Has there ever been a rich or wealthy philosopher? I’m not talking like they published a book at the end of their life and it became a best seller. I’m talking like throughout their life they had access to wealth and security
the title is what it says, I'm having an existential crisis and I'm 18 years old. I just got off having taken aripripazole for a couple of weeks and I don't know what to feel recently, i just graduated High school and I feel like life is inherently useless, everything is temporary and there's no use for anything in life. It's such a useless thought but I've been feeling so depressed over it. I sense time in the way it passes, and it makes me feel weak, I don't know what to feel and I'm hoping you guys can give me books that explain this feeling and if there are philosophers that have tackled this?
In times,
where people throw the word AGI around
like candys at an parade,
I for myself is in highly doubt.
Its a question, which is regarding instrumental realism unanswered, and probably ever will.
So I am here, an engineer not searching for answers, but looking for a philosophical stance regarding that matter.
Thanks in advance! Every opinion appreciated.
I wish to try and understand why misery seems to be such a pronounced and universal characteristic of being a human.
Is it only humans that are this miserable? Is it self-inflicted? Animals don't seem to be too unhappy, but how can we really know?
If only humans are miserable, then it may be argued that the misery is a consequence of our intelligence. If so, is intelligence worth it? I can't make the argument that an unhappy life lived in comfort enabled by our intelligence is better than the short life of dumb contentment experienced by a field mouse living in accordance with its own nature.
With this post I am hoping for recommendations for philosophers who wrote on this topic. I could just ask an llm, but prefer a human touch.
Could someone tell me if atheism and moral realism are compatible and some philosophers who have this view and where I can read about it.
Curious about Moral realist theories that don't involve God
It seems to me that these are at least some of the objectives we have when we assert some ontology of trans people:
- All else equal (AEE), we want the ontology to be well-received by trans people.
- AEE, we want the ontology to be such that, if it was accepted by society at large, it would benefit (or at least, not harm) trans people.
- AEE, we want the ontology to be compatible with some metaphysics that isn't problematic in its own right, e.g., one of the supposed critiques of the psychological view on gender (that gender is purely in the "mind") is that mind-body dualism itself is unpopular
The first two objectives I list seem to be purely ethical. That is, AEE, we should prefer ontologies that, when accepted by either trans people or society at large, wouldn't harm (hopefully benefit!) trans people.
And, at least from my surface-level reading of contemporary debates in gender, these two really do seem to be the primary vectors by which some contemporary conception of gender is critiqued.
Let me give a concrete example. in https://academic.oup.com/analysis/article/83/4/801/7204699?login=false,
>The no connection view implies that many trans women are not women. For instance, Haslanger’s version of this view implies that trans women who are not presumed to have female sex characteristics by those in their society are not women; so trans women who are not recognised as women, or who ‘do not pass’,5 are not women. This is because such trans women are not observed or imagined to have features that are presumed to be evidence of a female’s biological role in reproduction. There are many such trans women. So, no connection views such as Haslanger’s imply that many trans women are not women (Jenkins 2016: 398–402). Some have argued that this is an unacceptable result for a metaphysical view about the relationship between gender identity and gender, either because all trans women are women or because this view would marginalize trans women within contemporary feminism (Mikkola 2016: 100–102).
But I don't really see why it's important that the no connection view implies that, strictly speaking, many trans women are not ontologically women. Clearly, the no connection view does not say that gender self-identity is morally unimportant; we should treat trans people as their self-identified gender independently of whether they are actually that gender (whatever that might mean!). Why should we care whether some ontology literally respects the language of "trans women are women", rather than the principles that motivate the slogan, i.e., that we should treat trans women as women?
Maybe my confusion is because I think that at least one of the questions that an ontology of trans people is trying to answer *is* "Are trans women women?". And, at least to me, the proposition "Trans women are women" isn't some kind of basic intuition with methodological power, like how moral realists use the "primacy" of "Killing babies is bad" as an argument for or against particular moral theories. Rather, it basically amounts to saying "Treat trans women as women". After all, if we are supposed to interpret it as saying "trans women are ontologically women", what work is there even left to do? We already have an ontology; trans X are X.
I guess the crux of my question is this: what, then, is the point of an ontology of trans people as something distinct from an ethics of trans people? Is there anything sensical we can talk about with trans ontology, besides my third objective, that isn't related to ethics?
I’ve been looking into possibly getting my PhD in philosophy, but I have a couple of requirements that I fear are going to be nearly impossible to reach. If anyone has found any program at all that matches any of these slightly, please let me know! For background, I have a bachelors degree from the university of Michigan in philosophy and the history of art. I also hold a polish citizenship, which would potentially allow me to complete my studies fully online in Europe?
3-4 year course (perhaps an accelerated program)
Fully online, unless if in the Chicago land area. Then I could commute.
Likely to get a scholarship (i.e. the tuition cost is extremely important to me).
Additionally, if anyone has any knowledge at all about potentially completing my PhD in philosophy fully online but through any institution or university in Europe, that would be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance!
I recently had a lecture on Philosophical Pessimism, and though the majority of the class had concluded that they were not, or perhaps more accurately, could not be, pessimists, there was also a struggle to find well-backed-up reasons against being a pessimist. The lecturer was, naturally, a staunch pessimist in every sense of the word and was quite convincing in his reasons as to why human existence is inherently bad, but didn't provide much pushback. What I'm asking is, what are some of the best reasons against being a pessimist, or do most of these stem from merely not wanting to conclude that our existence is bad? Thanks :)
Namely the only one, even if they disagree on what he is like.
If not, what does it mean to say two religions believe in the same god or different gods? how would we tell the two cases apart
First time reader of this book, I am leaning towards using this translation simply because it translates some of the Greek and Latin Heidegger writes in its original script. I have learned the ancient Greek alphabet (a little rusty) so I can type out those phrases to look them up if another translation is more recommended.
This question has been ringing in my head for the past couple of days and I wonder what it means to be an "Artist." Is it a person who likes to create? A person conveying their mind onto a canvas? Artist are described as people who use imagination and skill to invoke emotion or convey ideas, but if there is no acknowledgement of meaning, emotion, or idea then what does it mean to be an artist? When I say acknowledgment I don't just mean social acknowledgment, but I mean the creator's own acknowledgment of their creation. If there is no acknowledgment at all anywhere, then what does that make an artist? And does that make their mindless creation less of an art?
What love truly is?
It doesn't stop me from wondering what this is - that feeling. How does it happen? Why do we feel the way we feel? Is love even a pure or selfish act of satisfying oneself? Is there something like 'pure' or 'unconditional' love? Does love at first sight exist?
I want to study anthropology this year, so it's kind of my thing, but I need other POVs to understand better.
Love is the most exploited theme in the world and it has been for centuries. We are obsessed with it. But why? I understand it comes from evolution and its mechanism made to push us into reproduction. It's that simple. So why is it so complicated?
We choose our partners based on their genome and how it is compatible with ours. That's where the sexual attraction comes from. It's our brain telling us we want offspring with them. But that's not love. That's lust. Maybe first step? Or misunderstanding made by our brain? We need a few seconds to decide if the other person is our cup of tea. That's so called love at first sight is just strong lust made by our brain through evolution. I have watched a video in which dr Helen Fisher was explaining that love is actually kind of an addiction. Her research proved it. We began to be addicted to certain people. That explains Carrie Bradshaw and Big's relationship. The way she just kept running towards him, even though he didn't respect her. It was the same as an addict looking for drugs. Time apart - withdrawal.
But it isn't enough. Love needs more. Not only lust. It's important tho. Love needs work, patience and commitment, but what is one sided love then? Just extreme lust?
That's so far as I understand. I can understand the mechanism behind it, the brain chemistry, evolution path but the concept itself is just above me.
I red quite a lot about love. Not only science based books, but romances, classics and poems. I tried to understand it from the very beginning of humanity - from the word. And as far as I can understand the message, I can relate but I cannot comprehend. Is it even possible? To relate, but not understand? It has to be. I'm a very biased researcher I must add. That's why I look for your help.
I watched 'Why you're scared of love" by Unsolicited advice on yt. And became obsessed with Kafka's view on love. I read 'The letters to Felice' trying to find some clues to what love is. But then I realized how toxic he was behaving and started to wonder. Can love be toxic? Or only behavior around it? The concept of toxic love doesn't sit with me right. How can love be toxic? Maybe we confused definition of love a long time ago? And that's why it is so hard to understand. Maybe it is undefinable? We cannot put love in some kind of brackets, right? Love is like fluid - it flows and changes? How does one know it's love? I heard somewhere, cannot remember where, what poets feel, the movie makers portrait and painters show is not quite love - more limerence. If so, then what love truly is? Does it even exist? I mean in the sense we were made to believe it is.
Psychoanalysis (and hermeneutics of suspicion generally) undermines vulgar conceptions of our self-awareness and reflective abilities. Are there any influential conceptions of self-awareness that are psychoanalytically informed so that they are more modest and less susceptible to psychoanalytic critique?
Socrates may be called the first “agnostic” in an anachronistic (big word I learnt 2 minutes ago) sense of the word. Euthyphro stands as one of his (or Plato’s) introductory yet profound dialogues. It can be seen as a mantra for atheists (the posse I say that I constitute), but I try, here, to propose an argument for the existence of a God to the best of my abilities. Just to clarify: we will be analysing a case for a monotheistic system, where God is omnibenevolent (like Christianity, but I am not sure about the other two omnis in my solution).
“Is Good approved by God because it is Good OR is Good good because God approves of it?”
a) Let us take the 1st part as true:
The Good is approved by God because it is good.
The need for a God seems arbitrary in this conclusion, as our actions seem to have their basis only in an immutable, objective morality, which is “above God,” in the sense that it exists independently of the need for such a being.
Analogy: the 3 organs of the government work separately but complementarily.
Legislature: makes the law (morality as made by God)
Executive: implementation of laws (enforcement in the form of karma or whatever punishment doing bad gains you in the physical world)
Judiciary: interprets the laws (Inferno/Purgatorio/Paradiso)
Unlike this system, God functions as all 3 at once (cause he is God and shi).
An omnibenevolent God created a moral system of laws (morality) in which he was desirous of good (his desires seem to change when we look upon this defense in a theistic lens—Scripture—but for a God this is fine), but he also happened to grant the citizens free will (whose usage against his desires he will punish in hell?).
Therefore, God approves of good not because it is good in itself, but because he desires the good, and the framework used to distinguish good/bad (morality) isn’t above him but created by him, in such a way akin to how the lawmakers, desirous of lawfulness, follow the law—but God, unlike them, isn’t chained to it.
“Certain constraints are freeing.” The word “constraint” is used the way we choose to follow what makes us happy in life, not because life forces that path upon us, but because we are desirous of that path.
b) The Good is good because God approves of it.
The major argument against this is the malevolent nature of God, which resonates with a theist in his “Holy Scriptures”: God commanding Abe to kill his son in Genesis 22, and the eternal punishment inflicted on non-believers in Surah An-Nisa 56.
All these instances vilify a God who is morally “bad,” but our God, who is a desirer of good (in his twisted ways), is safe…
Resolution:
We now have reasons to conclude that instead of being an unanswerable question, with one presupposition (his benevolence), the 2 options go hand in hand.
:- At least this is my idea; please share yours and refute me as much as possible, as that will only help me in learning. THANK YOU
What all is Wrong with this Explanation?
hope all is well, I've just recently started getting into philosophy (it is a great interest of mine however I will not be doing a degree in it), and I'm not exactly sure how to approach it. Is reading all I'm meant to be doing to try and bolster my philosophical thinking? When reading philosophy, am I meant to read along or am I meant to explicitly try and extract the premises and conclusion and study the arguments? For each (major) belief I hold, should I have a formal argument for why I believe it, ready to articulate it promptly - or would it suffice just to have some sort of intuition for it? Any help would be appreciated :)
Good-Evil is a dichotomy which started to fascinate me quite recently.
To be honest, I'm not a person who had ever taken a course on philosophy. In fact the question of morality, ethics, good and evil never bothered me before.
However, some recent events unfolded - a world leader (who probably wants to become The world leader) said an interesting thing about Something which can be basically surmised as "Evil triumphs over Good".
I had been thinking, if someone or a group of people insist on practising absolute evil - what can be the counter of it? Absolute Good seems to be pure concept and it's difficult to conceptualize it triumphing over absolute Evil (which is in practice in real world).
So, what do we think in this scenario: A Lamb-Tiger situation where the absolute Good is not a static concept but its definition and execution transform depending on context?
Or should we let go of this dichotomy and think about something else. What is there beyond good and evil that can defeat absolute evil? Should we think in terms of something entirely different like dialectics?
Another thing I need to mention is that I'm not from any Abrahamic faith, not was I born into one. So, be patient with me. Also, I am aware of the fact that "absolute" is a rather quantitative term and it is more like an abstraction. So, I did exaggerate on that part a bit. The way I phrase sentences can look bizarre as my English is impacted by my native speech, this is partly intentional but I apologize if the text feels difficult/different.
There is a certain philosopher I am reading who seems to be quite reliant on the being/becoming distinction, and I'm trying to put him in context. Does anyone know how I could find out more about this? He was writing in Germany around the time of Heidegger.
Are Humans naturally inclined to feel the need to challenge or question rules?
Countless words have been spent on trying to formally define things like knowledge and truth. Has there ever been a successful attempt? If not, it seems like conceptual categories may be undefinable. I'm not saying we shouldn't attempt to create useful definitions for things, but why do we treat "justified true belief" as something that has to hold in all possible cases, when we know there is no definition that can do that? There will always be counterexamples, no matter how you define it.