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Janus

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That's the right one. We know that we can't know the truth as to whether all truths are knowable because no matter how many truths we know we have no ...
November 15, 2024 at 01:31
How can the anti-realist justify the claim that all unknown truths are knowable? You would have to know them to know they are knowable, no?
November 14, 2024 at 21:47
"It" denotes how the body/ brain is apparently affected by the environment to produce perceptual experiences. We can tell the scientific story about h...
November 14, 2024 at 21:40
If you think Socrates' example shows that philosophy is not about how best to live then we are so far from being on the same page as to make respondin...
November 14, 2024 at 21:02
:up:
November 14, 2024 at 03:42
The difference I see is that ecology, economics and politics all necessarily have real world consequences. As I've acknowledged I see that metaphysics...
November 14, 2024 at 03:10
I'm not sure what you mean here. If you mean that metaphysical attitudes can influence how folk think about ecological, economic and political issues ...
November 14, 2024 at 01:43
I really do think there are stakes when it comes to ecological, economic and political issues. I'm not convinced there are stakes (other than the feel...
November 14, 2024 at 01:13
:up:
November 14, 2024 at 00:58
Insinuating what? That I'm not really a player but a spectator?
November 13, 2024 at 23:32
I see philosophy as a process of firstly getting clear as to just what my situation, epistemologically speaking, is. What can i reasonably be said to ...
November 13, 2024 at 23:30
In any case the alien sees a hand even if he doesn't call it such.
November 13, 2024 at 22:58
Because it is interesting? Why do you bother? Also I think it may be possible to get clear about the alternatives and what they each presuppose, even ...
November 13, 2024 at 22:39
To take one prominent example of long-standing metaphysical disagreement some say mind is foundational, while others say matter is foundational. The t...
November 13, 2024 at 22:07
Of course there is a sense in which our perceptions are always already interpretations. But we are blind to how the body/brain does that. It is pre-co...
November 13, 2024 at 22:00
You speak as though that purported "end goal" is a given. How would any philosophical truth ever be demonstrable such as to gain universal assent? I h...
November 13, 2024 at 21:54
Right and the very fact that there seems to be to both sides "plenty of grounds for doubt and belief" respectively shows that it is not a subject whic...
November 12, 2024 at 22:57
Also simulation or modeling can only be of that which is observed else it would be simulation or modeling of nothing.
November 12, 2024 at 22:37
The question was posed to @"J". I know how @"Wayfarer" thinks of "higher". He thinks we moderns have lost, not merely an older set of cultural attitud...
November 12, 2024 at 22:13
I see philosophy as being concerned with understanding the human condition in the broadest and most comprehensive ways. It is different from psycholog...
November 11, 2024 at 21:32
:up: A good coherently nonsensical oldie!
November 11, 2024 at 03:09
It's not a matter of justified true belief but rather of the common usage of a word which demonstrates a certain range of understandings. We have no r...
November 11, 2024 at 03:05
We know what we mean when we say such things as "I changed my mind", "I made up my mind", "I don't mind", " I did that task mindfully", "mind your ste...
November 10, 2024 at 23:24
:cool: The problem is that we all know what we mean by 'mind' in the ordinary context. In the extraordinary context the notion is nothing more than a ...
November 10, 2024 at 23:04
Coherence exists within some context or other. Philosophers have invented language games wherein they purport to be somehow saying the unsayable. Perh...
November 10, 2024 at 22:42
This reminds of one of Ashleigh Brilliant's sayings: "My biggest problem is what to do about all the things I can't do anything about". Perhaps the ph...
November 10, 2024 at 22:32
I think of different selves as being nothing more than different kinds of disposition or orientation. Do we need a notion of soul to understand that o...
November 10, 2024 at 21:53
I just noticed this thread and have not read it through so please excuse my question if it has already been asked and answered; what do you mean by "h...
November 10, 2024 at 21:46
The claim is wrong simply because there is never for anyone alive an absence of stimuli.
November 09, 2024 at 01:29
Is this a jokey play on words or are you a New Zealander?
November 08, 2024 at 00:12
Democracy Song by Leonard Cohen It's coming through a hole in the air, From those nights in Tiananmen Square. It's coming from the feel That this ain'...
November 07, 2024 at 21:42
:roll: :yawn: Does he claim the conditions and the responses are the same for all or not? Edit: I suspect you won't answer this because to do so would...
November 07, 2024 at 02:59
So Schopenhauer claims there is no diversity in the ways people respond to their conditions? In that case he would obviously be mistaken.
November 07, 2024 at 01:00
Sure we know we die. That fact may cause some to suffer and not others. As I said earlier its a matter of attitude and disposition. I don't know what ...
November 07, 2024 at 00:33
I'm not sure what you mean. I would say that absence of pleasure brings suffering and that absence of pain brings pleasure. Life is inherently pleasur...
November 06, 2024 at 04:32
Right and it would be equally absurd to claim that existence is completely free from pleasure.
November 06, 2024 at 04:19
Pain is the negative aspect of existence. Pleasure is the positive. It would be absurd to claim that existence is completely free from suffering.
November 06, 2024 at 04:14
Suffering is not inevitable merely on account of being aware or self-aware. Awareness may be a necessary, bit not a sufficient, condition for sufferin...
November 06, 2024 at 03:49
Suffering is not caused merely by being conscious or being self-aware. You could be conscious and self-aware and not suffer, if by suffering you mean ...
November 06, 2024 at 03:11
Firstly I'm not defending physicalism but refuting the claims of its supposed inconsistency. You haven't explained why there can be no objective good ...
November 06, 2024 at 03:04
In the case of the real cat there would be light reflected from it which enters the eye, etc. You know the story. In any case I have never had such a ...
November 06, 2024 at 00:32
The hallucinated cat is not a cat at all. The perceived cat is a cat. I'm not conflating lawgiver and afterlife. I'm asking how physicalism could unde...
November 05, 2024 at 23:33
The hallucination is a neural process and hence physical. Of course it is not a physical (real) cat. I see no inconsistency there but rather a conflat...
November 05, 2024 at 23:13
By "inconsistencies" I take it you mean that physicalism is not consistent with our "normal' intuitions about the nature of mind and consciousness and...
November 05, 2024 at 22:01
:cool:
November 05, 2024 at 21:45
:up:
November 05, 2024 at 21:44
Right. I think this is the nub. 'Not-A' should strictly be the negation of 'A'. We cannot say 'if something is alive, then it is dead' even if we can ...
November 05, 2024 at 21:27
OK thanks. It does seem to be a propositional statement in ordinary langauge. 1. If there is life (A) there is death (not-A) 2. There is life 3. There...
November 05, 2024 at 20:40
I'm not interested in being moved by the question as to the truth or falsity of physicalism I'm just interested to know why others are moved by it.
November 04, 2024 at 22:30
Thoughts are widely considered to be neural events or processes. That they do not seem to be such to the thinker is no guarantee that they are not suc...
November 04, 2024 at 22:21