Format
Question
One question: Explain (can have an accepted answer) or Open (several argued answers)
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What is the “block universe”, and does relativity force it on us?
In physics classes we learned special relativity, including the relativity of simultaneity: observers in relative motion disagree about which distant events are simultaneous. Some philosophers argue this means the past, present and future are all equally real, the "block universe". Is that…
Started by Emeka Anyaoha4 replies -
What is Mary’s Room actually supposed to show?
Frank Jackson's "Mary's Room" is easy to present badly, and I'd like to present it correctly at a study circle I'm leading. Mary is a brilliant neuroscientist who has lived her whole life in a black-and-white room. She knows every physical fact…
Started by Priya Raghavan4 replies -
If consent of the governed is the newcomer, what did legitimacy rest on before it?
My students are learning about government this term. I showed them a comparative table of answers to the question "how should we be governed?" across many traditions: Greek, Chinese, Indian, Islamic, European. The thing that surprised them most was that only the…
Started by Aroha Tipene5 replies -
What is ijtihad, and why did Iqbal call it the principle of movement in Islam?
From my law studies I know ijtihad in its narrow legal sense: independent reasoning by a qualified jurist to derive a ruling where texts are silent or unclear. But Iqbal, in the sixth lecture of the Reconstruction, "The Principle of Movement in…
Started by Hamza Qureshi3 replies -
My daughter asked where her mind is kept. Is Ryle’s ‘category mistake’ the answer?
My daughter is seven. Last week, while I was plaiting her hair, she asked me where her mind is kept. "Is it in my head, like my brain? Or is it behind my eyes?" I said it was in her brain, and…
Started by Thamarai Raman4 replies -
My son says you can’t prove fairies don’t exist. Why is that a weakness, not a strength?
My nine-year-old has discovered the perfect argument. Fairies live in our garden, he says. When I ask how he knows, he says: “You can't prove they don't.” He is very pleased with this and uses it on his sister for everything from…
Started by Thamarai Raman5 replies -
What did Gorgias actually say about the power of speech in the Encomium of Helen?
Persuasion is literally my rent. A mate who did classics told me there's an ancient Greek speech where Gorgias argues that words work on people like drugs, and that it's all in a speech defending Helen of Troy, of all people. That…
Started by Gemma Pritchard4 replies -
Why does logic count ‘if the moon is cheese, then 2 + 2 = 5’ as true?
Half my jokes are conditionals. So I was pleased to find a whole branch of logic about "if". Then I hit the truth table and it broke my brain. Apparently in propositional logic "if P then Q" is false only when P…
Started by Gemma Pritchard4 replies -
What is Rawls’s veil of ignorance actually supposed to show?
When I talk about Rawls with the younger economists at work, they treat the original position as a risk-aversion exercise. Behind the veil you don't know whether you'll be rich or poor, so you pick the society where the worst-off do best:…
Started by Javier Ferrandis4 replies -
Epictetus says some things are up to us. What did that depend on for him?
Epictetus is still my favourite. The Handbook begins by saying some things are up to us and some are not: our opinions, desires and aversions are up to us; our body, property, reputation and office are not. In traffic this is very…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu5 replies -
I know the spider is harmless and I’m still terrified. Is my fear wrong, or just irrational?
I am very afraid of spiders. Last week one sat on my monitor for an hour. I knew it was a harmless house spider. I could have recited the facts about its venom. I still couldn't touch the keyboard. A friend who…
Started by Hsieh Wei-ting5 replies -
I never agreed to obey the state. Why do I owe it anything?
This week's lecture was on the social contract, and since then one thought keeps coming back while I sit in traffic. I never signed anything. I was born here, like my parents. Nobody asked me if I agreed to the laws, the…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu4 replies -
What is the doctrine of double effect, and did Aquinas really come up with it?
Yesterday's lecture mentioned the "doctrine of double effect" and said it goes back to Thomas Aquinas. The lecturer moved on quickly and I didn't fully follow. Here's what I understood. If I swerve to avoid a child who runs into the road…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu4 replies -
What is the anthropic principle, and is it an explanation or a polite way of not explaining?
I drive a bus in Ankara and listen to lectures between stops. One lecture said that the physical constants of the universe seem "finely tuned" for life, and then mentioned "the anthropic principle", saying something like: of course we observe a universe…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu4 replies -
My son says our choices can’t harm people who don’t exist yet. What is the non-identity problem?
There is a famous puzzle, my son tells me, the "non-identity problem", which shows that we cannot make future people worse off by damaging the environment, because different choices would mean different people being born. This makes no sense to me. My…
Started by Akosua Mensah3 replies -
What did Bell’s theorem actually prove? I keep hearing three different answers
I'm doing philosophy with some physics. In the space of one week I have been told by three different people that Bell's theorem proves: that the universe is non-local; that there are no hidden variables in quantum mechanics; that Einstein was wrong.…
Started by Ethan Mercer4 replies -
Kant says taste is subjective but everyone ought to agree with it. How is that not a contradiction?
Yesterday a lecturer explained Kant's view of beauty and I nearly missed a stop. As far as I understood: when I call something beautiful, I am not reporting a property I can prove with concepts; it rests on my feeling of pleasure.…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu4 replies -
“The ends justify the means”: obviously true or obviously false? I can’t decide which
I hear “the ends justify the means” constantly, at work and at gigs. My team leader says it when he wants us to hit targets by telling customers a tiny lie about wait times. A comic I know says it about stealing…
Started by Gemma Pritchard4 replies -
If numbers aren’t physical, how could we ever know anything about them?
I count tablets all day. Three tablets, thirty tablets, a strip of ten. The tablets are physical: I can drop them, and I do. But the three is not in any of them. You can't drop a three. My son's maths teacher…
Started by Hetal Shah4 replies -
What does Hume mean when he says reason is the slave of the passions?
Yesterday a lecturer quoted Hume saying that reason is the slave of the passions, and then the traffic got bad and I missed the explanation. It worries me. Epictetus is the philosopher who makes most sense to me in traffic, and he…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu4 replies -
What does “primacy of existence” (asalat al-wujud) mean in plain terms?
I've read that Mulla Sadra's central doctrine is the primacy or "fundamentality" of existence over essence. I've also read that this is the opposite of a view held by Suhrawardi, or Mir Damad, or both. I understand the words but not the…
Started by Reza Tehrani3 replies -
Did Ibn Khaldun invent sociology, or is that a modern compliment?
Ibn Khaldun called his new science 'ilm al-'umran, the science of human social organisation or civilisation. He looked for regular causes behind historical events: climate, economy, group solidarity, the transition from nomadic to urban life. Many modern writers call him the founder…
Started by Youssef Berrada3 replies -
What makes a death a “good death”?
In end-of-life care people talk constantly about a "good death". Usually it means: pain controlled, the person not alone, their wishes known and respected, family prepared, no futile interventions at the end. That's a practical list, and I believe in it. But…
Started by Elin Hedqvist4 replies -
What does “the right side of history” actually assume about history?
At least once a tournament, one of the kids I coach closes a round with “my opponent is on the wrong side of history.” Judges love it. I've started to find it slippery, but I can't say exactly why. As far as…
Started by Sam Ellery5 replies -
What’s the difference between the cosmological and the ontological argument?
First-year question, sorry. In my philosophy of religion module the lecturer moved fast through several arguments for God's existence and I came out mixing up two of them. I think one is about causes and one is about the concept of God,…
Started by Aoife Kilbride3 replies -
If the Big Bang marks the edge of a theory rather than a beginning, what is left of the kalām’s physics?
I studied physics, and I get asked about this a lot by friends who have watched debates online. Here is what I think the physics actually says. The hot Big Bang phase of the observable universe has a finite age, about 13.8…
Started by Lars Eriksen5 replies -
When Aristotle calls humans political animals, does he mean we need a government?
At least once a debate tournament some student cites Aristotle: "man is a political animal." It always gets used to mean that people need government, or that humans are naturally into politics, like campaigning and voting. I have a nagging feeling that's…
Started by Sam Ellery4 replies -
Why is “begging the question” not the same as “raising the question”?
My students, and frankly most newspapers, use "this begs the question" to mean "this raises the question". A colleague told me that's wrong and the phrase refers to a fallacy. Could someone explain the fallacy properly, with a clear example, and where…
Started by Vikram Sethi3 replies -
What does Langdon Winner mean when he says artifacts have politics?
Anyone who builds puzzle games already believes that rules built into a world shape what people do in it. If I put a locked door at the end of a corridor, players will spend twenty minutes looking for a key, and none…
Started by Hsieh Wei-ting4 replies -
Why does the muddy children puzzle need the parent’s announcement if every child already knew?
A colleague at the studio showed me the "muddy children" puzzle. I love it and I don't understand it. Three children, each with mud on their forehead. Each can see the others but not themselves. A parent says: "At least one of…
Started by Hsieh Wei-ting3 replies