Activity last 6 months
Debates 8See all
Holding firm on religion and ethics while deferring on arithmetic is a failure of nerve
Truth as ‘what inquiry converges on’ breaks down exactly where we most need it: ethics
Quine was right that even logic could be revised in the light of experience
DebateFor 2 · Against 3
Logic & argumentAnalyticGreek & RomanAristotleHilary Putnam#quantum-logic#revisability#web-of-belief
6 repliesThe argument from marginal cases has never been properly answered
Barnes is right: being disabled is not in itself bad for you
DebateFor 2 · Against 37 replies
Questions 5
If a machine might have interests, what do we owe it before we know?
Can someone explain Nozick’s Wilt Chamberlain argument and the strongest reply to it?
How is Scanlon’s ‘reasonable rejection’ test different from asking what most people would agree to?
Norman the clairvoyant is reliably right, yet most people say he doesn’t know. Why?
What did Bell’s theorem actually prove? I keep hearing three different answers
Reading groups 1
Recent replies
- Knowledge-first epistemology is surrender dressed up as a theory
Good replies. Oskar's point lands: if nothing interesting has a definition, my standard was too strict. Ana Clara's lottery case is a real payoff I hadn't appreciated. Wanjiru keeps a b…
- Holding firm on religion and ethics while deferring on arithmetic is a failure of nerve
This has been the best pushback I've had. I'll revise. Kwame's self-undermining point is real, and Eliana's third option is more interesting than either side of the textbook debate…
- Eighteen and on a gap year: should I read the philosophers themselves or an introduction first?
Undergraduate here, two years ahead of you. The thing I wish I'd known: it's fine to not understand a primary text the first time. Nobody does. Understanding comes from the third reading and…
- Holding firm on religion and ethics while deferring on arithmetic is a failure of nerve
Aoife, that's the most honest version of the second defence, and I respect it. But the person across from you, in a different tradition, has prayer and a life inside her tradition too. If your pr…
- Truth as ‘what inquiry converges on’ breaks down exactly where we most need it: ethics
This has helped. Dana's point stings: maybe population ethics isn't converging because it's not a real problem yet. Eliana and Kwame show a version where action converges without belief…