Rapoz asked:

What is objective idealism? (I understand that it is related to the world view of Plato.) What arguments are there in favour of this position and what arguments are against it?

Short overview:

Idealism, in terms of metaphysics, is the philosophical view that the mind or spirit constitutes the fundamental reality. It has taken several distinct but related forms. Among them are Objective and Subjective idealism. Objective idealism accepts common sense Realism (the view that material objects exist) but rejects Naturalism (according to which the mind and spiritual values have emerged from material things), whereas subjective idealism denies that material objects exist independently of human perception and thus stands opposed to both realism and naturalism.

Detailed elaboration:

As we experience ourselves as subjects (mind, consciousness) and objects (body, matter), it is no wonder that questions like 'How are mind and matter related?', 'Which is primary, consciousness or matter?', 'Which, mind or matter, is the source of the other?' are fundamental to all philosophy.

There are many philosophical positions trying to answer these questions. The spectrum of answers reaches from the extreme spiritual to the extreme material position and is usually divided into materialism and idealism.

Materialism holds to the primacy of matter, idealism to the primacy of consciousness.

Positions trying to avoid duality of matter and consciousness, are called monistic. They escape having to explain how mind and matter interact and therefore reduce one to another.

A justification of the idealist position is that that we only know for certain that our experience exists, while we never can be sure that matter exists. Hence, to explain mind by matter would be to explain the certain by the uncertain, which is a flawed form of explanation. This sounds quite clear, but how should we think of physical objects?

According to idealism a physical object is a cluster of properties such as color, size, weight, and texture, but there is no reason to think that those properties are caused by some non-mental stuff called matter. To treat an abstract concept as if it were something having physical reality is to reify that concept. Just because a noun "oddness" can be constructed from the adjective odd, doesn't mean that oddness really exists, there are only odd numbers. Likewise there is no good reason to think that matter exists. There are only objects with physical properties.

Plato can be said to be the earliest representative of metaphysical objective idealism. Dissenting from the view of Heraclitus that everything is in a state of flux and flow, he formulated, in the interest of ethics, his doctrine of eternal unchanging ideas. These ideas exist objectively in a supersensuous world and form the background and basis of the ever-changing phenomenal world. Reality is not inherent in the individual object, as, for instance, a horse or a tree, but in the general idea of horse or tree. The highest idea is the idea of the Good — a self-realizing end. According to Plato, transitory and imperfect matter does exist by participating in eternal and perfect ideas or "forms". Matter can be perceived by our senses, while the forms are recognized by our souls.

So Plato's worldview was dualistic, therefore not truly idealistic.

Modern idealism tries to escape this dualistic worldview. I will pick out two kinds of modern metaphysical idealism: subjective idealism and objective idealism.

Subjective idealism denies the existence of objective reality altogether, except perhaps as illusory, as for instance in the views of Berkeley. Objective idealism, such as the system of Schelling, recognizes the existence of objective worlds while regarding the ideal world as the primary production and paramount: the external world has a relative and temporary reality.

An example for subjective idealism is Berkeley's theistic idealism. Berkeley said that it is God who causes us to experience physical objects by His directly willing us to experience matter avoiding the extra, unnecessary step of creating matter.

But isn't belief in God not even more problematic than belief in matter? Not at all, Berkeley would reply: We do not know what matter is like, but we do know what minds are like. Therefore we know what God is like, as it is a supreme mind. We may not understand God fully, as he is infinite and we are only finite, but God is still a mind.

How about common experience? According to Berkeley it is again God, who makes different people experience the same thing at the same time. So-called common perceptions is like copies of the same movie running in different theatres at the same time. God causes each of us to have such similar experiences that we can communicate about them, just as if we were really in the same situation.

In contrast to Berkeley's subjective idealism was objective idealism. Objective idealism is the view that the world out there is Mind communicating with our human minds. It is formulated by the three German successors of Kant. These were F.W.J. Schelling (aesthetic idealism), J.G. Fichte (moral idealism), and G.W.F. Hegel (dialectical idealism). Differences between subjective and objective idealism were not always clear-cut, however. For instance, Fichte's idealism was later called subjective in contrast to Schelling's objective variety, while Hegel's became known as absolute idealism. The term Objective Idealism was only sometimes used by Schelling, while the term Subjective Idealism was used by both, Schelling and Hegel, to put their own ideas in contrast to Fichte's position.

While Schelling's Objective idealism remained insignificant, the objective idealist with most influence is probably G. W. F. Hegel. Hegel agreed with Berkeley, that there is no such thing as matter in the materialist's sense, and that spirit is the essence and whole of reality. But he objected to the idea that God is separated from the world. Therefore reality is not God and the minds that God creates, but a single, absolute, all-inclusive mind, which Hegel referred to as "The Absolute Spirit" or simply "The Absolute". The Absolute Spirit is all of reality, no time, space, relation or event ever exists or occurs outside of the Absolute. As the Absolute also contains all possibilities in itself, it is not static, but constantly changing and progressing.

How the do we relate to the Absolute?

Finite individuals like human beings, planets and even galaxies are not separate beings, but part of something larger. Our relation to the Absolute is similar to the relation of cells or organs to the whole body. Like the cells, that constitute an organism continually emerge, make their contribution, die and are replaced, we as human beings come and go, while the Absolute continues.

Hegel had no problem in considering an objective world beyond any particular subjective mind. But this objective world itself had to be understood as conceptually informed, as it were — it was objectified spirit.

A general objection to idealism is that it is implausible to think that there can be an analytic reduction of the physical to the mental. Hegel's system of objective idealism is under suspicion for substituting the Absolute for God, which doesn't make anything clearer in the end. And if we are forms that the Absolute is taking, it means that the Absolute gets headaches, all kinds of diseases and even thinks of committing suicide sometimes. Why should the Absolute inflict such things upon itself? If it does, or can't help doing so, is it worthy of being called "The Absolute"?

Simone Klein

Alex asked:

I have two questions for you:

1. What is the real meaning of life and how can we reach happiness? I searched for answers in Christianity, Buddhism and philosophy but I didn't find any answers at all.

But at the first question it's clear that like ALL things, the human civilization will end sometime. So then why is human kind in such a hurry for progress and stuff like this? Especially when we know that things like science and technology will destroy us because without nature we can't survive and we will destroy nature with all these things.

2. And at the second question it's clear that, like Buddha said, all life is suffering. When you have what to eat and drink, you think for a place to call home, when you have a home, you think for education, friends etc, when you have these, you think for love, children, wealth and stuff like this and when you have all this things the thoughts of death, God, meaning of life are troubling and worrying your soul. So how is it possible to reach happiness? Please answer me and I will be very grateful to you.

I will present a certain viewpoint that is derived from a faith tradition called Vedanta.

Man is essentially not what he/ she assumes him/ herself to be. In essence, he/ she is spirit. This spirit is in essence the very opposite of what man assumes himself/ herself to be.

Just as a speck in the eye is not natural to it and therefore one is compelled to discard it, similarly until man finds his true nature he will continue to be dissatisfied.

The Vedas consider the ability to discern this without being distracted by the desire to enjoy and find out that the enjoyment did not have the capacity to fulfill that desire, as the essential quality of the student who can gain the knowledge it seeks to impart. Vedas intend to help the student intuit and discover his/ her true nature. This endeavor is termed the utmost importance and is considered the highest calling and termed the highest end.

There are many different traditions that derive from the Vedas. They are broadly referred to as Hindu. The Hindus themselves refer to it as 'Sanatana Dharma' or the eternal quest since it is inherent in the very nature of being.

Gopi Mavankal

Mairon asked:

After we think, in a philosophy paper we only write one interesting question:

Does DESTINY exist?

We've been thinking, what is the thing that rules our lives and I didn't find a certain answer to that question, but that doesn't mean there are not possible answers — it's just that I'm not sure about them. One of those was that a God rules people but who can prove that he exists? Nobody, nobody in the present time or 2000 years ago.

And Fernando asked:

I'm studying High School at ITESM and taking a course on philosophy and some questions came to my mind:

Is everything in this life meant to be?

Does destiny control our lives or is there something that people can do to change what's happening to them and, if they could, is it because they want or is it predestined? In the case that everything was "written" before we came to Earth, does life then make sense?

And Homero asked:

Are we owners of our destiny? Does destiny exist?

At the age of twenty-one I discovered philosophy. From that time, I have known, more or less continuously and with only occasional lapses of doubt, that it was my destiny to be a philosopher. — How can a philosopher believe in such an ambiguous, questionable and misleading concept?

I am not interested in the standard, question-begging explanations of where the alleged false belief in destiny comes from. Of how and why we fall under the illusion that there are things we are destined to do, or the illusion that we possess a destiny. "There must be a reason why the world is the way it is, it can't just be an accident." Or, "There must be a reason why I am here, in the world, it can't just be an accident." So the explanation proceeds, we are led to invent a reason that exists 'out there' — perhaps a reason that God knows — all the while totally unaware that 'the reason out there' is merely a creature of our own imagination.

A more contemporary, but no less question-begging explanation is the idea that we are story-telling creatures, that we feel impelled to construct a coherent narrative that makes sense of the events and the decisions in our lives. As in the previous explanation, the sense of destiny is supposedly revealed as nothing but an illusion, an invention, a prop. The fact that you or I might find it difficult or impossible to live without that prop does not make it any less an illusion.

Both styles of explanation may be described as reductive: There is no such thing, in reality, as destiny. The belief in destiny has a cause. But the description of that cause does not involve the concept of destiny. In the same way, the belief, in the Middle Ages, that there were such things as witches who possessed supernatural powers derived from the Devil had a cause. Understanding that cause does not require that we believe in the actual existence of witches. The belief in destiny is false, just as the belief in witches is false.

The common assumption behind reductive explanations of the notion of destiny, I would argue, is a concept of belief which is altogether too rigid and simplistic.

I have heard it said that the logical difference between the concept of belief and the concept of desire is that in the case of belief, our intention and aim is to mirror the world. If the world is different from the way our belief represents it as being, then the belief is wrong, not the world. By contrast, with desire, our intention and aim is to change the world, to make it conform to our representation. If the world does not conform to our representation, then it is the world that is wrong, not our desire.

The belief in destiny — or, better, the sense of destiny — is not a 'belief' in this sense. Nor, on the other hand, is it a mere intention that I form, "I will act as if there were a destiny for me". Adopting the language of existentialism, to live with a sense of destiny is a way of being in the world. Just as to live without a sense of destiny is a way of being in the world. It is a choice that is 'mine' yet which I do not make, nor is it made for me.

My destiny is a real, objective feature of my world — of the world as it spreads out from this unique point in time and space — yet I did not find my destiny there, for nothing that can be found in the world could ever justify the belief that it possesses that feature.

Geoffrey Klempner

Matthew asked:

The God Thing

I have a problem with the idea of God as an omnipotent being. Does it make any sense? For surely the whole essence of a being (or at least a major part of it) is to have a point of view. And what is a point of view? It is a very particular way of looking at the world consisting of desires, hopes, likes, dislikes, fears etc. And if this is so then surely any sort of being cannot be omnipotent, for the very idea of point of view which is so essential to the idea of being is one which necessitates privation of experience?

Does this make any sense?

The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. (I Corinthians: 3:20)

Yes, Matthew it makes excellent sense. To be properly described as "omnipotent" a God would have to be capable of doing absolutely anything at all. This has traditionally led philosophers to have a bit of fun by trying to think of "fallacies of omnipotence" — the things God simply couldn't, logically, do. These include, "Could God make another God more powerful than Herself?", "Could God make a stone too heavy for God to lift?", "Could God annihilate Himself?", and so on. The point is that, whether or not God has done these things, it is thought to be enough to have conceived of some impossible act for it to be shown that there are some things which God cannot do, therefore either an omnipotent God is a fiction, or the real God isn't omnipotent. Unfortunately, entertaining though these fallacies are, they only show that God cannot be illogical. And the idea of God being bound by the rules of logic is not something with which many believers seem to have difficulty.

However, the way you put the problem, centering it on the idea of 'point of view' is much more interesting. I think, though, the difficulties of personal experience are more applicable to the problem of God's omniscience than of his omnipotence.

Omniscience means "all knowing". In the traditional view of most monotheistic religions, God knows all things. Most especially, and central to much religious understanding, is the idea that God knows what I know. In other words, that God knows what each person is thinking, feeling, intending, understanding. As it says in The Book of Chronicles (28:9) "the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the mind", and in the Koran (Sura 6) "Allah knows your secret thoughts." This is a vital centre of belief, for without accurate knowledge of His people's thoughts and intentions, then He cannot stand in judgement over them without risk of error. But, as you have begun to see, this cannot be the case.

I know what I know, and I know that all my perceptions and beliefs are clouded by the limitations of my knowledge. Say, for instance, that I can't understand Arabic. If that is so, then if you show me a word in that language, then I simply cannot see, no matter how hard I look, anything other than a shape on paper, albeit a rather decorative one. On the other hand, someone who does know Arabic will find it equally impossible to see an Arabic word without putting a particular meaning on to it.

So, if God were able to somehow able to access the contents of my mind, what He saw there could never be the world as I see it — it would always be clouded by God's own particular knowledge. If nothing else, His appreciation of my mind would be different to my own understanding in that He would know my mind at the same time as being aware of the contents of other minds. Now I have no such knowledge of other minds, so it cannot reasonably be said that God would know my thoughts as I know them. And what could 'knowing my mind' mean other than being able to think as I think? The best that God might be able to do is to read minds, to understand selves, in much the same way as you are reading a part of my mind, my self, by reading these words. No matter what care I take in writing, it is inevitable that our understanding of individual concepts will differ, because our reading of them is made up of our individual likes and desires and hopes and fears. And that is not omniscience.

I'm afraid the concept of God is far from logical, so that, any argument about the nature of His abilities will tend to lack logic as well. What we know of God we know by faith, emotion and tradition. As to whether some privation of experience is necessary to Being, by which I presume rational being, I am afraid I cannot know, for I am not omniscient.

You might care to have a look at:

Jon asked:

Can human rights be substantiated within a post-structuralist universe?

Postmodernism developed within the tradition of continental philosophy and with the consequent disintegration of the self and the identification of distinct language games or narratives as governing our ethical and political lives, the continental tradition struggles to solve the problems it has raised for itself. You might be interested in Charles Altieri's book Canons and Consequences in which he outlines the problems the postmodernist J-F Lyotard faces in defining justice. If justice cannot be defined, neither can rights.

However, Altieri believes that the non-postmodern analytical philosopher John Rawls' account of justice as the result of a hypothetical initial position which determines basic rights is compatible with postmodernism since it abstracts from the concept of the self to involve "self and others", and it is non-historical and non-political. You have probably read Rawls' A Theory of Justice and know of the original position, in which the assessment of distributive rules and the principle of basic rights is fixed by abstraction from oneself and replaced with the consideration of oneself from a subjective and objective point of view, as a social individual. Reflection on the principles of rights and distribution is free from political and historical assumptions and the definition provides criteria for upholding rights in actual life.

The postmodernist has denied the subject/ object relation, the possibility of truth and determinacy of language and has difficulty establishing rights if he cannot define them, although Habermas holds that we even though we cannot abstract from language, we can abstract from norms and culture. By means of dialogue, rights can be established by consensus, but this collapses into relativism unless it is understood as ideal consensus. Then the problem arises that a society with an ideal consensus is a society with no conflict or areas for argument and dialogue comes to an end. This is more problematic than Rawls' idea of determining very basic principles.

Rachel Browne

Tim asked:

Is it possible for an event to be non-causal? If so, what are the implications of non-causal events?

According to quantum mechanics, there are uncaused events (such as the radioactive decay of an atom, for example, or the precise way in which the QM probability wave function collapses). But some people didn't like this idea ("God doesn't play dice with the Universe" Albert Einstein said), so they posited what were called 'hidden variables' which would be unable to be measured but which would cause quantum events. However, John Bell thought up an experiment that would distinguish whether an event depended on hidden variables or not, and Alain Aspect found a way to do it. The results showed that (on the assumptions made), there are no hidden variables.

Since all experiments rest on assumptions, we can look at them to see if there is a way out of the conclusion. One of the assumptions here is that causes precede effects. If that is false, then we can have backwards causation in time and the Aspect experiment does not show that there are uncaused events. Some people take this seriously, but others think backwards causation is logically suspect. In a way, you have to choose which you think is more impossible: backwards causation or uncaused events.

I would think that the scientific consensus at the moment is that some events are uncaused.

As to the implications, there are many. One I think is important is that it becomes not just practically but also theoretically impossible to predict the future in the way that La Place's demon could. The demon would know the exact state of the world at some instant, and then, using the strict causality of physical laws, be able to calculate the state of the world at some future time. If some events are uncaused, this is no longer possible.

Some people think that uncaused events can explain free will, because they allow us out of the sort of lock-step determinism that La Place argued for. I disagree. I want free will to mean that I choose what to do for my own reasons, not that science can't predict what I will choose because some uncaused events take place in my brain. If these events are uncaused, then they are not caused by me, and it isn't my decision any more.

Tim Sprod

Do you mean by "non-causal", "uncaused" or do you mean "not causing anything"? The problem, as I see it, is that no one really knows what to make of causation. Hume dealt with it in a very stunning and frustrating way (take a look at his Treatise if you haven't), and most philosophers, as far as I can tell, spend a lot of time listing types of causes and effects and taking cause more or less on intuitive grounds. I'll take your meaning to be "uncaused".

Here's an example: suppose that there were a machine that could "read" the positions of all the atoms, say, in a piece of matter (which are moving around or vibrating or whatever), and project holographs of them, magnified a few million times, into the room. So the hologram is caused by the lasers, which is caused by the reading mechanism, etc. Now clearly we don't want to say that the images of the atoms or quarks or whatever in that picture are causing each other's motion, right? Why not? Because our physical theories say they aren't; those are our physical intuitions. Let's take it one step further; suppose (and I'm extrapolating from an example of Tye's here) that this "piece of matter" is someone's living brain. Is the hologram conscious? Why not? Because it's "just pictures"? But they're interacting just like the elements in the brain are, so why can't they be conscious? Believe it or not, I've asked many people this question, and no one can really answer it; we just have an intuition that the hologram can't be conscious, because of "causality".

So to get back to your question, now that I've muddled the waters of causality somewhat (and I've only talked about linear causality here...). in quantum physics, the answer to your question is pretty unequivocally "yes". "Vacuum fluctuations" and "virtual particles" are the results of the uncertainty principle, roughly speaking. That is, given that there is a lowest level of energy below which nature cannot go, one filled with a kind of undifferentiated wave-function (which is a real entity, by the way) which is (effectively, but actually it's in many states simultaneously and changing the likelihood of sets of these) fluctuating very rapidly, the spontaneous production of particles and energy takes place all the time. The vacuum is not a vacuum, in other words, but there isn't anything quite there either, except occasionally. Are these events "caused"? Well, there's no simple and direct cause we know of. There's also a phenomenon known as "tunneling", where a particle is quite suddenly and spontaneously somewhere where it basically can't be, because it has a very low probability of being there. How does that happen? It just happens, with some finite probability. Is it caused? Well, it can be pushed in that direction, but no one can say that it will happen with certainty.

So the implications of these events are quite profound, actually. Whole electronic industries are built on the tunneling effect, and huge (and well-verified, for the most part) theories make use of virtual particles and vacuum fluctuations to explain, for example, the interactions of the quarks comprising other particles.

Steven Ravett Brown

If you mean by a "non-causal event" an event that has no effect then I don't see why it should not be possible. I agree with David Hume when he says that it is possible for an event not to have a cause, so why shouldn't it be possible for an event not to have any effect? Of course, whether it is true or even probable is another matter. I suppose that an event which had no effects would simply be some isolated happening; lonely as a cloud.

Kenneth Stern

John asked:

Supposing there are such things as competing basic moral standards, are they equally valid?

I think validity and moral standard go hand in hand. If the validity of any moral standard were in question by the proponent of that standard, then there is no standard at all. Now if we consider whether two standards are equivalent even when opposed, then the answer is Yes.

If we consider whether there is any such thing as Universality or commonality in moral standards then it boils down to asking is there a Universality and commonality in nature itself. Just as we are impelled towards a theory that combines all forces in physics similarly if we believe there is an essential unity in the very nature of things and beings then there has to be a universal element in morality.

I think Jesus captured that element when he stated "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you".

From a relative standpoint there can be opposition but if there is an absolute standpoint, then from that standpoint it should be possible to resolve or understand the difference observed in the relative standpoint.

Gopi Mavankal

Ignacio asked:

What is the purpose of the soul in our body? — if it happens to exist?

I like this way of approaching the mind-body problem. We all-too easily assume that we just know what difference it would make whether we have a soul, a substantial, non-physical self or not. But do we know this? So what if I don't have a soul? or so what if I do? What difference does it make?

Fabien asked:

I have recently heard that during a war the proportion of male births increases. Statistics show a more than sensible augmentation of the male birth rate — as if we had some "social compensating" organ. That would mean we are less individuals than we thought. If this is true which are the actual explanations or theories about it?

Aha! The supposed problem is this; if a population becomes embroiled in a war, many males will be killed, and so the ratio of males to females will fall. Yet, mysteriously, go and examine the same population a few years later and the ratio is back to normal. How can we possibly account for the apparent change in the birth ratio of males to females?

There are two famous explanations. The first is that God has intervened to alter the normal course of nature and correct the gender imbalance. By this, he not only restores His order, which foolish mankind had upset, but demonstrates His very real existence and His willingness to intervene in human affairs. I have heard exactly this explanation put forward by adherents of the Particular Brethren.

The other explanation is that during the earlier phases of the human female's monthly fertile period, the likelihood of conceiving males is equal to the likelihood of conceiving a female. But, later in the cycle, males are more likely to be conceived. As a female can only become pregnant once in a particular cycle, if a couple are having sex at fairly regular intervals it is likely that conception will occur earlier in the cycle. If, however, men suddenly appear on the scene, after being absent for some while, as happens when the menfolk return from war, then the chance of conception occurring later in the cycle is increased, resulting in more male births. The work of the geneticist Koltzoff is usually cited to support this one.

Convinced? I do hope not, because, with a little analytic application, we will see that the problem does not, in fact exist. And we don't even need to look at any empirical statistics.

It is often difficult to examine clearly those problems which are full of fiddly little numbers. So let's imagine an extreme case, and see what would happen there. Say that every man on earth, except one, was killed. That would leave 1 man to about 3000 million women, a spectacularly extreme sex ratio. Whether that one man was particularly sexually active or not, all the offspring of his unions would appear, as they always do, roughly in the proportion of 1 male to 1 female baby. Go and have a look at the population, a year later and we'd find that some babies had been born. Let us assume that he had been busy and sired 100 children, 50 males and 50 females. The sex ratio over the entire population would then have gone from 1:3000M to about 50:3000M, a fifty-fold increase in the proportion of males. This looks impressive, until you realise that to get there the proportion of male to female births was never anything other what we ordinarily expect.

As if that was not enough to damn the proposition, I'm afraid the "social compensation organ" couldn't exist either. For what use would be extra infant boys to an excess of women short of mates? Those boys would not become available as mates for 15 to 25 years, by which time the women would likely be to old to make use of them.

So, now we've done the analysis, let's, like good philosophers, check our results against the facts. I have the figures for Wales to hand, a small country which suffered great losses in the two world wars. The male-to-female birth ratio is typically taken to be 1.07:1, though it varies quite a lot. True, the ratio in Wales before the first world war was about 1.037:1, and after it rose slightly to 1.053:1, but even that was still very much on the low side. But before and after the second world war it remained the same at about 1.05:1. In fact the greatest male surplus was around war-free 1930 when it reached 1.147:1, and it has had upward 'blips' again in 1975 and 1996.

So, there's no need to invoke Godly intervention. I'm afraid the fertility-cycle-conception thing turns out to be nonsense as well, though that doesn't seem to have stopped some less-than-honest clinics trying to sell gender-selection services on the back of it, usually accompanied by an ingenious twisting of Koltzoff's discoveries.

So, are we less individual than we thought? You and I are as individual as we think we are, but when we're considering whole populations then individuality, of necessity, is lost. After all, we are only humans.

Glyn Hughes

Brian asked:

I have been reading Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge.

He seems to say:

1. Only God can create ideas
2. Man can copy and re-create ideas but cannot create from nothing
3. There are two types of mind, created and uncreated (God) and two type of ideas: ideas of sense, and ideas of the imagination which only come from God
4. God has no ideas of sense

So where does Man get his ideas of sense from?

I am sure that I have mis-understood the text but in what respect?

Firstly, your points. Man does not copy ideas. Sense experience is a given, and by means of the will ideas of sense can be used in imaginings, so there is a distinction between ideas of sense and those of imagination, the latter being weaker. But the main distinction between ideas is between the simple sense experience, such as visual qualia, and ideas as "things". Berkeley uses the word "ideas" for "things" because a thing is not matter but a construct of simple sense experience ideas belonging to different senses. A tree only becomes a thing, or complex idea, when we have visual as well as tactual experience of it.

God is not "created and uncreated". He is infinite, or eternal and "uncreated", as you can see in the The Principles no. 92. Man is finite and created.

As to your question, man gets his ideas from God even though God himself has no sense-experience. God's way of perceiving is described as "understanding" and in contrast to this our own perceptions are incomplete and appear as sense experience. God imprints or excites these experiences in us by means of his will. We know that God is the cause of ideas because we know that the will is a causal force as we ourselves can "excite ideas to the mind at pleasure". However, when we receive a passive idea, and are not using our wills to imagine something, so another will must be responsible — God. God is the causal force and law of nature, responsible for all ideas and change. It is difficult to rebut this argument when we don't have an idea of cause as other than laws of nature.

A C Grayling has written an excellent book on Berkeley which you might find helpful.

Rachel Browne

Gerardo asked:

I have two questions:

1. Why do we need to know a reason for our existence?

2. How do philosophers get their questions answered?

1. Well, I don't think we really do need to know (the) reason for our existence. And probably there isn't one to know. Of course, scientists know the causes for the existence of many things, and so do you.

2. The general answer is, by thinking about them. Take a look at 1 above. That's an example of trying to answer a philosophical question. Of course, sometimes, there is no answer. We cannot assume there always is an answer to every question. Moreover, sometimes philosophers only think they have asked sensible questions when they really have not. The question, why do we exist may be one of those. Philosophers have learned to examine the question before trying to answer it.

Kenneth Stern

Erika asked:

How do we discover our mission in the world?

There are two assumptions that I can see underlying this question: that we do have a mission in the world; and that it is the sort of thing that we can discover.

Firstly, it can be argued that we do not have a mission in the world. Some argue that the world is ultimately meaningless, a chance occurrence, and that we are also creatures of chance, with no mission. The idea of a mission seems to imply that somebody or something has set the mission. If there is no such somebody (e.g. God) then there will be no mission.

This brings me to the second point. For a mission to be discovered, it would seem that it has to be there already, waiting for us to find it. But there is an alternative. We can set our own mission for ourselves. We invent it, not discover it. This makes more sense to me. I don't mean to say that we just make it up out of nothing. It arises out of our desires and aims, all in the community(ies) in which we live. Social institutions, our upbringing, our chosen circles of friends and so on all come into play. Within this, however, we can make choices about what is most important to us and those we care about, and this leads to us setting up our mission.

Tim Sprod

Aaron asked:

I was recently considering writing a philosophy paper for my own enjoyment, but was unable to find a topic that few people had already explored. Has there been much research into the question of whether or not the concept of God is self-contradictory? Can you shed any advice, opinions, and/ or references to aid me?

You know, philosophy is commonly regarded as something that we do after we've done "real" things, finished with our "real" career, and then we'll sit down and write our contemplations in our old age, or our spare time. — No, it's not like that.

Let's say your question above was, "I was recently considering writing a paper in theoretical physics for my own enjoyment, but was unable to find a topic that few people had already explored." Would you seriously write that? Ask that? Why is it, then, that philosophy is different? There are three thousand years of philosophy, in contrast to about two hundred in physics, to read and understand. In the Western philosophical tradition. If you read Sanskrit, you'd need to add another, oh, four thousand or so years of Indian philosophy to that. I won't go into Chinese or Japanese or Arabic (not to mention various mystical traditions). So, to respond to your question, there are probably hundreds of questions that no one has explored, thousands. But in order to understand enough to ask them, much less even suggest reasonable answers to them, you need to spend a little time reading some philosophy. Like about 5-10 years, to start.

Then, if you're brilliant, you can ask (and maybe suggest an answer to) something like, "Are bleen and grue valid categories, really?" To what am I referring? If you don't know, then you're missing basic — yes, basic, as in something all philosophers know about — background.

I cannot even begin to answer the last question, in light of the first. References? Start with Plato and go from there. Aristotle, the Greeks (actually some of the pre-Socratics would be appropriate also); then the Medievals — Thomism, Duns Scotus, Bacon. I've jumped over about 1000 years there, but hey ... and keep going.

Steven Ravett Brown

Hathanhliem asked:

Please send to me the sources of Reincarnation in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Refer to the section on "Coming of age in the universe", in the chapter on Hinduism, in the book The World's Religions by Dr. Huston Smith, ISBN 0-06-250799-0. Dr. Smith explains the concept very adeptly.

If you want specific references to the same concept in the Hindu scriptures, the book by Barbara Powell, Windows into the Infinite, a guide to the Hindu Scriptures is useful (ISBN 0-87573-071-X). Dr. Powell gives a translation of the source material and cites the original sources. Her book is also useful to understand the types of books in the tradition.

Gopi Mavankal

Charmaine asked:

In statement form:
"Who you are is because of what you are."

In question form:

Who are you, because what are you?"

My question is does this make sense and is there a difference between the statement form and the question form?

Although it was not immediately clear to me, your question does make sense but I think the only difference between the statement and the question is the form!

When you say "who you are is what you are" the implication is that there are facts about you which define you, such as what you do, the nature of your physical and psychological make-up and, perhaps, the history of your experiences. Although true as a statement of fact, this not necessarily true since you can imagine yourself with another life, a different body and psychological type, and with a different history of experiences.

So the statement asserts that the factual definition of a person is true and the question assumes this definition and is asking about the nature of psychological and actual facts.

Rachel Browne

Julio asked:

I am a physician, and I am interested in thinking about health, disease and healing. Philosophically thinking, what is health? What is disease? What is "to heal"? I am thinking that the only way we can think about healing is in a metaphysical way, I mean, in the level of the being.

I know this is not only a question, but an issue. Do you have any philosopher you could recommend me in order to think more about this matter?

Nydia asked:

Did God create man or did man create God?

It is, I think, really important to make the distinction between the concept of God, and God. (Just as we should carefully distinguish between the concept of a tiger and tigers.) Concepts are in the mind, but what they are concepts of are not in the mind. All concepts are created by human beings. But what they are concepts of are not created by human beings. Think of the tiger example. So, the concept of God was, like all other concepts, created by human beings. But I don't think it is possible for God himself (if God exists) to have been created by human beings.

Kenneth Stern

Susana asked:

What I want to know is the expectation before we die. I'm used to fear dying, but I think that is a philosophic question. If i die what is next? Why do we die? It's because of the same we are born, or I would never have other life?

We don't know what is next when we die. We die because we are biological organisms. If there is an after-life, there is more cause for fear than if there is nothingness. What is an after-life like, and will you like it? What if you hate it and it goes on forever? If there is no after-life and you simply cease to exist, there is no cause to fear death since when you are dead you will have no mental or emotional life.

Reasons to fear the dying process are pain and leaving those you love and who love you. This is what we fear when we think about dying in the future. But when we have this fear we are not yet in the process of dying. That is a future person and we do not know how we will feel. Death is sometimes welcomed when it actually comes.

Rachel Browne

Bertha, Mariana, Arlette, Carlos, and Bere asked:

Why is the day, day and the night, night?

There is no logical reason why the day should be day, or the night, night.

Ever since the invention of curtains and artificial lighting, human beings have had the free choice over their 'day' and their 'night'. It is my free choice if I decide to write philosophy until 6 am, then burrow beneath the bed covers as the sun comes up.

Admittedly, it is convenient if one can count on one's friends or work colleagues being awake at the same time. Just think of the potential pitfalls of picking up the telephone, if you didn't know whether it was 'day' or 'night' for the person at the other end of the line.

However, I believe there would be potentially great advantages to be had from giving up the convention that day should be day, and night, night for everyone living in the same time zone. Workers would no longer require to be paid extra wages for 'night work'. A house would require only half the number of bedrooms, allowing the extra space to be used for more useful purposes.

Best of all, you could watch 'late night TV' all day long.

Geoffrey Klempner

Ana asked:

If the philosophy is the love of wisdom, what sense has love in existence?

Do you mean love of existence? If so, the love of wisdom is the love of existence if it is understood as an impassioned pursuit of knowledge of mankind and the world. If by love in existence, you mean the joy of being alive in this best of all possible worlds, then this differs from the love of wisdom which involves rational activity as opposed to delighting in the pleasures of nature. But the two are not mutually exclusive! It is wise to recognise the pleasures of nature and of being alive which is a form of knowledge.

Rachel Browne

Anton asked:

What is the philosophical status of auteur film theory today?

Auteur film theory is a rather broad school. To the French Cahiers du Cinema critics, who first developed the politique des auteurs that later became mistranslated as Auteur Theory, it was merely a way of looking at the stylistic similarities between the works of the same director. It soon became inextricably linked with evaluative judgements. There was a clear pattern of authorship in the films of Hawks, Hitchcock et al and this therefore justified valorising these directors above others. It became a way of justifying the approbation of many popular Hollywood films rather than just the output of 'arty' Continental film directors.

To these French writers Auteurism was a loose, contradictory, open critical approach; the idea of personal authorship in the cinema. The fact that Barthes, Foucault and Derrida were at the same time challenging the very existence of an author and querying the preferring of authorial meaning was contradictory but not a problem. Anglo-American writers turned it into a much more precise formal theory. Andrew Sarris was the first of many to seize on Auteurism and construct a formal theory based aesthetic evaluation of film directors (to justify his personal view that Hollywood films were superior to Continental films). You can see here the loose relaxed Continental philosophy inflecting the French writers while the more demanding, definition seeking, theoretically based Anglo-American Analytical Philosophy school feared contradiction and demanded more close analysis and certainty among Anglo-Saxon academic institutions.

In relation to its current philosophical status, it sits embedded within film aesthetics and is an example of the debate about whether artists or their art should be the unit of aesthetic analysis and valorisation. Should aesthetics be considering the author Hitchcock or the film Psycho (in the same way other arts agonize over whether it is Beethoven or The Moonlight Sonata, Van Gough or Sunflowers, etc.) Film writers like Bazin plead for the film/ text, as, in philosophy writers like Scruton argue for the piece of music in his The Aesthetics of Music. Truffaut argues for film authors just as in literature Harold Bloom argues for poet/ authors.

This debate is often reduced to statements like "there is no art without artists" versus "it is art that defines an artist" — a variant on the "chicken and the egg argument" — and it seems equally pointless. The argument is peculiar to Anglo-American Aesthetics. Continental aesthetics is much more flexible. Why should it be one or the other? Why not both? The concept of an artist is in any case no more than a critical construct. It is not the flesh and blood Hitchcock that we analyse but 'Hitchcock' — a perception created from his films. Maybe the artist and his art are indivisible in aesthetic terms.

There is also a problem with Auteurism and all authorial aesthetic analysis as to where to draw the line. Is everything that Hitchcock/ Beethoven/ Van Gough produced a work of art? What about Van Gough's rough sketches?, Hitchcock's home movies?, Shakespeare's laundry lists? Auteurism struggles to produce a coherent answer.

That being said Auteurism, in the form of authorial stylistic and aesthetic analysis, is now fundamental to most film aesthetics, just as authorial analysis is basic to most art aesthetics. The Spring 2001 issue of the Internet film magazine Screening the Past is entitled 'Auteurism 2001' and contains a number of articles carrying on the Auteurism reinterpretation. No one denies that there are authorial styles identifiable within films. However the danger is that authors with the most individual personal imprints (e.g. Tarantino) are excessively valorised because they have a strong intrusive style that can be clearly identified, discussed and analysed, compared to more subtle authorial styles which integrate cinematography into the narrative (e.g. Ang Lee). As Pauline Kael has noted a skunk smells more than a rose but that does not make it better.

Andrew Browne

Karla asked:

Love: Is it causality, or is it destiny?

You pose this question as an either/or, but I don't think that it is. Of course, it depends on what you are taking 'destiny' to be, but it seems to me that causality and destiny amount to the same thing.

This is why. I take causality to mean the position that everything that happens has a determinate cause. So, falling in love is just the effect of a lot of previous events, all of which jointly cause the events that come to be described as 'falling in love'. Given the state of events at some time in the past, before the lovers have met, then long chains of causes and effects bring about the falling in love.

So what is destiny? I take it to be the position that the lovers were destined — they could not avoid — falling in love, even before they met. If the sort of strict causality I outlined above is true, then it is also true that the lovers were destined to fall in love. Causality and destiny are the same.

Of course, you can think of destiny as being something different — e.g. a god or gods deciding to bring something about and hence interfering with causal chains. Then they are not the same. But under my interpretation, both causality and destiny are consequences of determinism — the view that things could not have turned out differently than they have, because people cannot make free decisions between alternatives. That in itself is a tricky philosophical problem.

Tim Sprod

Seaton asked:

"They" had slavery around here once, and they liked it.

Whilst working at my job as a firefighter, many years ago, I coined this phrase. I spoke it in a response to my fellow crewmembers about the poor managers we had to cope with, as opposed to being supported and aided in my efforts on a day-to-day basis fighting fires, responding to first-aid calls, administrative and tedious tasks, etc. etc. It 'caught-on' by many, and discussions eventually evolved into the need to re-activate the long-gone Union, the International Association of Firefighters, Local 526.

Here's another example of what I mean:

Yesterday, my daughter returned home from her summer job at a local fast-food restaurant. In a fit of rage, she informed me that the manager (one of several supervisors, actually) told her coworker and herself that "I just wanted to see if you could do it."

"It," what the supervisor was referring was to the fact that instead of 3 persons being scheduled to work for the initial 4 hours of operations, 2 were scheduled. Yes, most of their tasks were done---but not without some extraordinary-efforts "demanded" from the employees. Energy expended by the employees was more than commonly given. Instead of comfortably accomplishing all the tasks with 3 persons within the time limits, 2 were worked overly-hard and nearly all tasks were accomplished and nearly all were satisfactorily done. Results? Both employees ready to quit.

Why only 2 employees instead of 3? Because of the capriciousness of the Supervisor? Or...."They had slavery around here once, and they liked it"?

This question intrigues me, but I don't really know what kind of answer you're looking for. Philosophy gives very general answers to abstract questions. Here's one of those: slavery is a very good economic system, for the slave owners. Think about it: what do you pay a slave? What kind of housing, food, etc.? Slavery is cheap. As long as you can keep revolts down, and you don't care about slaves as human beings, you're doing fine. How to keep revolts down? Well, why not educate a class of people to believe that suffering is good; that if you suffer in "this life" you will be rewarded in the "next"? A great philosophy for slaves, right?

Here's another answer: the supervisor was a sadist and enjoyed making people suffer.

Here's another answer: the supervisor was under extreme pressure from his boss to make the restaurant profitable, and was trying to cut costs, at the price of suffering. Was it worth it? Well, would there be more suffering if the restaurant went out of business, and the two remaining employees, and the supervisor, were out of jobs?

Here's another answer: when people do work which requires little skill, they are replaceable, since anyone can do the work. So unskilled labor, or labor requiring just a little education, has long lines of people just waiting to fill a few jobs, and employers can do just about what they want. If the workers don't like it, they'll find ones who will from a large pool of unskilled people. The answer? Educate yourself in some skill, preferably one you enjoy, and use that to earn a living. You will not be replaceable (or as replaceable) and so you'll be able to dictate your own work situation to a much greater extent. You have done that, as a firefighter. In the meantime, while you're educating yourself, you have no choice but to join the pool of unskilled labor (but that's not all or nothing; you can get better jobs as your education or skills increase).

I can tell you, from experience, that the latter works; I learned computer programming while working as a word processor, and the jump in status and pay was huge.

Steven Ravett Brown

It took me a while to cotton on to what you are saying here. There seems to be a direct analogy with something that is sometimes remarked about war. We all deplore the fact that wars take place. We investigate the economic, political or religious causes of war, and how these conditions might be changed. We look forward to a utopian time when there will be no more wars. Yet there is a major flaw, it is said, in this approach. It ignores the simple, brutal fact that men love war. Many of those who go out to war discover, sometimes to their horror, that they enjoy fighting and killing. Seasoned soldiers interviewed about their experiences in battle have described how they get a sexual high. My impression from what I have read is that this is common knowledge within the armed forces, however shocking it may seem to civilians who have fortunately never had to pick up a gun.

The claim made is that this is an unalterable fact about human nature. I am not going to dispute that claim here. If the claim were true, then one plausible explanation might be that it is part of our evolutionary inheritance. A capacity for aggression, in certain species, is necessary for survival. It follows that a race of intelligent beings who did not share our evolutionary inheritance — Martians, say — might never experience the pleasure human beings experience from mortal conflict.

I am not totally convinced by this, mainly because it leaves out the crucial issue of the thrill of killing. Natural aggression might lead us to fight, but must that fight be to the death? At any rate, the claim seems less plausible when transposed to the issue of slavery. Animals fight and kill, they wage 'war'. But to make a slave of another individual, as opposed to merely exerting one's force to bring about changes in their behaviour, requires a development of self-consciousness that only exists in the human world. The impulse to make slaves cannot, therefore, be part of our evolutionary inheritance.

The classic analysis of our love of slavery is in Hegel's famous section 'Lordship and Bondage' in his book The Phenomenology of Mind (1807). The section is difficult and obscure, but given your interest I would say that it is something you must read. Hegel argued that the dialectic of the relation between self and other plays a pivotal role in the development of our sense of self, and that the impulse to seek to make a slave of the other, is not contingent but universal. (In our terms, Martians would naturally succumb to the impulse just as we do.) Slavery is a solution to the problem of how to reckon with the existence of the other, but a failed solution, one that, as Hegel demonstrates, is necessarily self-frustrating.

Though you give examples from the world of work, our most immediate experience of this impulse is in personal relationships. It is universal. It is not an unfortunate 'deviation' that some persons suffer from while others remain immune. Those who would emphatically deny this, have merely failed to recognize the impulse for what it is.

Geoffrey Klempner

Alex asked:

I read somewhere that, "Art upsets, science reassures." — Can you explain that please? Can't it be the other way round?

Not knowing who said this or why, I can only guess at what it means. It could be that art presents us with the unknown in the sense that our responses, our aesthetic ideas and our concept of art itself are not reducible to facts. Even if we take art as consoling, the how and why is not reducible to solid facts either. Science reassures since it enables to confirm and increase our knowledge and extend our powers over the world.

However, this seems absurdly theoretical. Art doesn't in fact upset us, but does console us and provides us with an enormous of pleasure. So you can change this around since science can be held to upset us because it in fact leads us to less natural forms of behaviour or some such thing. If you want to change this around, you can stick to facts. It is less plausible to say that science upsets us because it arouses in us fears that things may not be as they seem, because for most persons this is not the case. No normal person has such fears! This sort of thing is only considered in the philosophy class room when we consider the difference between our sense perceptions and what the physicists claim there is. However, if statement "art upsets, science reassures" is understood as a philosophical claim, this abstract, theoretical fear might lead us to deny its truth.

Rachel Browne

Richard asked:

I would appreciate it if you could lead me to a one or two page summary of the philosophy of Boethius. I hope this request is realistic.

I am giving a course on 'The Western Mind' and I believe that some discussion of Boethius would be appropriate.

What is wonderful about Boethius (c.480-254), even more than what he thought, is that he thought. Here is an excerpt from a lecture of mine on Boethius:

Boethius was an aristocrat and a scholar and a high government minister of Theodoric the Ostrogothic King who ruled Italy between 493-524; but Theodoric was a Byzantine (as opposed to Roman) Emperor. Latin and Greek cultures were separated long before their final divorce in 1054. Boethius was implicated in a plot to overthrow Theodoric — although Boethius asserts his innocence in The Consolation of Philosophy, which he wrote while awaiting execution. In all probability Boethius was innocent as he protested. In any case, he was arrested, tried, sentenced to death and sent into exile in Pavia to await execution. On the dread day ropes were twisted around his neck until his eyes popped out, then he was finished off with a bludgeon. Awaiting execution Boethius wrote the Consolation.

The Consolation is one of the greatest books of Western tradition and probably the single most universally appealing book of the whole Middle Ages. The Consolation was translated by Alfred the Great into Anglo-Saxon around 890 and into English by Chaucer and Elizabeth I. It was translated into all known languages at a time when translating books into the vernacular was extremely rare indeed. The Consolation was the favourite reading of three of the greatest literary giants of all time: Dante, Boccaccio and Chaucer. The Consolation was an international best-seller for over a thousand years. No single book by a single author has ever known such renown or longevity — perhaps Augustine's Confessions. But compared the Confessions, the Consolation has even broader appeal. Until a couple of hundred years ago, C.S. Lewis tells us, it would have been hard to find any educated person in any European country who did not know and love the Consolation. To acquire a taste for this book, Lewis also says, is almost to become naturalised to the Middle Ages.

On top of this sublime achievement, Boethius was more than anyone responsible for giving Aristotle to the Middle Ages. And not just Aristotle, but an Aristotelian way of doing theology which is known as Scholasticism — although Boethius died 600 years before his method of doing theology was to really be developed (in the High Middle Ages). In addition, Boethius bequeathed to posterity the main intellectual problem of the High Middle Ages: the problem of universals. Not only did Boethius bequeath the main problem which was to tax the best thinkers for more than two centuries five hundred years after his death, not only did he bequeath the method of treating the problem, he also made the translations of the main texts of Aristotle which were to be used as a basis for what would develop into rationalism and science. At a time when few scholars knew Greek and Latin equally well, Boethius translated key arithmetical and astronomical works (e.g.. Euclid's Elements) which were to have immense influence on the development of science as well as works on musical composition which were to have crucial significance for the development of Western art. The so-called Quadrivium of Medieval education was founded by Boethius. Cassidodorus, a contemporary, wrote in 507: "By your translations Latin readers now have Pythagorus' music, Ptolemy's astronomy, Nicomachius' arithmetic, Plato's theology, Aristotle's logic, and Archimedes' mechanics" (Variae i, 45, 4).

It was Aristotle who first started using letters as variables in the construction of his logic. Boethius' two monographs on Aristotelian logic transmit this arithmetical lexicography to the Middle Ages. It is important to note that Boethius was a traditional theological authority of the highest order and that by default he validated what would undermine the continuity of that order. For he validated innovation in refining and improving Aristotle's logic. This gave an authoritative basis for continuing such a practice. Not everyone's innovations would have the tact and prudence of Boethius'. Abelard's logic is precocious, academic and subversive.

End of excerpt. All this seems to me more crucial than what Boethius thought. He was not an original thinker in our sense, but like all original thinkers of his day, traditional. He was a Christian Platonist to put it in two words. That means that he combines the sense that we are all puppets in Plato's cave (i.e. living in illusion, including self illusion — sin) with the idea of one God, like Plato's one light of truth, goodness and beauty. But man, in the image and likeness of God, can know logic, which in a Dark Age, is akin to light and will carry him to the light by enlightening him from within. This light is the light that was in the beginning with God (see intro to John's Gospel). Boethius is Christological in the patristic sense in which Christ is 'logos' or word by which the world is made. This logos has its logic, which is that of reason as Aristotle learned it from Plato (he does not read these two in opposition). It is the literary quality of his Christian Platonism in the Consolation, which is so perfect.

Jordan asked:

My daughter's boyfriend smugly stated that "Everyone has a price" and that of course he "would kill someone for the right price, as would anyone if they were being truly honest!"

I was caught somewhat by surprise, and realized that this boy was proud of his personal revelation and felt that my wife and I were simply not being honest or rational enough to face the facts.

I feel strongly that the world would not work well if everyone held his views and that I would not enjoy my life if I lived it based on this model. But beyond Biblical or Dickensian arguments, I couldn't buttress my views on his own terms.

What should I have said?

You can't argue against a nihilist in moral terms, because he can just deny what you're saying and it is in the nature of morality that this can be done. A point you could have made is that morality is based on the recognition of the reality of the subjectivity of others and if he can't see this then there is a major part of reality which is passing him by. But he can deny this too, saying "that's your reality". As far as I can see, all you can do is shift your ground and attack him on his logic. That is, he is holding a belief about others based upon his own case — that he has a price — and it an invalid inference to move from one's own case to that of others. Of course, he might reply this is true of you too, but at least there'll be a stalemate and he can't claim to be right.

Rachel Browne

First, what is a "price"? Can you compare money, for example, and someone's life? How much, in money, is a life worth, and how do you even compare the two? Would a "price" be the saving of other's lives? Is it worth killing one person if you can guarantee saving the lives of two others?

So I think the first thing to do is establish that his question is basically incoherent: he hasn't defined his terms and probably hasn't even thought about the implications of, for example, comparing life and money.

Second, that kind of comparison, even if you can do it, implies that there is something quantitative involved; something that can be added or at least compared as to magnitude. The "worth" of a "life" is a quantity, in this view, that can be laid next to another quantity, like money or other lives, and the two compared as to size or weight. Well, there are philosophers who believe that: the utilitarians (based on Bentham, but carried much further now than his rather naive approach), and they have had very elaborate schemes to assign "magnitudes" or something like them to "the good" and then compare those magnitudes. Now if this guy were sophisticated he could espouse something like that and muster reasonable defenses. But "price" then would be a much broader term, involving some kind of measurement of happiness. There are very complex game-theoretic approaches based on this kind of assumption.

On the other hand, there are probably more philosophers who think that approach is bunk, basically, and that you cannot compare "goodness" or "life" or "price" like dollars or hamburgers... that you have to either go by some kind of intuition as to which of two (or more) courses is better, or get unanimous consent or something like it. You might take a look at Rawls' Theory of Justice on that one. His position is a pretty sophisticated methodology for arriving at consensual agreement.

Steven Ravett Brown

Cord-Christian asked:

I would like to get some ideas for this one (I'm learning English at the moment, so I have some problems to tackle the question correctly).

What counts as an experiment? Can experiments be undertaken in human sciences or only in 'normal' sciences? Are there some necessary conditions for an activity to be an experiment, e.g. hypotheses, data, manipulation of variables, observations, generalizations and expectations of outcome?

I cannot do better than repeat the entry from the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy edited by Simon Blackburn:

A controlled manipulation of events, designed to produce observations that confirm or disconfirm one or more rival theories or hypotheses. To experiment is to put questions to nature, and the experimental method is contrasted with the passive acceptance of whatever observations happen along. The method is characteristic of modern natural science. However, a discipline (such as history) may be pursued with greater or less objectivity and success without being able to avail itself of the experimental method.

Kenneth Stern

Matthew asked:

The evolution thing

Well, I don't really know all that much about evolutionary theory but something just occurred to me. For example, of what possible advantage is it to an organism to have a slightly opposable thumb? Surely it is no advantage, and if so then how could even more opposable thumbed creatures hope to evolve given that the slightly opposable thumbed creature will be no more successful than its counterparts?

So surely at least some of the developments we see in organisms must be due to sudden radical change rather than a gradual process as envisaged by evolution? And this will have the character more of luck than adaptation. i.e. an organism luckily develops something (through mutation or whatever) that just happens to be beneficial to it.

Is this at all right?

I'm afraid the idea that radical, evolutionarily advantageous changes might develop 'by luck' is extremely weak. As a solution to the problem you have posed, it is a desperate last resort. If there is going to be any useful explanation, we have to stick with small changes brought about by genetic mutation. So the challenge is to demonstrate how these small changes — for example, a slightly opposable thumb — might confer some evolutionary advantage.

Actually, the example you have chosen is not that difficult. The stock examples are the evolution of the eye, or a bird's wing. We shall come to those in a moment. Let's look at your case. The first point to make is that an evolutionary advantage can be measured in very small percentages. If a 'slightly opposed thumb' gives just one tenth of one per cent increase in the chance of successfully performing a given task, then given the scale that we are working on — thousands of generations, millions of individuals — that will work its way through. The proportion of individuals with that trait will increase slowly but inexorably. Then we can run the some process through again, with a further slight modification, and so on.

Richard Dawkins, in a Royal Academy lecture series for children a few years ago, brilliantly took up the challenge of the wing and the eye. What good is a tiny fluffy protuberance that might develop into a wing? Well, an animal that lived in trees might have a fraction of a per cent less chance of dying as a result of falling out of the tree because the protuberance slightly breaks its fall, or because it slightly increases the animal's wind resistance. An eye might first start of as a few slightly light sensitive cells. The chance mutation of a narrow ridge of skin around the patch would cast a slight shadow, which would give the ability to distinguish very crudely between different positions of the light source. You can work out the rest from there.

As Dawkins graphically described in his lectures, evolutionary theorists have not been content to sit in armchairs and speculate. The power of computers allows the possibility of constructing detailed, testable hypotheses. How would a given variation work out after a thousand generations? or ten thousand? or a hundred thousand? The test can be run through in a few seconds.

When we try to apply these theoretical ideas to the massive complexity of the world of living things, with or without the aid of computer models, the imagination balks. We are only able to see, to understand, a very small part of the picture. From that we infer to the whole. It follows that we cannot prove that the inference is correct. But no theory in science is ever proved once and for all. The only claim made is that the theory of evolution by natural selection is, all things considered, the best explanation.

Geoffrey Klempner

Ravi asked:

What is the nature of necessity involved in physical laws? In what way it is distinct from logical necessity? What role do counterfactuals play in distinguishing law statements from accidental generalizations?

Laws of nature are governed by natural necessity and we come to know such laws by observation and confirmation in particular instances. When natural law is understood as causal, one event is supposed to be necessary and sufficient for another, although the predictability which this implies is called into question by quantum physics. However, at an ordinary macro-physical level, if water is heated to 100C it will be boiling. This is necessary because it would not be boiling without having reached this temperature and sufficient because the water's being at this temperature guarantees that it is boiling. We understand this sort of necessity as exceptionless and lawlike, given the proper conditions.

Logical necessity, as it relates to counterfactual situations, is that which we cannot imagine to be otherwise, or that which is true in all possible worlds. It is not logically necessary that when water is at 100C that it is boiling. This is a law of nature, determined by the actual world. An example of logical necessity understood as what we cannot imagine to be otherwise, is that an object cannot be red and green all over. This is because we cannot perceive two different colours at the same time nor imagine what it would be to have a sensation of something's being red and green at the same time. This is not just true for secondary qualities, but also primary qualities. An object cannot be both round and square: We cannot imagine what such a counterfactual state of affairs would be. This is an a priori approach to identifying logical necessity.

However, Kripke has argued that the identity of names determined by reference, when considered in terms of counterfactual situations, is a natural necessity. It is arguable whether the identity of Hesperus and Phosphorus — the 'evening star' and the 'morning star' — is logically necessary. If logical necessity is what we cannot imagine to be otherwise, it is not logically necessary because it is conceivable that each name identifies a different star. However, for Kripke, a counterfactual state of affairs is something we posit within our language and when we refer to Venus we mean our Venus.

The laws of nature can be held to be contingent, i.e. it is possible that water doesn't boil at 100C. However, on Kripke's view of natural kinds such a state of affairs wouldn't involve what we call water, but rather something that appears to be 'water', but isn't. I think the role of a counterfactual is to test our conceptual commitments. We won't give up our commitment to water's boiling point when we consider a possible world. If we consider the state of affairs in which water boils at 35C we suppose that it is not water. If, in fact, we found water was boiling at 35C we would still take the stuff to be water if it was H2O and wonder what would explain this change in natural law. Counterfactuals highlight our commitment to essentialism for natural kinds insofar as we take water to be necessarily H20 and the contingency of the laws of nature which seem to be exceptionless and lawlike, and so we take them to be necessary in this sense, but they could change. Our notion of causation is our way of understanding the world but we have no grasp of the significance of causation or whether the world could change.

Kripke's view of counterfactuals and necessity is not subscribed to by everyone. There is a lot of debate about counterfactuals and the nature of possible worlds. Since you have been interested in counterfactuals for some time, I wonder if you have read An Introduction to Philosophical Logic by A C Grayling and Causation and Conditionals edited by E Sosa.

Rachel Browne

Eduardo asked:

Which is the perfect lifestyle?

I think this is the wrong question. I think the question would be better as "What is the perfect lifestyle for me?" If we agree that different people have different likes, preferences, values and commitments, then no one lifestyle will suit all.

But even my new version seems wrong to me. It assumes that we can rank lifestyles best to worst. But if we agree (and I think there are good arguments that we must) that each person's likes, preferences, values and commitments do not form a perfectly coherent whole (so that some preferences are somewhat at odds with others — e.g. I want to be a sports star, and I want to travel extensively while I'm young), then while we can say that some lifestyles are better for me than others, we will come to a conclusion that, amongst the better ones, this lifestyle (training every day) is better in this way (making me a sports star), while that lifestyle (setting off overseas on an open ticket) is better in some other way (travelling), and there does not seem to be any way of saying that one is absolutely better than the other.

So now the question becomes, for me, "What would be a good lifestyle for me — one I would be happy with?" And while asking other people is a perfectly good way to go about answering this, there will not be a single answer for all of us, or even for me alone, and I will have to make my choice as best I can amongst the alternatives. When I do, some possibilities open up and others close down. As long as I end up happy, it doesn't matter that some of my preferences were never fully met.

Tim Sprod

Melanie asked:

I have to give a class presentation on existentialism. Can anyone please explain it to me without all those big text words? The philosophy book is so hard to understand.

Existentialism is not a philosophy. It is something different philosophers, both modern and ancient have in common. The appellation "existential" for such philosophies is modern, to distinguish such philosophers or philosophies from the dominant schools of modernism, rationalism on one hand and empiricism on the other.

To return to your query: what is it that these philosophers/philosophies have in common? It is a concrete sense of our existence. Now this concrete sense may be understood in our ordinary way as experience. Therefore, an existential philosophy is about experience, either it starts with experience or refers back to it; in either case, experience runs a check on it. But some existentialists find "experience" too psychological as a category, too subjective, therefore, too liable to be hijacked by the modes of rationalism, and its concomitant, empiricism. Existential experience is not so much subjective and individual for these philosophers, but world-historical, what they would call "essential", an idea which hearkens back to the possibility of experience of the eternal in Christian philosophy, much of which, in the early days, and always in the Orthodox world, related to experience. As Paul said, my experience is not "my" experience, "but Christ's in me". In the age of subjectivity we can't think of our experience this way very easily or naturally, but some existentialists still try and think experience outside the category of the ego. The most famous and successful examples are that of Hegel and Heidegger.

Lindsey asked:

Can you tell me what Amoralism, Subjectivism, and Relativism all have in common? What similar relationship/ characteristic do they all share in their claims? And what is the flaw in their similar claims?

One thing that amoralism, subjectivism and relativism have in common is the denial of the objectivity of moral value. The amoralist thinks morality is something you are into or not, the subjectivist takes morality as a matter of personal sentiment and the relativist takes morality as culturally valid but not objective or universal. These moral attitudes arise in part from the problematic position of moral objectivity in its attempt to establish moral truth or a moral reality which transcends ordinary fact.

However, it is not clear cut. A weak relativist might admit that while values are cultural in fact, there is a possibility of agreement if cultural differences can be settled in some way. However, this person would not strictly be a relativist if he thought that there was the possibility of ultimate agreement on moral value amongst humanity in general. On the other hand, if a relativist is not simply a subjectivist, he must recognise the claims of culture which is a move towards, not objectivity, but at least intersubjectivity.

It is moral objectivity — or intersubjectivity — which the three positions do not recognise. The three positions fail to acknowledge the reality of our recognition of the value others as actually having importance in our deliberations towards action, or as just mattering because we care about them. The flaw is that the three positions are not moral positions at all. Rather, they deny the actuality of morality or reduce morality to sentiment or cultural codes.

Rachel Browne

Greg asked:

I have several questions:

1. If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? There must be an edge because it is expanding into something.

2. Are there an infinite amount of numbers between 2 and 3? For instance 2.3, 2.5, 2.6, 2.6564745645.....?

3. How seriously do philosophers take near death experiences? I think the common themes from each culture says something.

4. Who let the dogs out?

1. Let's say that you were a 2-dimensional creature living in the surface of a sphere. There was no way you could see off of that surface: light just moved in the surface. So that sphere is your universe, and you can go around and around in it; there's no edge, but it's finite. Ok... now, the sphere, let us say, is expanding. Well, as far as you are concerned, the universe is getting bigger, but it's not expanding into anything. It's just expanding. Is our 4th-dimensional (or maybe 11th, if string theory is correct) expanding "into" anything? Well, we'll probably never know ... and if we did, then the problem would be just pushed back to the next level, wouldn't it? But if there's no way we can get off, or even see off, then we can speculate all we want, but that's all it will be.

2. Yes. You're talking about the "real numbers", and there are an infinite number of them. In fact, a mathematician named Cantor proved that there are, first, a countably (i.e., you can count them, one by one) infinite number of integers (the whole numbers: 1, 2, 3... you just can't finish counting them... that's why they're infinite); second, a countably infinite number of rational numbers (i.e., all fractions); but there are an uncountably infinite number of real numbers: numbers like pi, square root of 3, and on and on. If you're trying to count them, you can't ever get from the first to the second, because there are an infinite number in-between any two. In fact, that latter infinity (of reals) is just the second order of infinity (the first Cantor called "aleph-null", the second "aleph-one"); there are an infinite number of orders of infinity (I don't know if anyone has proven whether the number of orders is countable or not). Aleph-two is the number of functions, for example.

3. From my point of view, the validity of near-death experiences (in the literature, NDEs) is not a philosophical question or issue, but a medical and psychological one. Are they real? Yes. Do they indicate what people want them to indicate, i.e., that there is "life after death"? Well, you have to look at the literature for that. My take on it is that they do not; that they are interesting, and due to somewhat rare conditions in the brain (oxygen starvation and massive release of particular neurotransmitters — glutamate, mostly) when it and the body are under great stress — like, dying. It is, of course, extremely difficult to do controlled experiments here (and a little ghoulish, don't you think?), but it's been tried, and the results seem to be that we don't really float around, etc., because people can't really see into closed drawers, etc. When, with the people who were saved, and what they seem to have seen is investigated afterwards, it seems to have been just inferences. The accuracy is mere chance. But this is still an open field. The uniformity of the experiences, by the way, is probably due to the uniformity of the physiological events.

4. Socrates.

Steven Ravett Brown

Paulo asked:

I've never heard anything but specious remarks about the problem of evil. Any Comment?

My dictionary defines "specious" as "deceptive" or "inauthentic" although with a "pleasing appearance." I wish you had given instances of these remarks you call "specious," I would have not had to reply in a vacuum. Perhaps you mean only that replies to the question as to how evil is consistent with an all good and all powerful god do not seem satisfactory to you; but neither have they seemed so to many philosophers starting with David Hume.

Perhaps you should ask a more specific question.

Kenneth Stern

Rose asked:

I am doing an essay on the surprise examination paradox. I know what it is, and how the argument goes, but I would like to know: is it a genuine paradox? why or why not? what has 'vagueness' got to do with it? what is the answer?!

Where should my essay take me, and where can I find decent arguments on the web?

A teacher tells her class: "You will have a logic exam at 10 am one day next week. I'm not telling you which day. It will be a surprise." One bright student reasons as follows. "Teacher can't wait until Friday to give the exam, because by then we will know that it has to be on Friday, so it won't be a surprise. However, if Friday is ruled out, then by the same reasoning the exam can't be on Thursday either, because by then we will know that the exam has to be on that day. The same reasoning proves that the exam can't be on Wednesday, Tuesday or Monday. Therefore, our teacher can't give us a surprise logic exam!"

Confident that there will be no logic exam, the bright student doesn't bother to revise. The following Wednesday, the teacher hands out examination scripts. Boy, was the student surprised!

I know that some philosophers make a lot of this paradox. (Richard Montague in Formal Philosophy is one who takes the paradox seriously. I don't recommend that you attempt to read that inpenetrable book.) In my view it is not, in fact, a genuine paradox.

First, let's get rid of the magician's hand waving. The specious plausibility of the paradox derives from the fact that the students are given a choice of five days. Watch what happens, however, if we reduce the number of days to just two. "You will have a logic exam at 10 am either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. I'm not telling you which day. It will be a surprise."

Now things are a lot clearer. It is true that the teacher is still able to surprise her class. Tomorrow 10 am comes, and the teacher either gives the exam or doesn't give the exam. Either way, the students 'are surprised'. They didn't know whether they would get the exam on that day or not. However, it is also clear that when the teacher said, "It will be a surprise," she could not have meant, "Whenever I give you the exam, you will be surprised." This is something she knows can't be true. They can be surprised by the exam's not being given tomorrow. They can't be surprised by the exam's being given the day after tomorrow.

In my view, therefore, the surprise examination paradox comes into the same category as the infamous barber paradox. Suppose I tell you that there is a barber in Sheffield who shaves all and only those Sheffielders who do not shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself? Answering either "yes" or "no" leads to a contradiction. If he does, he doesn't. If he doesn't, he does. This is not a genuine paradox because the response is simply to say that the statement, "There is a barber in Sheffield who shaves all and only those Sheffielders who do not shave themselves" cannot be true. The statement is self-contradictory. End of story. We should say the same thing about the surprise examination paradox. The statement, "You will be given an exam one day next week and whichever day it is you will be surprised" cannot be true. Only on the assumption of its truth could the bright, but easily suckered student have reasoned as he did. That reasoning is what shows the teacher's statement to be self-contradictory.

Magdalena asked:

If simultaneity of times in different dimensions or spaces is not verified, how can one explain "deja vu"?

When we experience déjà vu, we feel something which is happening has happened before and I'm not sure if this involves different time dimensions, since it essentially involves memory, which is of the past. I like the theory that déjà vu is concurrent memory and consciousness of a single situation. It is thought that the brain races forward and acquires information before it enters consciousness, so informationally, in the brain, there is a memory. When we then become conscious of the situation, the brain matches this with what has become a memory as far as the brain is concerned — since it rushed forward. We then have both a memory and consciousness of a current situation.

Rachel Browne

Rebecca asked:

Two questions:

1. Is morality dependent upon religion?

2. What is truth?

1. No, morality is not dependent upon religion. Plato (through Socrates) argues quite convincingly in the dialogue Euthyphro that — to put it in modern terms — things are not right (morally correct) because a god says they are right, but rather that a god will say those things are right because they are already right. So if there is an independent way to say whether something is right (morally correct) or not, then god is not necessary. Just what it is that makes things morally correct is more difficult to say.

My favorite example of this is the Abraham and Isaac story from the Bible (especially as told by Bob Dylan in the first verse of Highway 61:

God said to Abraham "kill me a son", Abe said "man, you must be putting me on". God said "Abe", Abe said "What?", God said "You can do what you want, Abe, but the next time you see me coming you better run". Abe said "Where do you want this killing done?" God said "Down on highway 61".

So, why did Abe think God was putting him on? Because to kill an innocent son is immoral, no matter whether God tells you to or not. Even (especially?) if He threatens you.

2. If I knew the answer to, 'What is truth?', you would be reading it in my bestselling book which would have made me the most famous philosopher of all time.

Seriously, there are many views about what truth is. Briefly and roughly, the correspondence view says it is whatever beliefs corresponds to reality. The coherence view says it is whatever set of beliefs coheres (fits) best with all other beliefs and experiences. The consensus view says it is whatever beliefs are held in common amongst those who have jointly tried to find it. The pragmatic view says it is whatever beliefs turn out to be the most useful to have.

There are many versions of each, and they are not all mutually exclusive either. There are also some other theories on truth I haven't mentioned.

Tim Sprod

TK asked:

In the Yin/Yang philosophy it states that opposites are necessary in order to create the universe. If this is the case, since one polar is considered to be "good", the opposite polar being "bad" or in the case presented "evil", is evil a necessity in order to create balance in the universe?

The Yin/Yang philosophy, as you call it, is about balance, not opposites. It is the Taoist philosophy in fact. Good and evil are not postulates let alone abstractions, they are what is the case if we examine our bodies or the world around us (i.e.. our experience and that of our families). There is a circular relationship between the two, rather than an oppositional relationship, in this philosophy. Good health becomes bad health if it is too good, e.g.. the growth of cells becomes cancer after a certain point. Beauty becomes ugly and so on. Cold burns us, heat eats us away like cold. The truth lies between, in the balance. The Yin/Yang philosophy, as you call it, is an avoidance of extremes. Its main postulate is a middle way.

Cynthia asked:

Does happiness exist?
If the answer is yes, how can we reach it?

Of course happiness exists! There's a John Wayne film in which a character asked John Wayne "What is the secret of happiness?" and John Wayne replied "One thing". The questioner asked "What thing?" I think Wayne just replied "one thing!" OK, you might not think this is funny.

If there is nothing good in your life it is difficult to be happy. But if you have just one really good thing it's easy. The "one thing" will not be the same for everyone.

Rachel Browne

Christian asked:

What is man?

Man is a human being who does not bear children. Emotionally, he is the weaker of the human species and because he does not have to be prepared for childbirth, he cannot easily bear pain. He is more vulnerable than women and to hide this fact he has instigated the myth that man is the stronger sex which gains spurious support from the fact that he is, on average, physically bigger.

However, if by "man" you mean mankind, then man is a biological organism with a brain capacity that can sustain thought and language and he believes himself so superior that he can use the world's resources as he wishes without having to bear the consequences.

Rachel Browne

If you are asking 'what is the essence of humanity', then that is far from an easy question to answer. Many philosophers, Sartre among them, have argued that the question is incoherent, and cannot be answered. But one thinker who did his best to find out what it is that makes humans different, 'the science of human specialty' he called it, was Jacob Bronowski. He concluded, among other things, that humans not only have a unique capacity to make comparisons between concepts, but that this process of comparison is something which we are forced to do by the way our minds are structured. I think there is considerable merit in this view, which has echoes inÊFreud.

It may well be the case that we are stuck with this process of comparative reasoning. One thing which rather supports the view is the way in which many thinkers, even those with skill in philosophy, often seem to observe only the differences between things, and miss entirely the similarities. For instance, it is not uncommon for people to assert that there are considerable differences between human males and females, when, in fact, the differences are negligible while the similarities between the sexes are all but overwhelming. Even such differences as there are, for instance that males are usually more skilled at spacial and analytic reasoning, while females are better at facial recognition, are only matters of degree and of average. It is just as probable to find a female with greater than average male skill in philosophy as is it is to find a male who is shorter than the average female. Such concentration on difference might even lead a human to think that they were significantly different to non-human animals — on their collective attitude to the world's resources, for instance.

Now that you have two answers, you can use this faculty of comparison on them. But don't forget to look for the similarities, not just the differences!

Leonardo asked:

What came first in human species: language or the capacity to classify (categories)?

I would go for the latter. I think animals must have some such capacity. It is the development of the ability to classify conceptually that leads to language, in my view. Now the question becomes a much harder one: What came first in human species: language or the capacity to conceptualise? I don't know the answer to that one.

Tim Sprod

Dana asked:

Does karma exist? In other words, is the universe interested in revenge?

If you are a Buddhist, that is taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, yes karma exists, but if you are not on the Way, no it doesn't, then you are oblivious to it. You have to be on the path to perceive karma. That does not mean karma is relative. But absolute or relative karma does not presuppose something called a "universe" as you suppose. In the Chinese translation of the Heart Sutra, the character for "space" includes the closest possible and the furthest away imaginable. There is no end, no boundary. The Chinese character for time covers the first beginning and the last ending. There is no starting point and no finishing. In short, "the universe" as a thing, let alone a thing "out there", is empty (kong), your idea of it is empty. Your idea of it is itself karmic. The Buddhist idea is that everything that exists in any one moment of time, from the nearest to the furthest is so because karma. It is not a result of karma, it is karma. Karma is thisness. Karma is nowness. The old explanation to westerners of karma in terms of a chronological sequence of cause and effect was helpful once, perhaps, but now is a distraction.

Blake asked:

So what if I don't believe in God?

Does that make me a sinner or no longer a soldier of "God's army"? ... Coz I don't really give a f***!! ... It's all bullshit anyway!!

You might not believe in God but you do f*** care or you wouldn't be so concerned as to write in this language or even to express yourself at all and ask a question! This sounds like a case of rebellion rather than disbelief! But you needn't worry about it because surely the best God loves and forgives everyone.

Rachel Browne

You sound like someone in the throes of a crisis, and I sympathize. Ask yourself, which god are you rejecting? Kali? Thor? Zeus? Buddha? Yahweh? Allah? Shall I go on...and on? Humanity's history is full of various gods, goddesses, demi-gods, and so on, all of whom have had (and still in many cases have) zealous followers. These followers state categorically that their god is the only true god, and all the rest are false. It must be nice to have the key to the universe. As for myself, I don't claim to have that key, and I doubt that any being, past or present, has. I gather that I have my choice of hells: the Christian hell, the Mohammedan hell, the Norse hell, the Greek hell...they're all waiting for me, since I'm an atheist. How do you think they'll divide my time in the afterlife (which I don't believe in)? But wait...only one of those is the real afterlife/ Shall I flip a coin?

Steven Ravett Brown

José asked:

Why do people believe in something that don't know, that is not proved?

Why if we are alive, are we unhappy or forced to be unhappy?

Belief in what we do not know could be driven by our desire to salve feelings of fear or anxiety, examples being faith in God and superstition, although uncertainty may also be involved. Lying behind belief in God could be fear of death, of non-existence, or of losing contact with loved ones. But perhaps faith in an unproven God just stems from the need to believe in the un-worldly or other-worldly because this world is not perceived as good, just or worthwhile.

As for your second question, we are unhappy because we are alive. Problems come with life. Good aspects of being alive are sometimes overridden by the bad and, then, why should we not be unhappy?

Rachel Browne

William asked:

Is it worthwhile studying philosophy, since all that philosophers talk about will one day be adequately handled by the particular sciences? It seems, then, that philosophy is just a vast illusion, dealing not with reality but with mere concepts.

There is a large and highly questionable assumption underlying this question: that everything can be reduced to science. This view is called "scientism". I think the assumption is wrong. I would recommend finding the magazine Philosophy Now issue 27 (June/ July 2000) and reading the debate on this topic. You could also look for New Scientist nos. 1832 and 1833 (1 and 8 August 1992) for two articles by Mary Midgley and Peter Atkin on this topic.

And who says concepts are not reality? They are part of my reality!

Tim Sprod

One good reason for studying philosophy is to get some training in critical thinking. I say that because one aspect of learning critical thinking is learning to recognize fallacies like the fallacy of begging the question. You beg the question in an argument when you assume something that needs at least as much proof as your conclusion. I think you have begged the question when you assume that all that philosophers talk about will one day be adequately handled the particular sciences. Should we simply assume that is true, or have you some argument for that premise? For example, how is whether capital punishment is right do be decided by science? Or how is whether there is a God to be decided by science? Just to cite two philosophical questions.

Another thing you might learn from critical thinking is to clarify what you say so that you can determine whether what you say is true. You cannot determine whether what you say is true unless you understand it. You write that philosophy is not about reality, but about "mere" concepts. Even if you are right about that, and it is not clear you are, how "mere" are concepts. It is our concepts that slice up the world so that we can understand and investigate the world. These concepts are our tools for thinking about reality. And, like any tools, we would like them sharp and clean. Otherwise our thinking about reality will be confused. It is one of the most important jobs of philosophy to clarify and sharpen these concepts. So, one thing you might learn by studying philosophy is that concepts are not "mere." And another thing to learn is how to employ these concepts to answer questions not in the province of science.

Kenneth Stern

David asked:

Can you give me some reasons for believing that a human being is not a merely purely physical thing?

Three reasons: Consciousness, qualia, intentionality (I am quoting the famous physicalist — more precisely, central state materialist — David Armstrong here, who identifies these as the three major threats to his views).

Consciousness I guess you know. Qualia are the actual experiences of sense perceptions (such as the "redness" of red). Intentionality is the way that our thoughts are 'about' things, whereas brain states don't seem to be about things in the same way at all.

Tim Sprod

One reason (although not one I would agree with) is that in the physical world, objects follow the laws of cause and effect whereas human beings have free will, meaning they can go against their previous experiences. If you hit a golf ball, you know it will go flying, whereas if you hit a person their reaction is completely free — they may