Hi everyone, as the title suggests, I am attempting to write my philosophy essay that counts towards 30% of my module. It is my first time writing a philosophy essay ever and I'm not sure if it's good enough for a philosophical standard. Would anyone be kind enough to review my work and advise me?

I’m in a sticky situation and I really need help reviewing a paper I have written for my graduate school applications. Technically, this is the 2nd essay I have ever written. My first essay I wrote was for last year’s applications, where I did not get in.

Yes. It sounds fucking ridiculous. I wish I was lying. I never had to write essays in undergrad. I went to a very small, underfunded university in the middle of nowhere. It was a very poor education. The university catered to the rural students who had gone to the high school nearby, which also was a poor education. So they purposefully made classes much easier to manage since those kids would not have been able to graduate. My department only had 2 professors. Neither of them have been able to read the essay since they are too busy. I’m running out of time and I’m stuck. I have no idea how to improve this since I’ve had no practice.

If anyone who is a current PhD student, or a current philosophy professor has time to help me I would be so appreciative. I have no idea where else to get help at this point.

The essay is about grief and emotions. If you have expertise in that area, you could be very helpful! Please DM me, or ask me to DM you so I can send it over email. I’d prefer email just so I can see if you are affiliated with a university or not (sorry, just being careful).

Hey everyone! Recently, I got my hands on an old book attributed to Ibn Sina (Avicenna) that dives into spiritual sciences. Although Ibn Sina is primarily known for his contributions to medicine and philosophy, this book is linked to him due to the philosophical and psychological concepts that were once closely tied with spirituality. Here’s a breakdown of what I found inside:

Main Ideas:

1.	Letter and Symbolic Charts: The book contains charts filled with letters and symbols arranged in specific patterns. In spiritual traditions, these kinds of charts are believed to harness energy or “spiritual frequencies” for various purposes, like enhancing mental strength or connecting with higher spiritual realms.
2.	Talismans and Symbols: A significant part of the book discusses talismans—symbols believed to bring protection or blessings. These talismans are written with specific letters and numbers in a special order, thought to carry spiritual power or influence certain outcomes in life.
3.	Chants and Invocations: There are several sections dedicated to spiritual chants or invocations, which appear to be used for protection or guidance. These words, often resembling prayers or spells, are said to help in achieving a state of spiritual openness or in attracting positive energy.

Final Thoughts:

While the book combines elements of philosophy, psychology, and mysticism, it’s worth noting that Ibn Sina might not have directly written it. However, the association of such texts with him highlights how closely tied spiritual and scientific thought once were. The book is fascinating for anyone interested in the intersection of traditional spiritual practices and early scientific thinking.

Let me know if you want more details on any specific part of the book!

I'm here to ask for some assistance on a project of mine, I am working on a game, a visual novel to be more precise, and the story I'm writing for it aims to explore and more specifically personify various philosophical ideas and ideologies by allowing the viewer to give them a sort of job interview under the premise of the player selecting a "god" that would be given control over the world. From a doylist perspective this is the player selecting which of the presented ideologies, belief systems, and leadership styles they would prefer to live under and/or have the rest of a hypothetical world live under. Which would hopefully get a engaged player thinking about their own belief systems and what they prioritize.

The reason why I'm posting this is that I only knows so much about the ideologies I want to explore and despite the research that I have done my understanding of them remains shallower than I would like, thus I would very much appreciate having a conversation with someone who has a better understanding of the kinds of things I am trying to explore so that things I am missing, or questions that I should be asking but haven't thought of might be brought to my attention so I can continue working on this project with a more complete understanding.

Hello all :)

I am an anthropology student who is interested in the notion of intersubjectivity. I am particularly interested in the limits of intersubjectivity and what constitutes it. I really liked Levinas and his approach to it. And I was looking for other works/authors who have tackled the issue and perhaps approached it through a phenomenological lens.

To give more context, my research involves contexts where two strangers meet in a context of crisis. The care-giver tries to find ways to achieve a common ground with the care-receiver through an intersubjective approach and understand and acknowledge the other's pain. Thanks so much beforehand.

Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of interests (contingency arguments for the existence of God, thin vs thick theories of existence, ontological pluralism vs monism, and many more). I think my problem is that I'm not a very original thinker, so I probably cannot come up with my own ideas or objections related to this stuff. So, im not sure what to write about. I'm sure I could write a killer 'overview' of any of these discourses, but in terms of actually arguing for/against something (based on my own ideas), probably not.

Any advice or tips if you're in this situation?

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

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Chalmers’s argument for p-zombies jumps from zombies being conceivable to them being possible. I was reading part of this https://consc.net/papers/conceivability.html (specifically paragraph two), where if something can be epistemically grounded, then it can be modally justified as conceivable (I may have misinterpreted this) and therefore metaphysically possible.

My concern lies with conceivability entailing possibility (in whatever form, be it logical or metaphysical). It seems similar to Hume’s ‘is/ought’ distinction… what I mean by this is that it feels fallacious to jump from the realm of the conceivability to possibly, like jumping from understanding some concept in mathematical language to then trying to understand that something in Latin… essentially it seems like there is inequivalence in the concepts/realms of conceivability and possibility

In short, I'm curious to know if it is correct to think it is fallacious to move from conceivable to possibility… or if there is a step between the two that makes it acceptable.

I am trying to do some research on the history of nominalism and how it influenced the scientific method. There is this argument going around that nominalism has had a greater influence on science than naturalism. This is because the notion of what is natural have changed to suit science rather than science changing to suit our conception of what we think is natural.

For example, Aristotle thought that teleological, final causes were natural to the essence of a thing. We would consider this notion of essences to be more or less supernatural leaning. Or at least you certainly don't have to believe in teleology to be a naturalist.

The idea is that nominalist ideas have had more of an influence on science than naturalism because naturalism is defined by science to an extent rather than naturalism defining what is scientific. An example of nominalism influencing science would be the removal of a concern for final cause from the scientific method made by Francis bacon. The reason this may be credited to a nominalist approach is because of the rejection of forms or universals which is very closely related to Aristotle's notion of purpose coming from a things essence. As such this is more of a nominalist thing than a naturalist thing because whether you consider teleology to be natural or not is basically a vibes based thing or so the argument goes.

Are there any interesting resources or facts from history to consider when evaluating this argument?

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for amateur circles or discussion groups that approach philosophy with a level of rigor similar to professionals or students. I have some well-thought-out ideas and ongoing philosophical work that I'd like to share and refine, but I wouldn't necessarily bring them to a professional setting without some peer review and scrutiny first.

I'm interested in engaging with others who take philosophy seriously, exploring and challenging ideas to broaden our perspectives. If you know of any communities or groups where people critically examine and discuss philosophical concepts in depth, I'd appreciate your recommendations.

Thanks in advance!

Hey

Before i start I want to metion that english is not my first language, so Im sorry for my linguistic incorrectness.

I started college this month, but its not anywhere close to the philosophy (electrical engineering related). I always was interested in philosophy tho, but its more like a hobby. I had this idea, that when i graduate, i could attend another college degree, but in more like side-study thing, and not aiming to any career improvement ( more like studying for fun, but its not what i really mean).

I was wondering if its really worth attending uni with philosophy, if I dont care about any certificates, i just want to educate myself in this area.

I would call myself a beginner in philosophy, as i started reading books this year, mostly "classics". Im currently reading Karamazov Brothers by Dostoyevsky, and im pretty in love with it already.

There are definitely different aspects, zones of philosophy, but the only thing i want to achieve is knowledge. I really like Jordan Peterson stuff, and i would like to have kind of philosophy knowledge, that he has, if you really know what i mean.

Are books a way to go? Is it worth going to the designated uni subject? Maybe there is another way to go?

How much could I possibly learn comparing different possibilities?

Which path would you choose?

Do you have some advice, to have a good start, maybe book recommendations, or some articles??

I will appreciate any advice

I am considering a PhD at a university in Spain. However, I am worried that the philosophy world there isn’t that vibrant. You never heard of big philosophers coming out of the area, and when I look at the faculties there it seems like there isn’t to many people doing stuff outside of ethics or post modernism.

I want to be able to go to a university that has people very knowledgeable in many areas so I can lean phenomenology, Kant, Phil of mind, Heidegger etc. a bit of everything. But it looks like there isn’t much of that in Spain.

Am I missing something?

Hey everyone!

I’m looking for texts, books, or articles on philosophical humanism published within the past 10 years. They can be in English, French, or German—I'm open to all three languages. I’m especially interested in works that focus on the philosophical aspects of humanism, but I’m also open to broader interpretations.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

In our second episode on C.S. Lewis' 'Mere Christianity' we went a bit further into Lewis' notions of universal morality and justice. Lewis discusses his history as an atheist and believing the universe to be cruel and unjust - but ultimately came up against the question of what did unjust mean without a god who was good running the show, so to speak.

This is related to a post I made last week, but I am still butting up against this idea and I think there is something to it. If justice is purely subjective (simply based on the societal norms at play), then something like slavery was once just and is now unjust. I am not on board with this.

Taking it from a different angle, there are ideas of 'natural rights' bestowed upon you by the universe, and so it is unjust to strip someone of those - but this is getting dangerously close to the idea of a god (or at least an objective standard) as a source of justice.

What do you think?

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it?...Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too—for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning. (CS Lewis - Mere Christianity)

Links to the podcast, if you're interested
Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pdamx-30-2-lord-liar-or-lunatic/id1691736489?i=1000671621469

Youtube - https://youtu.be/X4gYpaJjwl0?si=Mks2_RkfIC0iH_y3

There is a paper which argues for x. I am going to be writing a paper which argues against x, or at least, against the reasoning for x given in the original paper. The original paper references other texts which argue for x, and quotes them directly. Am I allowed to use those exact same quotations (be they arguments, definitions, etc.), in my paper? And do I have to reference the texts those quotations came from, or do I have to reference the text I'm responding to, since that is where I've read the quotations originally?

I’ve recently realized that I sometimes need to be careful with whom I’m talking to about certain topics. Some people are religious or very close minded/misguided. They are unwilling to talk neutrally about a topic without judgement. And sometimes they start off using reason but then turn stubborn when the topic doesn’t go their way. These are the type of people who will always engage in these types of conversations.

How do you go about talking to somebody who does not share your view and still have a productive conversation?

I'm considering studying philosophy, but am not quite sure yet. my question could be regarding what kind of traits you should have, difficulty, reading level, what you unexpectedly gained, just generally things that surprised you. I realise this isn't the perfect sub but it's the closest one I could find. thank you!

Hi, I’m an undergrad student looking to graduate this December and I’m going to be applying to masters programs for philosophy of technology. If I’m not interested in going down the academia pipeline and instead want to do consulting, my question is what kind of jobs does this entail? I guess I’m trying to get a clearer idea of what options are open to pursue. If anyone has any experience getting a philosophy degree and going into tech consulting, I’d love to get your insight.

Thanks. :)

I am looking for something like this, but written by an academic philosopher.

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

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Books defining oppression, social and economic exploitation, and discrimination

Hi everyone,

I hope you're all very well

I'm looking for (introductory) or comprehensive books analysing the concept of oppression, social and economic exploitation, and discrimination, primarily engaging (moral) philosophers, political theorists, or/and social scientists. It doesn't matter if the books are ideologically biased or politically leaning towards the left or the right, or even a more comprehensive analysis from both sides.

I just want to understand what is really unjust when using words like oppression, imposition, alienation, exploitation, social misrecognition, social pathology, etc.

Hi! Even now that I have made it as a PhD candidate (in philosophy), I have never in my whole academic career fully understood the rules for citations and can never find clear answers to my (apparently, idiosyncratic) questions.

Could someone please help me with the following: is it allowed according to the APA 7th edition referencing guide to shorten titles for in-text citation? For example, say I am writing a chapter/paper about Habermas' "Between Facts and Norms" (1992). Instead of continuously writing "(Habermas, 1992, p. 100)" could I write "(BFN, p. 100)" – after having indicated that "BFN" is the abbreviation I will use for this particular source throughout the chapter/paper, of course?

So, basically, I’m in year 11 and looking to take philosophy as one of my year 12 courses, but my school doesn’t offer it, so I’d have to take online courses, but if I do that, the school looses out on money, so obviously the school doesn’t want me to take online philosophy and will try to stop me unless I can find a way to make it seem absolutely necessary for my career path. The problem? I want to be an author (backup plans are basically journalist and teacher). And I know that I can survive without taking a philosophy class, but I really love it, and I also struggle to come to school (to the point of almost failing) so I think that being in a class I love that challenges me will help. So I guess what I’m asking is for help coming up with arguments for my school to let me do this.

So this isn't academic philosophy in content but arises constantly with my experience in academic philosophy. I'm a 1st year PhD student in philosophy program for context.

I am writing this directly after listening to a university presentation. I consistently struggle with imposter syndrome to the point where after I leave academic philosophy settings my imposter syndrome, anxiety, self-doubt -whatever you want to call it - is so severe I feel paralyzed, shakey, nausea, and have the urge to vomit. I used to never be this way. And I ask people about how to deal with these issues, and I consistently get "just recognize that everyone has this," or "your more capable than you think you are" etc. But this doesn't help me. I try to reason through my self-judgments and work out how they do not entail how I should feel, etc.

This often stems from the fact that I am so caught up in my head during academic engagements about being insightful or asking good questions or remembering material, the usual requirements of being a good philosopher, that I cannot escape the despair of feeling like I cannot do any of this. I constantly have this feeling like "don't mess up." This feeling prevents me from succeeding and typically causes me to mess up.

I honestly feel so debilitated by this that I get extremely depressed and don't even want to read philosophy some days simply because of my self-doubt. Which is sad, because I love this topic.

I never had an ounce of these feelings until I got into grad school. I spent a long time working through them after my master's, and I got into my PhD, and they have reared their ugly head again.

Has anyone experienced this? What is your advice? What worked for you?

I’m currently studying an ontological table that compares the fundamental categories of being across various philosophers. The table is based on David Alvargonzález’s article Modes and Dimensions of Being (2022), with some additions I’ve made, marked with an asterisk (*).

I’m particularly interested in gathering feedback on the overall implications of this table as it compares these different frameworks for understanding ontology. Here’s the table:

I would appreciate insights on the following:

• What are to you the broader implications of organizing these philosophers in this way?
• Could this framework help clarify modern debates as the hard problem of consciousness?
• Are there significant limitations?

Source: David Alvargonzález, Modes and Dimensions of Being (2022).

Looking forward to your thoughts!

I am a PhD student in the history of science, and it seems like I'm getting a bit burned out with it. I do absolutely love history and philosophy of science. And I do think it is important to have professionals working on the emergence of modern science. Not just for historical awareness, but also for current and future scientific developments, and for insight into how humans generate knowledge and deal with nature.

However, the sheer number of publications on early modern science sometimes just seems absurd. Especially the ones that deal with technical details. Do we need yet another book about some part of Newton's or Descartes' methodology? Or another work about a minor figure in the history of science? I'm not going to name names, but I have read so many books and articles about Newton by now, and there have been several, extremely detailed studies that, at least to me, have actually very little to contribute.

I understand that previous works can be updated, previous ideas critically examined. But it seems that the publications of the past decade or two are just nuancing previous ideas. And I mean nuancing the tiniest details that sometimes leads me to think you can never say anything general about the history of science. Historian A says that we can make a generalisation, so we can understand certain developments (for instance the emergence of experimentalism). Then Historian B says it is more complicated than that. And by now Historian C and D are just arguing over tiny details of those nuances. But the point Historian A made often still seems valid to me. Now there is just a few hundred or thousand pages extra of academic blather behind it.

Furthermore, nobody reads this stuff. You're writing for a few hundred people around the world who also write about the same stuff. Almost none of it gets incorporated into a broader idea of science, or history. And any time someone writes a more general approach, someone trying to get away from endless discussions of tiny details, they are not deemed serious philosophers. Everything you write or do just keeps floating around the same little bubble of people. I know this is a part of any type of specialised academic activity, but it seems that the history of philosophy texts of the past two decades have changed pretty much nothing in the field. And yet there have been hundreds of articles and books.

And I'm sick and tired of the sentence "gives us more insight into ...". You can say this before any paper you write. What does this "insight" actually mean? Is it useful to have more and more (ad nauseam) insight into previous scientific theories? Is that even possible? Do these detailed studies actually give more insight? Or is it eventually just the idiosyncratic view and understanding of the researcher writing the paper?

Sorry for the rant, but it really sucks that the field that at first seemed so exciting, now sometimes just seems like a boring club of academics milking historical figures in order to publicise stuff that will only ever be read by that very same club. And getting money for your research group of course. And it's very difficult to talk to my colleagues or professors about this, since they are exactly part of the club that I am annoyed with.

I'm interested in the thoughts you guys have about this. Is any historian of science dealing with the same issues? And how does the field look to an outsider?

I am 32 years old. Due to many life circumstances that included a cancer diagnosis I didn't have the opportunity to finish my degree. Now, I want to return and finish but it's been almost a decade since I have taken a philosophy course. My goal--god willing--is to teach philosophy or a related discipline at the community college level. I truly believe that the study of philosophy is important for humanity.

I know the job prospects look absolutely grim. I know that my family and friends are gonna question me every step of the way. And I know I could end up working the same jobs I would have without a degree.

But, coming from an underprivileged background and a minority( parents didn't graduate highschool, first generation, poor socio-economics) it would honestly give me a sense of pride to finish some serious academic work. I will finish a masters but not too sure about doctorate. I've been a great student in the philosophy classes I took with nearly all As. I enrolled in a not highly ranked but cheap and close by university. The philosophy program is decent. It's definitely focused on the analytical tradition with wide sweeping courses like Philosophy of Science or American Philosophy and no courses on specific philosophers. I fear that being a person who has interest in German Idealism and Romanticism that I will not be studying too much of what I enjoy reading on my own. Although, I think it will be helpful for me to regularly encounter positions contrary to my beliefs.

For the next five months before the semester begins I plan to refresh my knowledge on logic (I am working through The Logic Book by Bergmann, Moor, and Nelson) and pick a few shorter philosophical works that I can write on. I was also thinking about learning how to read German. I know in my graduate studies I will be given the opportunity to learn. Couldn't hurt to start early right? It's time I put all my effort into something and see what the outcome could be. Possibly I won't have the opportunity to be a PHD student working on German Idealism. More likely than not! Perhaps I'll get into an industry that I'd never imagine I would work in. I have the interest in this and the passion that I think pursuing this could be a risk worth taking. I hope not too take out many loans. And the BA will be mostly paid for.

Thanks for reading!