance of consciousness which...
November 18, 2020 at 03:34
In: I think therefore I am – reduced  — view comment
This can't be right. Consciousness is a property that certain objects have; namely the property of having experiences, or put differently, the propert...
November 18, 2020 at 02:20
In: Suffering and death by a thousand cuts  — view comment
The state of affairs you describe lends cause to one of 2 outcomes, in my view. One that is more pessimistic, and another that is more optimistic. The...
November 17, 2020 at 23:36
In: Help with Intuitionist Logic Tableau Rules  — view comment
Hello! Apologies for the late reply. Here are the places where I think you went wrong. All of these suffer from the same problem it seems: In the 2 ex...
November 17, 2020 at 00:44
In: The Problem of Human Freedom  — view comment
I view the problem of human freedom as one of contradictory human desires. One the one hand, we want to be free, because we like the idea of being in ...
November 16, 2020 at 05:05
In: Contradictions!  — view comment
This is not the way contradictions are viewed in classical logic, but this is precisely how Aristotle and many philosophers until the rise of classica...
November 13, 2020 at 04:45
In: Hobbes, the State of Nature, and locked doors.  — view comment
- I agree with all this entirely. But I didn’t know that Kant made similar remarks. I am more familiar with his work on epistemology and ethics, so it...
April 02, 2020 at 16:35
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
- When I said that a unicorn is a horned horse, I did not at all mean that it represents the idea of a horned horse. Rather, I meant that a unicorn is...
April 02, 2020 at 16:26
In: Hobbes, the State of Nature, and locked doors.  — view comment
- I have absolutely no idea. This seems to me to be an empirical question; so I'm not sure that I can comment on it. - You will have to expand on this...
April 02, 2020 at 02:01
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
- A unicorn and the idea of a unicorn are radically different kinds of objects. For one thing, a unicorn is a horned horse, while the idea of a unicor...
April 01, 2020 at 18:23
In: Accepting Implications  — view comment
Separating things into concepts and objects is called the Frege-Church Ontology. I don’t accept it, but it is respectable. - Well, my issue with drawi...
April 01, 2020 at 05:26
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
- Not at all. Philosophy is not a secret cult that you need to become initiated into. It is for everyone. Anyone who loves wisdom, and who is willing ...
April 01, 2020 at 05:16
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
I’m not claiming that the mystical experience doesn’t exist, but if you claim that it overrides any arguments, then you are no longer doing philosophy...
April 01, 2020 at 04:55
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
To immediately disregard the possibility that an opponent might come up with a successful argument is the height of dogmatism, and it is anti-philosop...
April 01, 2020 at 04:52
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
- I'm not presupposing anything, I'm only responding to the point you made earlier, to wit: I myself don't reduce the mind to the brain. Most of your ...
April 01, 2020 at 04:32
In: Accepting Implications  — view comment
- I would say that Homer Simpson and the concept of Homer Simpson are two very different things. For one thing, the concept of Homer Simpson does not ...
April 01, 2020 at 04:19
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
- I do not define the object in terms of the subject, for the properties of the unicorn are not dependent upon the brain. Unicorns would still be horn...
April 01, 2020 at 04:08
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
- It's rather hard to define in terms of other things, because objects are the absolute baseline of my philosophy. But if I have to give it a shot, I ...
April 01, 2020 at 03:52
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
- Can you let me know when that happens please? :smile:
April 01, 2020 at 03:30
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
- An entity is just an existing object, so effecting this change would make no difference either way to the argument. - What do you mean by spatially ...
April 01, 2020 at 03:27
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
- I'm no postmodernist and certainly no empiricist, and yet I roundly reject idealism. There are several reasons why, but the most fundamental can be ...
April 01, 2020 at 03:11
In: Accepting Implications  — view comment
- Whenever this happens, it usually seems to be because there is a more fundamental disagreement regarding principles at work here . For instance, if ...
April 01, 2020 at 03:01
In: Hobbes, the State of Nature, and locked doors.  — view comment
- That's surely true, but the distinction between anarchy as chaos is not salient to the issue at hand. I'm just wondering whether Hobbes' example mig...
April 01, 2020 at 02:45
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
- I should also mention that this seems more like Solipsism, than Idealism.
March 31, 2020 at 04:06
In: Hobbes, the State of Nature, and locked doors.  — view comment
- That's probably true. A fascinating discussion no doubt, but surely outside the scope of this thread.
March 31, 2020 at 04:05
In: Hobbes, the State of Nature, and locked doors.  — view comment
- This is empirically false. Political institutions are an extremely recent development. Indeed, for the vast majority of human existence there have n...
March 31, 2020 at 03:58
In: Riddle of idealism  — view comment
- Really? I have spent a decent amount of time philosophizing and I have not been lead to idealism. Also many philosophers have spent whole careers ph...
March 31, 2020 at 03:56
In: Hobbes, the State of Nature, and locked doors.  — view comment
- Well, could you kindly explain that to me please?
March 31, 2020 at 03:29
In: Potential vs Actual  — view comment
- I think the reasoning behind this thought is that potentiality already presupposes that the being is not something which it could be; and thus poten...
March 27, 2020 at 06:03
In: The Law of Non-Contradiction as a theorem of Dialectical Logic  — view comment
I think you’re looking way too deeply into this. The problem with all propositions being true is that it is demonstrable that not all propositions are...
March 27, 2020 at 05:53
In: No Self makes No Sense  — view comment
I see. Well I would think that is different from the no-self view; because, as I understand it, the no-self view affirms that the self is never presen...
March 25, 2020 at 23:13
In: No Self makes No Sense  — view comment
Then what was experiencing the sense of self before this transformation occurred?
March 25, 2020 at 22:57
In: No Self makes No Sense  — view comment
That's what I'm asking. I've often heard it said that psychedelics provide empirical evidence for the no-self view, because when you ingest them you l...
March 25, 2020 at 22:54
In: No Self makes No Sense  — view comment
What is the thing that loses the sense of self when in a deep meditative state? Is it not the self that loses the sense of self?
March 25, 2020 at 22:46
In: No Self makes No Sense  — view comment
- I could not agree with this more. I really think the only way we can make sense of the 'no-self' doctrine is to take a Meinongian approach, viz. if ...
March 25, 2020 at 22:40
In: The Law of Non-Contradiction as a theorem of Dialectical Logic  — view comment
- I don't agree with your characterization of what's going on here. Surely I think that some (actually most) contradictions should not be provable. Bu...
March 25, 2020 at 22:27
In: The Law of Non-Contradiction as a theorem of Dialectical Logic  — view comment
- In order to demonstrate that not all propositions are true, I need only demonstrate that one proposition is false, cf. my Indonesia example. It is l...
March 25, 2020 at 05:49
In: The Law of Non-Contradiction as a theorem of Dialectical Logic  — view comment
If P is false, then ~P is true and P & ~P is false. But if P is both true and false, then ~P is both true and false, and P & ~P is both true and false...
March 25, 2020 at 05:37
In: The Law of Non-Contradiction as a theorem of Dialectical Logic  — view comment
- Precisely; triviality just means that every proposition is true. But I don’t want to avoid this just because I want to avoid contradictions. In fact...
March 25, 2020 at 05:22
In: The Law of Non-Contradiction as a theorem of Dialectical Logic  — view comment
:lol:
March 24, 2020 at 04:22
In: The Law of Non-Contradiction as a theorem of Dialectical Logic  — view comment
I've tried, but nothing is working :cry:
March 24, 2020 at 03:51
In: The Law of Non-Contradiction as a theorem of Dialectical Logic  — view comment
I should mention as a point of clarification that you don’t need to believe that there are true contradictions in order to use a Paraconsistent or eve...
March 24, 2020 at 03:11
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