Andrew4Handel

Take the issue of God. I genuinely don't know whether a god exists or not. I don't have a desire for gods to exist and I don't have desire for gods no...

What I was saying about the gun debate is that peoples positions are fairly transparent. If someone defended gun ownership you would not be surprised ...

I don't have any metaphysical commitments I am agnostic on a lot of things admitting insufficient knowledge to draw broad conclusions.

Yes but I don't feel people acknowledge the limitations of our knowledge. For example I think freewill debates cannot be resolved until we have an exp...

I will listen to it and get back to you. But I think that the roles of gods in morality should always be considered because that is one of the biggest...

This is what I read that triggered me to make the opening post. It is an introduction to a podcast. "He defends a perspective on human morality that h...

I do think reaching a position involves biases that is why it is important to examine all the evidence without bias and to resort to strict logical an...

There was no evidence of black swans in Europe but absence of evidence didn't mean evidence of absence. I am not talking about giving equal wait to ba...

I feel that gun activists are rationalising a bias. I don't think you could come to a position in a gun debate in the context of the United States cul...

I didn't say that there was a black swan equivalent of gods but I was using that example of how the evidence in that case was misleading and favoured ...

Why? It has taken unusual geniuses to try and explain some phenomena. We are not all Einsteins. If some Phenomenon are hard to describe for Einstein t...

My brothers illness is the unremitting form of Multiple sclerosis that just gradually gives you less and less muscle control. When I first started loo...

I think a lot of people are frightened by my brothers illness and are imagining how terrible it must be. But ironically he has not been depressed but ...

It is hard work and there are some real threats. Also I think people individual conclusions can be incompatible. In a way it seems apathy is what pres...

I have spent long periods of time looking after my profoundly disabled brother. (I lived with him for a few years) Now he can only communicate by blin...

I think phenomenological analysis is valuable where you give a detailed analysis of your experiences (this can even inform physics in defining who tim...

I grew up in a strict religious household where you were never allowed to question. I suppose there was a notion of absolute truth as well. So I had a...

I think this issue comes up most prominently in issues about mental states and who can be an authority on mental states. I also think trying to underm...

I agree with Thomas Nagel that "Objectivity is a view from Nowhere".

I don't believe induction requires the uniformity of nature. I think you can replace uniformity with regularity. Induction is seen as a problem becaus...

It seems probabilistic If something stays the same for a large amount of time that increases the chance of a causal or law like status. Knowledge of t...

It seems to me that humans can think abstractly yet concretely about the truth and values. So for example we have successful scientific theories that ...

It was reading the comments under this Daily Mail article that prompted me to start this thread. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4774574/Coupl...

But some of these people were voted in by millions of voters. I am depressed when dangerous or callous people get voted in but that also means people ...

It is hard if you're not thick skinned. In an ironic way it seems that misanthropes are interested in humans but being stoical might entail blocking o...

You seemed to go straight for the Misanthropes are arrogant position. Does that say something about your personality type that you would prefer to rej...

One person's aberrant personality is less reason to worry than a whole group of dysfunctional people constituting a society.

What evidence have you for this? My own experience is I have always had low self esteem I was bullied throughout childhood, abused by my parents among...

I think you could dislike any species. I think the problem with humans though is that they can act with the most deliberation and knowledge so their b...

This issue is around whether the beliefs causing Misanthropy are false. I am not talking about a matter of taste here. Someone might dislike humans re...

How many scientific studies does Judith Butler cite in "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution"?

So do you have a problem with the notion of a genetic male and female or that human reproduction requires males and females to exist? Sex has a strong...

In the evolution thread I was challenging whether we needed the word animal at all and you were defending it's indispensability as a classification. Y...

It would be helpful Thanatos, if you could present an argument from one the thinkers you mentioned and show how it will or could improve life. I appre...

And indeed the use made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both with their bodies minister to the needs of life. Aristotle, Poli...

You have proved my point Thanatos Sand.

I was not judging her whole output I was just highlighting the problem of the inaccessibility of ideas deemed radical (or otherwise). Continental phil...

Judith Butler was famously awarded a bad writing prize and other criticism for this piece of writing. "The move from a structuralist account in which ...

Thanks Thanatos Sand. :o I was aware of Foucault's power structures ideas which I think in the form I was taught it,are very compelling, in conjunctio...

You have just given a list of names can you give some indication of what they were saying and doing? I think academic philosophers have a cosy Job and...

One thing I would challenge is land ownership and ownership in general and the notions of countries and borders. In the Israel/Arab conflict a lot of ...

I don't think science can cross the is-ought barrier. So I don't think you can select any human behaviour as an exemplar of how we ought to behave and...

It seems to me that Philosophy is in the best position to challenge ideas and examine the logic of existing ideas. It isn't case of taking sides but c...

Wanting your genes to survive seems ridiculous to me. Your children will die and your grandchildren and so on. You are unlikely to meet your great gra...

The topic in general. As is this next comment. I think people are being hopelessly naive if they think words are simply transparent and not power tool...

I think all human behaviour needs explaining or fitting into the paradigm of what a person is. (if you are going to propose such paradigms) All human ...

I am not sure where I suggested we get rid of the word "animal" or where I claimed we should not classify things. I said that words are used like tool...

That is not true. We often get rid of words in our languages without having to abandon a whole language. We also keep words that refer to fictional en...

Any problem is hard if there is no explanation. The difficulty with consciousness is that it is only directly available to the person having the exper...

I thought he said we were nothing more than animals. Which animal are we supposed to be comparing ourselves with? This has been a classic ploy through...