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I also do not wish to be seen as a close-minded bigot, but I suspect that if given the choice from the very start of life, most people would choose to...

What does pragmatism have to say about two competing theories of equal plausibility and appeal? You say you are a realist about an external world if I...

To put it another way, then, you can't criticize language without using language. You can't argue against argument without using argument. You can't f...

Just speaking from personal experience, I have to agree with . Not everything I do is from boredom. I often do things because I like to do them. I fin...

The hinge beliefs Wittgenstein primarily focused on were those required for reason itself. Skepticism and doubt are inherently rational. They depend u...

It still makes compressive waves in the air. Without a mind, though, no sound is made. In the same way your alarm clock beeps for a while before you w...

A Buddhist perspective on epistemology is that there are two types of "truth": ultimate and conventional. Conventional truths are made of ultimate tru...

Keeping Ourselves in the Dark by Colin Feltham Is Nature Ever Evil?: Religion, Science and Value by Willem B. Drees An Introduction to the Philosophy ...

Didn't Quine want to naturalize philosophy, and transform psychology into a sort of epistemology? In that knowledge would not be the only aspect of ep...

This is false. Wittgenstein disproved global skepticism by his analysis of hinge beliefs. Global skepticism is self-defeating. Skepticism in general i...

No, I don't think philosophers are trying too hard to sound smart. Philosophy is one of those things that you have to actually do yourself to understa...

Fuck off, then.

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. On one hand you claim that speciesism is ridiculous, but then claim that we ought to have a moral hierarch...

Yet how does reason begin if not from certain basic intuitions? (the external world exists, other people exist, I myself exist, x is a sound premise, ...

Indeed this seems to be a reasonable position, however it also seems to offer quite little in the way of prescriptive action. So we're left with a kin...

What the fuck is going on on this forum right now?! Seriously guys, get your shit together, it's a fucking internet forum.

Platinum rule is superior: treat others in the way they want to be treated. How you wish to be treated may not be equivalent to how someone else wishe...

I would personally argue that the most serious philosophical problem isn't whether or not we should cease our own consciousness, but whether or not we...

Well, he calls reasonable discussion (counterfactual analysis, phenomenological analysis, etc) "science". Which is really not that impressive of a def...

Of course, the command to us to go kill ourselves may be becoming more and more realistic, considering assisted suicide has been legalized in many sta...

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

"Why don't you just kill yourself?!" or "Stop being a lazy fuck!" I guess it depends on what ones' priorities are. If you're going for authenticity th...

I mean, I already presented some rough criticisms, like how he utilizes a vacuous definition of science, or begs the question with his consequentialis...

I should write a book.

lol, is that supposed to be an argument?

Yes, and he fails to provide anything useful to the debate. He begs the question by assuming consequentialism from the get-go and utilizes such a broa...

The sad thing is that Sam Harris (and co.) take this to the next level and publish entire books that are essentially just soap boxing.

LOL, I suppose you're right on that. But this all seems to be in the realm of communicating philosophy, not necessarily doing philosophy per se.

Should I have to read a book on homeopathy in order to rail against homeopathy?

Exactly. What is nice about philosophy though is that you don't have to have a LHC to understand the material. You just need some patience and bit of ...

Sheesh, you sound like the guys over at reddit. I'm not just accepting some guy's opinion based on nothing but authority. I already know some things a...

It's already been addressed ad nauseum by his reviewers, that's the point.

Indeed, and this is exactly what reviews of Sam Harris' books do.

Yes. I mean we still see this with rape victims. "You shouldn't have been out at night!"-like bullshit. Flow and in particular faith can justify the c...

No, the difference is that you can read reviewers that objectively quote the books and provide compelling reasons as to why the contents of the book a...

You need to realize that when we perceive anything, it's really just the reflection of photons traveling through a transparent gas or space.

I suspect it has something to do with liberalism being seen as naively optimistic. But we'll see what tgw has to say.

Stay tuned. If you want, you can read my warm-up posts on reddit. I don't wanna pull a muscle or anything.

I feel as though I should make a post with the sole intent of destroying new atheism, specifically Sam Harris. It will be gloriously savage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhILbGnpY-w

Because that's what it means to be see-through: photons are able to pass through the material.

The trouble with this idea is that, thanks to modern physics, we already know what makes things transparent. Depending on the grain pattern of a subst...

Of course. Do you think Sanders is done with politics now?

I mean, yes, I agree that the pessimistic perspective is helpful in toning down expectations and desires. That's fine. This is have an issue with. The...

Goddammit, why couldn't Bernie have won.

I always feel bad when I argue for pessimism, unless I have an desire to change people's actions for what I perceive to be the better (ethics). Like, ...

Please delete

Trump's speech was actually not too shabby. He still repeated himself a lot and asserted all these things that he'll never actually be able to do. But...

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

Honestly I think Trump doesn't even know what he's going to do when he's elected.