Janus

Let's say you know X is true but you really want to believe Y. If you believe Y you will not be acting true to the part of you that believes X. On the...

That could be true I suppose, but then popular music is not always the best music.

Isn't everything we do true to ourselves in one way or another, though?

OK, but what exactly, in the absence of God (absolute truth) is integrity anyway? Does it consist merely in honoring the good opinion of us held by ou...

The point of the thought experiment is to focus on the question of whether it could be somehow in itself wrong to believe what we really feel deep dow...

Sorry, I wasn't saying that practical reasons, in themselves, are things we should try to pursue, so I didn't understand the relevance of the question...

Hopefully this, quoted from here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1469/discussion-three-types-of-atheism#Item_31 will help to clarify what I...

That's a question which can never be answered. Which puts us in the position of having to take the "salto mortale". There are a few possible narrative...

Sorry, Agustino, I don't understand the question (presuming for the moment that it was intended to be a serious question).

The question for me is not to do with pursuing practical reasons. Not even in the Kantian sense; I never found the idea that we are warranted in belie...

He's become 360 Proof- the Human Panopticon, and...He's Watchin' you... >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:O >:...

I don't know. It seems as if truth is just truth and value is just value. Truth certainly seems to be valuable in some situations. I mean if you are i...

Alternatively, what is the value of truth, per se?

I would say the ultimate 'for the sake of which' (if there is one) would count as the final cause. All the others would be, in any case, merely formal...

I do agree that the concept of efficient causation can quite easily lead to the idea of determinism; I just don't agree that the idea of determinism i...

Do you really think that or do you think you are just humoring me?

I can't make sense of this; I can't see how necessity can be understood to obtain in particular interactions unless determinism is assumed to be the c...

I see what you mean, but my point would still stand in a somewhat different way insofar as the explanation would not merely be "gravity" or "refractio...

What do all those explanations have in common? It seems to me that all you are doing is producing one word explanation which are not grammatical sente...

A finite material being has limitations; but it does not follow that an infinite material being would have limitations. The limitation of a finite mat...

Again, this is incorrect; what I am asserting is that the ideas of cause, and the ideas of force and influence are essentially the same. Are you sayin...

Newton postulates the application of a force which affects the apple, and produces its acceleration; its acceleration is the effect of the force. The ...

This is not true. Take the hammer and nail example. If striking the nail with the hammer is the efficient cause of driving the nail, that entails no n...

'Theory' is a polysemous term with different applications in different contexts. You are adverting to the notion of 'theory' relevant to QM, which is ...

You're mistaken if you think I was trolling. You made a statement, and I asked you to support it. I called you out for indulging in hyperbole. If all ...

It's not clear to me how any decision about the sculptures that properly reflected the "public will" in such a case would be practicable. Since the wo...

I would say it's not merely a matter of interpretation. Science is all about explaining why things happen; it's all about explaining the mechanisms of...

Are there tiny bronze fleas on the dog? Or how about a huge, powerful bear to eat the dog and the girl and bite off the bull's testicles?

The past is past, so it's not something which can be scientifically tested.

For something to "come roaring back" suggests that it has either been destroyed and then arisen again or at least very nearly destroyed, and then very...

You know, mechanical forces otherwise known as efficient causation, for example, the movement of tectonic plates causes uplift, water and wind are eff...

; Are you serious? Can you cite any instance of life having been totally wiped out by a cataclysm and then having come 'roaring back", or not?

So, it's a "no", then?

Belief in free will as it is understood by libertarians (for example, Kant) consists in believing, inter alia, that whatever we have done in the past,...

So, no mechanical forces are understood to operate in geology? Physical science doesn't posit four fundamental forces? Animals are not understood to b...

Yes, but 'cause' has at least two precise senses which I don't believe can be done away with in "philosophy, science, law.." etc; to do so would be to...

I, for one, have not been meaning to imply that the existence of everything, in the ontological or metaphysical sense, can be explained in terms of ef...

Do you have any actual evidence to support this contention?

OK, seems as if we're done then...

I cannot see any force in your objections. I think they, if taken seriously, would introduced confusion where previously there was logical clarity. 1....

A wild Geuss was taken... Sympathy... :)

The distinctions are very basic. In the physical context an efficient cause is something that acts on something else to produce a change in the latter...

Presently: The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte Frederick C. Beiser Recently: Kant and Spinozism Beth Lord Was it a wild Geuss ch...

OK, so mental and physical events seems to be correlated. If they are two totally different kinds of things, then it would seem to follow that there c...

By "intuitive" I mean something like 'imaginable' or 'intelligible', but also 'able to be comprehensibly modeled'. I think we can both imagine and com...

Or a representation and what is represented?

“Let us not doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts.” (C. S. Peirce)

Yes, but I don't see any reason to believe that we will create machines that will become conscious.

I agree, and I was really asking what would be the difference even if they did.

I think Dennett is exaggerating in saying that in the past the best minds could understand almost everything. Perhaps it might have been true regardin...