Why should due process exist for everyone ? And why is vigilantism or mob rule bad

It seems like at least in some cases we can prove guilt without needing legal processes. For example when someone gets caught in the act by 5 or more random people who do not know each other. Or on CCTV , should such people still deserve presumption of innocence ?

As for punishment when guilt is proven , one thing that often gets brought up is that emotions cloud us from making rational judgement on this matter as well but I find this argument weird because without emotions we wouldn't have a sense of what acts are right or wrong in the first place , why is punishment any different ? We need emotions to view certain actions worthy of punishment in the first place so why should we stop at there and not extend it to the consequences of such actions as well ?

If we are defining rule of law as a system where no person is deprived of their liberty except through legal procedures and that there is equality before law and equal protection of law

If evidence is whatever raises the probability of a hypothesis (it is), then wouldn’t me seeing that my glass of water has moved constitute some evidence that there is an invisible fairy that moved it? Or if I found lots of Gold buried under my house, would it not be evidence that there is a leprechaun that cares about and put it over there? Because these conclusions seem somewhat unintuitive.

I stumbled upon this argument but I don't know the name or details.

I find it very convincing.

Basically, it argues that all behaviors, human or animal, are caused by the environment, because even culture and genes are shaped by the environment, not the other way around.

Critics will say humans could shape their environment, but this desire also comes from the environment and we cannot break this loop. Even man-made environments are just the same relationship.

It's like determinism, we cannot escape it, it's a one-way trip.

The concepts seem the same to me. I know determinism is more of a cause effect situation but would like to get more clarity on their difference

Hi! I'm a cognitive neuroscientist - not a philosopher - who after hours or reading still cannot understand the direct/naive realism perspective on perception. Firstly, what is the actual meaning of the word "representation" as it is used in philosophy? I don't understand how representation cannot be involved in perception; we must perceive the word through neural activity, which in some way must "show" us (or represent) the objects of our perception, so how can such a neural representation be bypassed such that we perceive things "directly" (whatever that means). Or does representation not mean "neural representation" at all?

I've also always been curious about whether the direct or naive realist would accept the following empirical evidence:

• That neural activity is needed to perceive anything. Without neurons, or a brain more generally, there is no perception or consciousness
• That neurons are inconsistent in their responses and cannot encode the world perfectly/directly
• Hence, perception is a process of inferring the "ground truth" of the world via noisy sensory data
• That neural activity is not just feedforward and even the earliest sensory activity is modulated by feedback from "higher" brain regions
• Thus, there are prior expectations / predictions / internal models that modulate perception
• That sensory representations (or activity, if the word "representation" cannot be used) are not fixed but highly flexible, adapting to both short-term/immediate sensory input and long-term sensory statistics

I'm not even sure whether these facts are inconsistent with direct realism or not, such is my confusion as to what it means! If you can, I would appreciate replies that communicate in simple terms and/or in a way that will be more intuitive for a cognitive neuroscientist and psychophysicist. For whatever reason, I can rarely make sense of philosophers' arguments, which I suspect is mostly an issue of communication style (yes I know this is a bit critical, but I just have to be honest - feel free to slander me in return!).

Appreciate any efforts to help me out here!

Or is it already depends upon our hormones and nervous system?

Actual infinity is completed and definite, and consists of infinitely many elements. Potential infinity is never complete: elements can be always added, but never infinitely many.

According to Aristotle, actual infinities cannot exist because they are paradoxical. It is impossible to say that you can always “take another step” or “add another member” in a completed set with a beginning and end, unlike a potential infinite.

i agree with aristotle it does not make sense to say to say there is an finite lake with infinite number of Fishes.

can inorder to have infinite number of fishes you need infinite lake.

I ask this under the pretenses of recent conversations I've had about my particular art style with other artists. The ones I'm friends with treat it as "real" art but many I don't know say it's doodles or something else that obviously implies a lesser quality due to the abstract nature of said piece.

My question is, from as objective of a view you can give to art, is calling something a doodle even really an insult? Like isn't a doodle with some level of intent still art, albeit not the most high effort version of it?

And if effort is a factor in what you consider to be art, what is your threshold and why?

Edit this probably violates the rules to which I apologize, moderators where should I post instead?

Undergrad philosophy question (I'm sorry).

I know this is a common critique that has been rebutted, but it really does seem that the description of what makes something computational is so broad that everything can be said to be computational. However, there are non-computational functionalists that believe there are cognitive phenomena that are not computational in nature.

I'm a neuroscience major, so I really need an empirical example or I will just feel shakey on this lol. Does the critique that the mind's functioning is temporally sensitive or nonserial take computationalism out of the running?

I apologize if this has been asked before but I'm trying to figure something out here. My friends and I are well educated but a lot of them are more in the liberal arts whereas I'm an engineer. We all love having thoughtful discussions and whatnot But I often feel left out when they start bringing up stuff related to philosophy and political theory. They'll throw around Kant and hagel and things like that, And I just don't know what these guys talked about or stood for. I want to understand but I have absolutely no idea how to. One of my friends who is an engineer has a deep understanding of all this but it's because he straight up just read their work which blows my mind. Maybe it's because I have ADHD but I definitely do not have the ability to sit down and read hundreds of pages of dense philosophy. I started listening to the podcast History of philosophy without any gaps, but I just realized they're on episode 450 and are only at the Renaissance, so I don't think that's going to be the most accessible way for me to understand what my friends are talking about when they bring up Foucault.

So my question is, is there any kind of guide or direction anyone can point me towards to just form a basic understanding of the big names in philosophy so that I can follow along in these conversations and understand? I'm not asking for a complete shortcut, I'm happy to spend many hours reading or listening to stuff in order to do this, But I need it to be more accessible than reading direct texts from the authors because that would require me probably taking notes and spending a lot of time on every page just to make sure I'm comprehending it. Thank you so much!

This is a topic I’m not too familiar with, but I have not actually found any serious arguments against virtue ethics. Almost all of them fail fairly easily, even some that try to use psychological studies. Is there anything convinced out there? If not, why is consequentialism just as popular? Are philosophers unaware of it? For those of you who do not take this position, why is that so? Thanks!

I've been self-learning philosophy and so far I've read the Euthyphro, the Apology, and the Crito. I've been reading the pheado but I've been getting bored. can I read the republic and the Pheado at the same time or will it not make sense?

For example, we have the general concept which is "Color" , and specific example of color which is "Green", does Color=>Green or Green=>Color?

Another example is the concept of "thing" and human is a specific example of thing, does thing=>human or human=>thing?

I have memorized the idea that in ancient Greece there was at least someone that believed the soul had an epistomonikon (part that wants to acquire knowledge, it's virtue is noesis), logisticon (part that can logically reason and use that knowledge, and its virtue is phronesia) , epythimetikon (desires)

Yet I can't find anything online about Eman epistomonikon?

I would like to know what philosophy says about knowledge that is acquired by other people telling you things, and in particular the role played in trusting the person (or institution) that told you the things.

It seems to me that much of what I claim to know falls into this category, where I trust that someone or some institution is following good epistemic principles, and if they are not then what I claim to know may be suspect. Has any philosopher delved into this relationship and the trust I place in these people and institutionsm, and where and why I should place this trust?

I was just wondering if I have a valid rebuttal to the free will defense. If we cannot have free will and be incapable of sinning at the same time, how come God is Omni benevolent yet has free will?

I'm looking for discussion on the following question: should everyone be able to know about everything? Or should certain kind of knowledge be maintained more secret? Both historical and contemporary takes on the question would be appreciated.

Thanks everyone in advance!

Some free will skeptics use 'could've done otherwise' in their definition of free will.

'Could've done otherwise' doesn't focus on whether I can choose tea or coffee but on whether I could in that one specific instance.

Of course macro determinism is a background assumption in science, but isn't it true that science doesn't use this kind of thinking. That is, experiments are never repeated in identical conditions (identical as per that definition), but in fact in almost similar conditions, good enough for science to draw the results.

Am I on the right track here or is there a different sense in which science does use something like 'could've done otherwise'?

I was reading about Epicurus online and it said that he believed that the best life was one where less is more, where a person enjoys simple, natural pleasures. I guess technically he was a hedonist but there seems to be a lot more to his philosophy than that.

So why does this word based on his name mean "hedonist" or "glutton"? I'm confused.

I am not too well-read on process philosophy, so I want to ask this subreddit for input on the following thoughts and how my own ideas may relate to process metaphysicians such as Whitehead or Deleuze:

Reality is a flux in constant change, everything changes through time and nothing is static and fixed. For process philosophers, reality is not made up of 'things' that exist, but of events and processes that happen.

This can easily be seen in the difference between nouns and verbs. Thing-based ontologies see reality as made up of the meaning behind nouns, whereas process philosophy sees reality as made up of the meaning behind verbs. For example, "rain" is a thing that either exists or not, but "it rains" is an event that happens.

For process philosophy, reality is not made up of things, but of events, such as "it rains" (I believe Whitehead called these events "occurrences" if I'm not mistaken). Multiple events related through time and connected in a certain structure or through a certain pattern constitute a process. Events are the building blocks of processes. For example, "building a house" or "writing a book" are processes that happen. Just like events, processes do not exist, but happen in a certain temporal context.

Objects in process philosophy are simply events or processes that happen to happen in a very similar way over a period of time that it makes pragmatic sense to treat them as static objects. For example, a chair is not a thing that exists, but an event that constantly happens. It just happens to happen in the same way over a period of time that it makes pragmatic sense to treat it like a thing that exists. When a process changes so slowly or so rarely that those changes are not 'visible with the naked eye' so to speak, we can pragmatically call them objects, but that calling would be merely metaphorical.

Is my understanding of process philosophy correct? And if yes, how much does what I wrote align with the philosophies of Whitehead or Deleuze?

In discussing the US political climate recently with a friend from Eastern Europe, I mentioned how the Enlightenment's ideas around liberty, tolerance, scientific inquiry etc. shaped the thinking of many US statesmen of the Revolutionary era.

"Boy, were they wrong!" my friend said.

I had to admit that the current climate of tribalism, intolerance, anti-intellectualism etc. was basically the opposite in a lot of ways from those Enlightenment ideals.

But is the opposite just Fascism, or is something else a better way to describe it? Thanks!

Hello reddit -- I am in need of your help. Does anyone know of any particular sections of work by Dennett that deals with identity and self conception? My understanding is that he argues identity can be broken down into evolutionary functions. Thank you so much!

I fear that this is more of a sociology or perhaps another branch of social sciences type of question but from a philosophical standpoint i want to seek answers or explanation to our society's fascination with having kids. It is heavily imposed especially on pop culture and entertainment where famous people are looked at with disgust if they say that they do not want to have children (most especially if said celebrity is a Christian). So why is that the case?

By 'alternative' I simply mean those that are distinct from the typical options considered in the current mainstream discussions around those topics; the work itself does not need to address contemporary issues directly or be unknown in the past, it may very well be a historical source important for some previous generation.

Something has been bothering me a lot recently. Did ancient Skeptics know of a concept similar to self-evident truths, such as incorrigibility, such as "existence exists"?

Some ancient Greeks, like Gorgias, said that "nothing exists". Others, like the academic skeptics, were notorious for asserting that knowledge of any kind was impossible.

Pyrrhonism, on the other hand, considered itself anti-dogmatic -- a consequence of failing to find truth, rather than a logical truth in and of itself. There is also the concept of a "zetetic Pyrrhonist", a pyrrhonist who is attempting to seek truth, and essentially practicing skepticism of skepticism.

So, I am wondering if anyone is aware of any instances where Pyrrhonists held axioms/first principles/basic beliefs. In other words, I'm wondering if any of them ever conceded about some sort of cogito-ergo-sum-like, incorrigible belief -- "existence exists".

Aenesidemus and Sextus Empiricus, for example, seemed to reference relativism as being something that seems to be fairly true. They also believed, for example, that for every argument, there is an equally convincing opposing argument. They appear to use these as "arche" for skepticism. But then, Empiricus writes "that here as elsewhere we use the term 'are' for the term 'appear,' and what we virtually mean is 'all things appear relative.'"

In short, was there anything they considered self-evident, rather than non-evident? Or did that kind of thinking not become popular in skepticism until methodological skepticism? I do know that Parmenides stated "to be aware and to be are the same" (also sometimes written as "to think and to be are the same"), and I'm wondering how common this view was back then and whether the Pyrrhonists ever addressed it.

I do know that Sextus Empiricus wrote in depth in his book Against the Logicians (and possibly in Against the Professors?) about Gorgias, and about Gorgias's philosophy that "nothing exists", but I do not know where to access his writings on that matter, unfortunately.

In Peter Singer's essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," he uses the analogy of a man getting his coat dirty to save a drowning child. This is meant to illustrate the moral obligation to help others, at a minor personal cost. However, the analogy focuses on getting the coat dirty, which is a temporary inconvenience and is washable, rather than losing it permanently or sacrificing significant luxuries.

My question is: How does this analogy translate to the idea of losing one's luxuries permanently? If the coat can be cleaned, how does that compare to the deeper implications of sacrificing personal comforts of no moral value for the sake of saving lives?

Second,

What is the extent of this moral obligation? If you knew that by saving one child, you would have to repeatedly get your coat dirty or even lose it permanently, especially because if many children are drowning, would you still be willing to sacrifice your wealth? How does this scenario affect our understanding of moral responsibility? Should one’s obligation extend to putting oneself at the level of those who are in poverty that they are helping?

I would appreciate any insights on this perspective. Thanks.

Here's what I know. When it comes to formal symbolic proofs in logic there are four main styles:

Axiomatic

Natural deduction

Sequent calculus

Semantic tableau

Are there any other major ones? What are the pros and cons of each?

I've mainly used fitch, and that's my go to when trying to solve something (or for modal logic, I just go through the semantics). If you have a semantic/informal proof, and what a symbolic proof (of any style) which is best to use? Is there any type which it is best to think in by default?

I suppose it might depend on the task: for metatheory I gather axiomatic approaches are best, as they have few rules and thus few cases that need to be looked at (but correspondingly, symbolic proofs in it will be more roundabout and verbose?)

It seems like sequent calculus has properties the others don't have. It has the single turnstile, and also the horizontal bar. I've been told these mean different things: the first represents a derivation, and the latter represents an admissible transformation of one derivation into another. I can't think of anything corresponding to this in fitch (and if conditional proof counts/is a close analogue, then I have more questions...).

Any thoughts? Many thanks! I'm currently leaning towards trying to learn to do everything in sequent but I'm unsure if that's a good idea.

The title, I like his works and outlooks, is there anything similar to him?