You are viewing the historical archive of The Philosophy Forum.
For current discussions, visit the live forum.
Go to live forum

Janus

Comments

Nonsense; everything I have read on the subject suggests that tribal societies had laws and leaders. I am not going to respond in detail to the rest o...
May 14, 2019 at 07:45
The point is that it is the fact that no one wants to live in a lawless society that commits them to moral respect for law as such. Tim is right about...
May 14, 2019 at 07:35
Why? We have laws and we have law, and the latter does not consist in any particular law or even any particular set of laws. Do you want to live in a ...
May 14, 2019 at 07:24
I think people generally just pre-reflectively accept the mores that their culture serves up to them. Once they become reflective, which is probably n...
May 14, 2019 at 06:22
That's true, mental activities may be recognized as such, however I was just clarifying that in the context of recognizing something which we might th...
May 14, 2019 at 04:06
Not imaginary.
May 14, 2019 at 03:27
I don't see why it's the same principle at all. I mean you might want to say, as the transcendental idealist does, that yellow, numbers and change hav...
May 14, 2019 at 01:36
It seems obvious to me that if you have no wish to live in a lawless society, you should respect the law as law; but it does not follow from that that...
May 14, 2019 at 01:27
Is change real or not?
May 13, 2019 at 23:07
I haven't said that any aspect is "identical". If it is a unique identity then what could it be identical to? Itself? But that would be an empty tauto...
May 13, 2019 at 21:37
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
Sure, I don't think anything in philosophy is 'cut and dried". That's why many people think philosophy is a waste of time and energy. That's also why ...
May 13, 2019 at 21:20
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
That's fine; you are under no obligation to do that. Apparently for you it does. :smile:
May 13, 2019 at 21:17
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
It seems odd to me, though; because speaking for myself, I'd love it if psychic and spiritual phenomena turned out to be real. How much richer would t...
May 13, 2019 at 06:00
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
Yes, I am aware of the difficulty involved in replicating some kinds of studies. Epidemiological studies and other kinds of statistical studies come t...
May 13, 2019 at 05:38
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
He says he "tried to prevent those factors distorting his cases" but how do we know this is so? We rely on his word, no? Bias could cause him to decei...
May 13, 2019 at 05:25
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
I don't disagree if by that you mean that I believe there are not "too many corroborations in those cases to be dismissed as coincidence"; I disagree ...
May 13, 2019 at 01:48
:cool:
May 13, 2019 at 00:48
Why would it be, if it does not cause significant harm?
May 13, 2019 at 00:18
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
The problem is that you have no way to assess the likelihood that there is a genuine case.
May 13, 2019 at 00:17
Sure, you could use other terms, but why the need to if it doesn't change anything in the argument?
May 12, 2019 at 23:53
Football is not the same as taking drugs because it is an entertainment industry; in a sense it is itself a job, it is certainly not a solitary activi...
May 12, 2019 at 23:52
I haven't said that abnormality or sub-normality is immoral. "Normal functioning" was meant more in the sense that one might say that the body is norm...
May 12, 2019 at 23:44
I would define significant harm as damage that significantly impairs one's mental, emotional or physical ability to be a normally functional contribut...
May 12, 2019 at 23:36
I think it is immoral to do a drug if doing it causes significant harm to oneself or others. And that is the criterion in my view regardless of whethe...
May 12, 2019 at 23:18
That's right, as I have said several times, the identity cannot change or else there is no identity. The entity changes, but its being that entity doe...
May 12, 2019 at 23:08
Well, as I said the only thing that remains absolutely unchanged is identity. Identity cannot change at all otherwise it ceases to be identity; but re...
May 12, 2019 at 22:59
No, I don't agree with nominalism. I say that I am, logically speaking, the same entity today as I have been at every moment throughout my life, and t...
May 12, 2019 at 22:54
I've already said that law (ideally) reflects the important mores of any community; those which are necessary to its harmonious functioning, and in th...
May 12, 2019 at 22:25
I maintain that some morals, those to do with "life and death" matters such as murder, rape, torture are near universally accepted across cultures as ...
May 12, 2019 at 22:19
In the general sense law is the codification of principles or rules to be followed under threat of punishment for failure to follow them. Law as a gen...
May 12, 2019 at 22:14
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
Logically and epistemologically speaking, yes. I am holding open the possibility that at least some things which we cannot prove to be impossible, act...
May 12, 2019 at 22:09
It's logically the same. It need not be absolutely unchanged in order to be the same entity over time; in fact all entities do change, some more and s...
May 12, 2019 at 22:07
:cool:
May 12, 2019 at 22:04
It seems to me that "law as law" is law in general or law in principle, as opposed to 'law as a law' which is law in particular. We should respect law...
May 12, 2019 at 03:26
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
Right, just to be clear I wasn't referring to the particular you with the "you" but the general you. I actually don't believe that it is possible to p...
May 11, 2019 at 23:02
Unfortunately I can't agree or disagree with what you have said here Mww, because what it is is not clear to me.
May 11, 2019 at 22:37
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
As I said logical possibility is one kind of possibility, epistemological possibility and ontological or physical possibility are others. If you accep...
May 11, 2019 at 22:21
No, I haven't dismissed 3 because all along I have argued that the closest we come to objectivity is inter-subjectivity, and that morality is inter-su...
May 11, 2019 at 22:06
Each reference to a particular entity or identity is a different instance of reference, and so each act of reference is not identical to other acts of...
May 11, 2019 at 21:50
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
Nice! When shall come the night; our very own "cloud of unknowing"?
May 11, 2019 at 04:29
In: Rebirth?  — view comment
NO, don't say that! @"Wayfarer" seems to detest Trump more than anyone else I know! (And that's saying something!) But then it has been said that we d...
May 11, 2019 at 04:27
I keep having to repeat that I have not said identicality is equivalent to identity. An identity, an entity, can change over time; and this is obvious...
May 11, 2019 at 04:16
Yes, it's the same basic pattern or configuration that changes gradually over time. The total identity of an entity is the total configurational chang...
May 11, 2019 at 04:11
Well if extra-mental is taken to mean that something is independent of our thoughts and opinions, I would say that there is; namely the recurring patt...
May 11, 2019 at 04:01
OK, insofar as I think I understand what you are saying here, I don't disagree; but I can't see the relevance. The animal presumably has no notion of ...
May 11, 2019 at 03:53
Not at all, it is merely to recognize entities. That animals do this is evidenced by observing their responses. It really just comes down to pattern r...
May 11, 2019 at 03:39
I don't doubt that animals can identify, but I doubt they can abstract, since to do that is to possess the capability to symbolize, to conceptually ge...
May 11, 2019 at 03:31
I haven't denied that the notion of identity is an abstraction; I've already acknowledged that it is; but we have no reason to suppose that the notion...
May 11, 2019 at 03:26
What "idealist nonsense" are you referring to? I for one am not arguing for any idealist metaphysical thesis. I don't accept idealism any more than I ...
May 11, 2019 at 03:03
But you ignore what I have said which is that identicality (of parts) is not equivalent to identity (of the whole). So the identity of an entity acros...
May 11, 2019 at 02:58