Coordinates of Thought: topics
-
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…
Started by Youssef Benali3 replies0 views -
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…
Started by Aoife Brennan3 replies0 views -
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…
Started by Vikram Sethi3 replies0 views -
Can someone explain Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita fairly, from an Advaitin’s point of view?
I have read Shankara for decades and I confess I have never given Rāmānuja the attention he deserves. My Vaishnava friends tell me I misrepresent him whenever I speak about him. So…
Started by Arjun Iyer3 replies0 views -
Are Kant’s formulations of the categorical imperative really equivalent?
I am working through the Groundwork, slowly. Kant gives several formulations of the categorical imperative: act only on a maxim you could will as a universal law treat humanity, in yourself and…
Started by Henrike Vogel3 replies0 views -
Is “Islamic philosophy” a useful label?
Some colleagues prefer "Arabic philosophy". Others say "philosophy in the Islamic world". Each has problems. "Islamic philosophy" suggests that it's all religious, or that all of it was done by Muslims. But…
Started by Layla Haddad2 replies0 views -
Sartre’s “look” and Fanon on being fixed by another’s gaze
In Being and Nothingness (1943), Sartre describes the moment of being caught looking through a keyhole: suddenly I am an object for someone else, and I feel shame. The look of the…
Started by Claire Dubois2 replies0 views -
What did Ibn Sina mean by the “internal senses”?
In my history of psychology course, Ibn Sina was mentioned for his theory of "internal senses", and the lecturer said it was an early version of cognitive psychology. I'd love a clear…
Started by Elif Yıldız2 replies0 views -
What does “intersectionality” mean philosophically, beyond the slogan?
In journalism the word "intersectionality" is everywhere, and it's often used just to list identities. I know Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the term in 1989, but I'd like to understand the original argument…
Started by Sana Mir2 replies0 views -
Can you be religious and a philosophical skeptic at the same time?
This semester I took a module on scepticism, Pyrrhonism, Descartes' demon and so on, and I found some of the arguments hard to answer. Now I'm wondering whether serious scepticism is compatible…
Started by Aoife Brennan2 replies0 views -
What is longtermism, and what’s the main objection to it?
Everyone in tech talks about longtermism. I know it's connected to effective altruism and William MacAskill's What We Owe the Future (2022). But I've never seen a clear explanation of the core…
Started by Rohan Desai2 replies0 views -
How does Ibn Sina’s proof of the Necessary Existent avoid the infinite regress problem?
I understand the basic structure: things that exist are either necessary in themselves or possible (contingent) in themselves. Contingent things need a cause. So there must be a necessary being. But why…
Started by Omar Farouk2 replies0 views -
Reading group: Suhrawardi’s Philosophy of Illumination, introduction and Part One
Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi (1154–1191) was executed in Aleppo, still young, after falling foul of the authorities. His Philosophy of Illumination (Hikmat al-Ishraq), completed in 1186, founded a school that shaped Persian philosophy…
Started by Reza Tehrani2 replies0 views -
Fes, al-Qarawiyyin, and how medieval students learned to argue
I take my students past al-Qarawiyyin every year. Founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri, it's often described as one of the oldest continuously operating institutions of learning in the world. What interests…
Started by Youssef Benali2 replies0 views -
Is there a coherent left-wing case for private property?
On the left, private property is usually treated as the problem. But there are traditions that defend it on egalitarian grounds: the small farmer's land, the artisan's workshop, the home that can't…
Started by Javier Morales2 replies0 views -
Dōgen’s “being-time”: is time something things have, or something they are?
Dōgen (1200–1253), founder of the Sōtō Zen school in Japan, wrote a short and very strange essay in 1240 called "Uji", usually translated "Being-Time", which became part of his Shōbōgenzō. Its central…
Started by Reza Tehrani2 replies0 views -
What were Mencius and Xunzi arguing about when they disagreed about human nature?
I'm writing an essay comparing moral development theories, and my tutor suggested the debate between Mencius and Xunzi as a classical example. I understand Mencius said human nature is good and Xunzi…
Started by Elif Yıldız2 replies0 views -
What’s the difference between “deep ecology” and environmental ethics in general?
In my field, "deep ecology" is used both as a compliment and an insult. I know it comes from the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, but I'm not sure how it differs from…
Started by Anand Pillai2 replies0 views -
The sorites paradox and my pile of exam scripts
It's marking season. A script with 33 marks out of 100 passes; one with 32 fails. My students ask: "Sir, what's the real difference between 32 and 33?" And I can't really…
Started by Vikram Sethi2 replies0 views -
Patients who pray: faith, placebo, and respect at the bedside
Many of my patients pray. Some ask me to pray with them. Some refuse treatment until they've consulted a sheikh, or a priest. Some say their recovery is entirely God's will and…
Started by Omar Farouk2 replies0 views -
Did Indian epistemologists anticipate the Gettier problem?
In 1963 Edmund Gettier's three-page paper showed that justified true belief isn't sufficient for knowledge. You can have a justified belief that's true by luck. Indian philosophers seem to have discussed cases…
Started by Meera Kulkarni2 replies0 views -
Reading group: Tagore’s The Religion of Man (1931)
Rabindranath Tagore gave the Hibbert Lectures at Oxford in 1930, and they were published the next year as The Religion of Man. It isn't a work of systematic philosophy but an extended…
Started by Kavya Menon2 replies0 views -
Should judges interpret constitutions by their original meaning?
Originalism, defended in the US by Antonin Scalia (for example, in A Matter of Interpretation, 1997), says the meaning of a constitutional text is fixed at the time it was adopted. Judges…
Started by Deepa Nair2 replies0 views -
Zeno’s arrow and what my students made of it
Today I gave a class Zeno's arrow. At any instant, the arrow occupies a space exactly its own size, so at that instant it is at rest. Time is made of instants.…
Started by Giulia Ferrante1 reply0 views -
Is human dignity a religious idea that secular law borrowed?
Article 1 of the German Basic Law (1949) declares human dignity inviolable. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) begins by recognising the inherent dignity of all members of the human family.…
Started by Hamza Qureshi1 reply0 views -
Reading group: Thomas Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” (1974)
A short classic, first published in The Philosophical Review. Nagel argues that an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something it is like to be that organism.…
Started by Priya Raghavan1 reply0 views -
Are possible worlds real, or just a bookkeeping device?
David Lewis, in On the Plurality of Worlds (1986), argued that other possible worlds are just as real as ours. "Actual" is indexical, like "here". Our world is actual only in the…
Started by Tomasz Wójcik1 reply0 views -
Reading group: Hobbes, Leviathan, chapters 13–17
These five chapters of Leviathan (1651) contain the core of Hobbes's political argument. Ch. 13: the natural condition of mankind. Rough equality, competition, distrust and glory lead to a war of every…
Started by Javier Morales1 reply0 views -
What’s the difference between deduction, induction and abduction?
My students know "deduction" and "induction" from school, though they often mix them up. I recently read that Charles Sanders Peirce added a third type of reasoning, abduction. Could someone explain all…
Started by Vikram Sethi1 reply0 views -
Compassion fatigue: does the duty to care have limits?
After a hard month on the ward I've been thinking about this. Nurses talk about "compassion fatigue": after enough exposure to suffering, you start to feel less. You become efficient and a…
Started by Elin Lindqvist1 reply0 views