Ciceronianus

None of these resemble the questions referred to in the OP. They are, instead, questions which may be asked by most anyone most anywhere, e.g. at a Th...

The ancient Stoics were stubborn materialists, but believed in a rarefied form of material, generally called pneuma, which was the generative force of...

I confess I wonder just what questions philosophers have asked despite "enormous pressure" not to do so. Of those mentioned in the OP, the only one I ...

I think Tertullian would tell it to Kierkegaard, if he could. But though Tertullian said what he said, I quoted him mostly to provide an example of wh...

Well, Tertullian was a Christian, you know. Quite a prominent one in fact. He busied himself defending Christianity from its pagan critics and, of cou...

How odd. I wonder if they know that according to Tertullian, one of the early Christian apologists, Christianity has nothing to do with philosophy. As...

Is it me, or are more and more posts about Christianity appearing in this forum? I've been away for some time; perhaps a new category has been added. ...

"Thinking in the face of pressure not to" sounds rather like Hemingway ("grace under pressure"). The philosopher as matador, perhaps, fighting an unus...

Yes, I've heard about this sort of thing.

In fairness I should note that I find it difficult to attribute any significance to questions regarding Being. So, naturally enough, Nothing means not...

It's really quite good at describing and summarizing these opposing positions. The lawyer in me admires this. I think it will be very useful in prepar...

Ugh. It seems that AI can successfully parrot the explanations of Heildegger's many apologists. I'm with Carnap in this, of course, but am willing to ...

Well, it's output seems generally well written, though not scintillating. And, what's written speaks for itself. I think it should be identified when ...

I merely emulate Wittgenstein, who rightly noted that a serious and good work of philosophy could be (and I would add has been) written consisting ent...

I was under the impression that intelligence of ANY kind had already been banned on this site.

Your confusion is understandable. Incontinence will result in voiding, and so causes the void. But the void isn't itself incontinent.

If the Constitution is changed, or abolished, it will have no more to do with whether it's "legitimate" than when it was created. Systems of law exist...

Perhaps. But one should ask oneself, sometimes at least, what is achieved. Even if we merely play games, then at least there's a winner and loser.

I wonder if our fascination with questions that don't matter has ever been given serious study. But now I think of it, that may not matter either.

It may be that I don't understand what you mean by "external world." If you mean by it the world we're part of, I don't know why you call it "external...

-- Outlander I'm not sure what distinction you're making between true and false and actually true and actually false. More generally speaking, I'm sor...

Finding the way out of the fly bottle means there is no "external" world-- there is no world separate from us, in other words. We're not observers of ...

I don't understand. If someone finds they've been trapped in a fly bottle of their own making, they're free of it. Their metaphorical eyes have been o...

Only if you're still buzzing around in the fly bottle. Once out, you may dare to think about, e g., your interaction with the rest of the world as an ...

I'm not sure what nation has laws making employment discrimination a criminal offense. Please let me know which does. Nor do I know of any jurisdictio...

My preferred interpretation of W's statement is that the fly bottle is something the fly has contrived and by which it mistakenly thinks of itself as ...

There's no place like home, it's said.

I like what Wittgenstein said about the purpose of philosophy: "To show the fly the way out of the fly bottle."

Criminalizing the verbal/written expression of hate IN ITSELF is too much like criminalizing thought or feelings, for me. I'd rather avoid implementin...

Now and then, I take comfort in in the fact that the law (at least here in God's Favorite Country) has not (yet?) made the use of "hate speech" a crim...

Certainly it exists. It's over there, next to somethingness.

My understanding is, very simply put, objectivity in ethics is the view that moral claims aren't merely personal beliefs and opinions, but their value...

Just thought I'd note that the definitions you're referring to are those used in epistemology and metaphysics. You might find those applied to ethics ...

Well, feel free to send me messages without using words, then, or incoherently and without explanation, so I'll understand. I'm waiting. I'll let you ...

If only objectivity (the state of being objective) was dominant! Then there would be less bias, prejudice, favoritism, etc. in the world. That would m...

I think philosophers should have the courage to admit that they aren't poets or artists, and the wisdom to acknowledge that what poetry and art do is ...

Assuming you "became a human" in the normal way, then the chances that you wouldn't be a human are "vanishing small." Why not just say that, based on ...

Why do you think that you, a human, could have become something else? Do you think that you existed before you became a human, and that the Universe o...

So much for consistency and clarity. What a relief it is to dispense with them!

My little comment was addressed to the consideration of the existence of God. I feel it's futile to discuss whether God exists. That question, if it i...

We've led different lives. Mine was more traditional middle class. The usual trek through the education system; working factory jobs to help pay the w...

I think we agree that the mood of our nation has changed. I think we agree that the difficult times our parents faced shaped them. But what generation...

Such a witty fellow, Roosevelt. Happy Days indeed. Songs like Brother, Can You Spare a Dime rang truer in those dark times, and were even popular. My ...

How nice to see this subject still being addressed.

You seem to address the beauty of people, as opposed to, e.g., works of art. As to the former, I think it becomes a subject of philosophical discussio...

To the extent philosophy "teaches" us anything about everyday life, it is that it serves to distracts us from it.

I haven't been here for some time. I forgot (if I ever knew) that I'd be sent an email if I was mentioned. I thought I'd respond in this case. I am re...

Thank you.

In an earlier post I noted that I'm uncertain whether what you refer to as "The One" For purposes of this thread, that's how I'm using the word "super...

The OP, or rather the attachment to it, seems to me to err by contrasting "what works" with "what's true"--e.g., Newtonian physics may work, but it's ...