Marchesk

Also, I wonder what the best way to proceed would be. In the old forum, there were official debates. Not that it needs to that exact format. What woul...

I guess leave it up to Sam.

No, just no. That's wrong.

Does this apply to ancient or medieval philosophical problems in addition to more modern ones? Because various philosophical problems have been expres...

Isn't the emphasis on language pretty much the entire analytical enterprise of the past century? The idea that if we can get clear on language, then m...

Sounds like a rehash of the ancient skeptical position in modern garb.

Would also be interesting to see what sort of agreement/disagreement we got on the classification of different problems.

Essence was just my word for the nature of subjectivity. It's not a word typically used in the debate. So tell me how linguistic analysis can help if ...

Agreed, and this could be resolved by physics at some point. Right, and this is regarding the nature of the world, not language. Yep, obviously politi...

I updated my post to include qualia, with the ongoing dispute between Chalmers and Dennett as a specific example. Qualia is understood to be the essen...

Such as culture, sociology, cognition, politics, even biology, depending on the nature of the problem.

That sounds like no amount of linguistic analysis will fix the problem since people won't agree on what the terms mean. But I don't think this is actu...

Would be interesting to try and divide them up: 1. Philosophical problems dissolved. 2. Clarified. 3. Potential to be clarified or dissolved. 4. Resis...

Sure, but I'm skeptical that analyzing language is some sort of cure for philosophical problems in general. That may be the case in some instances, bu...

That's just going too far. There's nothing subjective about a Typhoon hitting Japan. Of course there is a selection process on what constitutes events...

Where does science fit in this? Science is empirically-based, but theory is equally important. Science seeks to tie related observations together into...

I don't agree with the notion that news reporting should not strive for objectivity. You ditch that, and then you get propaganda like Fox News in it's...

It's after finitude, for sure.

Do you reject that there are neural mechanisms behind word formation in the brain that have something to do with understanding word meaning?

Words typically express concepts. Names would be an exception, as they're often arbitrary labels. Does anyone disagree that many words are conceptual?...

This would be a major problem with nominalism if that's the case, because clearly there are differences between dogs and cats, while there are similar...

Right, but I'm unclear as to the difference between names and concepts in this debate. Sure, but by that token, anything exists that's in language, in...

The big question for nominalism is whether something other than universals can be used to explain the similarity between particulars. Possibilities in...

I'm confused as to the difference between nominalism and conceptualism. Also, saying that universals are just names is pretty much denying the existen...

Isn't that cartoon a parody of your position that beliefs and justification are shortcuts for actions?

I think Apo's post captures my intuition that language can't be reduced to something as obvious as defining "X" as Y in order to arrive at truth.

Certainly describes my attitude toward work some days.

Both. We want to be able to use the word "snow" in accordance with something that has snow-like properties. We might limit it by including the chemica...

A swampman, a philosophical zombie, and a BIV go into a bar ... Take an atheist in a devout Christian society. Wanting to avoid certain undesirable co...

Surely they are more than just actions. The stuff between our ears is what is responsible for our actions. It sounds like another form of behaviorism.

That's good. One other possible distinction occurred to me. What about things like Humean causation or Kant's things in themselves? We can't help but ...

Yeah, they have a tendency to invade upon being the slightest bit provoked.

Maybe not. It's a question of whether deflation needs to take into account meaning.

But why is ordinary language ambiguous? Does that reflect something about the world, our perception of the world, or just the usefulness of ambiguity ...

The snow is white is true iff the snow is white. But then that depends on what we mean by snow, since snow-like stuff can have different chemical comp...

Apparently so: http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CO-w85fUEAAwXhu.jpg

Didn't know that. So would it be false to say that every snowflake on Mars is unique?

Such as having two hands?

So you don't accept Nagel's view from nowhere as the scientific image?

I was going to relate that Eskimos have 20 different words for snow, but now I see that's a controversial claim, involving a dispute over linguistic r...

There is the manifest difference in temperature ranges often found on Earth where C02 ice sublimates into a gas, while H20 turns into a liquid. Why do...

That's an interesting way to define propositions. I would have thought propositions were stating either the truth or a falsehood, and it was up to us ...

There is intelligent life out there in the universe. I neither believe nor disbelieve this as the evidence and arguments presented so far are equally ...

Well, there is the ancient skeptical approach. To paraphrase, the awareness of leaky compartments leads to ataraxia, in which one suspends work on lea...

However, I just listened to a podcast on Parmenides, who provided a rational argument for disbelieving the empirical world in favor of the real world ...

Does this mean that a human being raised by wolves couldn't come up with the game, or does it mean that the last survivor of an apocalypse couldn't pl...

Probably olfactory as well for many animals. Reading a little bit on how dog's experience the world of smell was rather mind blowing.

Temple Grandin was of the opinion that animals thought in pictures instead of words, and that a lot of people have a hard time with this because they'...

\ I'm saying it's necessarily both. Consider that humans wouldn't have developed pain talk if we didn't feel pain, just like we wouldn't have a color ...

The thing here is that people have often used subjective criteria for knowledge. The Christian will probably say they know because their experience of...