Questions tagged [introduction-to-philosophy]
Used when an inquisitor or question posed might occur at the undergraduate or lower level of institutional philosophical pedagogy. Certain basic ideas about metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology often occur to adults without philosophical education. Common recurring introductory questions ask after answers commonly satisfied by introductory articles, and sometimes such entries are themselves unclear and overly complicated.
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What does "p is true for S at t" mean?
In Alvin Goldman's article "What Is Justified Belief", what does "p is true for S at t" mean?
where p is a proposition, S is a person and t is time.
More specifically, how is it ...
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The nature of illogic
For many years, it deluded my mind.
Someone told me there has to be more to life than logic.
Through many years of analysis. I came to the conclusion that, it is impossible to understand illogical ...
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Why is it so hard to give a good definition of philosophy?
I have never seen an adequate definition of philosophy. It seems like a "family-resemblance" concept to me, to borrow Wittgenstein's famous phrase. It is easy to give definitions of, say, ...
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Is there a difference between believing something and behaving as if it were true?
To clarify, I mean without deception. In other words, if something seems plausible to me, and I decide to act on it as though it were true while recognizing that I could be mistaken, do I believe it?
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How to write a philosophical work? As a beginner
How does one identify the points for discussion in that paper? And how do I make a skeleton paper work of the topic to present infront of your mentor? What is the structure of a philosophical paper? ...
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Are there questions that science can't answer, but philosophy can?
Are there questions that science can't answer, but philosophy can? I can't think of any such questions. But, perhaps there are such questions. I would like some examples. Note, such questions have to ...
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Does philosophy consist in defining the being of each thing?
I have been pondering the question of what philosophy is and what it aims to achieve. One idea that came to mind is that philosophy might consist in defining the being of each thing. In other words, ...
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Epistemic circularity and skepticism about reason
Disclaimer: I'm not a philosopher and I'm not a native speaker, so apologies if my question is somehow flawed as a result. I'm happy to clarify anything that is unclear. So here it is:
Reason's own ...
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Resources for self-teaching philosophy
I'm a mathematician who has taken an interest in philosophy in the past few years. I want to start with the 17th-century rationalists (mainly Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz) and move forward in time ...
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Looking for the name of Philsopher or Philosophy/Book/Thesis from around Enlightnement period about human inclicnation to tribalism
Im not sure what im looking for exactly but having read it in the past from "history of philosophy" (coppleston type series of books) where it was discussing a type of philosopher or ...
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Is "Why do we live?" a philosophical question?
After posting a question akin to "Why do we live?" in the r/AskPhilosophy subreddit its moderators got it removed, providing as motivation "All questions must be about philosophy".
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Logical Analysis of Argument
Andrew: I think this country needs more scientists.
Britney: But if everyone were scientists, then we won't have any artists! And without artists, we might as well all be robots.
Is Britney's argument ...
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Top-down bottom-up
I have seem the terms top-down bottom-up approach,top-down bottom-up models,top-down bottom-up causation in many papers.
I am bit confused.Are they really same or how can we define them ?
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Are the body parts of living beings, considered living beings?
Consider a living being, for example, us humans. The body of this living being is composed of various components such as heart, brain, kidney, etc. Now the question is whether these components ...
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How can nature without self-awareness and intelligence create living beings with self-awareness and intelligence?
Look at the nature around you. Nature does not have intelligence and self-awareness, but it has created living beings with intelligence and self-awareness (an example of which is us humans). ...
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Is it possible to know what you don't know?
Is it possible in any logical system to know what one doesn't know literally. I don't mean the daily usage of the phrase like "Sam doesn't know physics", where you are just ignorant about ...
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What's the difference between analytic and synthetic AND implicit/explicit?
The statement 'a bachelor is an unmarried man' is an implicit and analytic statement.
What is the difference between implicit/explicity and analytic/synthetic? Is there even a difference?
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Which kinds of philosophical arguments are more than subjective opinions? [closed]
"There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it" - Cicero.
Is it possible to express opinions about other opinions, without expressing oneself philosophically? For example, if I ...
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What does it mean "to provide semantics" in the context of formal logic?
When reading some SEP articles, this is a phrase I commonly came across, "this provides a semantics for this logic". But what does it mean?
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Is all change movement?
Is there a change in the universe that cannot be reduced to movement? One counter-example should be enough. :)
Heat is a type of change that was once thought to be qualitative, but is now realized to ...
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Should I trust my own thoughts when studying philosophy?
I sometimes find myself disagreeing with Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or other seasoned philosophers. However, I am scared to trust my own thoughts lest my ideas are erroneous. I do not know ...
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How many instances of 1 are there in the expression "1+1"?
Is it just two marks/numerals representing a singular number 1, or are they actually two instances of 1?
And what about in a set with repetition such as {1, 1, 2, 3}?
And if these are actually ...
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What would constitute as justification?
Follow up to this post. The question here is quite short, what would constitute as justification in regards to justified belief theory? Seems something a bit vague to me.
My main motivation to this ...
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Does nominalism about kinds/universals entail eliminativism/nihilism about ordinary objects?
If one holds a nominalist or conventionalist view of universals or kind, then do they believe that there are ordinary objects?
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Is there something a little artificial about 'miracles'?
A miracle is something that is currently inexplicable by the laws of nature: statues crying blood; the resurrection of the dead; turning water into wine; etc.. Suppose I can accurately guess the ...
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Why do people speak as though "all" does not imply "some"? [closed]
Suppose someone asks whether some of the people in a classroom are over 20 years old, and then someone says, "No, all of the people are". Why would they say that? Why can't they say ...
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The location of a single object in empty space
Is it correct to assume that if there is only one object in the void (really empty void), then its location (the answer to the question “where” this object is) cannot be established?
You need at least ...
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How much suffering is needed for an overall happy life?
Premise: I have not studied Philosophy, and maybe I am out of context.
My question arises from two simple considerations:
Empirically, there seems to be no true happiness without some suffering (...
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What are the arguments for pornography?
It is believed that pornography "violates" the humanity of those involved; that sexually explicit materials reduce people to objects or bodies used primarily for the sexual gratification of ...
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Is philosophy any different from emotional reasoning? [closed]
Emotional reasoning is considered a flawed form of reasoning because you essentially believe in something because you feel it to be true. But isn’t this the case for any question in philosophy?
For ...
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Can circular reasoning be logical, and can it provide support for the Bible?
Circular reasoning is a type of logical fallacy where the premise is used to prove the conclusion. A basis example would be:
This historical movie is creditable.
Why?
Because it says so.
In this ...
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Is all of philosophy unfalsifiable?
How do you know you’re wrong about anything? Without having to use underlying philosophical theories that themselves involve axioms that can’t be proved, how is someone proven wrong about quite ...
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What is the correct level of plausibility one should have with God? [closed]
This part is confusing me for a bit and I’m having trouble finding a correct answer to it.
Say you are an atheist and are playing a poker game and you get dealt two straight Royal flushes. You ...
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Isn't every theory or model wrong?
I'm currently in class 12 and I was about different models of atoms in my school chemistry book and there were like 3 or 4 atomic models Rutherford's model, Thompson's model , Bohr's model then ...
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How do humans generalize abstract concepts from concrete objects?
To elaborate, I would like to take the definition of square as example, the square is shape with four equal sides and either two sides form a 90 degrees angle, while we can not directly see it. What ...
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Can a case for veganism be made from a moral relativist perspective?
Can veganism be defended against moral relativist beliefs, assuming moral relativism is correct? I might be missing something here but it seems like veganism almost always requires a non-relativist ...
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Are choices that lead to harm if required by duty or executed with consent still ethical?
If people carried out actions which could potentially harm others, and others consented to the person carrying out the action, is carrying out such an action still ethical? If I were to judge this ...
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An introductory book on philosophy of language and logic?
I tried self teaching philosophy of language, logic, modal logic but I am lost as a headless chicken. Can anyone help me please? I have a full time job, but I can take an hour everyday and learn a bit....
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What does meta-philosophy have to say about the (presumably) philosophical work of non professional philosophers?
This question is prompted by an interesting comment discussion in a question I previously asked. Whereas nobody without proper mathematical training would attempt nowadays to do mathematics, it seems ...
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Books similar in nature to Logic and Theism by Jordan Sobel?
I've recently been reading "Logic and Theism" by Jordan Sobel and have found it to be fascinating. The two primary things I like about it are:
The book primarily focuses on analyzing the ...
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Does philosophy rely on intuitions? If so, does this mean all of philosophy is nothing more than hunches?
Does philosophy rely on intuitions? If so, and all of philosophy comes down to intuition, how can one person be deemed to be more rational than other? In this world, most would agree that you cannot ...
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(philosophy of law) how broadly can statutes be interpreted by courts? [closed]
In constitutions and legal systems like that of America , Australia and India (and other states with separation of powers), if a statute has more than one possible interpretation, then can and should ...
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Nomenclature for AND-operation on boolean reasoning
I develop a computer program to summarize a boolean decision. This program takes into account operators AND and OR. For the OR-operator, I can call it alternative, since this is how grammar rules call ...
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What is this idea of causality being articulated?
So I wanted to ask about the kind of causality when someone says something of the sort: "Communism made these people destroy their own society" or "I have a brilliant idea now I will ...
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What does it mean for something to be "more likely"? Whether you would bet on it? Whether history suggests it to be true? Or both?
What does it mean for A to be more likely than B? For example, suppose two people are throwing darts. The first person gets a bulls eye 6 out of 10 times. The second person misses every single time by ...
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What's The Reasoning Or Logic Behind The Value Of A Promise / Agreement?
If I make a promise verbally or sign an agreement then someone is trusting on my word, that I will do what I said I will do. If the same me later say I will not do that or through action break the ...
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Relation between free will and consciousness
What is the relationship between consciousness and free will ? Many scientists think there is no free will.
And does free will mean a phenomenon not bound by cause and effect ?
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Does prediction really have epistemic value?
I am having trouble understanding why the act of predicting something gives it any sort of value or makes a theory more likely to be true. If a scientific theory explained everything in hindsight, ...
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How To Distinguish Between Philosophy And Non-Philosophy?
Surely not all thinking or intellectual effort is philosophy, right?
Where to draw line between philosophy and all other thinking?
What, if any, feature is present only in philosophy?
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Mathematical Platonism. Are numbers real?
Often heard this being asked: Are numbers real?
As an answer I offer my own analysis for what its worth.
The color green is considered real. As per scientists it's only distinguishing quality is that ...
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