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The fact that there can be disagreement suggests that the evidence must be ambiguous. But that doesn't answer the question. Actual software is made by...
December 12, 2017 at 21:24
What's your opinion of the Ellis and Silk paper, Defend the Integrity of Physics? All known software is the product of human intelligence. Who is the ...
December 12, 2017 at 20:30
There will always be materialists. In the ancient Greek world they were called 'hylectics', after 'hyle', matter or body. They were said to far outnum...
December 12, 2017 at 20:16
I think on the contrary a great deal of sexual misconduct is stimulated (I won’t use the word ‘inspired’) by pornography. This depicts women as eager ...
December 12, 2017 at 09:35
Your premise was implicit in your conclusion, therefore you’re begging the question. And again. Dawkins never acknowledges the work done by religious ...
December 12, 2017 at 08:47
Actually Schopenhauer somewhat foolishly scheduled his lectures against Hegel's - and nobody showed. He never got over it. That said, I prefer Schopen...
December 12, 2017 at 06:50
I was questioning your first 'axiom', i.e. 'that there is an objective reality'. What I said was, that in order for there to be an object, there must ...
December 12, 2017 at 05:56
In order for there to be an object, there must be a subject. That is not science, in fact most scientists wouldn't think about it, but I'm sure it's t...
December 12, 2017 at 05:31
I had copied some quotes from Schopenhauer here, but they're pretty intemperate. Suffice to say, Schopenhauer thought Hegel a windbag, and I do agree ...
December 12, 2017 at 05:06
Popper's view was basically pragmatic - an empirical theory is one for which there can be empirical evidence either for or against. That covers an awf...
December 12, 2017 at 04:02
From Wikipedia: So what I am saying is that your suggestion: mis-states the materialist view - actually gets it backwards. The materialist view (which...
December 12, 2017 at 02:37
It’s not that it’s tedious, but that’s why I asked for a reference. What you think materialist philosophy says is not what they’re actually saying. I ...
December 12, 2017 at 01:20
i’m saying it’s NOT ‘the materialist view’.
December 12, 2017 at 01:11
Heaven's sake. When I studied undergrad philosophy, the Professor was Armstrong, who is a leading exponent of materialist theory of mind. And he said ...
December 11, 2017 at 22:58
https://youtu.be/ppyF1iQ0-dM
December 11, 2017 at 22:56
I am in complete agreement, but you said that materialists make that argument, whereas I don't believe they do.
December 11, 2017 at 22:04
Well chosen passage! Let me suggest the following re-translation: A passage which is quite in keeping with the spirit of Western philosophy. I say thi...
December 11, 2017 at 21:41
Can you cite any examples of materialists who advocate such a view?
December 11, 2017 at 21:17
Isn't interest in Hegel mostly kind of archeological? I mean, since the rejection of idealism by British and American philosophers, and since the appr...
December 11, 2017 at 20:32
Not only ‘the last part’. Honestly, you don't seem to understand the issue - then you ask for clarification about it, then argue against the suggestio...
December 11, 2017 at 20:24
Kantian transcendental idealism answers many of these questions.
December 11, 2017 at 20:22
What I am saying is that when you simply assert that ‘materialism is an equally valid choice’ among ‘other choices’, then you’re begging the question,...
December 11, 2017 at 19:59
Certainly. The point at issue was my criticism of the naturalistic ethics of Dawkins and the like. So to say that his choice of materialism amounts to...
December 11, 2017 at 11:08
Begs the question! Two answers - the general answer is, because ideology is just the kind of thing that the sceptic ought to avoid. The particular ans...
December 11, 2017 at 09:50
I think ‘wet’ is only useful in the context of describing something which is otherwise dry - paint, matches, and so on. So the fact that fishes are im...
December 11, 2017 at 06:42
This is very confused. Physicalists believe that all that exists is the fundamental entities disclosed by physics, whatever they turn out to be - it u...
December 11, 2017 at 05:55
The materialism of those types of thinking is an ideology, a constellation of ideas, which form the basis for judgements about what is and isn't true....
December 10, 2017 at 22:19
And what you never seemed to have grasped despite your voluminous posts in this thread, over several months, is that the fundamental claim of Platonic...
December 10, 2017 at 19:10
I’m not dodging anything. You cite Dawkins in support of an ‘argument from moral principle’ then you’d better be prepared for the implications. Furthe...
December 10, 2017 at 08:54
You're welcome Brianna, hope you enjoy your stay here.
December 10, 2017 at 08:37
The inconsistency here is that ‘the conscience’ is generally understood as an innate moral faculty, which you’re here applealing to. But it is just su...
December 10, 2017 at 08:33
It's called 'hyperbole'. Daniel Dennett semi-seriously insists that we're 'moist robots' in a similar vein. And many people will insist that we're any...
December 10, 2017 at 07:34
The summary given in that reference goes like this: 1. I am conscious of my own existence in time; that is, I am aware, and can be aware, that I have ...
December 10, 2017 at 03:30
Kant would have agreed that it exists ‘in some form’, but he would have said that we couldn’t possibly know in what kind of way it existed, insofar as...
December 10, 2017 at 02:17
Transcendentals may be thought of as 'real but not objective', as they are prior to the division of subject and object. Nowadays it is automatic to eq...
December 10, 2017 at 00:16
Still disproportionately influential. It was the subject of this discussion about Nagel's book.
December 09, 2017 at 22:59
Of course. I've learned quite a bit about 'traditional' dualism in this thread - hylomorphic, meaning 'substance-form' duality. It doesn't see the min...
December 09, 2017 at 22:24
What do you mean by 'classic realism'? Today when we speak today of 'realism', it means, as I'm sure everyone here knows, a very different thing to wh...
December 09, 2017 at 22:11
There's some difficult questions here, but I do think the mention of 'the laws of physics' sticks out. I think what you're really talking about in you...
December 09, 2017 at 11:32
I think 'foundation' is the wrong word. Obviously we have an organic or animal nature which is the subject of the discipline of biology, but I think t...
December 09, 2017 at 11:18
Where does 'being wrong about something' fit into that?
December 09, 2017 at 06:32
I was reflecting on one of the points you made, although now I read it again, I see you were simply flagging it as one amongst the spectrum of views. ...
December 09, 2017 at 05:56
Very courteous of you to say so! Well, I did do an MA in Buddhist Studies in 2011-12 simply out of love for the subject, so if I can make a useful con...
December 09, 2017 at 05:52
i don’t know if I can do that. I discovered Tao Te Ching through Alan Watts and have always greatly admired it, but it seems so quintessentially Chine...
December 09, 2017 at 05:29
Agree - there has to be some relationship between income and work, even if it is essentially a gratuity. Although really the deeper problem is that co...
December 09, 2017 at 05:18
I know - I thought I detected something similar in your approach.
December 09, 2017 at 02:56
It has a certain Frankensteinian feel to it - like, a monster has been created, and nobody really knows what it's going to do, but it's crashing aroun...
December 09, 2017 at 02:13
What you saying is, an illusion, compared to what? Which I think is a fair question. It’s telling that in a culture which generally values scientific ...
December 09, 2017 at 01:39
From the Wired article: So, something plainly has to give.
December 08, 2017 at 22:29
Platonism holds that the domain of number is a real domain. A quote from the SEP article, Platonism in the Philosophy of Mathematics: You may not agre...
December 08, 2017 at 22:28