Introduction

Matter is one of those categories that has always occupied a central place in philosophy, science and everyday life. In many philosophical systems, matter is treated as the basis of everything that exists, but often within the scientific approach it is considered only as a physical phenomenon that can be measured and observed. However, this limitation of visible matter as an object of perception leaves out a significant part of human experience, such as the soul, thoughts, religious concepts and other aspects that may be elusive to the physical eye, but have a significant impact on human behavior and social processes.

In the traditional philosophical approach, based on modern scientific concepts, matter is described as an objective reality that exists independently of consciousness and manifests itself in various forms and processes. However, it is important to understand that matter does not always manifest itself in the form of specific objects that we can see or touch. There are phenomena that remain invisible, but nevertheless affect our perception of the world, our consciousness, our behavior and, ultimately, the development of society. And it is precisely with this aspect of matter, which I call invisible matter, that the need to revise the traditional classification is associated.

Modern definition of matter and traditional classifications

The modern definition of matter in philosophy covers a wide range of phenomena. It is perceived as an objective reality, independent of human consciousness, but manifested through various forms and processes. Matter covers everything that exists - from elementary particles to complex systems. It is a dynamic phenomenon that changes over time and has its own characteristics, such as movement and development.

The classification of matter is traditionally divided into several levels:

Physical matter - elementary particles, atoms, molecules and macrobodies that obey the laws of physics. This is the basis of material reality that we perceive through our senses.

Chemical matter - chemical substances and their compounds, which are more complex forms of matter that exhibit their properties in chemical reactions.

Biological matter is living matter, including cells, organisms and ecosystems. Biology studies the phenomena of life, such as self-reproduction, metabolism and evolution.

Social matter is the matter associated with human society, its institutions, cultures, ideas, and social relations. This form of matter manifests itself in the organization of society and its interactions.

In addition, there is a classification of matter by the forms of its motion and development, which includes:

Mechanical motion is the motion of bodies in space.

Thermal motion is changes in temperature and energy.

Electrical and magnetic interaction is the motion of charges, magnetic fields.

Chemical and biological motion is the processes of chemical reactions and life activity.

Social motion is changes in society, social processes.

However, these classifications do not mention one important category of matter that has always been part of human experience, but defies strict scientific explanation: invisible matter.

Visible and Invisible Matter

My proposal for a new classification of matter highlights two key aspects: visible matter and invisible matter.

Visible matter includes all those forms of existence that we can observe or that we can theoretically comprehend through scientific methods. This is the physical reality that manifests itself in forms such as atoms, molecules, stars, planets, and social structures. Visible matter obeys certain laws of physics and chemistry, and its changes can be recorded and measured. However, there is one limitation in this context: visible matter only covers those phenomena that can be directly perceived through the senses, but does not take into account those processes that occur beyond physical perception. Invisible matter, on the other hand, is a form of matter that we cannot see or measure by traditional scientific means, but which has a profound effect on our consciousness, perception of the world, and behavior. One of the most striking examples is the soul. Scientific research, of course, cannot directly prove the existence of the soul, but it is an important component of many religious and philosophical teachings. The soul affects human consciousness, determining its inner experiences, its moral principles, and its actions. In different historical periods, people have invented different terms to describe such phenomena as “sin,” “pollution of the soul,” “purification,” and so on. These concepts are of great importance in social and cultural processes because they form the idea of ​​what a person is and how he should behave. Another example of invisible matter can be human thoughts. Thoughts are something that cannot be physically perceived, they are not visible to the eyes.

There has been recent and numerous discussion on the limits of AI, but what I have been mostly concerned with is the organic nature of philosophy vs the compartmentalisation and reproduction of pre-existing thought.

I think this is true:

Both AI and philosophers use pre-existing text and debate to form their discussion. Yet, only one appears to truly produce organic thought. I do not see how AI can, if given the full depth of human thought organically produce ideas that have been existed through lived experience of the individual.

How exactly does a non-feeling machine understand the nature of suffering so much so it can produce original thought like Schopenhauer? Or how can a non-working machine see the productive capability within the individual and produce an original thesis of value added labour?

I understand that eventually, AI will absorb the entire catalogue of philosophy as a reference point, but what makes it different from a modified library able to grammatically repoduce pre-existing thought? To me, that is the intellectual limit of this new machine which to me, will never replace philosophy.

Hi,

In an art critique/history article I was reading for research, the article's author states that "Foucault wrote that what takes place at the edge of empire reveals the nature of the empire." Could anyone help point me to a text written by Foucault where he expresses this idea?

I would really like to cite this for an essay I'm writing from its primary source, rather than this article. The article unfortunately does not feature any citations. I've been skimming texts by and about Foucault for over an hour now looking for the source, but I've had no luck. T_T

Please help me!

PS, if you're interested in the context, it's an article about the Mexican performance artist / activist Lorena Wolffer. It's called "The Body Engraved: Performances and Interventions of Lorena Wolffer", and it's by Deborah Root.
Link here: https://cmagazine.com/articles/the-body-engraved-performances-and-interventions-of-lorena-wolff

I (22f) am a law student. I'm quite a good student but I've only ever mastered the art of the problem question (description of a potential offence and we need to apply case law and statutes to answer). It's quite straightforward, guilty/not guilty.

However this year I have a compulsory module on jurisprudence and the philosophy of law and I am completely lost. I've never done any philosophy before and I struggle to understand what is asked of me when asked to discuss something.

I've understood that merely explaining different people's opinions on a topic isn't enough but I would love some guidance.

I need help! I obsessively hunt for new essays and books to read. I download obscure dissertations and very niche books and essays all relating to the kind of philosophy I love. It is a never-ending search that literally gets me feeling euphoric.

However, my very big problem is that I'll start reading one thing, then never return and start on another. I swear I have a hundreds of essays bobbing around in my brain right now and I know it is so harmful and counterproductive. I'm not retaining anything at all.

There is joy for me in reading multiple texts at once, but I consistently keep adding on and cannot stop. I do have an addiction history and ADHD and I feel this is one deep aspect of it.

How do I stay focused? How do I curb the absolute URGENCY of this obsessive search for new material? I cannot choose one text to stick with. I love finding the material more than actually reading it!

How do I fix this?

I've slide into the DAM discourse and am cruising through Atmanspacher and Rickles' wildly accessible text. My personal (likely irrelevant) opinion is that tertium quid is probably necessary to craft a complete picture of reality. Am curious to hear what the r/AcademicPhilosophy folks think about this approach generally speaking.

Left a two decade career in international business, decided that in my end days I'd be happier I sought intellectual challenge over money. Most people think this is bonkers. Anyone here understand my decision?

In this day and age, philosophy degrees seem to get shunned for being "useless" and "a waste of time and money". Do you agree with these opinions? Do you regret studying philosophy academically and getting a degree, masters, or doctorate in it? Did you study something after philosophy? Are there any feasible future prospects for aspiring philosophy students? I'm curious to find out everybody's thoughts.

How challenging is to find an academic job in Philosophy. How much does it depend on pedigree? (Where you do PhD and/or postdoc).

I just got an essay graded tonight and my teacher said my essay was messy and that I didn’t seem interested in my argument, which is true, I wasn’t really interested in the subject and I just did my best to write something as I wanted to pass.

How do you navigate these situations when you have to write an essay about something you’re not interested at all? ): I struggled sooo much since the beginning. The essay was on contractualism by the way.

You can view the dataset here. Hope it's useful.

If you want more info on how I did it (and batch emailed 311 grad students - sorry) - you can check that out on my blog.

Hi all,

I’m a layman philosopher deeply engaged in a project tackling some challenging areas of ethical philosophy, and I feel like I might be venturing into a novel direction where resources are scarce or scattered.

I’m exploring the tension between pluralism (the coexistence of diverse moral systems) and absolutism (singular, universal ethical frameworks), but I’m struggling to locate recent works or thinkers addressing this in ways that align with what I’m trying to accomplish.

Here are the key areas I’m grappling with:

1. Managing Ethical Frameworks in Pluralism

I’m looking for approaches that deal with the interactions and tensions between competing moral systems, particularly when their principles seem irreconcilable.

The focus isn’t on resolving these conflicts entirely but on creating tools or methodologies to navigate them productively. For example, I’m curious about how dialogue, compromise, or iterative processes could foster coexistence without forcing convergence.

2. Bridging Pluralism and Absolutism

Are there works that engage with pluralism but also acknowledge the need for guiding principles or provisional values to avoid the pitfalls of relativism?

I’m interested in whether anyone has worked on systems that balance contextual adaptability with some degree of ethical clarity or structure.

3. The Practical Application of Meta-Ethical Ideas

I’ve been exploring meta-ethics but feel like many frameworks stop at theoretical analysis. I’m searching for works that go a step further by proposing practical methodologies for applying these theories in real-world contexts (e.g., governance, policy, or institutional ethics).

4. Conflict and Coexistence Between Ethical Traditions

My project touches on the need for ethical tools that can operate across cultural and philosophical boundaries, particularly between Western and non-Western traditions (e.g., Indigenous knowledge systems, Eastern philosophies, Abrahamic ethics).

I’m curious about whether anyone has worked on systems that facilitate coexistence without erasing the distinctiveness of these traditions.

5. Balancing Adaptability and Accountability

While some systems lean heavily into flexibility (risking relativism), others are too rigid to accommodate complex moral dilemmas. I’m searching for any work that proposes a middle ground—a disciplined way of handling ambiguity or conflict without abandoning accountability.

What I’ve Explored So Far

Philosophers like Isaiah Berlin (value pluralism) and John Dewey (pragmatism) have been useful, but they often feel more foundational than contemporary.

I’ve dabbled in ideas from Jürgen Habermas (discourse ethics) and Bernard Williams (contextuality of thick ethical concepts), but I’m struggling to find thinkers or works that extend these ideas in ways that match my focus.

What I’m Hoping For

Contemporary Thinkers: Are there modern philosophers, theorists, or even students working on pluralism, absolutism, or navigating moral tensions in innovative ways?

Practical Applications: Have there been recent attempts to create tools or systems for managing ethical pluralism at institutional, societal, or individual levels?

Interdisciplinary Insights: Are there fields beyond philosophy I may be ignorant to(e.g., anthropology, sociology, or systems theory) that could inform these questions?

I sometimes feel like I’m in uncharted territory because of the specific direction I’ve taken, but I’m hoping there’s work out there that can provide inspiration or insight.

If you know of books, articles, philosophers, interdisciplinary thinkers, or even niche discussions that touch on any of this, I’d greatly appreciate your recommendations.

Thanks in advance for your help!

I don't understand the academic History of Philosophy (for example, Irwin's "Aristotle's First Principles", or Westphal's "Hegel's Epistemology"). For one, from my understanding, the role of a historian of philosophy should be exclusively exegetical. However, I'm perplexed why it seems that many historians of philosophy present their works as contributing invaluable arguments for contemporary philosophy debates. More perplexing why it seems many historians of philosophy insist on fixing apparent contradictions within their respective philosophers' works, instead of assuming it was simply inevitable human error, especially erroes that seems so to the modern reader (such as Hegel's metaphysical Spirit being spooky for 21st rather than 19st century). This adds to my former idea that it seems they're trying to present some underlaying, perennial philosophy.

Perhaps there's something I don't understand within the discipline of History of Philosophy? Are they, more or less, given freedom to build up on former ideas?

Hey all!

I already have my bachelors, and am working on a second two-year degree in graphic design. However, I love philosophy, and learned too late in my bachelors program lol. I learn best with some guidance rather than just diving into primary texts, so I was wondering if there are any good online resources to learn philosophy on my own? Preferably YouTube, podcasts, or something else that I can listen to.

I’m specifically interested in contemporary philosophy, deconstruction, and postmodernism. It seems like there’s plenty of courses in classical philosophy, but gets a little more sparse the further down the chain you go.

Thank you!

Been reading Hanks’ Propositional Content (2015). Overall I find Hanks’ theory interesting and lucidly argued. However one part vexes me somewhat. In discussing the problem of empty names, Hanks argues that a semantically competent speaker should know that Zeus and Jupiter “co-refer” although they do not actually refer to anything. Thus acts of reference using these names fall under the same reference type, and the two names have the same semantic content. However in previously discussing problems involving co-referring names across different languages (eg, London and Londres), Hanks argues that it’s possible for a monolingual English speaker to be competent with the English language names Peking and Beijing, yet fail to know they co-refer, and under his theory the two names therefore have different semantic content because acts of reference involving them fall under different reference types. This seems arbitrary to me. Does anyone who has read this book have a better understanding of why Hanks’ would argue competent speakers could fail to know Peking and Beijing co-refer, but not in the case of Jupiter/Zeus?

Hi there! I’m trying to remember the name of a philosopher who argued that to have a disagreement, you first need to agree on several points. Essentially, to be considered opposites, you must share some fundamental commonalities. I realize my explanation might be a bit vague, but if this sounds familiar to you, I’d love your help. Thanks!

Please submit any recruitment type posts for conferences, discords, reading groups, etc in this stickied post only.

This post will be replaced each month or so so that it doesn't get too out of date.

Only clearly academic philosophy items are permitted

So I know they close their submission at some point and then open it up in Novemeber 15. But do you know when it is closed?

Are there academic philosophers / PhD graduates who are willing to give 1-1 tution, work reviews, paper discussions, and else?

If so, how one can find such tution?

Philosophy student here, wanting to get into more modern discourse (and eventually try and publish). Any journal recommendations to read?

Unfortunately, I don't have the possibility of pursuing a PhD. There's no program around, nor am I capable to move. Yet, there are many resources that help in learning academic writing and research, and many graduate students willing to offer the tutorship.

Can I expect to publish an academic philosophy essay this way?

Apologies if this had been asked before. I did search for this specific question and didn't find results.

Hey everyone,

I'm learning more about the Law. Law as a field has a lot of subdisciplines. Hence, I wonder when it comes to Constitutional Law what is its relationship with Political Theory.

I studied a little of Constitutional Law and the author was quoting Locke and Hobbes both who are central figures in Political Theory.

I'm a psychology major who had a very clear pathway beforehand of what to do. However, if I change into philosophy--which I had a very big interest in--what sort of way can I go? Especially if I double major philosophy and psychology

I hope this thread doesn't break the rules since my question is indirectly philosophical instead of directly. Since I saw that some people replied in another subreddit that they went as atheists in studying philosophy, but eventually became Theists, I would be interested to hearing if you have a similar story and impact of philosophy. Given that the majority of philosophy academics identify as atheists, i believe it is a ground for a great discussion.

In highschool, I was always interested in philosophy. More specifically, I was interested in questions related to how do we obtain knowledge, what is criteria for truth, what is consciousness, what constitutes art, etc. Thus, when I moved on to university I chose to major in philosophy. However, after studying philosophy for 4 years, I have slowly started to hate philosophy for various reasons:

1. Philosophy never gives me any concrete answers. Everything I have learned from taking philosophy classes has taught me that I can never definitively answer the questions I have sought to answer. Everything I have read has had counter-argument after counter-argument, attacking either the premises, the justifications or the conclusions. Whenever a philosophy-related debate ensues with my friends, I always end up being a "fence-sitter" and saying stuff like "while some people believe x, other people claim y," and I never have a definitive opinion on anything. While I understand this is kind of the point of philosophy, it leaves me very unsatisfied, and it makes me feel like I haven't really learned anything from my classes. Whenever I write an essay, I never fully agree with the position I take, I simply choose the side that seems easier to write about. Without definitive answers, to me, it feels like philosophy is just intellectual circle-jerking.
2. I never feel like I'm synthesizing my own ideas. Whenever I write a philosophy paper, I simply just read a bunch of sources related to my thesis and add them together. When I want to defend x, I write "well, y said z, and z is similar enough to x for so and so reasons, so we must accept x." The most synthesis of ideas I am doing is drawing pretty trivial connections between stuff I have already read, and I never feel like anything I write is novel, or that I even own the ideas that I write about. All these rules like "we require n citations" and "you must include these sources" make me feel like I'm not allowed think on my own or be creative in my own right. In the end, I feel like I'm just summarizing the ideas of others. While I would like to believe that a real philosopher, at one point, may eventually be able to create their own ideas, I can't see myself doing that in the foreseeable future, especially at the undergrad level.
3. I do not feel very connected to other philosophy students. From the points above, I have been starting to loath a lot of the philosophy classes that I have been in. But for some reason, most other philosophy students I have talked to enjoyed the philosophy courses that I have hated. However, for the philosophy classes that I did enjoy, the class sizes were abysmally small, and most other philosophy students that I have talked to either didn't care for them or actively disliked them. For example, the classes that I enjoyed the most were ones related to logic, model theory, set theory or topos theory (mostly because I avoided running into problems 1 and 2 in these classes). However, its very rare for me to find any philosophy students interested in these topics. I go to a large university, yet I feel very isolated from my peers. This lack of support from other students is probably a main factor into why I don't feel motivated to study philosophy.

My main question is: How do I remedy these problems and become interested in philosophy again? Should I just jump ship and abandon philosophy because my problems are irreconcilable? Any advice would be appreciated

I have a mostly finished book. I need to proof-read it, and I’m open to revisions as suggested. But I’ve revised it several times and I’m happy with the current version.

I would appreciate any advice or guidance on publishing.

I got my PhD a few years ago, and after being an adjunct I left academia for a career in the private sector. I’ve published a couple of articles in journals, but they aren’t really related to the book. I know your background doesn’t really matter for journal publications because of blind review. But I sort of feel like it does matter some for book publications. I could be wrong, but I worry that not having established myself as a scholar and not currently being associated with any academic institution both count against me in terms of publishing my book.

Do any of you agree? If so, do you have any advice?

If not, do you have any advice?

If it makes a difference, the book offers an account of philosophy and explains what is involved in doing philosophy in a way that is meant to be approachable to a reader without significant background knowledge of philosophy.

Mainly if it was a epistemology and metaphysics focused course Anyone know good ones? That won't be super expensive for international students, great passion for philosophy and am looking for it a good university to study :)

How closed is the Anglosphere? Will doing my PhD in the Netherlands, rather than in the US/UK, hinder what slim chances I have of finding a job in academia after?

My goal is to teach and research philosophy at a university level, for a living. It doesn't have to be at a prestigious university, and I have no intention of being an academic superstar. I just want to make a decent wage, doing what I love, in a country that isn't falling apart. I realise this is a pretty ambitious dream.

I know the job market is really bad. I've heard that getting a PhD from a world renowned university, like Princeton or NYU, won't guarantee a job after, but it could help. However, that means living in the US; it's not horrible, but it's not something I'm hoping for. In the UK stipends are really bad.

In the Netherlands PhDs are hired employees, with a good wage and workers rights. Generally, it seems like a good place to live, if you can find housing. However, I'm worried that a PhD from a top university there, like Rotterdam or Utrecht, won't be held in high regard in the anglosphere where most positions are, and might even hurt my chances of finding a job or even a postdoc position.

So, returning to the question at the top - will a PhD from the Netherlands hurt my chances of achieving my goal?

All thoughts would be really appreciated.