Geoffrey Klempner

Hasan asked:

Why don't no one understand you when clearly you tell them your point?

WHAT?

Brian Tee

lol, of course you have already answered this question. But since we're poking fun at philosophical questions, I have one for you. "if a man speaks in the woods and no woman is around to hear him... is he still wrong?"

Ryan Burton

Pani asked:

I want to know, if reincarnation is true, why we only remember this life? And how we can explain population growth?

Also I have another question, How can we explain the "gods" in the beginning of life? When I compare my knowledge with Von Daniken's theory, I really mix up.

You've already answered your first question by yourself, so there is nothing more to say. As for Daniken, my best advice is to try and forget what he wrote as fast as you can. Don't blame yourself for being mixed up; chances are the guy was even more mixed up than you are. As I, for example, discovered to my chagrin by checking his sources, he also had the problem that he quotes many that just don't exist. Same rule goes for reincarnation, I'm afraid. The idea is a hangover from very primitive days, when people had no science whatever and tried as best they could to explain to themselves what happens to their precious little self when the body dies. If you're interested in ancient Gods, read about them in books on mythology. There is a huge choice of them in every library in the world.

Jürgen Lawrenz

Actually you're doing very well. These are just the kinds of questions you should be asking, that is, questions about the basis and implications of assertions that people make to you. There are no satisfactory answers to these questions, because 1) there is nothing at all supporting reincarnation; there are just a lot of people who believe in it. There used to be a lot of people who believed the earth was flat, also. If wishes were fishes... For one thing, if reincarnation is true, then Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, to name only three major religions, are false. Why don't people see this? Um...

2) Von Daniken either very cynically cashed in on hordes of gullible people to sell his books, or he was simply a crackpot. There is not a shred of historical data supporting his, uh, "theories".

Keep on with your skepticism! Read about these theories! Think critically about them! Now, the next step is to do the same for the beliefs you were brought up with... painful as that might be.

Steven Ravett Brown

Geraldine asked:

What is at the end of the universe...and don't say that it goes on forever...if it does what is behind forever?

Why shouldn't I say it goes on forever? Why shouldn't it? What if I said it went on for X zillion light-years... then what? Look, suppose that whatever it is that "space" is, stopped after some distance. Now, how would we be able to know that, since we can only measure within and with space? Let's say that the universe is a 4-dimensional sphere, 100 zillion light-years across (a zillion is a number that I've just made up which is less than infinity, ok?). So it's finite. But we can only travel around inside it, around and around. We can't see out, we can't go out, and when we get to an edge, we just get turned around so that we're headed back inside. All we can do is go around and around. What's the "end" of that? Space has no end, then, does it. Is there an "outside"? But there's no way to have one, is there, because space stops there. Or to put it another way, the universe, if it's like that, is any size, and no size, because there's no way to measure it, since it's all the space there is. There's nothing to compare it to, so its "outside" size is anything, or nothing, or a meaningless idea.

Alternatively, let's say that the universe is a finite sized sphere, and there is space outside it. How large is it? Well... a zillion light-years. What's outside it? Space, empty space... why? Because I just said so.

Alternatively, let's say that there are multiple "universes", in different dimensions, or something like that. Ok, now where does that stop? Hey, there are a zillion of them, right? Or maybe there are an infinite number... but what's the difference between saying that and saying that this universe goes on forever... which you don't want me to say. Maybe there are a finite number of finite-sized universes; a finite number of infinite-sized universes in different dimensions; an infinite number of finite-sized universes...; an infinite number of infinite-sized universes. I'm just running through the possibilities here...

Let's put this another way. If you read Kant and similarly-minded philosophers, what they say is that "space" is a construct of the human mind, created by us to understand the flux we're immersed in. That's all. So it's something we created to understand something else... which we can only understand in terms of that concept; we don't have any other way to understand it. So... the "size", the "edge", the "behind" of the world, and so, the universe... those are all things that come out of us, to help us cope with whatever's around us. But whatever that is, doesn't have "size" by itself, or "edges", or any of those things... we just make those up to help us get a handle on it. So then your question must either relate to us, human beings, or it's just simply meaningless, because we don't know what the world "really" is. But if it relates to us, then what's at the end of the universe is what we put there... which brings us back to the "zillion" discussion above.

Steven Ravett Brown

Erin asked:

How would I now if my plant has died?

There is a video in the Tate Modern gallery in London showing the decay of an apple.

We don't know — I think the answer is. It is a process of decay rather than death in an apple and perhaps also a decaying process in a plant's movement from being a living thing to a dead one and so there is no moment of death. With the human I think the heart stops, but plants don't have hearts.

Just remember to water the plant!

Rachel Browne

Matthew asked:

I have long maintained a notion that time is a dimension in the manner of space. 'Moments' do not disappear but rather occupy different positions within this dimension. Our everyday perception/ experience of time is thus due to a limited perspective from which it is impossible to escape. I would not claim to necessarily be able to prove such a notion, but it has a strong intuitive appeal to me. Can anyone elucidate this intuition by referring to thinkers who possess similar ideas, or via its refutation?

Your idea is at least 300 years old and was (and is) still in print in the Correspondence between Clarke and Leibniz. In this exchange of letters, in which Clarke represented Newton's side, Leibniz said just this: that time is not real, but a relation between events. To understand time properly, it should therefore be geometrised, which is the same as treating it as a dimension superadded to 3D space. Of course, Einstein's theory uses pretty much the same notion, the difference being that time is not added to, but integrated with space. You might be interested in Barbour's book The End of Time, which gives you the latest wrinkles on the idea. Mind you, it is indispensable to have some elementary physics under your belt before you read this. If you do, you'll find it totally fascinating.

Jürgen Lawrenz

It's called the "block universe" theory, and comes rather directly from special relativity. Fred Hoyle, the astronomer and sci-fi writer, wrote a rather nice novel around the idea, called October the First is Too Late. You might check it out. One problem with the theory is explaining our experience of the "movement" of time, or "through" time. If the universe is a block in, say 4 or 5 dimensions, of which time is one, then why do we have the perception (technically, the "apprehension") that we move at all? In his book, Hoyle proposed a solution in which consciousness successively "illuminated" different "slots", so to speak, of mind in the time dimension. The problem with that, of course, is that in order to do that, consciousness would then have to have its own time dimension in order to move from slot to slot, to explain our experienced time dimension. But the problem was to explain movement in the first place. So that doesn't work, unless you're into infinite regressions which never actually settle on the solution.

No, I'm afraid that no one has actually come up with a way to get from the block to our experience of motion. Yes, sure, we can say that our consciousness is spread out through the time dimension, but however you cut it, you're still not getting from non-motion to motion.

But there are other problems with this notion. The "time is space" idea is a metaphor derived from ways ("image schemas", according to Lakoff and Johnson — see below) of dealing with the passage of time that we employ as children, which ultimately gives rise to a certain mathematical description of time (or to intuitions which are derived from that metaphor). Well, it's all very nice for mathematical description, up to a point, anyway (the point where special relativity turns into general relativity), but does that mean, just because it lets us do some calculations, that this metaphor actually describes reality... or is it just a convenience to let us calculate? For a nice analysis of metaphors on time, you might check out: Lakoff, G. 1990. Women, fire, and dangerous things. 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press; and: Lakoff, G., and M. Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. 1st ed. New York, NY: Basic Books.

There are of course many other ways to conceive of time... none very satisfactory as explanation of the basic apprehension of motion. For a very difficult, but in my opinion absolutely the best, analysis of the subjective experience of time, try: Husserl, E. 1990. On the phenomenology of the consciousness of internal time. Edited by R. Bernet. Vol. IV, Edmund Husserl: Collected Works. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Not easy reading, but an extraordinary work.

Steven Ravett Brown

Daisy asked:

We're wondering if you can help us on our debate whether 'Eating meat is right'. We are For meat and are wondering if you have any philosophical arguments that eating meat is right and eating meat is not cruel.

Well, eating meat isn't really cruel. It is the method of killing which would be held to be cruel. It can also be held to be cruel to keep poultry and animals in bad conditions and to fatten them up for eating. When animals are not farmed they can become extinct, as in the case of fish. This can be seen as an act of cruelty towards creatures who naturally feed on fish.

You might look at Roger Scruton's book Animal Rights and Wrongs. In this book, Scruton says (and I must quote this as it is so funny):

"I find myself driven by my love of animals to favour eating them. Most of the animals which graze in our fields are there because we eat them. Sheep and beef cattle are, in the conditions which prevail in English pastures, well-fed, comfortable and protected, cared for when disease afflicts them, and, after a quiet life among their natural companions, despatched in ways which human beings, if they are rational, must surely envy. There is nothing immoral in this. On the contrary, it is one of the most vivid triumphs of comfort over suffering in the entire animal world. It seems to me, therefore, that it is not just permissible, but positively right, to eat these animals whose comforts depend up on our doing so."

This picture of English pastures and comfort doesn't complete the story. Do animals enjoy being unnaturally herded into a lorry and carted off to the abattoir where we call their manner of death "slaughter"? If Scruton loves animals that much you would think he could allow that we could keep them for aesthetic reasons as a means of enhancing the countryside.

David asked:

Would it be fair to say that Karl Popper invented the concept of Falsification?

Or might it be fairer to say that it didn't exist as an applied methodology before Popper?

Or are both of these propositions doubtful?

As far as I am aware, Falsifiability is generally held to have overcome the problem of induction, and acts as the criterion of demarcation between science and non-science, despite its critics.

Popper invented it. But in the rest of your question you're barking up the wrong tree. Falsification has to do with proving scientific hypotheses. In his youth, members of the Vienna Circle had propagandised the notion that philosophy should accept nothing as true that cannot be positively proved to be true. When Popper examined this issue he realised that this is impossible: science can prove practically nothing to be true, it can only prove that something is false. So it is not a methodology as such, but an idea or principle, to be applied to every scientific experiment: the experiment, if it successfully proves some hypothesis or theory false, can be said to have achieved a truth. Finally, the connection to induction is that truth is impossible of proof precisely because 1000 or a million experiments can never be accepted as truth as long as the possibility exists of just one contradictory result. Induction therefore is only what Bacon originally wanted it to be: a collection of facts usable for a working hypothesis. It confers no guarantees.

Jürgen Lawrenz

Dimienne asked:

What theological questions were raised by the experience of the Holocaust and what attempts have been made to resolve them?

The problem of the existence of evil and how to reconcile it with God's (supposed) qualities as good and all loving, omnipotent and intervening has been around for a long time and very many answers trying to harmoniously incorporate them into justification have been proposed. For example: that evil is the result of human beings use of there (God given) freewill and that for God to change that would be to change the special status of humans. That Evil is not really evil, but part of some divine master plan to test the faithful, that evil is a punishment for our sins. None of these are very convincing from a philosophical point of view and many have concluded that evil is a proof against the existence of God. After the Holocaust these issues were raised again with a new urgency and with a justifiable indignation. Many writers and witnesses to the Holocaust joining Nietzsche in affirming the Death of God. And that after the Holocaust all human endeavour, activity and production must be carried out in its shadow such that "No statement, theological or otherwise should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children" (Greenberg).

But what questions does the Holocaust forces us to consider? Can we any new questions, questions unique to the Holocaust, or unique in that they would not have been asked if the Holocaust had not happened, but questions that impress on us now and demand to be reckoned with? One question is has the relation between God and humanity as a whole undergone revolution? Can we anymore bow down and worship God, can we think of God as a father and we as children after the Holocaust or have the children grow up such that they are in a position to question the Father?

Of course there are questions Jews (specifically and believers generally) have to face; Has the nature of the covenant changed, has God simply abandoned his chosen people? Leading on from this we can ask if the nature of religious vocation has changed, Is the impetus on God to agree to our conditions now, or is a voluntary renewal of the covenant a more ethical pact a more trusting endeavour in the face of the Holocaust? I don't think I am equipped to answer such questions, but there is a kind of question more suited to a philosopher: it is whether we have really ever had a conception of God as God? Or was the God that died in the death camps only merely an illusion of God created by humans?

What I mean is that talk of God as supremely powerful, as guardian, as all loving is an anthropomorphism a God made in the image of man. The perfect man, a fully extended version of man's self-image, This was the God that died and deservedly so along with the death of the image of man himself. If it is correct to say that the Holocaust forces us change every aspect of human existence, so that it will not happen again, this means humanity must rethink what it is to be human, not as free, independent, self-contained and whole unto itself, but as dependent, fragile, responsible. It also means that maybe the God who died in Auschwitz was not the real God, but a God that humanity projected: God as the perfect being. But as I have said previously in these pages (to save repeating myself try a search for the other answers), maybe Being and God don't go together. Rather than being that entity that has Being in abundance the most real being, maybe God is the most delicate entity, exiting not as a thing, not as the biggest and best but as the fleeting and contingent relation between humans who care for one another. What this implies is that God of philosophy and theology and pre-Holocaust humanity is a fiction and a useless fiction after the Holocaust. It is not God's existence that we need to be convinced of since God is outside the realms of being and not-being. And therefore was in no position to physically stop all the children burning. The question becomes inappropriate, it is the wrong question to ask, even if it's hard to realise that, because then the psychological safety net disappears.

What we need to be concerned with is the little goodness that is made possible by recognising that other people as special and needing our help, maybe that's where God lives, such that even in the death camps God was still alive?

A good collection to view is: Holocaust religious and philosophical implications. Edited J.K.Roth & M.Berenbaum

Brian Tee

Li asked:

If a person is sliced symmetrically in half instantaneously about the vertical axis, before that person's inevitable death, where would his consciousness lie? Since the brain is also symmetrically divided perfectly, would it be possible to have two entities of that person in that moment? A "logical" and a "creative" version of that person, so to speak?

Your question presupposes that the conscious "I" is somehow independent of the brain in such a manner that it could function with only half of one. I challenge this assumption as a position for which we have no evidence. So my answer would be that the consciousness would die in the instant that the brain was divided.

There is a significant amount of evidence, to which you make passing reference, that the two halves of the cerebrum contribute different sorts of mental functions to consciousness. But there is no evidence that consciousness could successfully function without either set of those functions.

There is evidence from victims of severe schizophrenia, that the corpus callosum can be severed without impairing consciousness. The corpus callosum is the structure deep in the brain that connects the right and left hemispheres of the cerebrum. But that is not the only pathway that connects the two halves of the brain. There is more to the brain than the cerebrum. Patients who have undergone such treatment have never displayed dual personalities. Rather they have demonstrated that there must be alternate pathways for information to flow from one side of the cerebrum to the other.

There is also evidence from people with various sorts of brain damage, that consciousness can get along reasonably well without major portions of the brain. But none of that evidence would suggest that one half of a functioning consciousness could suddenly get along without the other. Survivors of major brain-cell losses take years to even partially recover. All evidence of this sort would suggest that loosing any piece of the brain causes severe mental problems for the unfortunate victim. Loosing one-half of the brain-cells would undoubtedly be instantly fatal.

For more discussion of this issue, in greater depth and with greater expertise than I can muster here, I refer you to Consciousness Explained by Daniel C. Dennett.

Stuart Burns

Well actually your experiment has been done. There are people with very severe (i.e., virtually continuous) epilepsy who, in order to stop the spread of the neural discharges over their brain, have surgery in which the two halves of their brain are separated, by cutting the connection called the corpus callosum. This results in "split-brain" people, who do in fact seem to have two consciousnesses in one body. There is a huge literature on split-brain patients... just go look it up. The "logic" and "creative" dichotomy is not really the issue; the major dichotomy is between verbal and non-verbal thinking and expression, since the verbal areas are on the left side of the brain. This makes communicating with the non-verbal personality difficult, but possible.

Steven Ravett Brown

One problem: the brain is not functionally symmetrical. But in any case, your version of a logical and creative brain is so old and obsolete now that I urgently recommend you update your reading. Try, for example, Eccles' Evolution of the Brain, Creation of the Self.

Jürgen Lawrenz

Justin asked:

What is the flaw in Robert Pirsig's metaphysics of quality?

Is he just another idealist? maybe the linguistic and cognitive vagueness of his writing fooled me, but I thought he was convincing enough to at least justify his belief.

Having read both Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila I share your liking for Pirsig. And it's absolutely the right thing to do, once you've read something persuasive, to turn about for competing views that help one mull things over and come to a view that's really one's own. And I've a couple of suggestions there, if you follow me to the bottom of this. All the same, I wonder if the way you put that here is a bit hard on Pirsig, maybe even on Philosophers in general.

First off, why speak as if you were looking for some damming 'flaw'? Of course we all talk in terms of flaws in arguments and so on, but the application here to a philosopher's belief system as a whole is a metaphorical one that is pushing a certain picture of how philosophy is, or ought to be — and that brings with it problems. Literally, a flaw is a line of weakness in a material along which it will break when put under stress. That's fine for metals in aeroplane wings where the job that the thing is supposed to do is agreed upon: controlled flight. But in Philosophy it's often precisely this sort of thing that is up for debate: i.e. it is the task of philosophy, and so also what would constitute its failure, that is up for debate. What is philosophical reasoning, and what is it for? These are themselves two important topics of philosophical thought. So, there will very often be room for disagreement about whether something is a 'flaw', if only because there is unclarity about what job an 'unflawed' piece of philosophy must do, and about what kinds of stress it may legitimately be required to withstand without fracture. So the imagery of 'flaw' is a bit stretched here. For that reason, I suggest that it may be better to speak of philosophical failures not as 'flaws' but, more precisely, as being variously: factual inaccuracies, contradictions, unclarities, loose ends, imaginative failures and so on, whichever may happen to apply.

It's true that professional academics have been sniffy about Pirsig's work, to varying degrees. One of the philosophical failures likely to be identified in Pirsig is that he hasn't properly read all the great books or the current journals, and so isn't writing from a position of knowledge about the traditions of the past or the controversies of the day. In defence of Pirsig on this count, I'd say first that while studying philosophers is extremely helpful for tackling philosophical questions, I'm not convinced by the position taken by some that it must be actually impossible to do original and interesting philosophy out with a directed study of the tradition — just difficult and unlikely. Second, I'd say that while Pirsig's retelling of the history of Philosophy is polemical and has huge gaps, he does show evidence of having read understood and inwardly digested in a rather interesting way at least two important figures, namely, Plato and William James. Whether you think Pirsig's unexpected and innovative attempt to integrate Platonism and American Pragmatism makes up for inadequacies in philosophical understanding elsewhere may depend upon your own philosophical judgements and interests. In my case, I happen to like both James and Plato, and this has something to do with my appreciation of Pirsig when I discovered him.

Cliff asked:

1) Theoretically, if something could travel faster than the speed of light, is time travel possible? If you could go faster than the speed of light time would slow down, right?

2) Are heaven and hell a dimension? when you die, you leave the first 3 (maybe 4: considering time is only a conscious thing) dimensions behind.

I'm a 21 year old musician and now this website has inspired me to look into philosophy as a higher learning tool. Thanks.

First: time travel is not possible. Fundamentally, the idea offends against the principle of simultaneity. An object cannot be in two places at once. Although this is commonly swept under the carpet in science fiction, well that's fiction. Scientists often speculate on time travel and devise all sorts of wonderful ideas to circumvent the logical conflict, but (much as I hate to be a spoil sport) the facts — all the facts we know are dead against it. So, fiction again.

For what it's worth, time travel also contradicts another basic law. The speed of light in a vacuum is the grain of time. Thus light is essentially energy, void of information. To travel at that speed means you would have to convert yourself into pure energy. But then, you erase the information that enables your reconstruction some place else. So much for stepping under a canopy etc etc. In any case, these fictions never keep you informed that even at the speed of light, time travel would still take thousands of years from one galaxy to another.

Faster than light particles are known, they're called tachyons. And yes, as you guessed, they enable us in certain specialised areas of research, to "slow down time" and study complexity related phenomena at a more humanly graspable speed than "real time". If you're interested, there is a chapter on this in Ian Stewart's book Does God Play Dice?

What heaven and hell are you better try to find out from a theologian. Philosophers are at times inclined to assert that the planet we live on is hell; but as for heaven, although there are hundreds of rivalling accounts from all the different religions, no-one ever received a doubt-free message from the place, so we can't know what it "is". (Theologians will, of course, refer to revelation, but some recalcitrant philosophers will doubt the reliability of this report as well). Now when you die, you don't leave any dimensions behind at all. Strictly speaking, dimensions are a facon de parler; they are not real in the sense that your keyboard is real. But in any case, the crucial thing is not that you "leave", but that you cease to be. Out like a candle, as Shakespeare said. Now many religious people hold fast to the idea that "you" don't really die, only your body disintegrates. But I think there is an awful confusion behind this notion. From my experience this belief invariably entails the survival of the personality, but this cannot be, because the kind of personality you are is completely fashioned in life and carried across time in biological memories which die along with your body.

Christopher asked:

This is intended to be somewhat philosophical, since I haven't found the answer anywhere else: Why are blue jeans blue? I'm not asking about the techniques for dyeing them blue. My question is rather why do we want them blue? why (at least until very recently) do we want our jeans to be blue, in spite of available technology to make them as good in any colour?

This is not a philosophical question, sorry. My memory on details about jeans is vague now, but I'm not going research this matter on your behalf. For as it happens blue jeans became just a fashion craze a couple of decades ago, and they were originally the product of a maker whose factory was in some French town that lent its name to the product [Serge de Nimes]. So your quest for a "deep" meaning is in the same league as the "left wing politics" (why left wing? Because their originals sat on the left side of the house of parliament); or "bernaise sauce" (from Bern) or "saxophone" (from Adolphe Sax, its inventor) and innumerable other instances.

Jürgen Lawrenz

Zak asked:

Someone give me a convincing argument against the reasoning that humans have "free will". I've heard the argument that if you could calculate everything at a certain moment you could predict the future. But that doesn't mean we don't have free will, it just means we can predict the future. I think that a lot of philosophers take the "everything has been determined" standpoint because they are pretentious.

I don't know that I can supply what you are after regarding Freewill. But take care about formulations of Determinism.

You pick upon that popular picture of the clockwork universe in which the pre-arranged future is pictured as being rather like the modern weather forecast only better. Observations about present conditions are made and then computations according to known patterns and laws predict the predetermined future states. Now, the weather forecast sometimes gets things wrong. But you think of the predetermined future as that plan of events which a thoroughly perfect scientific understanding of everything that holds in the present would have predicted: "if you could calculate everything at a certain moment you could predict the future".

Problematically, your choice of words here makes the truth of determinism dependant upon the conceivability (not practicality or actuality, in the way of which there are several obvious obstacles, but conceivability) of 'a perfect scientific understanding of the present'. And I think that there are several reasons why this perfect understanding isn't conceivable. The first and most serious is that the concept of a perfect measurement can't be made sense of. Even supposing that you could get magically instantaneous and non-intervening methods for measuring the position and spin and so on of every single atom in the universe, there would still be the problem that the measurements from this survey would have to be returned in numerical and computable form. If they are to be computed then the number of decimal points in the observations, and thus the degree of accuracy, could not be infinite. So, any set of data from which calculations could be performed would of necessity contain imperfection and error. This necessary imperfection in the information could only lead to a necessary imperfection in the prediction. Thus you cannot (and not even conceivably) "calculate everything at a certain moment [and] predict the [determined] future".

Now, this is just to say that you cannot (as it is usually supposed) understand determinism in terms of an ideal science, with the determined future as that which a perfect science would correctly predict. Maybe it is possible to understand determinism in a different way, but since the attraction of determinism seems to derive mostly from faith in science and technology (the "clockwork universe"), nobody much seems to be trying.

David Robjant

Did you choose to be born? Have you a choice between mortality and immortality? Can you wilfully increase or decrease your height? etc. etc. etc.

It seems that any free will we are able to exercise falls within set parameters. To illustrate with a simple analogy, Consider yourself locked in a windowless room with a few pieces of furniture, your choices will be limited to moving the furniture around, the walls and the locked door will ensure that the number of choices available are determined within these constraining parameters. If your captors control the light switch outside your room, your light and dark (night and day) will also be outside your choice. As I say, a very simple analogy, but the choices in life are rather like this, a limited freedom within a determined scenario.

We can make good choices in life, or we can make choices we afterwards regret, but, over all, we find some powerful restricting boundaries in nature and very much under the influence of cause and effect. Most people live their lives burdened with unfulfilled desires.

I find it difficult to respond to your accusation that philosophers who support determinism are "pretentious". I require to see the premises of your argument, the claim you make is an unsupported conclusion.

John Brandon

Let's pretend that I am an ant who lives in a colony in the middle of this really big plank of wood. Then I started to walk to one end of the plank and could not reach the end even until my death. My children and their children's children and a hundred generations after tried the same thing and still did not reach the end. Would I, as an ant, be correct in stating that this plank stretches to eternity?

In a word, no. First, you don't define the term "eternity", so really, your question can't even be answered. Second, if "eternity" means "an infinite length", so that the question becomes, "can we know that something has infinite length by empirical measurements of finite increments?", the answer is still "NO". Here's the classic metaphor: suppose you have a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Ok? All the rooms are full. A guest comes to the desk and wants a room. The clerk says, "fine", and moves guest number 1 to room number 2, the guest in number 2 to number 3, and so forth... the guest now stays in room number 1, and everyone else still has a room. That's an illustration of what "infinity" means. If you really want to know, read G. Cantor on orders of infinity.

Steven Ravett Brown

Ethan asked:

If Zeno's paradox attempts to show existence is static and that motion and change are impossible, why hasn't anyone postulated the opposite — i.e. that nothing is at rest and change is happening all the time? This seems to me the obvious way of solving the problem. And sorry I think all the mathematical solutions just don't cut it (no pun intended).

Two points. The first about your opening 'If', and the second about your central 'why?'

(1) To begin with, it is not clear that "Zeno's paradox attempts to show existence is static and that motion and change are impossible".

The alternative possibility which we should consider is that Zeno is attempting to give what is called a "reductio" of a view he rejects, by showing that motion would be impossible if one assumed what his opponent assumes about space and time. A "reductio ad absurdum" where one shows that a set of claims is contradictory. The moral of a "reductio" here might be that some people have an incoherent picture about motion, rather than that there is no motion on any picture of motion whatsoever.

There is room for controversy about exactly what the objectionable set of assumptions is for Zeno. All of our evidence about Zeno is second or third hand, the principal sources being critics of Zeno, namely Plato and Aristotle. But there are grounds, in this evidence, for thinking that Zeno is presenting a reductio ('there is no motion if we assume what you assume') rather than a positive thesis ('there is no motion').

Without going through the whole thing, I'll point to two suggestive texts. See (i) the passage in Aristotle's Physics where he reports that absurd conclusion that the arrow is stationary in flight "follows if it is assumed that time is composed of nows". Is this Zeno's assumption, or an assumption made by someone that Zeno is attacking? Aristotle isn't clear about this. But what Plato says about Zeno's motivations may be relevant. See (ii) the opening section of Plato's dialogue Parmenides, where Zeno is presented as advancing no positive thesis about anything at all. In that dialogue, Zeno protests that he has been misunderstood as advancing some thesis of his own, whereas what he meant to do was to show that what the pluralists believe leads to just as many absurdities as the position of Zeno's teacher, the monist Parmenides. If one considers that Parmenides' monism amounted to the thesis that there is just one thing, and is tempted by the definition of movement as the change of one things position relative to another thing, one can see that Parmenides' monism might have been attacked as denying an apparent fact, namely, that things move. If Zeno's aims were throughout exactly those destructive ones attributed to him by Plato, then it would not make sense for Zeno to assume that "time is composed of nows". The point of a reductio is to compare your opponents assumptions, not to add assumptions of your own.

Ray asked:

What are Milan Kundera's philosophical ideas as expressed in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and what ramifications do they have on our lives?

Thank you very much for getting me to read this again. There are many philosophical ideas raised in Kundera's novel.

The main philosophical theme is of lightness and weight, an opposition which Kundera tells us derives from Parmenides and Nietzsche. Talk of lightness and weight is a metaphorical way of speaking of the positive and negative. Kundera brings these concepts to life by showing them in the lives of his characters. The philosophical question is which is good, lightness or weight, and this is a question of what we should morally value. Is it the lightness and freedom which we should value or is it the weight and the pain of moral responsibility? Tomas and Sabina stand for the lightness of being and Teresa stands for heaviness, or the weight of moral responsibility.

Kundera questions whether Parmenides was right to think that lightness is positive.

How to assess which is best? When Tomas started out with Sabina he had freedom and light but no strong relationships and no love. When he meets Teresa he is torn between lightness and weight, and begins to feel pain. Lightness seems better from a pleasure/pain point of view, but it is a withdrawal from human relationships and the heaviness they bring.

The moral of the book, though, is that heaviness is to be valued, which Kundera shows through the development of Tomas' relationship with Teresa with whom he ends up living happily. His infidelities and betrayals, when he lives outside the heaviness of the dimensions of conventional moral restraint, are shown to be meaningless when he finds he cannot remember the faces of the women he has been with. While Teresa presents herself to him as a moral obligation and a burden, limiting his freedom, he loves her intensely. Kundera says that "The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real they become".

Kundera shows that if we value the heaviness of intensity over the lightness of indifference we will become more fulfilled, like Tomas. To value indifference is to end up alone, like Sabina. Tomas comes to love the countryside, whereas Sabina ends up in a country in which she doesn't feel at home. In Nietzschean terms, weight is life-affirming in that to live with positive intensity is to live in a way you'd be prepared to repeat. The emptiness of Sabina's life, and that she wanted to "die in lightness" — which is to say that she is indifferent to her life — shows that she would not want to repeat her life and would not accept eternal return.

Eternal return, unlike values of lightness and weight, cannot show itself so easily in our everyday lives, so it doesn't seem to come out as an obvious theme, but it is connected to heaviness. Teresa, who lives under the burden of weight, has recurring dreams. Tomas, when he meets Teresa, returns again and again from lightness to weight or veers between seriousness and indifference before he is able to live with true intensity. The philosophical or metaphysical possibility of eternal return expresses the seriousness of weight. As Kundera says, if Hitler returned again and again, it would be a much more serious matter than his living just once. As it is, he has become an historical figure and an object of study and theory.

Another philosophical issue raised by Kundera is that the novel is not real life. This is raises questions in the realm of aesthetics and place of the imagination. Kundera tells us that Teresa was not born physically but issued from an idea. But he is talking of her character as a mind or soul and we accept her character. She is a coherent and consistent "person". This also raises the mind-body problem, another central issue in philosophy. Because this is a novel, we don't see her and physically she is not there. This supports mind-body dualism. We can imagine disembodied persons. As far as aesthetics goes, it can be claimed that it is "true" within the novel itself that Teresa is a person, as opposed to a dog, say. If we imagine Teresa as a real person, would not this not make it true within the novel? Kundera claims not.

But the individuation of individuals as a problem is also raised. This is another philosophical problem. Teresa tries to identify herself through her body by continuously looking in the mirror, but sometimes she sees a look of her mother. Does that mean we cannot be identical with our bodies, if we also look like another person. If we identify ourselves physically we would have to find a look specific to ourselves, but how do we separate off the look of another.

These latter problems are purely philosophical and don't really have much in the way of ramifications for real life and so it seems to that your question points to a truth that as far as life is concerned, morality and value are of central importance in our lives. Kundera might even want to say that they are "light" issues — matters of study and theory.

Rachel Browne

Dana asked:

I would like someone to answer this question I have been pondering for a long time. Where exactly does our (your) "Liberty" come from? As many responses would help.

P.S. Not just the Constitutional argument for Liberty, but is there a natural right to Liberty?

I am going to provide my answer from one particular philosophical perspective. There are other philosophical perspectives that will result in quite different answers. So I really hope that you get more than my answer to this question.

First, I must lay some foundation. "Life" is characterized by the unique fact that living things change and move — "act" — through the directed application of internally collected, stored, converted, and channeled energy. At a very fundamental level, the goal of all living behaviour is the maintenance of the life that is behaving. It is that (not necessarily contiguous) stretch of the DNA (or RNA) molecule that can be labelled as a Gene that is what must be recognized as the entity that survives and proliferates — continuation of which is the goal of Life's actions. The actually observed behaviour of all living creatures, both in general and individually, is highly flexible and variable but within the broad genetically defined limits of continued genetic survival.

As an example of life, as an example of the species Homo sapiens, and as an individual consciousness, our purpose is to ensure the continued survival and proliferation of our genes. To be "Good" at anything is to do a quality job at fulfilling the purpose of that thing. A good Human Being is efficient and effective, and fulfils with quality, the purpose for which the Human Being was built — to ensure the continued survival and proliferation of our genes. To ensure the continued survival and proliferation of our genes is a never ending struggle. There is never enough assurance that the job is complete. There is always something extra that can be done, some marginal increase of assurance that can be found. The struggle continues whether or not the individual is consciously aware of why they are striving, or what they are striving for. Even if they are striving under misconceptions, misinformation, or mistaken assumptions, the human animal is built to strive. The best situation is to be consciously aware of why you are striving, and employ the best of your intellectual abilities to make conscious rational choices of what to strive for. Happiness comes from knowing you are doing a good job.

In order to best provide for the welfare of himself and his family, mankind has discovered that it is a good thing to have the freedom to pursue whatever means seem to be the best available at the moment. At the same time, however, mankind has also discovered that he can better the welfare of himself and his family by co-operating with his fellow humans in projects of mutual benefit. A co-operating social group, however, must necessarily impose some restrictions on the individual freedoms of each member of the group. Otherwise, nothing would get done co-operatively. The concept of individual personal freedom within the confines of a co-operating social group is the source of the concept "liberty".

So — where does "liberty" come from? It comes from the mutual agreements arrived at by the co-operating members of a social group. "Liberty" is the freedom of action allowed by the group to each member of the group. More importantly, constraints on liberty are imposed by mutual agreement amongst the members of the group on their respective individual freedom in order that they each may best achieve the mutual benefits attainable from group co-operation.

So much for the meta-political theory. In actual practice, of course, especially in modern societies, there is little in the way of "mutual agreement" in the development of what are deemed necessary constraints on individual freedom in the interests of best achieving supposedly mutually beneficial co-operative goals. In any event, our liberty comes from the determinations of the political processes as to the extent of individual freedom we ought to have while we remain part of a social group.

I hope that the foregoing also adequately explains why we have no "natural right" to liberty.

Stuart Burns

Derek asked:

With Medical science advancing greatly even creating artificial life is in the realms of possibilities and probabilities. Nanotechnology is opening more opportunities for research and with the scale of human deaths reported in natural disasters there is a perception that the value of human life is diminishing. Or have I got that perceptive wrong?

In my opinion, you've got it wrong. I think that if anything humans place a teeny bit more value on life than in the past. Not much, mind you. Just a little. If you read history, you read about the history of war, for the most part. If you look at ancient methods of punishment, they routinely involve torture and slow, public death, and in many situations were occasion for parties, etc. Mostly, we don't do that so much now. One problem, of course, is that there are so many people now, and methods of killing have gotten so efficient, that in sheer number we've surpassed anything the ancient world was capable of. I've recently seen an estimate of death by war (only war) in the 20th century, at roughly 160 million. But out of 2-4 billion, that's a low percentage ("low", haha, at roughly 5 per cent). Anyway, back when the world population was numbered in the millions, the death of thousands was relatively much more telling. Whoopee, right? What can I say? Human beings, in my opinion, are, all of us (yes, me included), an insane species. About all one can do is be aware that we're insane, and try to compensate as best one can.

Steven Ravett Brown

Ken asked:

On the premise that early homo sapiens tribal cultures preceded the religions of the world, how/ what shaped the evolution of their moral codes/ ethics, to those of 'civilizations' today?

Has right and wrong evolved as a matter of perspective of culture, religion or the needs for survival of the species/ tribal groups?

What part has the development of speech (therefore sharing ideas/ thoughts) had on this?

Can one speculate that the pre-speech grunts of early man equate to those of a hierarchical group of apes who demonstrate a kind of code that maintains order? Or is it reason, the power of speech and thought? Can only man have religion and does it matter what religion? (back to the earlier point on evolution from tribal ethics).

It may just be infatuation with your web page, that I have put my spontaneous thoughts down here but they are the sort of thoughts that I often have. It's hard to bounce ideas off others and get their thoughts without being accused of killing off conversations with heavy topics etc.

I'm wary of theological types (perhaps unfairly) who may want to convert me and those that have a literal belief in Genesis. It may be that I just need to read the right books as a novice thinker or am I just lacking external stimulation or both.

You appear to have fallen directly into the 'evolution' trap. This is suggested by use of statements like, "evolution of moral codes", "evolution of right and wrong", "survival of the species", "the development of speech" (implying an evolutionary notion), "pre-speech grunts of early man". There also seems to be an implied notion that Genesis is the only alternative to the Theory of Evolution. One does not have to be conventionally religious to oppose the evolutionary theory. In fact, one does not have to subscribe to the often presented notion that unless an alternative to evolution can be supplied we have to accept the theory. This is a fallacy.

Before the question, "What shaped the evolution of primitive moral codes/ ethics?" can be answered, it has first to be proved that moral codes/ ethics actually evolved.In fact it is difficult to conceive of an evolution of morals/ ethics. Consider that humans are born with an innate awareness of right and wrong, in other words, if it were a fact that right and wrong are absolutes: How do they evolve? How can they evolve? Is it not the case that moral codes established within societies are dependent upon the world view established within that society, including a by no means unimportant environmental factor?

Conception of morality within a primitive society is one thing, and conception of morality in a so called developed/ civilized society is another, that the primitive concept could evolve into the civilized concept is a fallacy. In fact, members of a primitive society placed in a position where they could observe the moral attributes of modern 'civilized' society would probably hurry back into the jungle as fast as their legs would carry them.

Most concepts within a society are based on the intrinsic political and environmental foundations of that society, and are strictly pertinent to these conditions. Changing the basic structure of a society is likely to change its moral code, however, this is not evolution but adaptation. Changes can flow in any direction, backwards, forwards, side ways, etc., and adaptation follows it, hence moral concepts can actually reverse to more primitive considerations. Surely, all this is superficial to the inbuilt concept of right and wrong in the human psyche, i e absolute moral awareness. One case in point, and there are many, is the atrocious concept of morality entertained in Germany under the control of the Nazi party. This party created a very special concept of morality within its domain. Wiping out Jewish people, communists, sexual deviants, the mentally afflicted, the physically handicapped, etc., to produce a 'better' society was seen as highly desirable and very 'right'. We must not overlook the fact that this was a modern/civilized society. However, observers outside the society saw a very different picture, and judged it by the basic human intrinsic values of right and wrong. Had the Nazi notion of morality evolved? Of course not. The Nazi concept of morality was as superficial as any other politically and environmentally controlled system, and had no more effect on changing absolute morality than any other man-made political regime.

You mention speech. It seems obvious that speech is essential to humans, and certainly has an indisputable effect on the progress of humanity. Were there ever pre-speech grunts, as your bias towards evolution suggests? I don't know, and neither does anyone else. Did humans originally exist in ape cultures? I don't know, but feel that it was unlikely. You see I am biased against the Darwin/ Huxley concept of evolution, for which there is little or no proof.

I presume that only 'man' is concerned with religious concepts. Religious awareness in other forms of animal life seems unlikely. Whether one religion is better than another may depend on its moral interpretations. Some religions try to obtain their ends by violence, others by passive persuasion. However, perhaps we should not confuse the common understanding of religion with spiritual awareness, the concept entertained by Jesus and others. Unfortunately, Jesus and other great prophets have become hi-jacked by religion.

By all means read the books that take your interest, and try to work out to your own satisfaction which concepts that you encounter lead you in the direction you would wish to go. If you do not like Genesis keep away from it. However, you will find it hard to argue against someone who has read it. Ignoring reading that we do not like can often leave us in a poor position when we come to argue against it. This is the big difference between knowledge and understanding. You may have knowledge of Genesis, but the person who has read it will have understanding of Genesis. This difference between knowledge and understanding is a very important point in epistemology which is often overlooked.

John Brandon

The answer would be 'no'. For one thing, 'evolution' doesn't denote a stately progress towards better. Consult your own experience. It's not at all guaranteed to be the 'fittest' who survive, except on the triviality-constructing assumption that what 'fittest' means is just 'those who happen to survive'. On that assumption, 'the fittest survive' turns out to amount to the value free statement 'the survivors survive'.

When I say that it is 'value free' I mean that 'the survivors survive' and any equivalent statement doesn't say anything about what is good, better, best. It is important to add that 'the survivors survive' isn't at all an interest free tautology: on the contrary, it is a good example of an in interesting tautology, because the fact that the survivors survive to generate more like them is one important part of an explanation for the shape and diversity of life on earth. But that the survivors survive doesn't prove that the survivors are better than the dead morally, aesthetically, intellectually or in any other way. It just show that they survived. This applies to beliefs as well as to persons.

Now clearly, moral codes which survive, survive. But so what? That something survives is an entirely separate question from whether it is right that it should survive.

So, one might think, to attempt to account for right and wrong in terms of survival is uniquely misguided. When we think of Right and Wrong, supposing that there is such a thing, we think of notions with a binding force on all of us, namely that you ought to do right and ought not to do wrong. But if we take the evolutionary line and talk about rules for behaviour that have survived, then the mere fact of their survival up to here does nothing to mandate any attitude or response to these rules on our part. From this it might be deduced that whatever evolutionary sociologists/psychologists are talking about when they talk about the 'evolution' of right and wrong, it isn't what we are talking about when we use the words 'right' and 'wrong'.

In sum:

That it is wrong to kill people is not derived from the contingent fact that the rule 'don't kill people' happens to have survived (on and off). If anything, it is precisely the other way about.

David Robjant

Krishna asked:

Dear sir, I want to know the purpose of life. I am of the opinion that, if anyhow we're going to die, then why such anxiety to work while living?.Why don't I die, instead of living? Is it my basic human nature or some other mysterious principle that commands me to exist like this? Please provide a solution. I have been worrying about it for the past 2 years.

First, an important disclaimer. I am a realist/ materialist. I am not an idealist or a dualist. So my answer to your question will exclude any reference to religious or spiritual concepts. For answers from those perspectives, you will have to seek guidance from your friendly priest, minister, or spiritual advisor. I am sure you will have no problem finding a suitable representative of whatever religious faith appeals to you (or that you happen to stumble across). And they will tell you that your purpose in life is to unselfishly and altruistically dedicate your existence to the glorification of whatever notion of God they propose. You will have to take their word for it, of course.

On the other hand, if you are seeking an answer that you can check out for yourself, then you are seeking a materialist answer where science and evidence have a meaningful role to play. The answer I provide here will not be met with agreement by many. It does, however, have the advantage of being consistent with all that we currently know about biology, evolution, and psychology.

The first step in answering your question from this perspective is to acknowledge that you are a member of the species Homo sapiens. As such, you are a primate, a mammal, an animal, and a living organism with a 3 to 4 billion year evolutionary history behind you. (I refer you to any of the numerous works on evolutionary biology for further argument on this point). The argument goes like this:

Life is Action. "Life" is characterized by the unique fact that living things change and move — "act" — through the directed application of internally collected, stored, converted, and channeled energy. > Life's Actions are Teleological (Goal Oriented). At a very fundamental level, the goal of all living behaviour is the maintenance of the life that is behaving.

The second step is to acknowledge that the "thing" that has been evolving over the myriad of generations that have lived since the dawn of life on Earth, is the genetic code and not the individual. You, yourself, are but a bio-chemical machine. You were constructed by the fertilised cell that was the result of the union of your mother's ovum and your father's sperm. And you were constructed in accordance with the recipe encoded in your genes. You are a survival machine for the genes in your DNA. (I refer you to the works of Richard Dawkins for further argument on this point.) The argument goes like this:

The Gene is the Unit of Life. It is that (not necessarily contiguous) stretch of the DNA (or RNA) molecule that can be labelled as a Gene that is what must be recognized as the entity that survives and proliferates — continuation of which is the goal of Life's Actions.

The Reproductive Imperative. The actually observed behaviour of all living creatures, both in general and individually, is highly flexible and variable but within the broad genetically defined limits of continued genetic survival. > Our Purpose. As an example of life, as an example of the species Homo sapiens, and as an individual consciousness, our purpose is to ensure the continued survival and proliferation of our genes.

The Definition of Good. To be "Good" at anything is to do a quality job at fulfilling the purpose of that thing. A good Human Being is efficient and effective, and fulfils with quality, the purpose for which the Human Being was built — to ensure the continued survival and proliferation of our genes. > Better is Never Enough. To ensure the continued survival and proliferation of our genes is a never ending struggle. There is never enough assurance that the job is complete. There is always something extra that can be done, some marginal increase of assurance that can be found.

And Finally, the struggle continues whether or not the individual is consciously aware of why they are striving, or what they are striving for. Even if they are striving under misconceptions, misinformation, or mistaken assumptions, the human animal is built to strive. The best situation is to be consciously aware of why you are striving, and employ the best of your intellectual abilities to make conscious rational choices of what to strive for. Happiness comes from knowing you are doing a good job.

That then, is your answer. The meaning of your life, your function, your purpose, the reason you exist, is to ensure that your genes get transmitted to the next generation. The point of it all is the welfare of your genetic descendants (over the long run, of course). Go to work because it is the best means available to you at this time, and in this place, to prepare you to do well by your children. You are not here to be good for society. You are not here to become whatever God might have intended. You wake up every morning and tackle the day because you have a function to perform. Friends, family, and society matter only to the extent that they can contribute to your ultimate purpose in life.

Many people will object to this answer, including many professional philosophers and of course anyone with a religious/ spiritual bent. But any alternative they offer to my answer will come either from their religious or spiritual premises (which I have specifically disavowed), or from out of thin air. As humans we are gifted with the ability to choose alternative goals in life. And you are free to pursue whatever ends tickle your fancy.

However, regardless of what other goals may be offered instead, if you are not successful at fulfilling this evolutionary meaning of your life, then your genetic codes (and their 3 to 4 billion years of ancestry) will vanish from the future. You are here to ask the question you asked because your parents (and their parents, and their parents, etc.) were good at their job. The future will be populated by individuals whose ancestors were successful at this evolutionary purpose. Are you going to be an ancestor, or a dead end?

Stuart Burns

Alex asked:

What is the answer to this question?

This is.

Kim Boley

It lacks content.

Rachel Browne

Hey, neato.

1) Why should every question have an answer?

2) "What is the answer to this question?" = "What is the answer to, "What is the answer to, 'What is the answer to,"..."'"?"

3) As you can see from formulation 2), in actuality, this question is never asked, i.e., you never get to the end of the regression to find the actual subject of the question. So until you do, there is no answer; or better, really: until you do, there is no question.

Steven Ravett Brown

Mildred asked:

Why are people not contented with what they have? Even when they're already successful they still aren't happy, they're are still searching for something. So why is that?

The answer follows on from my answer to Krishna, above.

To be "Good" at anything is to do a quality job at fulfilling the purpose of that thing. A good Human Being is efficient and effective, and fulfils with quality, the purpose for which the Human Being was built — to ensure the continued survival and proliferation of our genes.

To ensure the continued survival and proliferation of our genes is a never ending struggle. There is never enough assurance that the job is complete. There is always something extra that can be done, some marginal increase of assurance that can be found.

The struggle continues whether or not the individual is consciously aware of why they are striving, or what they are striving for. Even if they are striving under misconceptions, misinformation, or mistaken assumptions, the human animal is built to strive. The best situation is to be consciously aware of why you are striving, and employ the best of your intellectual abilities to make conscious rational choices of what to strive for. Happiness comes from knowing you are doing a good job.

Stuart Burns

Madeleine asked:

Is there a place for philosophy in the modern world?

Paul asked:

Why is philosophy important?

April asked:

The mind is a beautiful thing...

How does it fit into philosophy, and why is philosophy so popular?

I would like to ask you, Why did you choose to be philosophers? and why do you think philosophy is such as important part in our lives, and if philosophy didn't exist what would be of us?

Mauricio asked:

How does science modify philosophy?

Shemel asked:

What does it take to be a philosopher? Is the philosopher someone of great importance?

MD asked:

What is a philosopher? what does a philosopher do?

Sabrina asked:

What type of questions does a philosopher ask?

Yes, there is an important place for philosophy in the modern world and it has to do precisely with those things that our culture presupposes and assumes uncritically. The mind may be a beautiful thing but the beliefs and concepts that constitute it need maintenance if they are to cohere and cope with changes. Some would say they need a more radical overhaul.

You only have to look at the questions on this site to see why philosophy is important. Questions about truth, reality, meaning, God, selfhood, justice,love. These are the things that matter to us, not just as curious individuals but as a species — an endangered and not altogether happy species. Despite our resourcefulness and optimism, as manifested in artistic and technological achievements, we are vulnerable to disaster. One source of disaster is the natural world, but another is our own conceptions. Ways of thinking change. Values change. Every so often we reconceive the relationship between nature, society and individuals. Religion gives ways to materialism, then materialism itself is undermined. Absolutism gives way to relativism and that to subjectivism: there is no ultimate truth, so believe what you like. New technologies make possible what previously would have been considered miraculous, but being possible doesn't make something right or prudent. Philosophy is a discipline of thought that tries to keep track of the conceptual changes and to cling to whatever unchanging conceptual truths or necessities it can discover. This is an important task. In every age there must be people who can say "We don't have to think like this" — who can conceive of different conceptual schemes, who can orientate current concepts of truth, reality, selfhood, justice against previous and alternative schemes. No doubt, sometimes, in trying to sort out the knots that conceptual change gets us into, philosophy contributes to tighter entangling.

It is not necessarily philosophers who communicate their ideas best to the general public. Their ideas become incorporated into the intellectual chatter and the literature and art of the day. They become part of a wider cultural project of explanation and justification. Artists and scientists cannot avoid philosophy, whether they read it directly or not.

Here are some big questions that philosophers have a role in discussing. What is consciousness? What, if anything, can I ever know about myself? Do I ever act freely? Is a human being more than an animal; are the differences ones of degree or of kind? If scientists could manipulate human genetics to the extent of making us immortal, should we permit it, should we aim towards it — and what would be the consequences for other concepts? Is deliberate human extinction, for the sake of the survival of other life, compatible with morality? Would the world be a better place if everyone shared the same beliefs? Are we living in a make-belief world, with a false view of reality and a false view, even, of our own subjective experience?

Of course, professional philosophers, like professional scientists, are working at a highly technical and precise level on sub-questions of the bigger questions. They may sometimes lose sight of the big questions. They will generally be working in a university and will have teaching and administrative duties. They will have to keep themselves up to date in a much wider sphere of learning than just their own specialism. But for some of their time they will be thinking and writing, rethinking and rewriting. They will discuss their ideas with colleagues, then think and write again. It is, like most things that are worth doing — despite what Bart and Homer Simpson may tell us — a painstaking occupation. But, the importance and influence of a major philosophical work or theory (to which many philosophers may have contributed) should not be underestimated. It can reorientate us to the world we live in and to the way we experience it.

Graham Nutbrown

Stephen asked:

I'm looking for a good way to introduce philosophy to children. I have 3 younger siblings, aged 7, 9 and 12, who are very inquisitive, and wanted to know what I was learning when I was taking my philosophy course, but unfortunately found the subject simply confusing when I attempted to explain it to them!

I've read Sophie's World myself, but can't see them reading it themselves, and I think it would be better to introduce the subject to them in bitesize chunks, and on more contemporary issues, rather than elaborating on its history as that book does (which, although perhaps a necessary approach for scholars, is likely to bore young children!).

Does anyone know of any basic introductory books to the subject for children of those ages? Or, preferably, simply some clues as to how to get started? I particularly want to teach my siblings how to be open-minded and to think for themselves (although perhaps not too rebelliously!), as well as to appreciate (and understand) other worldviews, and it seems a bit of philosophy would be fairly good in that department.

Unfortunately, my family (the adults in particular, besides me that is) seem generally not interested in thinking philosophically, and tend towards blindly accepting black-and-white views of the world (or perhaps just get into lazy thinking habits!). The kids are naturally curious about the world, however philosophy is unfortunately not a subject on the school curriculum.

So, any ideas how to approach the subject with them?

Trisha asked:

Should religious doctrines and practices be regulated according to their moral worthiness, or should religion be permitted to operate free of outside interference?

How would Socrates respond to this question?

As to your first question — the answer is — Neither!

What characterises almost all religious beliefs is the adoption of some particular form of moral standard. In fact, one might almost define a "religion" as the adoption of some particular moral standard. Certainly one can identify the flavor of religious belief involved by knowing the particular moral standard adhered to. The problem is that, by the very nature of religious belief, there is nothing that might tend to generate any commonality of moral standards between different religious beliefs.

Now, I am assuming here that you are intending your question to be one of regulating or freeing the doctrines and practices of different religions. Obviously (I hope), within the confines of one particular religion the moral standards of that religion should be (quite properly) used to regulate the particular doctrinal interpretations and practices of its adherents.

But since moral standards are particular to specific religions, it would be impossible to regulate the doctrines and practices of one group of religious believers using the moral standards of another religion. Not, at least, without being (properly) accused of arbitrariness and unjustifiable coercion. How do you think a Christian would react to being governed according to the moral standards of Hinduism? Or vice versa? (How do you think MacDonalds might fair in a regulatory environment where cattle are sacred?)

On the other hand, granting unrestrained liberty to any religious belief is not the answer either. Properly interpreting the "Word of God" (whichever God might apply) is an exercise in unconstrained imagination. There are absolutely no limits to the doctrines and practices that can be dreamed up and claimed as "religious". Rastafarians smoke marijuana as part of their religious ceremonies. Voodoo demands animal sacrifices. Certain sects of Devil Worship and some ancient Incan religious beliefs demand human sacrifices. Most so-called "civilised" societies frown on such behaviors.

The proper approach, I think, is to identify a single natural moral standard that is based on nature and not on religious beliefs, and then constrain people's flights of religious fancy by that moral standard. I would suggest to you that the proper moral standards to apply are "no initiation of the use of force" and "accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions". With these two secular moral standards enforced, I think society can tolerate just about any other religious doctrine or practice.

As to your second question — Who cares?

Socrates lived over two millennia ago, in a social environment pretty homogeneous (everybody he ever met believed either in the Greek Gods or the Egyptian Gods — and there was not a lot of difference between Greek and Egyptian moral standards). Socrates never had to face the religious diversity one can find in any moderately sized modern metropolis. How could his thoughts on the matter have any practical bearing on the modern problem?

Stuart Burns

Paco asked:

How do I know that you will not kill me in my sleep?

This has got to be one of the oddest, silliest questions I've seen here, and that's really the only reason I'm addressing it...

Now, in answer to your question: there is no absolute certainty, if that's what you want "knowledge" to be, that I won't. There you go, simple and complete, right? You also don't know that someone else won't kill you in your sleep, or for that matter, that I won't pour maple syrup over you in your sleep. In addition, the ceiling might fall down and turn into rose petals as it falls. Or snakes might rise up from the cracks in your floor, do a dance, and turn into vines around your bed. Or if you want another paranoid fantasy, perhaps you're being filmed through hidden cameras in the nearest walls as you sleep... um, by the CIA, or maybe the NFL. Why not? Hey, as long as we're speculating... There is nothing at all that makes anything absolutely certain... we just assume that the world won't wobble and fall into the sun in the next few minutes. We have all sorts of "laws", i.e., inferences, that convince us, for example, that our fingernails won't start showing cable TV channels... but they're all empirical, and so subject to doubt. So go right ahead and spin whatever fantasies you want to... or you might go out and buy some good science fiction...

On the other hand, you might rethink what you should mean by "know". It is possible that a realization to the effect that you are at this moment seeing a shade of red is certain knowledge; or that you are at this moment feeling pain... some will argue that. Not me, however. But I don't hold that kind of certainty as a standard for knowledge, either. By my standards, I know that the earth will not fall into the sun, and that I will not kill you in your sleep. I go by likelihoods... and so does science. That's about the best you can do... and that's knowledge.

Steven Ravett Brown

Harry asked:

If God Exists, are cancer, aids, other diseases and such his idea of birth control /population control for the Earth, in order to achieve the greater good?

If they are, then I think God's open to quite a bit of criticism. You'd think that a perfectly good omnipotent being could design a more humane method of birth control — or a world that can support more people.

Jonathan Ichikawa

Carla asked:

What were the childhood influences that led Karl Marx in his political direction?

Is it fair to say that religious fundamentalism is evil?

Well, that depends!!

It depends first on just what you mean by "fair". And it depends even more on the standards of good and evil that you wish to apply. Certainly, to a religious fundamentalist the answer is a resounding "No!!".

But then, by the very nature of your question, I would have to assume that you are not a religious fundamentalist. So the answer depends primarily on the standards of good and evil that you apply. According to some standards, the answer would be "Yes — religious fundamentalism is evil". By others, the answer would be "No — religious fundamentalism is not evil".

By my own personal moral standards, I would come down on the "Yes" side. I hold the highest moral regard for knowledge and learning about how Reality behaves. I therefore consider the studied ignorance of religious fundamentalism to be a particularly bad way of learning how to predict which way the tiger will jump. But then, my moral standards are not very common, and many people would disagree with me.

Stuart Burns

Annie asked:

My ethics class recently read Thomson's "Killing, Letting Die and the Trolley Problem", Kagan's "The Additive Fallacy" and Taurek's "Should the Numbers Count?" I'm writing a paper which will examine the idea that, when making moral decisions or morally evaluating a situation, the numbers shouldn't matter, suffering isn't additive, etc. Can you suggest any other readings which may be helpful, either supporting or opposing the views in these articles? I wish to focus on Taurek's "Drug" scenario: Taurek owns the only dose of a certain drug; one person needs the whole dose to live; five people each need 1/5th of a dose to live; none of the six have any claim on the drug or connection to Taurek; to whom should he give the drug? Taurek claims it's morally permissible to give the drug to the one. I understand his reasoning yet still find it difficult to agree with Taurek, that five people dying is not a worse outcome than one person dying.

For a non-aggregating view that does require that the five people be saved in the drug case, check out Tim Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other.

Brian asked:

Question 1. I keep reading that a signified cannot exist without a signifier. Does this mean that concepts cannot exist without symbols? And more important (at least to me) is their any proof for this assertion?

Question 2. From reading about the Grandi series I learned that 1+1-1+1...ad infinitum equals 1 and 2! I have also read about a thing called a Thompson lamp. This is a lamp that is on for half a minute, then off for 15 seconds... each time being on or off for half the preceding time. Combined with the logic of the Grandi series this means that the lamp is both on and off at the end of the minute! In logic if 'P and not-P' is true then anything can be proven. Therefore, if time is infinitely divisible, the planet Pluto is furry! How can logic avoid this result? Or is this proof that time cannot be infinitely divisible?

Your first question is an interesting one... but I'm not sure how to answer because I don't know how much you've read. We could get into the whole Fregean vs. Husserlian vs. cognitive vs. etc., intentionality debate here, which is pretty ghastly. The symbol vs. the referent vs. the meaning... well, it's just too much for the space here. You might look up Frege, and then his commentators, on this if you want to stay up nights thinking about it.

Let me say this much, however. If what you've read has to do with epistemology, then you've got a debating point; i.e., if in, "a signified cannot exist without a signifier", the word "exist" refers not to some ontological claim but to a claim about knowledge, then I think that whoever you've read is wrong, but that you have tapped into a very large debate. Check out the stuff above. I actually think the claim is rather easily refuted by looking at cognitive science, viz., infant and animal studies, but that's another point. If what you've read is making some sort of ontological or metaphysical claim, i.e., that you can't claim something exists in any sense unless you can symbolize it, then, zowie, you're into hard-core blather as far as I'm concerned. Unless you have a very broad definition of "symbolize" or "signify", which includes things like plants using the sun, etc. In other words, does the sun exist for a plant? Um... yes. Does the plant know the sun exists? No.

Do concepts exist without symbols? Ok, you tell me what the term "symbol", um, refers to, and I'll be happy to answer that. But first, before you do, think about animals and infants. Do they have concepts? Whoops... now you have to be clear on what a "concept" is, don't you. It's beginning to look like a vicious circle, to say that you can't have concepts without symbols, because it turns out that the usual understanding of a concept is something that can be... yes, symbolized. So how do you get around that? Well, as I keep saying, you look at creatures without symbols, i.e., animals and infants. Do they have concepts? Yes, yes, yes. Just look at the literature.

Q2: Much less interesting. You need to read about orders of infinity, i.e., G. Cantor, and you also need to read some basic math about convergent series, Zeno's Paradox, etc. I'm not going to get into this, except to say that you clearly do not have the background at this point to understand the situation. Read about convergent vs. divergent series in any basic math textbook.

Steven Ravett Brown

Niki asked:

Examine Einstein's claim that "God does not play dice with the universe" in the context of the teleological argument for the existence of God. Consider both strengths and weaknesses of the argument.

How valid do you think the argument is as proof of the existence of God?

The "teleological argument" (or an argument from design) is an argument for the existence of God based on apparent evidence of design in nature. Although there are variations, the best known formulation was done by William Paley (British philosopher-theologian 1743-1805) in his "Natural Theology", published in 1800. For a thorough defeat of this argument, see Daniel C Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea".

In a general way, the argument goes:

1. In all things we have experienced that exhibit design, we have experienced a designer of that artifact.

2. The universe exhibits order and design.

3. Given 1, the universe must have a designer.

4. The designer of the universe is God.

Within this context, Einstein's comment (that "God does not play dice with the universe") can be interpreted as an objection that the randomness of Quantum Mechanics violates the second premise — that the Universe exhibits order and design — and therefore must be wrong. One would have to understand thereby that Einstein considered the randomness of dice and Quantum Mechanics as a demonstration of disorder.

Interpreting Einstein's comment within this context is a rather weak approach to understanding his point. A better approach would be to understand Einstein's concept of the Universe and God's role within the context of Newtonian mechanics. Until the development of Quantum Mechanics, the popular conception of the Universe was of a clock-work mechanism. A deterministic mechanism wherein one could predict the infinite future if one knew the position course and speed of all the multitude of parts. Einstein grew up within this conception of the Universe, and a God that created and/or managed such a mechanism. For him, therefore, the randomness of Quantum Mechanics was an affront that violated his conception of God as a "Devine Mechanic" and the Universe as predictable and deterministic.

The only strength that the Teleological argument has left for it is its apparently logical formulation. It is thereby convincing to many who know little of modern science. Dennett, in his "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" has done a thorough job of removing any evidentiary foundation behind all variations of the first premise. And has thus rendered the Teleological Argument quite impotent as an argument for the existence of God.

Stuart Burns

Vicky asked:

What are some of the weaknesses of the Ontological Argument?

Ontological arguments are arguments, for the conclusion that God exists, from premises which are supposed to derive from some source other than observation of the world — e.g., from reason alone. In other words, ontological arguments are arguments from nothing but analytic, a priori and necessary premises to the conclusion that God exists. For some of the weaknesses in these arguments see — http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments

Stuart Burns

Lelsie asked:

Please compare Hobbes' and Locke's political philosophy.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704) are described as Social Contract theorists. The legitimacy of political power and citizen's observance of it arises from a contract made between the future rulers and the future ruled.

The state of nature

Both maintain that prior to organised political society, human beings existed in a state of Nature. Hobbes maintains that due to human nature, human beings are incapable of living together in peace and order. Their nature inclines them to a restless striving for the satisfaction of their desires. The more power a person has at his disposal the greater the chances of securing and assuring their appetites. Competition conflict and the war of each against each ensue. In this natural state of men which is also a condition of war, life is 'solitary. poore, nasty, brutish and short'.

For Locke, Hobbes conflates the condition of war with the state of nature. People can indeed live without such tumults as they abide by natural Law and Right as prescribed by Reason and / or revelation by God of his commands. Transgressors of Natural Law and other disputes are judged and punished in accordance with its dictates as executed by individuals themselves. This is each individual utilising their executive power of Natural Law.

Political Society

Hobbes writes that the condition of war is left behind when people come together to make a covenant with each other. This covenant gives absolute authority to one of their number (or assembly of men) who then becomes sovereign and they, his subjects. The sovereign rules over them maintaining peace and security. Absolute power is necessary, as any limit of such power would provide scope for the emergence of the condition of war due to human nature. Subjects and their descendants, on the basis of the covenant they have made, have no right to disobey the sovereign or seek his/her replacement or removal. The sovereign nominates his/her successors.

With Locke, the state of nature is left when a social compact is made between people and the future governing power. This is not to avoid a state of war but to overcome the differences of opinion and judgements concerning the implementation of Natural Law. Each pools their power to execute natural law and transfers it to the government. The government enforces natural law through the very laws it makes for the common good of the citizens.

When the common good is no longer furthered by government, the citizens have the right to seek its replacement. Tyranny is immoral and has no basis in any Natural Right or Law.

Property

Property exists by the assent of the monarch, who distributes his lands as he sees fit, for the health of the Commonwealth. Just as he bestows property, he can take it away. Corporations, enterprises, laws of exchange and measure exist only through the charter and regulation of the monarch or his appointed magistrates. There is no intrinsic right of individuals to own property. It exists only at the behest of the Sovereign.

In the Lockean society, the protection of life, liberty and estate — the properties of citizens — is maintained through the observance of the common good which is based on Natural law. It is one of the reasons for the establishment of political society. Transgression of this common good constitutes a reason for the replacement of government. Property is defended by Locke on numerous grounds.

Firstly, because God commands men to labour and Natural Law requires their preservation, men labour in order to acquire the means of life. Secondly, labour, in picking an acorn or apple, has removed it from the state nature left it in. By this very act of removal, labour has 'mixed' itself with nature making it the property of he who so labours. Thirdly, although God may have given the world in common to all men, men by their labour remove things from this common stock. If permission had to be sought from all men to release it from that common state, men would have died of starvation which is contrary to the first point above. Fourthly, labouring, in removing an object (such as a field) from the common stock of nature, increases its fertility or productivity. This improves the chances of human survival as required by the first point. Finally, money is later used to exchange property, including human bodies/labour, at specific values.

Whilst both Hobbes and Locke can be described as Social — Contractarians, with Hobbes, once the contract has been made, Sovereignty lies exclusively with the Monarch or Assembly of Men. Government has power over the people. With Locke, sovereignty lies with the people — or at least, the owners of property. People have power over their government.

Martin Jenkins

Lucy asked:

I have two if that is ok.

1) Are liberal democracies more peaceful?

2) Is the language of rights the best way to protect peace?

I realize that these two answers are probably too short to really answer your questions, but -

1) No liberal democracy has ever attacked another liberal democracy. Does that make them more peaceful? I suppose it depends on what you mean by "peaceful". Liberal democracies have gone to war to protect themselves (WW1 & WW2, to cite just 2), they have gone to war to protect what they have deemed to be the "vital interests of their citizens" (Korea, Vietnam, to cite just 2), and they have gone to war to "protect the peace" (Iraq 1, Iraq 2, to cite just 2). Due to the political difficulties inherent in convincing a suitable portion of their citizenry that war is justified, liberal democracies are in general slow to go to war. The history of warfare in the 20th century would seem to suggest that liberal democracies have been, by far, responsible for fewer deaths in inter-state and intra-state conflicts that any other form of government.

2) The language of rights is the best way to protect the continued efficacy of liberal democracy. Liberal democracies are not defined only by the presence of a government by an elected majority. Liberal democracies are also defined by the civil concept that the rule of law is superior to the powers of both elected representatives and empowered civil servants. Key to that concept is the principle of citizen rights which cannot be trampled upon by the majority will. So I would suggest, if the above argument successfully defended the hypothesis that liberal democracies are more peaceful, that the language of rights is also the best way of protecting the peace.

Stuart Burns

Toni asked:

Are mind, brain, and soul all the same entity? Is it sensible to attempt to speak of anything other than brain at all?

Different world views produce different concepts of mind, brain and soul. From a dualist point of view, mind and brain are separate entities, though in some way related. For example mind is envisaged by some to be an emanation from the brain. Others harbour the idea that mind and brain run parallel to each other, changes in one reflect changes in the other, but there is no actual interaction between the two. Monist views press the notion that everything is constituted of either mind stuff or matter stuff ; in this case mind somehow invents the idea of matter to give the 'illusion' that we live in a material world, solving the problem of matter originating from nothing. On the other hand, if matter is 'real' then mind somehow arises from the interaction of the chemical and physical properties of the matter stuff.

With regard to 'soul', this, for many, is interchangeable with the term 'mind' . However, there often seems to be a religious aspect to 'soul', which is linked with the notion of survival after death of the body. Some schools of thought, particularly religious factions, recognise three dimensions of existence; these are brain, mind and soul; where brain represents the 'engine room' of the material body, which is controlled by the soul through the medium of the mind: mind in this case is intermediate between the physical and the spiritual. We can, though, from time to time feel the direct influence of the soul in what we call conscience, indicating to us what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'. If there was space and time to pursue this, we could find some links, by good use of the imagination, with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

Where the terms 'soul' and 'mind' are seen as interchangeable terms meaning virtually the same thing, then the problem is obviously less complex, and survival after death can be either referred to as survival of the mind or as the soul leaving the body. Generally speaking, the term soul has been handed down to us from ancient philosophy, e.g. Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and others. This has been latched on to by religion to support the notion of life after death. Mind has become more prominent through science and 'modern' philosophy.

You may be able to deduce a satisfactory answer to your second question by consideration of the views outlined in answer to your first question. It depends on your world view, if you are a fundamental materialist, then you will have no hesitation in claiming that the brain is the centre of things and that the death of the brain means total death and no life hereafter. Minds and souls offer some spiritual optimism, and guide us towards the idea that there must be some purpose in what we call 'life '.

John Brandon

They might be the same entity if all entities are physical.

The mind is not physical, but might be an aspect of the physical. To talk about the brain is to use a different language than when talking about the mind. To talk about the brain is to use language of neuroscience. It might well be sensible to talk about the frontal lobe and the basal ganglia if you are a neuroscientist, but it doesn't convey much information to the ordinary person. In talking about the mind we use concepts which are familiar to all of us, such as thought, consciousness, feeling, intuition and sensation and although we don't have much of an idea what these are, they are strangely familiar.

Rachel Browne

Brandon asked:

How can people have free will? According to science everything is based on a fundamental law. Even in quantum physics where the molecules are supposedly acting randomly. Or when we assume we are telling our arms to move when its all just a law of impulses in the brain. I don't believe in free will. Rather I belive in restrained free will. What do you think?

I would highly recommend Daniel C. Dennett's Freedom Evolves. I considered this an excellently written exploration of this very question. I feel sure you will enjoy it.

Stuart Burns

Stephen asked:

What exactly constitutes a psychological theory?

It seems that such theories aren't limited to purely scientific (experimental) psychology. A psychotherapist, for example, may theorise regarding a client that the person is (unconsciously) avoiding getting close to people because of a loss of a parent during his childhood.

As well as being derived from the psychological theory of the unconscious (a general theory regarding the human mind and behaviour), the therapist in this case appears to be forming a theory (with this analysis) regarding the client's behaviour (and also, the client himself, if told the therapist's theory directly, may in fact openly disagree with it, as it may not seem intuitively correct to the client, given his own views of his own behaviour.)

Such a theory as the therapist's given above is obviously based on observation combined with background knowledge (from human psychology, which may in fact be scientific). As this theory is regarding a specific instance rather than a general one, it is clearly not a scientific theory (although general psychological theories can be scientific). However, it still appears to be a psychological theory, which raises the question — what exactly is a psychological theory?

To use an analogy with other areas of science, if, for example, a newly-built aircraft crashes, and its design is then examined and a flaw found, it could be theorised that due to this flaw, the aircraft was not built strictly enough according to the laws of aerodynamics, and thus that this is the reason for the aircraft's crash. But this analysis, although derived from scientific theory regarding aerodynamics, seems quite different from the psychological analysis mentioned above.

What confuses the matter more, is that psychological analyses often postulate emotional states in the person being analysed (e.g. 'he is scared of abandonment due to the early loss of his parent'). If asked, the person may reply that he is NOT scared of abandonment — this is how he feels (about how he feels). However, the psychological analysis (or theory) may also postulate that this is an 'unconscious fear', or that the client is 'in denial regarding his fear'. It seems strange for such a (specific) theory regarding a person's emotions to override how the person actually believes he or she feels.

Such 'psychobabble' is very common nowadays amongst how lay people (not just therapists) think about their own and others' behaviour. In cases where such theories appears to clash with a person's own intuitions regarding their own emotions (and motivation), however (which may well not prove the theories wrong), could it be said that such postulated theories regarding a person's emotions are almost in a different language to the person's own descriptions of their own emotions, which may openly contradict such postulated psychological theories?

a) Why does it matter what "psychological" means? Do you mean: what differentiates a theory involving mental states from one involving only physical observables? Now, that's a fairly interesting question. But if you just want a definition of "psychological"... well... yawn.

b) True enough. And?

c) True enough. And?

We all form theories, all the time. Look at these:

Gopnik, A., C. Glymour, D.M. Sobel, L.E. Schulz, T. Kushnir, and D. Danks. 2003. "A theory of causal learning in children: Causal maps and Bayes nets." Psychological Review In Press.

Gopnik, A., and A.N. Meltzoff. 1998. Words, thoughts, and theories. Edited by L. Gleitman, S. Carey, E. Newport and E. Spekle, Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Gopnik, A., and D.M. Sobel. 2000. "Detecting Blickets: How Young Children Use Information about Novel Causal Powers in Categorization and Induction." Child Development 71 (5):1205-1222.

d) Who says it's not a "scientific" theory? What's a "scientific theory", such that it contrasts with a "psychological theory"? You seem to have some idea that there is something which you call a "scientific theory". Ok... what exactly is a scientific theory?

e) First, if it's an "other" area of "science", then what you're calling a "psychological" theory is by your own admission a "scientific theory". Whoops. You'd better get your ideas clear here; maybe you can, but I certainly don't know how to put a fence between such areas. As for your crash argument... well, psychologists would say that their theories explain "mental crashes" just as the aerodynamic theory explains physical crashes. Can you demonstrate them wrong?

f) Yes, they do that. And? Has anyone ever seen a quark? Will anyone ever see a quark? Take a look at the introduction to: Fodor, J. A. 1975. The language of Thought. Edited by J. J. Katz, D. T. Langendoen and G. A. Miller, The Language & Thought Series. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, for an extended analysis and defense of constructs in a variety of fields.

g) Why is talking in non-layman language about constructs which are not readily observable "babble" of any sort? Technical language happens in all fields where the theories and/or data move people beyond ordinary usage. Is mathematics "mathobabble"? Why or why not? What about medical terminology? What if someone has some particular disease, but thinks they have something else. The doctors speaking of their symptoms are other "cases where such theories appears to clash with a person's own intuitions regarding their own", are they not?

I think that you are struggling with either or both of: 1) what justifies empirical knowledge, and 2) what justifies hypothesizing theoretical constructs. These are I hope the questions underlying the above. If all you're asking about is whether some few constructs in psychology are justified... that's a pretty trivial question. The answer: most are, to a reasonable extent; some aren't. Science investigates the basis of that justification. But if you're asking the former question(s), then you're on more interesting and more shifty ground... and it pertains to much more than just psychology. Fodor's book, above, will plunge you deeply into 2). 1) is really brutal; basically you need *lots of background in philosophy of science and epistemology to begin to approach it... and unfortunately you need much of #1 in order to really understand #2.

Oboy. Well, here, these will knock a few chips off those:

Hanson, N. R. 1965. "Notes toward a logic of discovery". In Perspectives on Peirce, edited by R. J. Bernstein. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press

Hanson, N. R. 1965. Patterns of discovery; an inquiry into the conceptual foundations of science. Cambridge [Eng.]: Cambridge University Press.

Kitcher, P. 1993. The advancement of science; science without legend, objectivity without illusions. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Klahr, D., and H. A. Simon. 2001. "What have psychologists (and others) discovered about the process of scientific discovery?" Current Directions in Psychological Science 10 (3):75-80.

Kuhn, T. S. 1996. The structure of scientific revolutions. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Original edition, 1962.

Piaget, J. 1971. Insights and illusions of philosophy. Translated by W. Mays. New York, NY: The World Publishing Co.

Popper, K. R. 1968. The logic of scientific discovery. Translated by K. R. Popper, J. Freed and L. Freed. English, 1958 ed. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Toulmin, S. 1960. The philosophy of science: an introduction. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Original edition, 1953.

Steven Ravett Brown

Eman asked:

Hi professor, would you kindly tell me the differences between effectiveness and efficiency in management?

Give at least five differences and how to measure them.

"Efficiency" is doing something right. How to measure how right (well) you are doing, naturally depends on what it is you are doing. You might measure "widgets processed per unit time", or "cost per unit output", or perhaps "patients still alive".

"Effectiveness" is doing the right thing. You measure that by the contribution of your effort to the corporate bottom line (profit). It doesn't matter a whole lot whether your particular management unit is a profitable profit center or lowest cost cost center. What matters is whether your management unit can be shown to contribute directly to the corporate bottom line. To quote Peter Drucker — "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."

Since we are talking about two separate fields of discourse, there cannot be five differences, or ways to measure those differences.

Stuart Burns

May asked:

'People who want philosophy ladled out to them can go elsewhere. There are philosophical soup shops at every corner..." (C.S. Peirce).

What does Pierce mean exactly with that statement?

You can never know exactly what people may mean when they use metaphors but a good guess is that he means that reading his book will take some thought and effort on your part, unlike his contemporaries whom he obviously thinks are bad philosophers.

Kim Boley

Betty asked:

WHO is your favorite out of the following and why: Heraclitus, Aristotle, Plato, Machiavelli, Francis Bacon, Descartes, Socrates?

Is the infinite a relative truth or an absolute truth?

Neither! The question is ill formed and therefore does not permit an answer. (Perhaps you might like to rephrase the question?)

On the right hand side, you have used the concept "truth". But "truth" is a property of propositions. On the left hand side, all you have is "the infinite". But "infinite" is a property of something — in this case an unspecified noun. Unless you actually mean here "The Infinite" — as in God or some such. In neither case have you specified a proposition of which "truth" can be applied. It is therefore quite impossible to specify which subdivision of "truth" might apply.

Stuart Burns

Robb asked:

Why does Sartre refer to boredom in his novel Nausea?

Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was more than just a philosopher. You could say that he tried to express his ideas as clearly as he could, and for that he used several mediums, like plays and novels. If you miss this part of his work, and focus only in the pure philosophical works, you miss some insight into things that could not be clearly defined by theoretical concepts. Nausea is, first of all, a great novel, but a dormant novel... the leitmotif is just what the title says, that could maybe be more exactly translated as tedium. This is a subject matter that is found in the great writers of the XX century, mainly in those of the existentialist school of thought, like Sartre, Albert Camus, or Fernando Pessoa. The tedium, or boredom that Sartre mentions, reflects his view of man as an abandoned being, which sees his own life as mainly absurd and without a clear meaning. If life can't be analyzed, because it does not make sense, a particular attitude toward events in one's life is born. Existentialists are often portrait — in a blatantly unfair stereotype — as depressed middle age men dressed in black. Often they are not middle aged at all, but much younger.

In a nutshell you could summon up some things that Sartre established, that makes him have this tedium towards living: 1) Existence precedes Essence — this means that we built our own destiny; 2) Man is condemned to be free — this means that we can't escape the obligation to face up to our responsibility; 3) Man is the only one responsible for his own decisions — again, an emphasis on the personal choices and responsibility. We can see that no clear meaning can come from analyzing human existence, because each and every one of us has to built his or her own future. The fact that we are free, makes us doubt the consistence of reality around us, as we can red in Nausea. If in fact we build our own reality, made of our own moral laws, concepts of good and evil, with no a priori rules, all his allowed — the main theme of another great book that Sartre read: Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. If in truth we are ultimately forced to make choices, and take responsibility, an aura of fog surrounds what once was considered all that was real,

Nuno Hipolito

Kobby asked:

Is philosophy worth pursuing as an intellectual discipline in developing countries?

Well, I didn't really feel qualified to answer this one... so I asked an urban anthropologist who specializes in developing cultures. Her answers were: a) yes, in just the same sense that developing cultures should have and be exposed to art, they should have and be exposed to philosophy; b) yes, because indigenous cultures have philosophies that are valuable to them and could be to others. In addition, I also think that the answer is yes, because developing countries 1) need exposure to the rest of the world beyond their TV shows, and 2) it is possible, given that philosophy has utility, that Western philosophy, after several millennia, actually has something useful and interesting to say. For example: freedom is better than slavery; children shouldn't be abused; women are capable of making significant contributions to economic and cultural development. And so forth.

Steven Ravett Brown

Andy asked:

Scott asked:

Today I am sitting in my high school library at 9:55 am. So far in my life I have listened and watched my friends and myself go about life. I have come to a point in which I have fallen into a rut. Although I am not the best writer or student, all I can think about are questions about society and questions about our world. I write today not to find an answer to all my questions but to attempt to find a peace of mind. My questions are as follows.

Why are we capitalists? Is it human nature to be greedy or have we been corrupted?

Next, why should we go through school and life trying to accomplish as much as we can? Does this make us better people to society? or does this make us the people we were intended to become by god or whatever created us?

Last, what is point of everything? Why do we wake up every morning? because I'm not buying into the "we have our family our friends and society to live for" thing. I know it will be very hard to answer some of these questions.

Your first question is a presumption to which many people would not subscribe. In fact, my own instincts do not lean towards capitalism. I find it appalling that capitalism seems to have got completely out of hand, and is running riot in the world. My greatest concern is that it has now become linked with democracy, a capitalist state is now automatically considered to be a democratic state. 'Free market' and 'free people' are not interchangeable concepts!

Is it human nature to be greedy? A good question to follow the one on capitalism, the two terms are often linked. Perhaps there is something in the notion that a capitalist can never have enough. Greed shows itself in theft and murder, in embezzlement and profiteering. However, most people do not fall into these categories. Received knowledge from the society in which a person is brought up will probably have a great deal to do with whether they recognise greed as an essential attribute to make progress and achieve a 'good life'. A capitalist society is geared to produce such a person. However, whether a person accepts this world view is very much a matter of choice. A person entertaining sets of categories of what is right and what is wrong is likely to place greed in the latter category, and speak against it; but does a capitalist society encourage the majority to see some moral right in the former?

Greedy people are usually 'thick skinned' and selfish, so what others think about them is of little interest to them. Of course, what a greedy person does to hurt or upset others also makes little impression on their conscience. Unfortunately, this has now reached its zenith in the destruction of the environment, the greed for oil profits, the greed for timber profits, the handing over of vital utilities to the greed of privatisation, the greed of the car companies, the greed of pharmaceutical companies, supermarkets, etc. etc.. Encouraging capitalism as a morally correct and democratic process is a major factor in the demise of our planet. We also have to ask ourselves what part political systems that turn a blind eye to all this play, or why in some cases they endorse it. In fact many politicians actually have their fingers in the pie.

You ask, why should we go through school and life trying to accomplish as much as we can? The short answer is the reciprocal question: Why not? Again, it rather depends on our world view and our aims within that world. Your further question regarding making us better people in society and, becoming what God or the creator intended, are extensions of the original question. If you firmly believe that there is a purpose in life and that purpose has religious connotations, then you are likely to be considerate of your fellow beings, and find a purpose which aims to improve the life of society. Your questions seem to point to a state of introversion, which leads to a rather self-orientated and pessimistic view of life. The extrovert view which is concerned with recognising having a place in society and being concerned with the well being of others, leads to a more optimistic view of the world.

Success in society can be viewed as self achievement, aiming to stand on the pedestal and to glory in the awards. Alternatively, it can be seen as something achieved for the whole of society, the achievement being its own reward. If we wish to believe that this latter objective was God's purpose for our existence, then that is a very valuable bonus to the achievement.

You ask, what is the point of everything? Why do we wake up in the morning? I see this again as a very self-centred and depressed approach to life. We should not sit tight under the shadow of pessimism wondering what the point of everything is. We should be out there finding out for ourselves what it is. I suggest we wake up every morning to do just that. My advise to a person who finds no meaning in life is to become a philosopher and share in the excitement of trying to discover what the world and what life is all about. We can either be depressed with our shallow view of the world, or we can be stimulated by seeking the deeper reasons for what we perceive around us. And be warned, the concepts we form in life constitute the world we live in.

John Brandon

Having reviewed the answer that John Brandon provided to your questions, I am driven to provide an alternative view of the situation.

Jeffrey asked:

Do people recover from states of profound existential angst (i.e. constant overwhelming questioning, confusion, estrangement, anxiety, disillusioned sense of self etc.) or do they have to learn to live with it? are there any books on the subject?

In answer to your first question: both are true. If what you are terming "angst" is leading to problems in your life, dealing with people, with a job, etc., and it's been going on for some time, then you are likely suffering from clinical depression, and you need serious professional help, i.e., therapy. Alternatively, you might see a philosophical therapist... yes there are such people; just be sure to find one certified by one of the professional associations. If you don't want to go the chemical route (which in many cases is not a bad idea for the short term), i.e., take antidepressants as part of therapy, there are all sorts of books on the subject, in the "self-help" shelves of your local bookstore. On the whole, I don't recommend them; if the above is true, I'd say go for therapy.

Good cures for mild to moderate (for severe, see above) angst: exercise, exercise, exercise. A very good one. Next, meditation, i.e., some form of Buddhist meditative practice. Very good so long as you can avoid buying into the metaphysics... in my opinion. For this latter, either or both of reading and lessons in a recognized and legitimate school are the way to go. The next and perhaps best cure: get into a good intimate relationship; yes, just go do it, take a few chances (emotional... I don't mean physical).

Well, haha, what wonderful philosophical advice all this is, right? I'm afraid as far as philosophy goes, angst is the name of the game; even Buddhism's ultimate motivations are pretty depressing, when you get right down to them (but they have a pretty good cure for angst, if, as I say, it hasn't gone too far). If you want to pursue philosophy and you have angst problems, I'd advise a long vacation from it, with wine and song or the equivalents, followed by rethinking just what you're about in doing it.

Steven Ravett Brown

Harriet asked:

Why did emotivism come into existence?

And which philosophers deal with it and what points do they make?

Emotivism as an ethical theory (better a meta-ethical) theory is very much a creature of the 1930s and 40s. A version was espoused by the young Ayer in Language Truth and Logic though the fullest expression of the theory is to be found in the work of C.L. Stevenson. His classic text is Ethics and Language. There is a related set of collected articles by Stevenson entitled Facts and Values published in the early 1960s elaborating and refining some of the key themes associated with emotivism. Emotivism can be seen as a reaction against the ethical intuitionism of the early 20th century associated with G.E. Moore, and later, Ross and Prichard.

Justifiably or not, it was seen as leaving too much as too mysterious. The dogma that one cannot derive an ought from an is had been given compelling expression by Moore and formed the backcloth against which all subsequent reflections on the nature of ethics had taken place. Emotivists while accepting the naturalistic fallacy nevertheless recognised that moral discourse was directed — importantly, if not entirely — to influencing the actions and behaviour of others. They looked to the dynamic nature of moral discourse as holding the key to how it shaped and influenced others' actions and behaviours. Roughly to say X is good is to say 'I approve of X. Do so as well' This pattern of analysis did justice (so it was claimed) to both the descriptive and evaluative dimensions of moral language while at the same time avoiding any tendency to suppose the evaluative dimension is derived from the descriptive element informing others about attitudes towards X.. Ethical discourse in other words worked through the exciting of shared attitudes. Hare's later prescriptivism can be seen as a sophisticated variant upon emotivism.

A critique of this whole programme is beyond the remit of this answer but fairly clearly the plausibility of this approach turns upon 1. being prepared to accept that there is one peculiar function (the shaping of attitudes towards actions etc) that distinguished moral discourse from other kinds of discourse and 2. that our natural belief rational debate can be had on moral matters is quite misconceived as moral debate is really about persuading individuals no matter how to come to share your attitude towards a certain action or state of affairs. The merest perusal of the uses to which moral discourse is put will show the implausibility of the former suggestion. And we are reluctant to let go of the distinction between considerations that reason should recognise and those that merely persuade us, irrespective of their rationality . The analysis proffered by emotivists of the nature of moral discourse seems to do too much violence to the nature of that discourse.

Ian Gregory

Winta asked:

What does a mathematical proof prove?

Yes, indeed, very good. But here's one for you: what does "prove" mean? Establish beyond reasonable doubt? Establish with absolute certainty? Enable us to comprehend with certainty? Lets see... if we take a formal system, where terms are, we believe, "well-defined", then the postulates, elements, and operators in that system ("the basics", let us say), once they have been defined, determine the entirety of the system, within the limits established by Godel's Proof (given that our definitions are not contradictory, of course).

Thus, a proof in such a system does not create anything, but enables us to discover truths about that system, and further, enables us to ascertain that it is true that this discovery is implied by the basics, because we understand, by the fact that the proof takes the logic of that implication from start to conclusion by its smallest steps and thus that we can check each step for accuracy according to the most elementary rules of logic, that it is correct. So here, "prove" means a) establish with absolute certainty, b) establish beyond reasonable doubt (implied by a), but not necessarily c), because there are proofs which are so long and complex that humans cannot comprehend them even when they are reduced to their elementary steps. For example, Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was that complex (except for him and a couple of others, I believe), and so was the proof of the Four-Color Theorem in topology. Computers were used to check and in the latter case, as I recall, to generate parts (through iterative map drawing) of those proofs. And I'm sure there have been others.

But all this assumes that we know what the basics mean. But do we? What is a point, for example? What does "union" mean, really? And so forth. If you read some of the naturalistic philosophers on the psychological derivations of mathematics, you find that the basics are, according to them, derived from abstractions of our experiences (see, e.g., Lakoff, G., and R.E. Nunez. Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000). Most mathematicians and indeed most philosophers recoil in horror at the thought that their and similar arguments may be correct... but these viewpoints (which by the way I am sympathetic to) must, in my opinion, be taken seriously. It does remain that we use mathematics, quite well, to describe and manipulate the world... but we do that with our hands and with natural languages also, if less precisely. And it is that precision which perhaps distinguishes, and certainly makes invaluable, that particular way of symbolizing aspects of our comprehension of the world. However, if the naturalistic arguments are true, then we must indeed ask what a mathematical proof proves. Something, perhaps, about the way humans comprehend the world, and that's about it.

Steven Ravett Brown

Kim asked:

How would Rawls answer the question "what makes a society just?" Why is the veil of ignorance important in developing a contractarian theory of justice?

Rawls says that a just society should have a "basic structure" determined by principles that would be agreed by people in a hypothetical situation that he calls the "original position". The original position is a version of a contract procedure, and its purpose is simply to produce a fair procedure that doesn't build in existing patterns of privilege and advantage.

The "veil of ignorance" is a set of restrictions that prevent the contractors from devising principles and procedures that suit themselves. It guarantees impartiality. The people are conceived as choosing from a position of ignorance about their own talents and position in society, and also ignorance about their own conception of the good, their own views on what gives value to a life (including their religion and tastes).

Rawls maintains that the parties will come up with principles to govern the basic structure of society:

1. Each person has an equal right to the most extensive scheme of basic liberties which is compatible with a similar scheme of liberty for all.

2a. The Opportunity Principle: Social and economic inequalities must be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.

2b. The Difference Principle: Inequalities must be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.

Rawls' theory has been much criticised but also much defended, including by himself. One area of doubt is whether he assumes liberal principles in seeking to establish them — impartiality, for example — and another is whether he assumes a particular conception of individuality, a Western. liberal conception of personhood. But Rawls always knew his theory of justice was to be tested against the intuitions of people living in liberal democracies.

Graham Nutbrown

Not all contractarians use the veil of ignorance — Hobbes, Locke, Kant and others (more recently Narveson, Gauthier) do not. That is a Rawlsean innovation, mainly so as to make room for what Rawls deemed to be very important to justice, namely, fairness. Presumably behind the veil of ignorance everyone lacks knowledge about himself or herself (indeed, whether they are male, female, tall, short, black, white, old, young — anything individual or particular) and so one can be impartial in figuring out what it is to be just. And presumably a basic intuition all of us have, regardless of who we are, would guide us to, among other things, stress fairness in a just society.

Tibor Machan