Manuel

Yeah. Though mere curiosity suffices, in my book. And being astonished at the world is what matters, not taking it for granted as obvious.

Just being interested in the world, as opposed to only caring about celebrity, gossip and so on. We have wonderful technology and all the knowledge we...

Death induces fear for those living. It's not a problem at the moment of death or afterwards, anymore than prior to birth the prospect for existence i...

There are many ways to interpret this passage, hence the reason why it is known outside of philosophical circles, which is a testament to Plato's writ...

:up: Exactly it depends on how you read. You can read passively, as when, say, many religious people read sacred texts or cramming a textbook for an u...

The question is almost impossible to answer. You've laid it all out. For example, I've tried to read Hume a few times, he never clicked with me, nor h...

It won't notice even if you are lucky enough to have a few people care about you.

Rereading: A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality by Ralph Cudworth Reading: Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man by Thomas Reid Lad...

I don't think it is incompatible to say that life, inherently, has no meaning - but that life, as we experience it, goes way beyond what we can discov...

Very interesting comments of pragmatism by the way. I was re-reading Peirce after not having read him for quite a while, and I have to say that I enti...

Timely thread. Personally I moved away from religion a long time ago, I felt it as indoctrination and limiting thinking more than anything else. I bec...

Sure, it's a default position the whole survival of the fittest mind set, which puts emphasis on everyone to only care about themselves. At the same t...

That's interesting, thanks for sharing. But I can't say I'm suprised. How can people really expect drugs to change people so drastically? It's quite n...

Just to add, we have little time to do something big: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/23/climate-change-future-impact-life-earth-un...

Thanks. :)

I had the good fortune to dedicate some years of my life to study. It was satisfying in many ways. Yeah you should do it, you know more than me and I ...

I suppose if you have in mind a project along the broad lines of idealism in opposition to narrow empiricism of the scientistic sort, you'd have a goo...

That's always on option. Or we can simply get ever more confused. Which is a problem. :meh:

Well math studies the simplest possible structures. And even here when something simple enough becomes a little long or strange the problems become fo...

Mmm. That solidity is something found in objects. I suppose it was the one irreducible aspect of realism that kept me a bit sane. I then read Thomas R...

Bah. If we only had a magic bullet. In my experience, when people are told the severity of the two examples you provide, they tend to shrug or say som...

That's perfectly fine too. We just happen to get stuck on certain questions.

The physical should be taken to mean everything that is physical. Mass is physical, but so are the quantum vacuum or fields. Which are quite "unsubsta...

Sure. It varies to the extent that the scientist in question is interested in philosophy. Weinberg, for one, doesn't care for it - though he uses a fo...

:cheer: I'll repost this, but this was said by yours truly, though expounded on by me. Many people really dislike this view, but I happen to think it'...

Well before asking a question like this perhaps some context would be helpful, otherwise this is random postulation.

Barth's mega novel? Damn, there's A LOT of work to do before reading that. That's something I'll have to read sometime in the future, looks very inter...

By the way Dan Zahavi is a very good Husserl scholar, he transmits Husserl in a way that is very accesible and (mostly) intelligible. He has many arti...

Sure, they're pretty stable all right. Still, there are exceptions: the Big Bang and Black Holes. Things break down at these levels. I'm thinking that...

I don't know but, using the word "laws" implies something timeless, God-like in this respect. These laws were different immediately at and immediately...

Yes, it's hard to find people who you disagree with that make good points. It can happen, but it's not easy due to one's bias, reflexive replies to ta...

:up:

It depends on what you mean by "being", which can turn out to be (hah!) quite ambiguous. I believe Schopenhauer once said that we are "nature coming t...

That's a term? :rofl:

Agreed. :ok:

Well you can try to reduce mental goings on with brain states, brain states to electro-chemical activity then reduce these to atoms and reduce atoms t...

I know, but since I think most materialisms are incoherent, outside of Strawson's, then I could signal out one which I think has some implications for...

I though I gave a reply somewhere in the thread. In any case, let me start again. If Dennett is right in his "materialism", the view that the phenomen...

No, I think in essence you are correct. It's just that sometimes when I see "mind" as opposed to "matter", I just type automatically. It's not a criti...

Why assume that matter and mind are distinct? Until someone can tell me where matter "stops" and mind "begins", this distinction doesn't make sense. A...

Many people really dislike this view, but I happen to think it's true. I understand philosophy as the study of mysteries, which is why the same questi...

In no specific order, omitting political stuff and obviously having some bias towards my present recollections, I'd say: Confessions of a Philosopher ...

I try to avoid using the term too frequently, it can confuse more than clear up a situation. Being treated that way is disgusting and inhumane and sho...

Ah, so you follow the Dennett type of thinking. OK, got it. :up: I'm in the Galen Strawson camp in this argument. Thanks for the examples and the repl...

:sad: Sure, I agree with how you present this. What about reading a novel, don't you observe images in your head? Or when you are lost in thought?

Isn't your experience observable to you?

Thanks. It really is scary...

Sure. :up:

Sure. Take a look at Lovejoy's essay here. Keep in mind that for some strange reason, Lovejoy was very anti-German, so take his critique with a grain ...

Let me rephrase: Apples fall because of gravity, not because they're "going to there natural place". That's what the scholastic philosophers used to s...