Antonio asked:

What do you think happiness means? Does it really exist? How can we get to it? Why does it last such a short time?

Because happiness is a psychological state of a person, I take a psychological view of what it is. However, I shall summarize two philosophical viewpoints. These views see happiness as states rather than as short-term emotions, so this may not be what you are asking about since you are concerned that happiness does not last.

Firstly, Aristotle. Aristotle claimed that happiness was the end towards which all other things were means. Happiness is not a means to anything further, but it is what makes life desirable. Aristotle thought that because happiness is "living and faring well" then it is a form of excellence. Excellence is a state rather than a passion (passions are emotions, which include joy), and it is a state that is essentially temperate. This means that a happy person aims for moderate rather than excessive pleasures. To pursue this sort of happiness is to have no desire for intense pleasure, and involves the avoidance of pain. To me, this is not so much happiness as a sort of pleasurable calm, and is similar to the Stoical view of Seneca. I believe that from happiness stems not just the ability to be joyful, but a propensity for joy. For Aristotle, joy was a passion, and not a part! of a state of excellence, since it is not moderate.

Seneca thought that true happiness was to be found in tranquility of mind. Joys, he thought, were "uneasy" because not properly grounded. Short-term happiness, i.e. enjoyment, is to move from one means of pleasure or excitement to another. Underneath this lies discontent. We constantly pursue different types of enjoyment in order to turn our minds from our real state of misery. Even a more stable form of happiness, like the feeling of great fortune goes with anxiety because such blessings can be lost. So Seneca thought true happiness was tranquility of mind and this should include diversity of pleasure: Solitude and society, a moderate amount of play, wine, dance, relaxation and outdoor activity, together with an intellectual life. The essential part of tranquility of mind is to take pleasure in oneself rather to rely on external trappings of wealth, and to be aware of the! likelihood of ill health and death which will enable you to appreciate the moment.

Psychologically, we are happy when we feel lucky, fortunate, blessed, enthusiastic about our lives and are for the most part in good spirits. Such feelings can be quite immoderate in terms of intensity, though not necessarily exaggerated. Seneca's view is that this goes with anxiety because of possible loss by change and Aristotle would think it irrational. I don't think happiness is irrational if based on self-knowledge, and the happy person would think that even if things were to change, it is good to have experienced being this way for at least some time.

The opposite of happiness is sadness or depression. I see this as a sliding scale, and it is possible to move from sadness to happiness and back again through changes in circumstances of life. The destructive force against happiness is bitterness. In this state you hold a grudge, and believe happiness to be impossible. This is not an emotional state you slide out of but an attitude to life. To "get at" happiness you must at least believe it is possible, and also know what makes you happy.

Rachel Browne

Wilton asked:

Has metaphysics been overcome?

No. In a play on words, the pas au-delà (step beyond) is the pas au-delà (not beyond). In other words, the idea of 'beyond metaphysics' is itself a metaphysical matter.

Alberto asked:

Buddha offered humanity an analysis for what he called the "sickness of living". The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is that, for all of us, life is suffering. The Second Noble Truth is that we suffer for something we desire, which can be finding a special person, or staying young. My question is: How do these Noble Truths relate to time and space? I mean, does the epoch change the way of looking at life? How are Buddhists so convinced that people suffer?

Their 'nobility' lies in the fact that they are not relative to time and place. It doesn't matter what 'epoch' you live in: you get ill, you get old, and you die. This is what dukkha (badly translated as 'suffering') means. Old age, sickness and death and do not belong to the Pure Land, which is where the Buddhas and Bodhissatvas (potentially all beings) belong.

Katy asked:

Is anything absolute? and is man inherently evil? and does love have a biological component?

An absolute is a value. That which has absolute value is of value in itself and as itself. This differs from that which is simply intrinsically valuable.

We know what good is and, in virtue of this, particular things are thought good. We cannot say more about it. As Iris Murdoch says in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals "good is good". This differs from happiness, which appears to have absolute value since it is good in itself, but this is as an end in itself or as intrinsically valuable. Intrinsic value is to be contrasted with extrinsic value which is instrumental. Wealth can be said to have extrinsic value if it leads to happiness. Happiness is not instrumental and so has intrinsic value. It cannot be of absolute value because its value lies in the fact that it is good.

Evil is absolute. Evil is not evil for any reason other than it is evil in and of itself.

Evil is inherent in man as a capacity. Recognition of good as good, reason and sanity are needed to keep it at bay.

Love can have a biological component. The love between a parent and child is a paradigm of love. There is also a biological tie, genetically, between siblings. Not all love is grounded in a biological tie, but it is the cases of unconditional biological love which — if we are lucky — teach us what love is, and how to love properly.

Rachel Browne

Cindy asked:

What is the difference between existentialism and metaphysics?

Metaphysics is the inquiry into the nature of things — which has tended to mean their 'first principles'. The result of this inquiry has tended to be abstract and rationalistic. Existentialism is a movement with its origins in Christian philosophy, although it is best epitomised (and normally characterised) by twentieth century atheist philosophers like Sartre and Camus. Existentialism is not just a 'movement' of philosophy, but a timeless tendency to bring thinkers back to the conditions of existence. The inquiry into the nature of things — their whatness — traditionally led to talk of their essence. For example, humans have a 'nature' and humans partake of their nature, which is their essence, because it is common to all: a materiality and certain form, capacity for freedom, and good, language, immortality, mortality etc. Discussion of these 'essential' matters find their balance in the existential tendency which reminds philosophers that I cannot experience myself as an essence. In thinking about what I am, lets not forget that I am.

Timmijay asked:

What is the main aim of Hedonism besides pleasure? What kind of pleasure are they after and what exactly to the followers believe?

The aim of the early hedonists was simply pleasure as maximum enjoyment to be found through the senses and intellect. Epicurus rejected enjoyment for the more lasting pleasure of happiness as peace of mind. Peace of mind was to be found primarily through friendship and leading a simple life.

Epicurus founded a school which provided an exemplar of what he saw as the simple life. He sought to teach moral perfection through sympathy compassion and honesty. The moral life was part of the philosophical life of those times, in that it moulded the personality and regulated conduct. Presumably the sort of personality moulded by Epicurus was required for the sort of pleasure he had in mind which was peace, freedom from cares, desires, and fears. This is not pleasure as joy, but as calm and wise. Seneca quotes Epicurus as saying "to win true freedom you must be a slave to philosophy" which includes moral perfection as well as intellectual interest.

The importance Epicurus put upon friendship leads to the criticism that his philosophy was insular and selfish rather than public-spirited. The lack of social orientation also stems from his beliefs. Epicurus thought that belief in the Gods was superstitious and that the religion of the time instilled a fear of death with its threats of eternal torment. He thought that death should not be feared because when we are dead we no longer care since we are not here. Since men are, to an extent, spurred to social activity through religious and nationalistic spirit rather than friendship the criticism does have some ground. It did not bother Epicurus that not everyone was inclined towards happiness through friendship and a simple moral life so long as his follower were.

Rachel Browne

Malena asked

What do you think about religion in philosophy, should it be included?

It depends what kind of religion and what kind of philosophy. More scientific and logical philosophy has little truck with religion. More metaphysical philosophy, treating of essence and existence, can scarcely avoid philosophy in the Western tradition given that the Most High defined Himself to our basic Lawgiver, Moses, as "I am Who I am" (Exodus 3:14). Henceforth if we are thinking in the realm of ontology (and if we are not, are we really thinking, except in a weak sense?) then we are bound also to be thinking about God. This of course includes atheism. Thinking about the absence of God, or in the absence of God, is no less religious — as the greatest atheistic thinkers have (despite themselves) proven.

Gabriel asked:

I'm looking for the exact reference (Aristotle?) about Pythagoras being the first philosopher to use the term philosophia.

Try Aristotle's discussion of Pythagoras in Metaphysics I.5.

José asked:

How can I know if your theories are true, if in philosophy there is no way to practice it, like for example medicine? Where and when do you practice your philosophy?

For any theory, if there is no way (in principle) of finding out whether it is true, then it really isn't a theory. Theories make predictions, and there must be some criteria for deciding whether or not the prediction is correct. There is actually very little theory making in philosophy; theories belong more or less by definition to science. And philosophy is not a science. The little theory making that there is in philosophy is metaphysics. And as you seem to be hinting in the question, there are good reasons for doubting the validity of such speculation. Metaphysics has had a hard time of it this century, thanks mainly to the influence of Wittgenstein, and of the logical positivists. Many people have concluded that metaphysics is just nonsense, or at best the expression of a certain attitude to life.

Instead of making predictions about the ultimate nature of reality, philosophers have concentrated much more on language. Wittgenstein said that all philosophy is just 'a critique of language'. Philosophical problems are, from this perspective, problems not about things but about grammar, and there solution comes not from a greater knowledge of the world but from a greater understanding of how language can trick us into confusion.

The time and place philosophy is practiced is in a philosophy class. Because this is the only time when purely philosophical problems arise. In everyday life, there are no philosophical problems, in building a wall for example. Philosophical problems arise when 'language goes on holiday'.

Will Greenwood

Tony asked:

I am looking at the case of a pregnant Nigerian woman who had recently emigrated to the UK. She was advised that she would need a Caesarean operation. Unfortunately the woman concerned could not comply with this as this was against her religious beliefs and replied supposedly, "If it is the will of Allah that the child lives, so be it. If it is the will of Allah that the child dies, then alas, so be it."

Unfortunately the doctor did not see it this way, and applied under the British Mental Health Act to have the woman declared mentally ill, and so was able to carry out the Caesarean operation against her wishes.

Can you please explain to me how the Court of Appeal, when judging the merits of this woman's case, might have gone about reviewing who had the right to life, or the right to see their beliefs not questioned? But what of providing a voice of advocacy for the unborn child, who unless brought forth via a Caesarean operation would not have come into the world?

There is no denying that a foetus has a moral claim. If it didn't, then there would be nothing wrong with a woman changing her mind about her pregnancy at the last minute, and demanding that the foetus be removed and disposed of.

The foetus has a claim. But it is not a claim that is strong enough to prevent, for example, the emergency destruction a foetus in circumstances where the mother's life is in grave danger, where medical complications prevent the removal of the foetus while it is still alive (rare as such a case might be). Most would agree that the mother has a stronger claim to life than her unborn foetus.

But what about a case where we are balancing the right to life of the foetus, not with the mother's right to life, but with other very important rights, like the right not to be operated upon without her consent?

The first point to make is that, in the present case, there is no question but that the doctor was wrong to have the Nigerian woman 'Sectioned' under the Mental Health Act. He broke the law. The purpose of Section 3 of the Mental Health Act is to put under restraint people who because of mental illness are incapable of looking after their own affairs. To 'Section' a patient, two doctor's signatures are required. The doctors who signed the order to detain the Nigerian woman lied. They declared that the woman was mentally ill, when she wasn't.

The doctor knew he would be breaking the law if he simply had the woman anaesthatized and opened up, without telling her what he was intending to do. Instead, he not only broke the law but abused it.

Sometimes one can be morally justified in breaking the law. So let's put aside that question and consider simply whether it was morally right to operate on the Nigerian woman without her consent, whether the moral claim of the foetus was stronger than that of the mother.

I find that proposition simply incredible. Even if the woman did not have strong religious objections, but merely disliked the idea of being operated on and preferred to take the chance of a normal delivery, there could have been no justification for coercion. Even if the circumstances had been such — which they were not — that we could have said that she was morally wrong to refuse an operation, it was still her decision and no-one else's.

Geoffrey Klempner

Adam asked:

Do you think it correct, as Scruton suggests in his discussion of Kant (1982), that the "publicity of language guarantees the objectivity of its reference"? Scruton thinks that Wittgenstein's private language argument shares the premises and the conclusion of Kant's transcendental deduction (i.e. Wittgenstein's argument is transcendental in that there can be no knowledge of experience which does not presuppose reference to a public world). The thought seems to be that I know my experience immediately only because I apply to it concepts which gain their sense from public use.

My view is that this makes a great deal of sense, but my acquaintance with the primary texts is something I am ashamed of!

It was Roger Scruton who as a lecturer first introduced me to the Private Language Argument, while I was an undergraduate student at Birkbeck College, London in the early 70's. I thought at the time, and still think that it is a devastating argument.

To see why, consider the familiar idea (which I recall first thinking about when I was 9 or 10) 'How do I know that when we both look up at the sky, the blue in your mind is the same colour as the blue in my mind?' Nagel has a great take on this (in his short OUP book What Does It All Mean?). If I could lick your brain while you were eating chocolate, and it tasted of chocolate, that still wouldn't prove that the taste of chocolate is the same for you as it is for me.

'Blue', 'chocolate' have established uses in our shared language. When I talk about 'my incommunicable experience of the way blue is for me' or 'the incommunicable taste that chocolate has for me', on the other hand, what I mean is something that I don't have a name for, something essentially private, incapable of being communicated.

Wittgenstein says, Give your inner something a name. You can do that, can't you?

It turns out that you can't. The reason is that you are the only person who is in a position to say whether the name you have invented for your incommunicable experience is being used correctly or not:

One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. and that only means that here we can't talk about 'right'.

L. Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations Part I, para 258.

Here's how Wittgenstein proposes to 'get rid of the idea of the private object':

assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you.

ibid. Part II, p. 207.

I can't think of the number of times I've racked my brains trying to imagine the thing Wittgenstein asks us to 'assume', that the inexpressible quality blue has for me constantly changes etc. etc. It took me a long time to realize that it's all wasted effort.

Well, we can argue about that. We can argue about whether Wittgenstein is right in claiming that in order to have meaning, it is necessary that the meaning a term be capable of being communicated to others, that it should have a meaning in our 'public language'. Scruton's claim is that it is sufficient for a term to have what he terms 'objective reference' that it should have a recognized use in a public language. And I think he could be wrong about this.

The fact that people agree, or a capable of reaching agreement doesn't prove anything. We can all agree about something , and still be wrong. Or our seeming agreement can be the result of pure accident. For a term to have genuine, objective meaning, and not merely a name we pass around, thinking we all mean the same thing by it, something more is needed, something to do with the way we are connected with the world: the fact that we do not spend all our lives merely talking to one another but use language for a purpose. This is something the pragmatists clearly saw.

Geoffrey Klempner

Lee asked:

My lecturer asked the question "What does Sam do if he is told by Matthew that if Sam doesn't kill Sarah then Matthew will kill 20 people?"

I have an essay to write and I think that I shall argue along these lines: Sam has no responsibility for the actions of Matthew. Sam has a responsibility to Sarah because he has direct control over that situation. Sam does have a moral responsibility to the other 20 but as Matthew is the one who is making the decision over the 20 Matthew has ultimate liability for his own action. I do not believe that Sam should be held responsible for the choices of Matthew. Sam should carry out his choice over Sarah independently of Matthew's choice over the 20.

I would also argue that this is because: Sarah should not be treated as a means to Sam's end (i.e. as a way of saving the lives of the 20). Sam should not be treated as a means to Matthew's ends (as a way of Matthew getting his desired result). Sam can only be responsible for his own action and thus if he killed Sarah he would be immoral. If Sam refuses to act then he is being moral; he would have made his made his moral decision not to kill Sarah and should let Matthew take responsibility for his moral decision.

Is this okay? Does it make sense? I will describe utilitarianism as well but this problem still worries me. I cant help feeling that Sam's omission to act means that Sam is neglecting his responsibility to the 20. However I think that Sam's main priority is to Sarah and Matthew's decision must be made about the 20 on its own. AAarrgghhh!!!! However this still bugs me! Is this an acceptable position? Does Sam's oblique responsibility to the 20 over ride his responsibility to Sarah simply because there are more of them? I can't decide. I think I have a good solution but I don't know if that is really what I'd do. I know that is what I would like to do. Would I be merely making a false justification to myself if that was the case?

Firstly, we should be clearer on responsibility. Although Sam will not have caused the deaths of the 20, because it will ultimately come about by Matthew's decision, he is responsible in the sense that he could have stopped their deaths. Bernard Williams calls this 'negative responsibility', a notion implicit in utilitarian theory which holds that moral responsibility is for consequences.

However, to think in terms of "responsibility" and whether one duty "overrides" another can be seen as morally shallow. If you really cannot kill a human being, the thought that it is an overriding duty isn't going to make it easier. It seems even more shallow to say, "Sarah should not be treated as a means to Sam's end." You need to distinguish killing from murder. In certain circumstances, killing can be a means to an end, for example in wartime. Killing is not morally assessable in the same way as murder.

You should say that you know the solution, but don't know whether this is what you would do. It is a question of moral virtue. If Sam makes his own personal decision not to act, he is neglecting a social duty. This can be viewed as a lack of courage. Yet it could also be seen as moral fortitude, in that there are some things he will not do under any circumstances.

Rachel Browne

Xantor asked:

While I pondered weak and weary this question, this query just came calling to me... and I don't know if it's even answerable:

Is humble pie comfort food?

If to eat humble pie means to feel humiliated, then it is never a comfortable state to be in. If it is simply to feel apologetic, then some comfort can be found. To feel apologetic is to recognize that you were wrong in some way, and at the same time this is to see what is right. To recognize something as right, or to come to see a value is always a comfort.

Rachel Browne

I see the question as being about whether there are times when we have eaten humble pie when the right thing to do was carry on the fight. Then we are eating 'comfort food' in a bad sense. It is comforting to absolve oneself of responsibility, to feel sorry for oneself, to pass the buck on to others.

Geoffrey Klempner

Matthew asked:

Do either Wittgenstein or Nietzsche offer us ways to elude the philosophical problem of morality?

Wittgenstein took the view in his early and late works that there can be no talk about ethical values and whether they exist, or how we should define "good", but this does not mean there is no ethics. In the Tractatus he says that value "must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case". The only things we can talk about with our propositions are states of affairs in the world which are facts, and ethics lies beyond this. He thinks that the best approach to ethics is to say nothing about it. Of course, we do make value judgements and moral statements all the time, but these are false propositions. Moral understanding cannot be put into words, but makes itself "manifest".

How morality makes itself manifest becomes clearer in his later work, Philosophical Investigations. When we are moved by someone who cries out, we are moved by more than the cry . Wittgenstein says "a cry, which cannot be called a description, which is more primitive than any description, for all that serves as a description of inner life." It is because we have an attitude towards others as more than merely behavioural beings that we are able to have a moral attitude. One might think this could be put into the proposition that "I believe that he is a feeling creature and there is emotion behind the behavioural cry", but Wittgenstein would say this is not so. We do not "believe" that someone is suffering pain, for instance. We can't be brought to see it, or persuaded any more than we can be brought to see or persuaded that a human is not a robot. Wittgenstein says "I am not of the opinion that he has a soul".

So when Wittgenstein said in the Tractatus that "When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be put into words" he seems to think that we cannot formulate or answer problems of morality. Of course, moral philosophy is all about raising and answering questions, but this is simply not to see morality as he does. If we have the right attitude to others, we supposedly don't need to talk of principles and values.

Nietzsche also leaves moral discussions standing much as they always have.

Iris Murdoch in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals has described Nietzsche as "demonic" as if he was completely outside morality but he was not a nihilist and didn't want to destroy morality. The idea of the Superman, a person outside the "herd morality", gives rise to the view that Nietzsche saw the ideal moral man as beyond ordinary moral values, but this is the sort of person he thought was needed to initiate a new morality by creating new values.

Nietzsche hated traditional moral values such as rational Kantianism and religion. To live within the bounds of rational principles, or to live this life with the afterlife in view as regulating one's behaviour is not to have a will to that which is life-preserving and life-advancing. Nietzsche was passionate about morality and he wanted it to be grounded in the will and drives of humanity (examples being domination and power). He didn't attempt to elude the problems of morality, but tried to establish the view that morality should be subjective — "man posits the realm of goodness" — rather than based upon prescribed principles. This does dispute the notion that there can be objective moral truths, but Nietzsche thought our relationship to the world cannot be separated from our "desires and passions".

This is not an answer to moral problems, since desires, passions and the will are not necessarily altruistic. In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche names the virtues as "courage, insight, sympathy, solitude" and this can't be the last word on virtues!

Rachel Browne

Martin asked:

What are the impacts of German phenomenology on US pragmatical philosophy as found in James and Dewey? What are the impacts of US pragmatical philosophy on modern German phenomenology as found in Heidegger and Wittgenstein?

In the first case, you don't have a big thing, but I will try to look into it more, ok? But in second case we know that Wittgenstein in his "second phase" knew about James and he asked about how there could be "pragmatist solution".

Now, about Heidegger and American Philosophers, you will find things with Rorty and neopragmatism. Pay attention: Rorty is more like Sartre than we can be thinking about. Now, Heidegger didn't like American Pragmatism, of course. But, Rorty has Heidegger like a partner because Heidegger puts good questions about language, the end of Humanism and postmodernism — and these are things that Rorty needs to talk about. Why? Because Rorty can put a conversation with the World, putting the American Philosophy and the game again. Rorty crossing Atlantic Wall and now Italy (and others) want know Davidson, Putnam and others because of Rorty.

(Note: In the Introduction of Murphy's book about Pragmatism From Peirce to Davidson, Rorty presents a good approach to Heidegger and American Philosophy. It is funny!)

Yves asked:

Metaphysics can be defined as the science that tries to get to the truth behind things as they appear (Cf. F.H. Bradley's Appearance and Reality). But whatever lies behind appearances must be known by inferences from those appearances. Now in any deduction, it seems there must be both a universal proposition and a particular proposition. The particular proposition would be one taken from the appearances of things.

What would the universal proposition be? And why? It looks like metaphysics is a very problematic science posing as something very certain. In fact, there's hardly anything philosophers differ so much on than metaphysics.

The proposition, 'whatever lies behind appearances must be known by inferences from those appearances' is a fair characterization of scientific knowledge. Typically, the scientist puts forward a hypothesis, in the form of a universal proposition from which statements about 'appearances' — i.e. predicted experimental results — can be derived. If the actual results conflict with the prediction, then the hypothesis is rejected.

The problem with metaphysics is that conflicting metaphysical theories agree in all the experimental predictions that can be derived from them. Whether you are a Berkeleian idealist or a realist, two masses attract one another with a force inversely proportion to the square of their distance.

Here are two strategies that one could adopt in response to this challenge: The first is to seek a purely logical derivation of universal metaphysical propositions that does not require any additional premise concerning empirical appearances. The Presocratic philosopher Parmenides is the first recorded example of an attempt to follow that method, in arguing for his theory of 'the One'. In the 20th century, The metaphysician John McTaggart used this approach in his treatise The Nature of Existence.

The second strategy is to seek to uncover an incoherence or 'contradiction' inherent in the world of appearances, or the way in which we think about appearances. The Presocratic Philosopher Zeno sought to undermine belief in change and plurality by showing how our beliefs about the world of appearances lead to insoluble paradoxes. In his treatise Appearance and Reality F.H. Bradley argued that appearances are inherently 'self-contradictory', and that therefore there must exist an 'Absolute', where these contradictions are resolved.

These alternatives do not exhaust all the options. A third possibility would be to view 'metaphysics' as involving an investigation into the conceptual framework which we apply to our familiar world, either with a view to its improvement, or to lay bare aspects that had previously been hidden. In very contrasting ways, Whitehead in Process and Reality and Heidegger in Being and Time both adopt this general approach. The Oxford philosopher P.F. Strawson in his book Individuals (1959) contrasted his own 'descriptive' exploration of our conceptual framework with the 'revisionary' views of metaphysicians such as Berkeley or Whitehead.

I think that all metaphysics can ultimately be is a way of directing our attention to aspects of our world that we had not noticed before. For example, the nature of the subjective viewpoint, or our experience of the passage of time. I am sceptical about the possibility of there being such a thing as a metaphysical 'theory'. Simply to describe what we see when we look at the world in this way is still a tremendously difficult task.

Geoffrey Klempner

Jack asked:

I am serious about the following question: Can God make a rock bigger than he can lift? My answer is yes. What do you think?

God could make a stone heavier than he could lift, but if he ever did, he would be able to lift it. — What you have stumbled upon is a kind of paradox in the whole notion of omnipotence.

We see that some people have more power than others. This leads us to believe, quite rightly, that there is a scale of 'powerfulness'. We then infer that this scale has absolute limits, i.e. powerlessness and omnipotence.

But omnipotence is not a coherent concept. This is so despite the genius of Aquinas and the other theologians who have tried to show that it is. In the same way that Plato saw horses and concluded that there must be something that is 'horseness', theologians have seen power being weilded and have concluded that there must be omnipotence. Both rest on a confusion.

Reason is a powerful tool. But we should see to it that it does not blind us from the obvious.

'Power' can be explained by giving examples of things that have power. But there are no examples of things that are omnipotent, except of course God. This might work if it weren't necessary to define God by his omnipotence. Seeing as though it is, we are trapped in a vicious circle.

I was told by a Christian that arguing about the attributes of God (what God can and can't do), is like blind men arguing about the colour of the sunset. Leaving aside the literary merit of this analogy, I think her point was that we should either have faith, or leave it all alone. It is not the place of science or logic to define what God can do and what He can't do. Faith must be blind. And where there is faith, there can be no philosophy.

Will Greenwood

I don't believe that this question shows that omnipotence is an incoherent concept. Here's why. Omnipotence implies the power to do everything that it is logically possible to do. It is not a threat to God's omnipotence that He cannot make a perfectly round triangle, or a surface that is red and green all over.

The condition, 'x can lift a stone that is too heavy for x to lift' is one that cannot logically be satisfied, whatever one substitutes for x. In particular, the condition cannot logically be satisfied even x is God. Therefore it is no limit to God's omnipotence that He cannot lift a stone that is too heavy for Him to lift.

But can God make a stone that He cannot lift? The two conditions (a) No stone is too heavy for x to lift, and (b) x can make a stone that x cannot lift, cannot both logically be satisfied, whatever one substitutes for x. So, by the same reasoning as before, the two conditions cannot logically be satisfied, even if x is an omnipotent God.

Geoffrey Klempner

Carlos asked:

I have a question concerning Hume's philosophical account of causes and effects. He says that causes and effects are based on experience, but what would Hume say about Nostradamus' vision of the future when he predicted the symbol of the Nazi party? Nostradamus never experienced that, did he?

What you really are asking is whether there can be knowledge of the future which is not grounded on observation and memory. If Nostradamus genuinely foresaw events that were to happen in the future — that is to say, if he possessed the power of clairvoyance — what we are saying is that his state of belief was caused directly by something happening in the future, rather than by events preceding the formation of that state of belief. In other words, for his state of belief to be anything other than a lucky guess, a cause would have to occur after its effect.

You don't have to go along with Hume's analysis of causation, or his account of belief, in order to find the concept of 'clairvoyance' problematic, on the grounds that we simply cannot understand what it would mean for a cause to occur after its effect. Suppose I discovered that whenever I say 'Humpty Dumpty' three times as the postman is walking up the road towards my house, I receive a letter containing a five pound note. But when I fail to say 'Humpty Dumpty' no such letter arrives. Then it looks as though, by some mysterious process, saying 'Humpty Dumpty' three times brings it about that yesterday someone put five pounds in an envelope and posted it to me. Isn't that weird? How could that possibly happen?

One answer would be, 'We just don't know how a cause can occur after it's effect, but still we can — for example, in the Humpty Dumpty case — know that it does.' I am very unhappy with that answer.

Your example could be disputed. It seems to me more than likely that the Nazi who first decided to reverse the Christian symbol of the swastika to use it as an emblem of the National Socialists had read Nostradamus' prediction. However, that is not the point. The point is that we seem to understand the idea of a capacity to see the future. The question, which I leave open for discussion, is whether any sense at all can be made of that idea.

Geoffrey Klempner

Mark asked:

How might it be the case that we could not ask a question, the answer to which could not be known? And, what kind of question is the above?

Can you suggest any pertinent reading material that might help me with it?

The question you are asking is a question of metaphysics, which concerns our understanding of the concept of truth. If a question can be asked, one of the things which follows from that is that we can grasp what it would mean for that question to have an answer. Of course, not all questions which have answers, are questions we can answer. For example, most people would agree that the question how many times I clicked the mouse today has an answer, but if I am not running a program on my computer which counts mouse clicks, then barring total recall there is no way I can discover what that answer is. I can ask the question, but I cannot answer it.

But now consider the question, Has there ever been, in the history of the universe, a period of time during which absolutely nothing happened? In other words, can there be such a thing as an empty time? If you allow that there might, sometimes, occur periods of empty time, then it follows that it is logically possible that in between each key tap as I write these words, the universe stops still for a million years. There is a case for saying that because we cannot conceive of what it would be to 'know' that an empty time has ever occurred, that is one question we cannot even ask.

There is an interesting discussion of this question in Richard Swinburne's book Space and Time. Swinburne devises a clever thought experiment which shows how we could, indirectly, have evidence for an empty time. Suppose the universe is divided into three regions, A, B and C. All processes in region A stop for one year out of every two years. All processes in region B stop for one year out of every three years. And all processes in region C stop for one year out of every four years. Then a quick calculation shows that the three periods of total inactivity will coincide every twelfth year.

The only problem is that Swinburne's example cheats, in assuming that the periods during which all processes in the universe come to a stop are predictable. It does not help to explain how it could happen that all processes in the universe stopped unpredictably, as in the case of a million years passing in between each key tap.

Geoffrey Klempner

Hiromi asked:

Could you explain how Bentham and Mill differ with respect to comparing pleasures?

Bentham and Mill agree that pleasure alone is valuable, as only that which is experienced directly can be of value.

Bentham is described as an "ethical hedonist" because he claims pleasure is what we ought to pursue, and a "psychological hedonist" because pleasure is the only thing we can pursue. In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation Bentham lists pleasures as those of the sense, wealth, skill, amity, good name, piety, memory, imagination etc. Such pleasures are supposedly available to all men, for which reason Bentham is described as more egalitarian than Mill.

Mill's view is that man has a greater choice of pleasures, and he distinguished between higher and lower pleasures. Mill thought some kinds of pleasure (the higher ones) were more desirable than others and that man is capable of coming to desire more rational and imaginative pleasures than those on Bentham's list such as intoxication and sex which are pleasures of the senses. For Bentham imaginative pleasure was merely memory of past pleasure and thoughts of future pleasure. This was not Mill's idea of imaginative pleasure at all — poetry (which Bentham disliked) is an example of a higher pleasure of the imagination. Mill thought that fostering the capacity for higher pleasures would increase the mental well-being of mankind.

Rachel Browne

Gabriel asked:

I have a friend who is a Hindu. Recently, we were discussing on the topic of religion. In short, the question is this:

In Christianity, we believe in only one way. In Hinduism, they believe in all ways which is essentially one, appearing in different forms. If someone says that there is only one way and the other says that there are many ways, under any circumstance, can we be correct at the same time?

No, I cannot think of a circumstance in which you can both be correct at the same time. Your Hindu friend can be correct. She can think that exclusivism is just another form of salvation that suits some dispositions. But if the Christian holds to one way (and not all Christians do), other ways must be inferior and in some sense wrong. My own view is that each religion (and denomination) has something to learn from others. What Hinduism has to teach other religions is tolerance.

Mari asked:

Why is it wrong to think that the Categorical Imperative is a version of the Golden Rule?

I hope you haven't been led astray by my reply to Hiromi in which I said the categorical imperative is often formulated as "Do unto others..". If so, I apologize. Even if the categorical imperative is so formulated, it cannot be abstracted from Kant's complete theory, so the Golden Rule can't be compared with the categorical imperative. The simple principle "Treat others as you would have them treat you" doesn't mention motive. It might be in your own interests to treat others so and therefore it's a matter of prudence, or if it rests upon the principle of "Love your neighbour" it requires the sort of subjective commitment which Kant rejects. To act in accordance with the categorical imperative is to act with a good will which is to recognise a moral duty as good in itself.

"Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law" is an objective principle based upon what a rational person would do. For Kant, the will is a rational faculty that can overcome inclinations and feelings, including sympathy. Sympathy for others, or an inclination to do the right thing can fail us, especially in times of pressure. So we ought to obey the categorical imperative for its own sake in virtue of our ability to act rationally and do our duty whatever our inclinations. Natural sympathy does not have the moral value of performing duties for their own sake. Moral feelings, such as love and sympathy depend upon the emotional character of a person and cannot be commanded. The duty expressed in the categorical imperative can be commanded since it applies universally for all rational agents.

The Golden Rule makes no appeal to rationality or universality and cannot establish itself as a law. Even if it were the case that everyone was simply obedient to such a rule, it still admits of actions that Kant would regard as immoral. Sometimes a lie can be an act of kindness to save others' anxiety and many would like to be so treated and think it right to treat others so. For Kant, acting for the sake of duty rules out the desire to obtain particular results such as saving someone from anxiety. It is a duty never to lie as we cannot will that this should be law.

The categorical imperative has its origin in the will, which is rational and, as such, able to make universally valid law. The individual's will is subordinate to this law. A rule that does not have its origin in the will is a hypothetical imperative: "I ought to obey the Golden Rule because it says so in the Bible, and I want to perform my Christian duty". This doesn't impose an unconditional obligation.

Rachel Browne

Nancy asked:

I am in an introductory course of philosophy and am having a very hard time understanding the process of philosophy. I was always under the impression that philosophy was simply asking questions and discussing different ideas in response to the questions, with the sole intention being to learn other people's ideas and thoughts, without having to prove or disprove anything.

Now I'm finding that philosophy can only be considered a process if an argument is stated and the premises and conclusion torn apart and examined in fine detail, as if the professor has the right answer and the students must accept that answer. Is it true that there is a right or wrong answer to philosophical questions or is there never going to be a known and accepted truth? I'm not trying to be snide, I am truly confused about what philosophy and the philosophical process really are.

Philosophy is about learning to see things differently. It is also about arguments. As a student of philosophy, you are learning to expand and increase your powers of vision — your philosophical imagination — as well as developing your logical and argumentative skills.

It is perhaps true that there will never be a definitive answer to any of the perennial questions of philosophy. However, when looking at a particular example of argument, it is sometimes — not always! — possible to be a lot more certain. This is often the frustrating thing for a student. Your professor thinks that some argument is wrong, but the error might not at first be obvious, and maybe you don't see it. What then? Do you say, 'Everyone is entitled to their own view, I'm keeping to mine?'

One of the things I tell my students is, be prepared to consider the possibility that you might be wrong. I apply this rule to myself as well. Some times I find that I have been mistaken, even about things I thought I was certain about. You could be mistaken too, about whether the argument you were looking at is good or not. Some arguments are just bad arguments, and this could be one of them.

Geoffrey Klempner

Your teacher has given you an impression of philosophy as "tearing apart" and "examination in fine detail" of various parts of propositions. Your teacher obviously has considerable analytical prowess, but unfortunately the exercise of this talent is not the same as doing philosophy and you have been given a bad or wrong impression. The object of philosophy is the truth of what is and the process is what is called thinking. The truth of what is cannot be confronted head on because that assumes that the truth of what is is a 'thing', and if it is a thing it is one thing among others — but these are the kinds of things philosophy wants to examine in the first place — and so the truth is allowed to emerge, obliquely, from dialogue. Dialogue is one process, which although found in written from, most notably in Plato, is essentially oral. Even Aristotle's philosophy is originally oral. It is not simply to be found in propositions in his books. The notion that all philosophy is just footnotes to Plato (Whitehead) shows the truth of another process: that philosophy is the exegesis of a few essential texts. Exegesis is the vehicle of truth, in this case. Much of the history of philosophy is about exegesis.

Philosophy is not about knowing the truth, but as the word philosophia suggests, being on the way to it. "We learn to think by giving our mind to what there is to think about" Heidegger says. Philosophers think about that which is most thought-provoking. But the question then is, what is most thought-provoking? The thought-provoking comes first: it appeals to us to think about it, to turn in its direction.

Hegel said that "Truth consists in knowledge" and therefore an individual only knows the truth as a function of reflection, that is, of thought. There are basic human questions about the nature of ourselves and the world which are what appeal to us to think, and what philosophy seeks to know, in order to know the truth. What is truth? is one of the basic questions. That these questions have never been answered means that they have a transcendent quality, something which in itself is thought-worthy, both in terms of ourselves and our world. What kind of persons are we that these questions are ever before us? What kind of world is it that gives rise to such questions without answer? At the same time, our philosophy — our yearning after truth — draws humanity on and redefines our place in the world as well as our perception of it.

Jaspers gives a succinct definition of philosophy and its process: "Philosophy is the principle of concentration through which man becomes himself, by partaking of reality." Analysis of propositions has its place in this process but philosophy is in no way reducible to it.

Mark asked:

I read a book (Carl Wellman Morals and Ethics Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Prentice Hall, 1988) and I do not understand why "one cannot be obliged or constrained by one's own will". I have quoted the following passage:

Every law creates a duty, but only relative duties have correlative rights. A duty is relative when it is a duty to some assignable or identifiable person or persons; it is then a duty relative to one or more particular persons to whom performance is due. This definition fits passive rights admirably. "The creditor has a right to repayment" simply means that the debtor has a duty to the creditor to repay the loan. Not every duty is a relative duty, a duty to some right-holder. One also has absolute duties, such as the duties to pay one's taxes or to refrain from suicide. The former is not a relative duty because it is due to the public at large and not to any assignable individual or individuals; the latter is not a relative duty because one cannot be obliged or constrained by one's own will.

I think it means that, if the duty to refrain from suicide is a relative duty, It implies that you can claim this against yourself. But to demand something from yourself is simply to will to do that thing. But to will is different from to oblige for it allows you to make choice. Is that right? But what is it that, when you will yourself to do something, you allow yourself to make choice?

I am confused and think I get it all wrong. I am really at a loss. Could you help me please?

Suppose Tom, Dick, Jane and Sue club together to make me a loan. Then the money that I owe, I owe to Tom, to Dick, to Jane and to Sue. These are the individuals to whom the right to repayment of the loan is 'assigned'. Would it be so absurd to say that I owe my taxes to each and every individual person living in the UK? Tom, Dick, Jane and Sue each contributed a specific amount to the pot, and so I owe each of them that amount. But there is no specific proportion of my taxes that I 'owe' my next door neighbour, for example.

It is quite hard at first to see how the principle established here, the difference between relative and absolute duties, transfers to the case of the supposed duty to refrain from suicide. But consider a different case. A doctor discovers a treatment for a previously incurable disease. However, this treatment is potentially so hazardous, that she believes it would be wrong for her to test it on another person, even with their informed consent. So the doctor tests the drug on herself.

It seems to me that the idea that a duty to oneself is 'absolute' whereas a duty to another person is 'relative' could be used to explain the intuition that there is a significant difference between testing a dangerous drug on another person, even with their full, informed consent, and testing that same drug on oneself. The danger may be such that I have no right to ask another person to take that high risk. But I don't have to 'ask' myself. It's entirely up to me.

Geoffrey Klempner

Sam asked:

I have a BA in Philosophy and my question is, How do I accept the belief of God existing if I don't have the ability to know anything. I can only know what I see from my eyes and there is even no proof that this reality is really existing or just a part of my mind. This reality could just be a dream that seems real to us but is just an illusion. How and why am I here existing on this planet if it really is a planet? Why was I brought into this world with no answers? Did God create me and he knows all the answers? is it that simple? What is your take on this?

This question is primarily concerning solipsism, derived mainly from Descartes. The assumption that drives such scepticism is that to know a proposition it must be immune from doubt, or indubitable. Subjective appearances seem to satisfy this criteria, i.e. 'this appears to me to be such and such'. But the sceptic denies that we can move from this to propositions about mind-independent things, i.e.'This is such and such'. I could be dreaming. We have no reason to believe that there is a world at all. The hypothesis that the world is an invention of my mind explains the facts just as well as the hypothesis that the world exists as it appears to.

An initial response might be to try to diffuse the argument completely, before it even starts. We might say, following Heidegger, that the 'scandal of philosophy' is not, as Kant had said, that there has never been a proof of the external world, but rather that such proofs are attempted again and again. Heidegger's view was that the question itself arises from a confused metaphysic, that sees man as something separate and distinct from the physical world. A correct understanding of man as dasein (literally translated as 'there-being') would undermine the thinking behind the question. This approach has much going for it, but it would be more attractive to defeat the sceptic directly; to solve rather than bury the problem.

Much is made of the dreaming argument, that we can never tell whether what we think is the world is a dream or not. But good arguments have been given to show that we do have very good reasons for supposing that we are not now asleep, or at least to show that it is not true to say 'I am now asleep'.

If I ask myself the question 'Am I awake?' I will answer affirmatively. A sceptic might respond that I have to prove this, and challenge me to point to something that would count as proof. But this ignores the fact that I can only be challenged if I am awake, otherwise I will have only dreamt that I was challenged. As Wittgenstein says (On Certainty para. 383) 'The argument "I may be dreaming" is senseless.. if I am dreaming, this remark is being dreamed as well — and indeed it is being dreamed that these words have any meaning.' If the world is a dream then so is this argument, and so is my belief that the words in it mean anything at all. And It makes no sense to doubt whether we understand our language: a claim like 'I cannot know what these words mean' can never be true.

Arguments such as these try to make the solipsism advocated in the question incoherent. And this shouldn't be too difficult. Apparently Bertrand Russell received a letter from a man who said that he was a solipsist, and couldn't understand why everyone else wasn't as well. This may not be true, but it is true that philosophers argue about the question, presumably someone arguing the case for the non-existence of the world. This situation clearly is absurd, and it seems right that Heidegger should call it a scandal.

As Wittgenstein remarked, should someone stumble upon a group of philosophers arguing this question, we should have to assure them that they were philosophers and not insane. But perhaps we shouldn't be so lenient.

(N.B. The question, 'Why was I brought into the world with no answers?' is no more troubling than the question, 'Why was I brought into the world with no wings?' We'd all like answers, but then again, most of us would like to have wings more.)

Will Greenwood

Thi asked:

What does it mean to have "existential doubts"?

Existentialists do not have 'doubts'. They suffer from psychologically more interesting conditions like anxiety, vertigo, nausea.

Unlike these other, philosophically more subversive concepts, existential doubt does not disclose anything about the nature of ultimate reality, or the ground of our being, or lack of it. Existential doubt is an ubiquitous, cliché-ridden theme of popular culture. Like the bored executive on the thirty-third floor who wakes up one day to the realization that he 'could have been more'. Or the teenager sitting up all night staring at their fish tank. Or...well, I won't bore you.

It is a tragedy when someone who's life is perfectly all right, who has no reason to succumb to existential doubts, falls victim to the gnawing worry, 'Why am I doing this? What's the point of it all?' When a person whom we think really ought to feel doubts about their life doesn't, it is a comedy.

Existential doubt is just one particular example of the dialectic of scepticism, doubt and certainty. The point has often been made in discussions of the problem of philosophical scepticism that progress in human knowledge depends upon our willingness to doubt and question, to explore alternatives, to demand justifications. There are also times where doubt is merely pathological. The same pair of alternatives applies to the case of so-called existential doubt.

Geoffrey Klempner

Perps asked:

What is true happiness? Can it be attained?

A story might illustrate the answer to this question. It is from the Memoirs of Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda (1904-73). He is flying Air India in the late fifties with friend Jorge and Zelia Amado:

The Indian planes were always crammed with turbaned passengers, covered with colours and loaded with baskets. It seemed impossible to squeeze so many people into an airplane. A crowd got off at the first airport and another got on to take their place. We had to go on beyond Madras to Calcutta. The plane shuddered under the tropical storms. A day like night, darker than true night, suddenly covered us, and then left to make room for a glaring sky. The plane began staggering again; lightning and thunder illuminated the sudden darkness. I watched Jorge Amado's face go from white to yellow and from yellow to green. And he saw the same mutation of colour produced in my own face by the terror that gripped our throats. It started to rain inside the plane. The water came in in heavy drops that reminded me of my house in Temuco during winter. But ten thousand meters up the leaks did not amuse me. The amusing thing though, was a Buddhist monk sitting beside us. He opened an umbrella and with Oriental serenity went on reading the texts of ancient wisdom.
(p.231 Penguin edn.).

Steve asked:

The Meaning of simple things:

People ask, 'What is the meaning of life?' but can philosophers answer something as simple as, 'What is the meaning of a spoon?'

Philosophers are not interested in "The Meaning of Life", but they are interested in the meaning of life, and no less the spoon.

"Spoon" might have a functional meaning: A utensil which has the function of enabling us to take liquids (and cereal!) from a bowl instead of having to sip, as with a cup. Spoons do have other uses and you may use your spoon to heat up heroin. However, this can be understood as a secondary function, and need not negate is socially determined function as an eating utensil.

If the meaning of a spoon is determined by its social function, then what a spoon is is culturally relative. Imagine that mankind is wiped out in a freak dry-cleaning accident and Martians move in. They find the spoons and use them to pick worms out of the lawn (the Martians eat with their fingers). They may, but are unlikely to, use the word "spoon", but it will have a different function and be a different sort of thing.

On the hand, a spoon could be a class of things made of silver, stainless steel or wood, of a certain shape. When we use the word "spoon" we refer to the class of things under this description, but what we mean by it — its sense — is something we use to eat with or serve with or heat up heroin with. Even if you don't use a spoon in these normal senses, and just use it for worms, you can still use the common notion of a spoon so long as you refer to the silver thing. Its just that you don't fully understand what a spoon is for.

Given your interest in this, an excellent summary of theories of meaning is given by A.C. Grayling in Introduction to Philosophical Logic.

Rachel Browne

Dian asked:

What is friendship? What is love? Does God exist?

There is a foundational discussion of friendship in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. In Symposium Plato presents the nature of love through the speeches of his interlocutors, especially Aristophanes' speech on one's 'seeking one's other half' and Diotima's speech at the end about Porus and Penia. Love is not just eros, but agape, philos and storge as well — see C. S Lewis' The Four Loves for an overview and Pavel Florovsky, The Pillar and Ground of Truth for a philosophical account.

Does God exist? Not like a existent among existents. The traditional theological account definitive for orthodox thinking on this question is in The Divine Names by Pseudo-Dionysius (in print in the Classics of Western Spirituality series by Paulist Press). One of the most famous accounts of this question is that of Thomas Aquinas; see the Oxford World Classics edition of Aquinas's Selected Philosophical Writings, passage 20. Anselm's so-called ontological argument for the existence of God, to be found in his Proslogion has been criticised by all major philosophers from Descartes onward. All these critiques of Anselm can be found in the Introduction to the Open Court Classics edition of Anselm's Basic Writings.

Joanna asked:

Does the Socrates of Plato's early dialogues have a distinct method of philosophising? Does he establish any positive philosophical conclusion?

What is most notable about the characters forced to submit to Socrates relentless questioning in Plato's early dialogues is their lack of doubt. Such as the General in Laches who wants his son to acquire 'courage', who has never questioned what courage is, or the young man in Euthyphro convinced that it is 'piety' that demands he prosecute his own father for the murder of a servant.

The early dialogues all follow the same basic formula. Various attempts are made to define the moral concept in question, but none is deemed satisfactory, and the participants go away disappointed.

I used to go along with the idea that Socrates' aim in these dialogues is not to arrive at a definition of courage, or piety, or temperance, or virtue that covers all possible cases, every example that we can think of, but rather to appreciate the need for constant re-examination of our moral beliefs, and our ideas about what constitutes a human 'virtue'. Somehow, that no longer seems to ring true.

Looking at the dialogues now, it seems to me more likely that Socrates — the historical Socrates whose practice we must assume is more or less faithfully recorded in Plato's early dialogues — really did think that definitions of the virtues could, in principle, be found. But these would not be definitions that you would find in any dictionary, taking up just one or two lines, like 'Courage is standing fast and not running away in the face of the enemy'. Socrates, who was convinced that human beings were capable of moral knowledge, that philosophical inquiry could reveal the basis of this knowledge, tried and, to his disappointment, failed.

I therefore do not accept the popular view that Socrates was merely being ironic in claiming that he 'knew nothing'. To be sure, it may have been only very rarely that a respondent ambushed him with a new idea, or a definition he had not already thought of and rejected. But he really did think that there was something out there to be known, and that one day might be known. — And, for what it's worth, so do I.

Geoffrey Klempner

Joanna also asked:

What is anti-realism?

Sometimes, we ask questions when we are confident that we can find the answer. Sometimes, it's hit or miss whether we will stumble across an answer or not. And sometimes — and not nearly as infrequently as you might think — we have cast iron reasons for thinking that the answer to our question will never be found.

If you want to construct a simple machine for generating questions that can never be answered, simply put a coin in a sealed box, shake the box and wait for the coin to land, then shake it again. 'Was the result of the first shake heads or tails?' is just such a question.

An anti-realist response to this experiment would be to cast doubt on our confidence that we know what it means to say that the question, 'Was the result of the first shake heads or tails?' has a determinate answer.

Anti-realism is nothing like classical idealism. It is not the view that when we talk about 'material things' we are really talking about ideas in some mind. Berkeley's idealism is thoroughly realist in its assumption that every 'material object' in the universe, whether perceived by finite beings or not, exists eternally in the mind of God.

As the experiment with the coin shows, it is statements about the past which most clearly illustrate the challenge of anti-realist view, to explain, in the words of the metaphysical poet John Donne, 'Where all past Yeares are.' The realization that memory gives only limited access to the past leads to the metaphysical anxiety that maybe there is nothing really there, that what we term 'the past' only as a concept, a name we give to statements based on memory or on inference from evidential traces that past events leave behind. In the absence of a Recording Angel, there are no immutable past 'facts'. When the answer to a question about the past cannot be found, there is no answer there in reality.

This kind of anti-realism is pretty hard to defeat. There is extensive material on this question in the writings of Michael Dummett (see, for example 'The Reality of the Past' in his collection of papers Truth and other Enigmas Duckworth 1978) and Crispin Wright (see, for example, his book Truth and Objectivity Harvard 1992).

In my view, these philosophers are barking up the wrong tree in trying to tie the dispute between realism and anti-realism to the philosophy of language, and the question, 'What would be the correct form of a theory of meaning?' Or at least so I argued in my doctoral thesis, and still believe. But that is another story.

Geoffrey Klempner

Joanna also asked:

Is it possible that Eliminative Materialism may turn out to be correct?

Eliminative materialists believe that in a theoretically adequate description of the 'mental life' of a human being, it would not be necessary to make reference to such things as thoughts, feelings, sensations. These items would be eliminated in favour of a description of the physical processes going on in a person's body and brain when they utter sounds which we would interpret as a statement such as, 'I am thinking of Paris', or 'I have a pain in my elbow.' The thought about Paris, the elbow pain, do not exist. We merely talk about such things under the erroneous belief that they do exist, the way people talk about witches and UFO's.

Some will find that a totally incredible theory. The same criticism has been applied to it as was once levelled at behaviourism, that it is only possible to believe it by 'feigning anesthesia'.

How could such a theory conceivably be correct? How could it turn out that we were wrong in thinking that our thoughts, feelings and sensations are real?

Joan asked:

This is about ethics. Could you please explain to me the non-consequentialist theory of morality? Thank you.

There is not just one non-consequentialist theory of morality but many. A consequentialist theory holds that the moral value of an action is determined by its results. The main example is utilitarianism.

The theories of Aristotle and Kant are non-consequentialist since for both philosophers moral value lies in the condition of the agent. For Aristotle ethical value lies in the well-being of the moral agent, a condition called "eudaimonia". To be in this condition is to possess certain virtues, such as courage and truthfulness, and to be able to act without deficiency or excess, which is to exercise self-control. Aristotle does not state any general principles for action, such as "love they neighbour", but claims that a virtuous action must be voluntary, performed with pleasure and done for its own sake by a person of stable character (intellectual wisdom should regulate emotions and desires). As far as a particular situation is concerned, such a person needs to look at possible consequences, but the moral value depends upon character and the way in which the action is performed.

Kant holds that a moral action is done from duty rather than inclination. To act according to duty is to act in accordance with the categorical imperative which states that you should only act on a principle which you can at the same will as universal law. Since we cannot will that all persons should make false promises, a false promise is ruled out as immoral whatever the consequences. Kant specifically states that "the moral worth of an action does not depend on the result expected from it". The condition of the subject is also essential to a moral action. A rational subject who is able to act without regard for his own interests and inclinations is the moral man. Kant calls such a man "holy" since he has "good will" in as much as his inclinations do not conflict with what he knows he ought to do. The ordinary man, who is not holy, might think there are cases when making a false promise is the right thing do. He might formulate a principle with references to circumstances, such that to kill the mass murderer will save ten persons. Kant would think that this is immoral since it is to use the man who is a mass murderer as a means to the end of saving others, and it is not treat him with the respect he is due as a human being.

In Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception, Raimond Gaita puts forward a positively anti-consequentialist account of what it is to be moral. This again focuses on the moral agent, in particular his moral understanding. The claim is that a consequentialist does not have any understanding of good and evil. Such understanding requires moral seriousness, which can be seen in pity and remorse. Concern should not just be over what we have done when we do wrong, but the fact that we did it. Gaita claims this to be a reading of Socrates' claim in Plato's Gorgias that it is better to suffer evil than to do it, because the evil-doer is miserable and pitiable.

Rachel Browne

Danny asked:

We are studying Descartes in my philosophy class, and we are constantly being troubled by the infamous statement, 'I think, therefore I am.' We argue as to whether or not the argument is SOUND, and have yet to truly decide what the answer is... What are your thoughts on this?

There two questions to ask here, which often get confused. The first question is, 'Does Descartes' appeal to the indubitable presence of mental acts prove anything at all?' The second question is, 'Does Descartes' appeal to the indubitable presence of mental acts prove what he thinks it proves?'

The second question is relatively easy to answer. Descartes thought that what he had proved was the existence of his 'I' as an immaterial substance with a past, present and potentially a future, the continuing subject of mental predicates, the non-physical agent responsible for the mental acts of thinking, feeling, desiring, perceiving. Kant decisively refuted this claim with a thought experiment about a line of colliding billiard balls. Imagine that there is not one 'I', but a series of 'I's each lasting only a short period of time, each communicating its total state to the next. In other words, there is no logical basis for counting mental substances, as defined by Descartes. 'I think' proves only that something thinks now. Or perhaps, as some would claim, only that there is a thinking happening now.

Many more readers of Descartes would give a positive answer to the first question, whether his appeal to the indubitable presence of mental acts and events proves anything at all.

Hiromi asked:

Why is Ivan Karamazov so upset considering his apparent belief in God?

Because God allows the innocent to suffer. Ivan tries (rather successfully Dostoyevsky's literary and philosophical posterity have thought) to take the moral high-ground on God. God may allow children to be tortured and butchered, but Ivan says No to it, and therefore to God.

Jack asked:

I am working on a viewpoint called "The Fairness of Uncertainty" which tries to make a case that one of God's attributes is fairness to humans of the past present and future. Within that framework I believe that it is more fair to humans that no proof of God's existence exists and no proof could exist because it would violate the "fairness principle."

Belief in God, Gods, spirit or whatever is best and fairest left to individual viewpoints and experiences.

Is there any philosophical thought along this line?

If God is to be fair He must be fair from beginning to end. Certain attributes of God's character impose certain conditions on how God can act. If fairness is one of these attributes then God should create a world where everyone has the same inclinations and experiences and motivations to find out if God exists. For it would be unfair to create a world where some people have experiences that lead them to believe in God while others have no such experiences or motivation. It would then be a matter of constitutive luck that certain persons have the experiences or inclinations to believe, and constitutive luck cannot, I think, be considered fair, especially if along with belief in God comes the belief that we gain insight into the proper moral way to behave. In this case it would be pure luck that some people were considered moral and this would be unfair since as Kant also thought morality should be open to every one, not just those with the inclination or means to carry out the requirements of morality.

Since God has not created such an equal world he is not fair. In fact such a condition could be ultimately self-defeating. For if God did create such a world then according to this line of thought this world would itself be proof of God's existence.

So we have a dilemma: If God is fair he would have created a world of where people share equal status, but if he created such a world this would lead to a proof that he exists and so violate your fairness of uncertainty principle. But if he does not create such a world then he cannot be considered fair.

Secondly, in terms of other typical theistic beliefs about God, if fairness is a attribute of God then we would have to rethink issues such as life after death, divine rewards and punishment, forgiveness and redemption. If God does exist, and decides it fairer that he does not provide any proof of his existence, then to be consistent He must not be able to punish non believers or reward the faithful. To do so would be unfair, since it is only a matter of luck that some believe and others do not. So there could be no haven or hell or else He would have to let everyone posses eternal life.

Brian Tee
Dept of Philosophy
University of Sheffield

Sedat asked:

What did the Chinese philosopher Lie Zi mean when he said "When there is a motive to be virtuous, there is no virtue"?

He meant that real virtue is dispassionate. Where there is a motive to virtue there is spiritual pride and vanity. Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18) says the same thing. The Greeks called this dispassion apatheia and the Latins humilitas. Benedict of Nursia (480-547) who founded Western monasticism speaks with wisdom and at some length on this matter in his Rule Ch. VII — the so-called twelve steps of humility on the ladder of virtue. Monastic obedience was one of the three vows which protected the monk from vainglory.

Mari asked:

Why does Kant think that we must think of ourselves as subject to the categorical imperative?

How does a utilitarian decide how to act?

Kant argues firstly that all men are subject to the categorical imperative as rational beings, and secondly that it has validity for all men in virtue of the freedom of the will.

The categorical imperative is a moral law which holds for all persons as an objective principle which is universally valid and unconditional. An objective law says what ought to happen regardless of subjective impulses and inclinations.

The law is unconditional insofar as it applies to every person as a rational being. It is derived from the general concept of a rational being so that moral obligation need not depend on the idea of a human being as a feeling creature, since as such we are liable to be corrupted. Kant claims that every person rationally believes that he ought to treat others as he would be treated himself. We know this is what we ought to do, so the imperative is categorical, representing a duty which we cannot rationally deny.

We are not just subject to this law, but make it ourselves. This is the second aspect of the categorical imperative. The law is universally valid because it represents the will of every person. This is because it is not based on any interest. We conceive of ourselves as having a free will with which to act, and in practical reasoning, the will has the ability to overcome subjective motives. This is so for every rational being. As we can overcome subjective motives, and we rationally recognise what we ought to do, we are able to will that this duty become universal law, valid for us and others.

It is not that we "must" think of ourselves as subject to the categorical imperative. We just are subject to it in that it is what we "ought" to do and "would" do if we acted with reason rather than inclination. For the truly good "holy man" there is no duty. The categorical imperative is an objective duty for all people who fail to act upon it.

On utilitarianism: It is the main drawback of utilitarianism that there is a practical difficulty in trying to assess amounts of happiness or welfare consequent upon an action. The intended consequences will not necessarily be the actual ones, and not all consequences are foreseeable. Whereas a number of outcomes of an action might be foreseen, the probabilities of each outcome can't. Even if it could, how many people understand probability theory? Rule utilitarianism supposedly answers this problem in that it considers the utility of a rule, such as "always repay your debts". However, this can conflict with act utilitarianism. It might not be act utilitarian to repay your debt to your uncle with three children when you have just discovered his drug/gambling habit. So at the level of actual practical reasoning, rule utilitarianism must be reduced to act utilitarianism with its unsolved problems.

The act utilitarian can only act as any other agent using practical reasoning. We never know what all the consequences of an action are, whether it is a moral action or not. But as a moral agent whose duty it is to maximize happiness or welfare, weight might properly be given not to the agent's own welfare but the welfare of others.

Rachel Browne

Hiromi asked:

What is the categorical imperative? Why, according to the categorical imperative, is it immoral to make a false promise?

The categorical imperative is stated as "Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law". This is an objective duty, valid for all rational beings, stating how they ought to act. It is contrasted with a hypothetical imperative which is conditional upon such things, as "if you want to look kind..." or "if you want to avoid reproach..." etc. It is a formal principle and doesn't prescribe any particular actions. It is often formulated along the lines of "Treat others as they would treat you" and has application to any particular action with regard to others, as well as to the self. Suicide is immoral because we cannot will that suicide become a universal law.

We cannot will as a universal law that promises should be broken because we cannot lie and at the same time will that everyone makes deceitful promises, as it is a contradiction. If all promises were deceitful, we could not even promise. Otherwise put, we would not have others break their promises to us. To break a promise is to act upon a hypothetical imperative: "If I want to extricate myself from my present difficulties then...". Kant suggests that a "greater inconvenience" may come from breaking a promise on this basis because we cannot see the consequences, so it is not even prudent. But lying or promise breaking is not wrong just because the consequences could lead to greater evil. It is categorically prohibited, or against the moral law as stated by the categorical imperative. One should not ask oneself what advantage a false promise would bring to oneself. One should ask "is it right" or "could I will that anyone can make a false promise if it is to his personal advantage?"

The moral law also prescribes that we treat all human beings similarly "as an end": When we act upon a hypothetical imperative we might use a person as a means to an end, and an example is making a false promise. To use someone for one's own purposes is to use him as a means and this, too, violates the categorical imperative. We cannot will that it is a universal law that everyone should use another person as a means to an end, or for one's personal advantage.

Rachel Browne

Gregory asked:

If God is the creator of all things then he created Satan. He created him with the capacity to do evil, therefore God must know evil, indeed he must be its creator. God created both good and evil, to give us choice between the two. We do not however need to be subjected to so much evil to achieve this choice, to understand the difference. God therefore stands guilty of being the creator of evil and suffering on a huge scale because he put no limit on the evil and suffering of the human race and our fellow creatures. Much of this suffering and evil is aimed at the weak and impoverished, there is no justification for this amount of unreconcilable evil.

Therefore God cannot be wholly good, all loving, he is not even concerned in keeping suffering to a minimum. Conclusion: God is to be held responsible for evil from the beginning of creation, or God is not totally good as we are asked to believe. It leads one to ask is there a God at all.

The first thing to say is that God has set a limit to the amount of evil and suffering we can endure namely death. There is only so much suffering we can experience without either passing out or dying. If God did allow us to suffer forever clearly he could not be considered wholly good, but since He does not allow such continued suffering the evil that does exist may be justified.

This may sound crazy for one may consider death itself an evil, but this view does have its defenders, most notable Richard Swinburne (see his The Existence of God.)

There are various ways of trying to justify the evil that does exist, Swinburne argues that God allows the amount of evil He does of the greater good that results from it. This greater good is conceived in terms of human's ability to become better moral agents in the face of evil, for if there were no evil or suffering, so the argument goes, we would not have the opportunities for making free choices, to act virtuously, or to take responsibility for our actions. Essentially evil is necessary in order to be moral.

The question is then, does the greater good "adsorb" the evil that exists or does the amount of evil outweigh any good consequences that follow from God allowing evil? Even the answer is that evil cannot be justified it does not follow from this alone that God does not exist rather the most we can conclude is the more qualified assertion that no omnipotent, wholly good being exists. For if God is either not wholly good or not omnipotent then we have an explanation for evil: either God wants evil in the world, or He cannot get rid of it. This of course leads to a big mess of blues for theists.

Brian Tee
Dept of Philosophy
University of Sheffield

Francis asked:

What would be the relevance of Martin Heidegger's notion of the Question Concerning Technology to Oswald Jünger's idea of Technology?

I take it you mean Ernst Jünger not Oswald. Jünger had published a treatise in 1932 entitled The Worker. This was a follow on from his 1930 publication Total Mobilization. These were typically politically correct works in a Germany veering toward Nazism. Heidegger, not a philosopher renowned for his political smartness, read Jünger against the background of his massive and historic interpretation of Nietzsche. Jünger was a man of his time, while Heidegger was (in a phrase of Nietzsche) an untimely philosopher. Heidegger's explanations tend to be more brilliant than that which he is explaining. This is true of Nietzsche and is even truer of Jünger, who has no legacy as a thinker that I am aware of, except by courtesy of Heidegger. Heidegger was only on a par with great thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel.

Heidegger's idea of technology issues from his Seinsfrage (question of Being). 'Being' here is a question of being-as-such and as a whole. Not this or that being but the being of beings, their 'is-ness'. The question of technology is a question of the 'destiny of Being'. For Heidegger, the rise of technology (whence the question) means that man as a collective entity is behaving in a mimetic fashion. Man is imitating Being itself. What is essential to Being-as-such and as a whole is its quality of pervasiveness and overpoweringness. Everything partakes of Being. Not just every entity but every idea 'is'. Everything imaginable is in some way or other. Being overpowers beings. Technology is a mimesis of this, for it is man's attempt to overpower all beings. Technology is the name under which this usurpation of Being by beings is attempted. Heidegger's so-called 'pessimism' stems from the understanding that this overpowering of the Being of beings by man can never succeed. It is a deluded but grandiose attempt that must fall flat on its face in the end because man has not understood the Seinsfrage to begin with; essentially, the question of himself. Such understanding is the job of philosophy alone and above all. Unfortunately, technology as a will to power has cut itself off from philosophy.

Heidegger speculates that because technology (reduced to the essence of what it really is) does not will Being-as-such and as a whole, but wills to usurp Being with its own commanding power, it is nihilistic. Not to will Being is to will nothing. Technology reveals the nihilism of modern man and culture. Heidegger thought Jünger a kindred spirit with regard to this kind of thinking of Being and time.

Heidegger is probably wrong (which philosopher isn't?) but those pages on the Rhine in his essay on technology are fabulous. Trying to explain the meaning of Heidegger is like trying to explain the meaning of a poem, the explanation always says much less than is shown by the original.

Mari asked:

Could you explain one version of the cosmological argument and one possible objection to it?

One version of the Cosmological argument (based on Leibniz's version) starts from the contingent fact that the world exists. After all the world did not have to exist, there could easily have been nothingness instead of the something that we experience today. So we can ask why there .is something rather than nothing.

To begin the argument we need to see that whatever does exist in the world depends on something else — the reason why X exists is dependent on the existence of Y. But this itself is contingent Y did not have to exist, and so Y is dependent on something else Z. So the world as a whole set of thing (X, Y, Z) only exists contingently and so may not have existed.

The reason why the world exists then must be due to something outside the contingencies of the world, a thing that contains its own reason for existing i.e. a necessary reason. Such a necessary reason is taken to be God.

The major objection to such an argument is to do with the idea of a necessary being. Is the idea of necessary existing being coherent or even plausible? and if so why should God be such a being? Hume for example thought that matter was just as likely a candidate for existing necessarily.

Kant claimed that the cosmological argument rested upon the Ontological proof and since he thought that the ontological tails so too does the cosmological argument. Another problem is how does idea of a necessary being help us answer the question why there is something rather than nothing. God may be the reason for his own existence, but he could still have chosen not to create the universe. So we need more premises about the nature of God (that He would want to create the world, that He is able to create the world for example). Something the cosmological argument on its own does not provide.

Brian Tee
Dept of Philosophy
University of Sheffield

St. Thomas Aquinas famously gave five ways to prove the existence of God, of which the first three are forms of the cosmological argument. It is however the third form, and variations on it that are nowadays known as the cosmological argument. It is also known as the argument from contingency.