Wayfarer

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) – Argued that all phenomena, including thought, are explicable in terms of matter in motion. Leviathan opens with: “The univ...

Quiet here, considering what's happened in the last FOUR DAYS :yikes: (although there is discussion in other threads.) But DJT seems to have been on a...

I had in mind mainly the disabling of U.S.A.I.D., RFK jr's war on vaccination, the abolition of NIS grants, and so on. Maybe the Democrats wouldn't re...

If you're an American elector, supporting the Democratic Party would be a good start. The MAGA party seems intent on dismantling or opposing everythin...

absolutely. I've been interacting with ChatGPT and despite recognising that it is programmed to be positive about the user it's interacting with, it a...

If I might step in here. Recall the OP: The anthropic principle can be relevant here—not to assert design in a simplistic sense, but to draw attention...

Do you think it might be because the lessons of philosophy may not actually be observed? That if more people actually comported themselves as philosop...

it would only result in more arguments about what ‘dead’ means.

mortis. :wink:

So you’re rooting for the mullahs?

Why is novelty so essential? Isn’t that part of the whole ‘myth of progress’, that only the novel is valuable? That voracious appetite which is drivin...

We don't know that. Just as I wouldn't necessarily believe that their capability has been eliminated, there's also no reason to think it's survived. A...

Oh, I don’t agree with that. I think the disabling of the Iranian nuclear capacity is crucial. My point rather was scepticism about Trump’s motivation...

I was just listening to an interview with White House gossip-mongering journalist Michael Wolff. Wolff said that Trump really was dithering over the I...

'The Buddha' is not an individual person as such. In the Pali texts recounting the Gautama's final days, he talks about how his body is old and worn '...

Disinterested doesn't mean not caring. It's disinterest in the sense that a judicial officer or doctor is disinterested - has no personal interest.

See the monk with dysentery. The Buddha upbraids the monks for not caring for one of their number who has dysentery and personally attends to him. "If...

Something I discovered through Buddhist studies is that one of the defining virtues of a Buddha is the capacity to see “things as they truly are.” Thi...

Very sad indeed, a patient and articulate contributor here for many years. :broken:

The Greek philosophers also entertained these arguments. They begin by questioning what appears indubitably obvious to all of us, namely, the reality ...

Just so.

Phenomena are what appears. The act of counting is performed by the subject to whom phenomena appear. But that's just characteristic of the plight of ...

I agree that from an empirical perspective we encounter particulars first, and then abstract the form. But I wonder whether that perspective risks tre...

Plantinga was mentioned in passing and I expressed the view that Relativist’s depiction of his argument was based on a misinterpretation. That’s all I...

Here’s Plantinga’s paper.

The fact that you’re alive would be a good start. You’re demonstrating the very point at issue: the sense in which physicalism excludes the subject, f...

Hard-hitting OP in the NY Times today (gift link), about how many impeachable offenses Trump 2.0 has already committed, and how blatantly corrupt and ...

This might be a point where we’re crossing conceptual wires a bit—because I think there’s a distinction to be drawn between ontological and temporal p...

What about the natural numbers and the law of the excluded middle. Do they exist before our knowing them as such?

Thanks for these pressing questions, it's really making me think it through. I want to clarify: I’m not saying there is nothing at all prior to interp...

What, pray tell, would constitute evidence for this argument?

Are you familiar with D M Armstrong? His book Materialist Philosophy of Mind presents the kind of philosophical materialism that I’m criticizing. And ...

One of my reference works might be of interest to you in this regard Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion. Thomas Nagel is an analytical p...

I’m with you. I meant that quotation from the Sutta as a support for what you were saying as I thought it very relevant. But then, the reason I brough...

No doubt, but the point I was labouring, was the concept of 'the unconditioned' and its place in philosophical discourse.

There is something prior to or outside of any cognition of it, but it is not really ‘something’ until it is (re)cognised by a subject. (This is what I...

From the paper: which is as I said. Although I will add,. I'm not arguing in support of Plantinga's religious conclusions, only the more general point...

I feel I can mention a verse from the early Buddhist texts in this context. Partially because it is so succinct, and also because Buddhism, especially...

I can't really make sense of that question. There are no discrete domains in that sense. The textbook example I referred to is the role of observation...

The world Merleau-Ponty is talking about is the life-world, the world we’re able to perceive, investigate, and act in. The subject projects the world ...

I didn't say, nor imply, that there isn't a determinant, that there is no external world. The relationship between world and mind is not arbitrary. Th...

You’re right to bring up Kant’s emphasis on the limits of reason—and his account of transcendental illusion is precisely where he acknowledges that re...

I have previously started threads on this very topic. There's a constellation of arguments referred to as the argument from reason. There are several ...

Mostly agree. And remember how much of this is just political theatre. Trump made huge mileage out of the claim that undocumented immigrants are crimi...

That criticism betrays a misunderstanding of the argument from reason. Obviously organisms must respond adaptively to their environment in order to su...

Could it not be something we do in response to something we find? Counting is something we do, but the rules governing it are imposed on us by necessi...

Although there are those who take them deadly seriously.

I would question the assumption in this passage. They are genuine distinctions as discerned through empirical inquiry, and they form the backbone of m...

The discussion is about the phenomenon of life, and about how physicalism omits some of its fundamental characteristics. Reductionism may be effective...