Banno

Consider this new puzzle in contrast to Leibniz's two identical spheres. In Leibniz's example, it is clear that there are indeed two spheres, but we c...

I've struggled with the discussion of definitions, starting at the bottom of p. 8. 'All bachelors are unmarried men' can be used to define either "bac...

, , Thanks for taking a look. Of course, if you do not think that things have an essence, then you may not be interested in deciding whether essences ...

Surely you have more than one word? Cucumber, very soft skin, very moist flesh, eaten raw or pickled. squash, the round or oblate shaped fruit, eaten ...

Presently growing Two different types of Zucchini, the common 'Black Beauty' and the much larger tromboncino, which when mature is a marrow. https://c...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyTPEVv-hNE

my more general point would be that thinking of analytical philosophy in such monolithic terms is fraught. But given the choice between consistency an...

Yes, this is a recent, direct and competent rejection of some of Wittgenstein's approach. A reason to check it out.

Well, it presumably has at least the goal of achieving consistency, even if only asymptotically. Whereas non-analytic philosophy appears to tend towar...

So the argument is that analytic philosophy in 'merica may well be consistent, but is also incomplete. Sure. The danger of course is making it inconsi...

The upshot, so far as I can make it out, is that modality will not suffice to ground essence. Instead, Fine would have us look to definitions; an esse...

There's a number of puzzling ideas mentioned in the IEP article, from Fine. Taken elsewhere.

Maybe check out https://iep.utm.edu/fine-k/#SH3b

So, roughly, Socrates is necessary for there to be a {Socrates}, and vice versa. But there being a Socrates is essential to {Socrates}, but there bein...

A singleton being a set with exactly one element.

How?

Where are you reading? I'm thinking it's that lack of symmetry - the set [Socrates} is dependent on Socrates but Socrates is not dependent on {Socrate...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHY3eRUMsM

That's a neat attempt to rehabilitate the topic, but it seems to be a god-of-the-gaps argument. The fact that the world is intelligible is the given t...

Indeed. It was used before being misused.

I'll leave you to it, then.

Advertising.

You and I might think that. Others hereabouts express a different view through their comments. Survival of the fittest and animal hierarchies are perv...

Your capacity to misunderstand continues to astonish. "This lectern" is a rigid designator. It picks out that specific individual in any possible worl...

Dread or despair? There was a study published a few moths ago that grouped papers from one of the general philosophy publishers by the way they refere...

Jesus, if they keep me, they must keep @"Agent Smith".

Well deserved, give the quality of so many of the posts on religious issues; yours being a notable exception. So at the risk of being on topic, is the...

What's curious here is the way appears to think he is making a philosophical point while making such a dreadful mash of it. He doesn't understand the ...

You set 'em up, I bowls 'em down.

This: ...sums up this thread. It is doing a disservice to the forums.

T'was the topic of Midgley vs Dawkins, Nietzsche, Hobbes, Mackie, Rand, Singer...

What crap. Presumably true philosophy is that done by true Scotsmen. There seem to have been quite a few of them around recently. These ones could use...

So i guess they didn't discuss the details of Latin poetry?

Indeed, the thread is falsidical. Mine was a meta-post.

"This lectern" is a demonstrative, not a type. "Lectern" would be a type.

The question is whether molecules moving is the very same as heat. Of course heat exists in a body and moves from one object to another, quite literal...

This thread consist in impotent virtue signalling.

Odd, isn't it. Is calling him a cocksucker very far removed from calling him a cunt? "Cunt" is supposedly the worst term of abuse, but that suppositio...

This thread has little to do with philosophy.

It is an indication of one's capacity to understand a complex argument.

Yeah, there was. I pointed out this argument from incredulity: Yep, they did.

Yep. But it is. The OP strings together a series of misunderstandings, producing a view of evolution that has nothing to do with how things actually w...

Not just syntax; possible world semantics is about more than mere syntax. The semantics can be defined extensionally in terms of satisfaction. So let ...

SEP lists four theories. I favour the third, although the second and fourth have merit. The first is subject to the criticisms mentioned in this threa...

Well, yes, although I would phrase this more specifically, as that logic sets out how we can talk about stuff while maintaining consistency. So if one...

Your first RussellA is rather ephemeral, dissipating in an instant. An individual hardly worthy of the title. I think the physics here is misguided. W...

Here's a blatant appeal to authority:

And yet the lectern might have been in the other room, you might not have written your reply, Kant might have gone into fishing rather than philosophy...

Are you content with this account? Is the property of having writ that post essential to your being who you are? Might you have not written it, yet re...

It's a useful page, although I find trees a bit hard to follow, so I mostly use it to check validity. Since it's a tautology it is necessarily true, i...