I don’t regard eudomianic ethics as being emotive. They’re grounded in the notion of telos, which is that individuals have an end towards which their ...
But four quarters making a whole is unquestionably quantitative. What about - ‘should I cheat in this exam?’ ‘Should I give this stranger a ride?’ ‘Sh...
That is how many people feel about it. It has even been formalised as the ‘boo-hurrah’ theory of ethics - that ethical judgement is a matter of 'boo' ...
‘Doctor, my eyes Cannot see the sky Is this the prize For having learned how not to cry?’ ~ Jackson Browne (‘Dad rock’, said my son, dismissively, whe...
That is true. Everyone is going to have to make changes. One thing I wanted to say that, while it's true that what any individual does, or even a coun...
Through a gratuitous act of sheer beneficence. The Hindus call it 'Lila', the divine play. The gnostics spoke of super-abundance, a creativity so grea...
I actually do think that Western culture as a kind of collation of ideas, economic practices, and theories, might well collapse. Which is really scary...
That's what I thought when I first saw An Inconvenient Truth. My hunch was that liberal democracies would not rise to the challenge, because it is suc...
Well, there’s hermeneutics: ‘the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, especially of the Bible or the literary texts of other sacred tra...
Where I started, was with the ability to create abstractions, which is the question in the OP. I argued that 'Abstraction relies on the ability to mak...
they’re not the same, and the difference matters. But not being able to recognize that is entailed by your position, so nothing further can or will be...
Machines are built, but organisms grow. The organic and the mechanical are different. Also the same information can be represented in a variety of dif...
You assume that meaning can be explained in your opening example. But what you're not seeing is that 'explaining' is the very thing that you need to b...
What about codes? Where do they fit? I mean, crystals form patterns, but the pattern doesn't have any consequences. Whereas DNA encodes biological inf...
What’s missing in this debate (with some exceptions) is an appreciation of the historical dimension of the question. Aristotle’s philosophy was framed...
In order to 'set the meaning', you already have to be able to say what something means. And that is something Rover cannot do, beyond 'sick 'em, Rover...
Without language it's a stretch. Sure birds and bees communicate - but memes require abstraction and abstraction requires the ability to interpret sym...
I think what is missing is a connection to a source of compassion. I mean, compassion can't necessarily be exercised on a purely volitional basis; wel...
The problems of philosophy are deep problems. They've been argued about for millenia. I appreciate that you're actually trying to engage with them, bu...
This is true. Kant was a scientist as well as philosopher. (Actually, a polymath, in the sense that is hardly possible today.) Bryan Magee Schopenhaue...
As I said, you're basically using the same argument as Johnson against Berkeley, but then denying that you're doing so. Right - but this is an exercis...
The issue you're dealing with is your innate realism. Yours is the so-called 'argumentum ad lapidium' used by Johnson against Berkeley, who said of Be...
Furthermore, I should add that I don’t believe God exists. But that is because ‘existence’ is precisely what ‘the transcendent’ is transcendent in rel...
And the Laws of Nature. Do they exist? And if so, where? Show me one! Right, you can’t show me one. All you can say is, ‘if x is the case, then accord...
‘Strife is the father of all things’ ~ Heraclitus I think what you’re driving at could be described as ‘panentheism’ which is the belief that whilst t...
Wish granted. Seriously - I know that the arguments I put are difficult and often somewhat esoteric. They are hard to explain, and I few people who re...
Thanks for your reply. But I had thought that all forms of Christianity accepted the immortality of the soul, and that ‘the rational soul’ was fundame...
I started reading that paper, although I don’t have time to read all of it right now. However, the term ‘genetic code’ has the following definition: ‘...
I'm sorry but I doubt that; or rather I believe that the idea of 'encoding' must be mistaken here. I have an interesting book, 'Why Us?' by James Le F...
Plainly, the kinds of meanings that are found in great literature (or even quotidian literature) and recipes are completely different. In the case of ...
If you're interested, there are many convergences to be found in them. Of course, not many are interested. I do try, Janus. Our dialogues usually end ...
What you said was: But these matters are also considered in philosophy. It is one of the things that separates philosophy from both science, and from ...
Right. You deny that anything meaningful can be said about metaphysics proper. In Western culture, scientism or 'science as a religion' is a threat to...
I think there's a tension between libertarianism and belief in God. The reason being, that the first duty of a Christian believer is 'not my will be d...
The issue is (this is going to cause me some grief) is that Darwinian biology is not actually a philosophy. It's a biological theory. But due to the v...
Sorry MU it wasn't a reference to you. I haven't had any reason to take issue with your posts here. Not all realists are naive realists, but there are...
I try and explain and it is very rarely understood. It's an historical thing. Most atheism in my experience is Protestant in origin. The import of it ...
My post was in response to the remark 'The space for the unknowable and the mysterious is the privatized conscience' which I said is very characterist...
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