Questions tagged [reference-request]
This tag should be used when the question is asking for specific references.
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What is an argument (in philosophy)?
Closely related (sub)question: is there some way to tell a piece of (spoken, or writen, or...) text that is an argument from one that isn't? If 'yes', how?
[Notice the question is not asking "...
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Any consensus on Łukasiewicz' idea that Aristotle's syllogisms were systematically misrepresented in the academic literature?
Is there a consensus today on Jan Łukasiewicz' 1957 assertion that Aristotle's syllogisms were systematically misrepresented in the academic literature?
Łukasiewicz, in Aristotle's Syllogistic from ...
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Plato about dynamic of knowledge [closed]
Where did Plato say something like "what's the point in going back to a book if every time it gives the same answer"? Did ancient Greeks say anything about the dynamic of knowledge?
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Has anyone compiled a list of all the philosophical works Nietzsche critiques in Beyond Good and Evil?
I know this isn't really a philosophy question; I just want to read everything Nietzsche read. I have a picture of him over my bed and I kiss his little forehead every night.
Also, why does he say ...
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Can the absense of something be a cause?
I wonder, can the absence of something be a cause? My first inclination is to say yes. For example, if someone is in a room with no air, the lack of air will cause them to die. But what really is the ...
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What difference between the truth of a conditional* and its logical validity?
I am confused . . . Here is a remark on the "classical analysis" of the implication:
On the classical analysis, logical implication is the same, not as the truth of a conditional statement, ...
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What does it mean to say that two theorems (provable statements) are 'equivalent'?
sometimes one sees/reads assertions such as "[the bounded inverse theorem] is equivalent to both the open mapping theorem and the closed graph theorem", but taken formally and literally this ...
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Has any philosopher written about how our reasoning relies on subtly incompatible assumptions depending on the kind of question we are asking?
I would like to know whether the following idea has already been formalized by some philosopher:
When we reason about questions for which we assume there is an objective or true answer, we rely ...
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Do any philosophers describe drama as fundamental to, or the essence of, the human condition?
Whenever I contemplate philosophy or science the convention that I call "name dropping" always evokes my experience of interpersonal drama. Here is my favorite example of name dropping:
...
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Problem of Induction in Methodology of History?
Has there been any work done in exploring how the problem of induction applies to the study of history?
It seems to me that many historical inferences might require a sort of uniformity of human/...
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Are there any philosophies related to different structures of organization of information?
I am interested to explore different ways to organize information, for example in different libraries and archives or even museum. And I wonder whether there are philosophies that discuss the ...
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Are social medias unethical on the basis that they are too addictive?
Many of my friends spend hours and hours mindlessly scrolling on TikTok and Instagram each day. They benefit very little from this, if at all, and it saps big chunks from their day. I've been there ...
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Which author(s) first talked of Aristotle's syllogistic as a logic of terms?
Which author(s) first talked of Aristotle's syllogistic as a logic of terms?
Thank you for any scholarly references.
Aristotle does defines the notion of "term" in Prior Analytics:
I call a ...
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Can a necessitarian still believe in this notion of possibility?
I am a necessitarian, meaning, I believe that the only thing that is possible is what actually happens. The reason for that is because I don't believe any possible world except this one exists. ...
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Are there these two notions of possibility distinct?
There are two notions of logically possible. I will label them as the positive sense and the negative sense. The positive sense is that a set of sentences S is possible if and only if there exists a ...
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Is it actually a good thing that there is so little consensus and so much disagreement in the field of philosophy?
In fields like mathematics and physics and other so-called "hard sciences", there is not much room for disagreement. Usually, those who disagree with well-established physical theories like ...
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What are some arguments prominent philosophers have made for alethic relativism?
Alethic relativism is the view that truth is relative. I wonder, what are some arguments that prominent philosophers, both currently living and also those now dead, have made for that position? ...
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Have any philosophers discussed “coherentizing” as a solution to the “paradox of analysis”?
This is largely a reference request, but supplementary explanations are welcome.
I describe my thoughts on the paradox of analysis here.
I recently tried to derive the form of first-order logic more ...
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What is the difference between mind and consciousness?
I have heard the terms "mind" and "consciousness" used interchangeably, but I am now wondering, is there a difference between them? If so, what is the difference between them? I ...
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At what point in the history of mathematics, and why, did mathematicians come to say "A implies B" to mean "not A or B"?
Here is what one respondent to my previous question says:
A big part of the problem here lies with interpreting the word ‘implies’, which is ambiguous in English. Unfortunately, mathematicians get ...
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Is the notion that queer identities and sexuality are innate incompatible with the view that genders are socially molded?
Probably the single most important proposition/thesis/tenet regarding queer identities currently held is that
Queer individuals, just as cishet individuals, are simply born the way they are: they do ...
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Does a sentence exist if it is not written, spoken, or even thought of?
If a sentence is never written, spoken, or even thought of, does it still exist? Let me illustrate what I mean. Suppose there is a mathematical sentence, say in some first-order language L, which is a ...
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Anti-realism in regards to the notion of grounding
There are a lot of philosophical texts on the notion of grounding, that is, the relation "X grounds Y". But what if all this is based on a mistaken notion? What if nothing grounds anything? ...
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What logical differences did Ernst Schröder see between propositions and classes?
What are the differences, from the point of view of formal logic, that Ernst Schröder argued there were between genuine propositions and classes?
I understand that Schröder argues his views on the ...
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Is there a difference between "there is" versus "there exists"?
I have heard the phrases "there is" and "there exists" used interchangeably, but I am now wondering, is there a difference between them, and if so, what is it? Also, have ...
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Reference request for texts on causation
I have been very interested in causation lately. I am especially interested in whether it can be defined at all, or it must be taken as a brute fact. I would love to read some texts on causation, and ...
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Does Kant anywhere "rationalize" noumena on, say, moral grounds?
I ask in the context of reading various "new realists" or "objective oriented ontologists”. To my reading, many of these thinkers would like to return to Kant's attempt to unify both ...
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What are the main interpretations offered so far of biscuit conditionals?
So-called biscuit conditionals are conditionals such as "There are biscuits, if you want".
First noticed and discussed by John Langshaw Austin in 1956, biscuit conditionals have been ...
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Do we need expertise to rate the chance of very low and high probability events?
Do we need expertise to rate the chance of very low probability events? We make implicit judgments about probabilty quite often (is the bus late), but I catch myself struggling to do so with very low ...
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Are there published rebuttals of Patrick Flynn's recent book "The Best Argument for God"?
The Best Argument for God, by Patrick Flynn, was recently published on October 17th, 2023. With only 21 votes on Amazon so far, it has garnered an average rating of 4.9 (as of March 25th, 2024). Does ...
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Recommendation for references on the philosophy of space and time
I am a mathematician by training but I have absolutely no formal (or even informal) training in philosophy. I am also beginning a project to write short stories with a heavy focus on mathematics, in ...
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Is it even possible to know, from the outside, whether a physical system is conscious?
I take it for granted that other humans, and other higher animals like chimpanzees and dogs and cats, are conscious. But is it even possible to know, from the outside, whether a physical system is ...
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Did anyone offered a resolution to Hilbert's most important question?
In 1900, Hilbert identified what he said was the most important unresolved question in the mathematics of the time:
But above all I wish to designate the following as the most important among the ...
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What are some resources for writing professional philosophical research articles?
I am a philosophy graduate student. I have written several papers, but I've never been able to publish them, and they all got rejected. Therefore, I started to think that my skills were not good ...
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What characteristics define something as a mathematical entity?
It is easy to give examples of mathematical entities: Natural numbers, geometrical figures, sets, functions of variables ranging over numerical sets, etc. The list seems endless. Yet, listing those ...
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Reference request for books and papers that defend necessitarianism
I am someone who believes that only the actual is possible, that everything that is, is necessarily the case. I believe that position is a strong form of actualism, often called necessitarianism. I ...
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Is there such a thing as the philosophy of economics, and if so, can I read some texts on it?
I understand that there is a philosophy behind pretty much every science, like philosophy of physics and philosophy of biology. So, what about the philosophy of economics? Is there such a thing, and ...
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Does determinism nullify the science of economics?
The science of economics is based on the assumption that people can make choices. But, for someone like me who believes that the universe is deterministic, this assumption is false, or at least I ...
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Can somebody help me choose relevant literature
I want to excuse myself beforehand if this is an inappropriate question on this forum.
I'm just starting studying and I need literature for my little paperwork in a philosophy seminar. The main line ...
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What are the possible ways to symbolically represent entities, within formal logic?
What are the different solutions proposed in the academic literature to represents symbolically individual entities within formal logic expressions?
One solution I am aware of is to use Latin letters. ...
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Which philosopher proved that propositions cannot be neither true nor false?
Where can I find a comprehensive discussion of the idea that some propositions are neither true nor false?
I know of Łukasiewicz but his discussion seems rather limited.
Which philosopher if any tried ...
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Is conceivability relative to the subject?
Is conceivability relative to the subject? By this, I mean, can some beings conceive more things, or different things, than other beings? Personally, I believe the answer is yes. I believe that, for ...
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Reference request for the definition of logic
I am looking for philosophical texts on the question of what the definition of logic is or should be. I am pretty sure many logicians and philosophers have written about that philosophical topic. I ...
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Who first said: "Never deny, seldom affirm, always distinguish"?
In the context of medieval scholastic disputations, what is the origin of the axiom "Never deny, seldom affirm, always distinguish" ("Numquam negare, raro affirmare, semper distinguere&...
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What is Richard’s paradox?
I am about to try to read through the Wikipedia article and invite anyone to give an introduction or clarification.
(I first learned of this paradox from Gödel’s paper on “formally undecidable ...
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On the conceivability of philosophical zombies [duplicate]
A big question in the philosophy of consciousness is whether philosophical zombies are conceivable, and if they are, are they also metaphysically possible. I believe the answer is yes. At least, I can ...
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Are philosophical theories and "-isms" even testable?
I recently asked how we can even know which philosophical interpretation of probability is correct, here: How can we even know which philosophical interpretation of probability is correct?. However, ...
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What passage in Aquinas's Summa does this refer to?
From Chapter 18 of R. A. Lafferty's historical novel Okla Hannali:
There is an interesting question in the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas and also in an old science fiction story, the name of which I ...
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Inferring underlying codes from surface manifestations - who said it?
In Anthony Giddens' The Constitution of Society, page 16, he writes:
As conceptualized in structuralist and post-structuralist thought, on
the other hand, the notion of structure is more interesting. ...
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How do Philosophy students deal with archaic and old English in Philosophy books?
I am from India and English is my third language. When I tried to get into Philosophy, the first book I picked up was Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Even though I liked the book, the archaic grammar ...
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