We usually say dont compare yourself with others but why is that ? Is it because we're too afraid to compare our progress with others.
What do you guys feel about it

The greeks chained prometheus, and with him they blocked technology. today we have unleashed prometheus, allowing technology to take over everything. how can we in our everyday life go back to chaining prometheus.

If there are an infinite number of whole numbers, and an infinite number of decimals between any two whole numbers, and an infinite number of decimals in between any two decimals, does that mean that there are infinite infinities? And an infinite number of those infinities? And an infinite number of those infinities? And an infinite number of those infinities? And an infinite number of those infinities? And… (Infinitely times. And that infinitely times. and that infinitely times. and that infinitely times. And..) …

What exactly is the harm caused by someone using a verbal slur? And what makes certain words slurs and other words merely cuss words?

The way I see it, what we decide to be a slur is purely decided by emotion and social pressure. For example, in countries other than the USA, such as India, young people regularly use the N-word in all situations and contexts. Everybody knows it's a slur in the USA and what it means, but it seems to me that the frequent use of the word here has made the word completely meaningless to anyone who says it here. And in turn nobody even seems to associate the N-word with its racist history anymore, in India at least.

My question is why don't people in the USA adopt the same attitude towards all slurs? By letting everyone say it whenever wherever, we can let the slur lose its power to harm. We already see an example of this where black people use the N-word to address eachother in a regular manner and thereby reclaiming what was once an offensive word to cause harm and degrade and turning it into something more positive.

It seems to me that slurs are only so harmful because we choose to make them these grand offences, when it would be better to blow them off. The people who truly are racist and wish to use them to hurt people only use slurs because they know people take offense to it. But if we didn't take offence, then they probably wouldn't use it as much. And if they did use it as much, what would it matter if the rest of us didn't care?

Now, getting people to NOT care about slurs is a different conversation and I understand is difficult to do. But I think it's possible. So what is the problem with this logic, why don't we approach slurs in this manner?

Hello! Freud, Churchland, and Locke's philosophy about self is easy for me to understand at first glance but when I tried to go deeper, I can't seem to understand especially with paid articles. Can someone explain to me their philosophy about self and please provide me free sources if there is. Thank you!

For example, if someone were to state that "God is real" is it that person's responsibility to prove that God is real or is it the responsibility of everyone else to disprove that God is real?

I feel like many debates and conversations are thrown off track because we lose focus on who is claiming what and whose responsibility it is to prove those claims. A lot of poor arguments would get exposed as unfalsifiable nonsense if we committed to the idea that the claimant should always be the one to bear the burden of proof.

Whenever I look at some sexual abuse cases like R kelly , Larry Nassar or Epstein it makes me absolutely hate them and wish the worst on them. Most share this sentiment that come across such cases as well but still what makes us feel this way ? Is such disgust and anger socially constructed or is it innate in the sense that humans evolutionarily value freedom and consent ? There seems to be cultures in the east (not all of them since I'm not making a generalization) that don't see sexual abuse as a big deal or morbidly enough even ENCOURAGE it (as part of rituals and rites) which is radiated in the lack of long penalties and societies over there not seeing it as a big deal. I'm a moral realist and rawlsian so I'm certain that SA is almost definately unethical no matter the context but still is the way we feel about it as witnesses socially constructed ? what about trauma responses felt by victims influenced by culture of the place ? I.e if a culture doesn't view sex as a sacred act or does not see victims of rape as been tainted or defiled , would that lower the trauma if not outright eliminate the suffering arising from sexual assault of women in those places and by how much ?

I'm interested in reading Camus's novels but was wondering if I needed to become familiar with any other works or concepts to fully understand them?

Could you please recommend me rethoric handbooks etc.? I read some Ancient Greek classics, like Aristotle and Isocrates, but now I’m interested in 20th/21th century books on the topic.

I've always been curious about what we don't know yet. The simple idea that something just tomorrow could shake the equilibrium of knowledge.

For example, how Einstein's idea of/for relativity put into question the Newtonian physics that we use today...there's just a lot that we don't know.

And I find it interesting how Plato, Aristotle, etc, all the way back then somehow had already answered many questions we're still scientifically solving for today... Not scientifically, of course, but back then just by natural understanding of observation and intuition, they had already ideated the frameworks for the world, physics, math, philosophy, etc.

And only now do we have the tools and tech to verify their hypothetses...and while of course they weren't spot on, their ideas were generally coming from the right place... So would you say that strong intuition is fundamental to understanding the unknown, reaching the truth, and being creative with insights and solutions?

When it comes to such abstract views on life, so far I've only studied Jung and his views on introverted intuition and introverted thinking which help me understand these views... And how Plato and Aristotle both used introverted intuition to construct their views or arguements respectively... Which when guesstimated from the right education and mindset would guide us to the truth...

Now, aside from the many, many mathematical, logical, ethical, political curious queries Plato, Aristole and even more modern such as Kant had garnered, how does that express itself for the arguement of God? As far as I understand, Aristotle was leaning towards monotheism, but the question I have is, if these philosophers could be so right about so much of the world, would such intellectual might giving credence to the concept and existence of God hold great intuitive weight?

I don't want to make this about my personal views, but just by relating to their arguments, it does make me curious that 100s to 1000s of years ago, these people had their ideas and formed strong arguements, and if we're taking God to be all fair and just, then we'll likely never have any direct evidence or presence from Him because it wouldn't be fair to all those who have passed away without getting a chance to experience such evidence hence that would make God unfair....

If anything, perhaps the only real evidence of God lies within our intuition and perception? And these philosophers were able to tap into said abstraction and pass on the idea? Because ironically, whether you believe in God or not, His presence is quite literally everywhere because we hear about God all the time, especially due to cultural and global reasons... Even Christmas is a yearly reminder of God... So perhaps that is the type of evidence we all share?

So the ultimate question is, how do we account for future knowledge? If you think about how much past philosophers were right about (and about I understand trial and error, so they were also wrong about a lot but it's the critical thinking and approach we have to evaluate here) then isn't there only more and more chance that if there would ever be evidence of God, no matter how little, it could only be expressed within 1000s to 100,000s of years or more?

For more practical example, some believe that aside from our souls, God is within the light... But for those who are purely reliant on science and evidence, even the electromagnetic spectrum is a relatively new discover considering the philosophical approaches... So if you had told someone that light is a spectrum if you went into the past hypothetically, they may not have believed you because there would be no scientific evidence of it in that age.

There may quite literally be 1000s of existences just like the spectrum of light right in front of us which we can't humanly or scientifically prove or perceive... So wouldn't God just be one of such aspects?

Considering we don't even know our own brains, and more than 99% of our universe, isn't relying on science which is reactive a bit dull, and relying on intuition and spirituality the same equal way past, revered thinkers have done so allow us a better view of life which covers the 1000s of year of knowledge ahead better?

Also, going back to Jung, introverted intuition (Ni) users are likely the most rare kind and usually the smartest too on average, especially when you can mix Ni and Ti (like INFJ said to be the rarest)... So such understanding of the world is quite limited and narrow to begin with.

I have been studying existentialism from the past few months. But I found it a bit confusing.

As per my understanding: Existentialism = life doesn’t come pre-packaged with meaning, It’s up to each individual to create and define their own meaning through their actions, choices, and relationships.

But I say, still, the person doesn’t have THE meaning. The search for meaning != meaning. The meaning should be found as a valid answer — just like the answer to a question isn’t the search for the answer, but the answer itself.

If life, which isn’t pre-packaged with meaning, has a meaning that is to find meaning, then it means that the process of finding meaning is the real meaning. Which means the real meaning the person is trying to find is still missing, so it’s a loop that doesn’t even make sense to me.

It’s like saying: the answer to the question is to find the answer to the question. (while the real answer is still missing).

I'm a teenager, and relatively new to philosophy, so I would greatly appreciate if you give me your opinions on this confusion.

I've been perusing some papers in philosophy of religion and came across this particular paper, published this very year:

Priest S. Quantum Physics and the Existence of God. Religions. 2024; 15(1):78. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15010078

The author is Dr. Stephen Priest, Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at Blackfriars, Oxford and a member of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Oxford. So the credentials and the background are quite reputable.

In the paper, he tries to argue that different interpretations of Quantum Physics would necessarily presuppose the existence of God. Unfortunately, a lot of the scientific language is beyond my level, hence I wanted to ask what people think of his work in this paper (which is apparently to be published in the form of a book later, with more elaboration).

Looking for religious philosophers who think life is a mistake and suicide is acceptable, and/or that we should stop having children. Not to be fruitful and multiply.

hi, i'm writing a paper based on framing strategies in art. i was looking at the history of phenomenology and how various philosophers/schools of thought have dissected this duality (or lack thereof) and applying this notion towards art.

are there any examples of texts you can think of where the subject-object dichotomy is applied towards art? this would be very helpful, thank you

I know that there's something that happens before the goal and call it cause and something happens after the goal and call it effect

Now most of our knowledge is based on our observation of reality, but we can't get back in time to observe the the causes of something,

And even if the events are moving in reverse direction, the time itself is still moving forward (but maybe some people might disagree with that as a result of modern physics, so ignore this point if you want to)

So all the knowledge we get is about something must be an effect even if the thing we observe is actually a cause, it won't be known until it's an effect to be observed

And there even things that you're unable to determine if they're causes or effects, like fire being a source of heat, you don't know which one caused the another

Also sometimes you can't know the effects until you find the causes and can't find the causes until you find the effects

This brings two questions:

1.Do causes&effects represent two different things?

2.If No, then how and why did we separate these two concepts from each other?

Was watching a show of a Dutch comedian show and they had a part in which they talked about how all actions we take have awful consequences.

This included eating certain foods like avocado, which uses pesticides that give people cancer in Mexico, quinoa, which is driving up prices in Bolivia causing people going hunger and soy which is destroying the Amazon and is causing murders of farmers in Brazil. Another example was driving including electric cars, as the making batteries still causes pollution by mining metals. Wearing clothes was another example, as the workers in Bangladesh are exploited and it has been linked to the drying up of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan as cotton uses much water. Even using sun energy has bad consequences as much of the solar panels are made by Uyghurs in Chinese concentration camps.

The part ended with that having a child might be the worst thing to do as you create another being that will cause all the same negative consequences. Then the conclusion was that the most ethical thing was to not exist at all.

Is there any ethical theory, most likely consequentialist, that believes the same? That goes even further than Peter Singer?

Edit: besides the suggestions I got I also came across Julio Cabrera's negative ethics. This might be the closest of all as according to Wikipedia he argues that the least immoral action to take is altruistic suicide.

I understand he is saying that our conception of eternity comes from our conception of existence and that eternity isn’t related to time or duration but I need some more clarification. But he follows with existence follows necessarily from eternity which is circular. So what is eternity? And what does he mean by existence?

Greetings Philosophy Reddit!

My question is brief, is there any difference between "formal" and "symbolic" logic? I'm planning on self-studying logic and foundational math as a hobby and I didn't know if there was a difference between the two.

I purchased Peter Smith's, "An Introduction to Formal Logic" as this was recommended most, but then I kept seeing references to something called "symbolic logic". I was hoping to supplement the book with some form of online lectures but couldn't really find anything except this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExE8ucCfmH0&list=PLcmaziH9sW6OIomMEC280GERu9InK13wk&index=1.

I'm hoping they cover essentially the same material so I can get both forms of learning in.

Thanks!

Basically, one common form of the teleological argument, especially in less formal discourse, is that the world is too complex to have come without intentional design. I was wondering if anyone challenged this idea, that mechanics is what ultimately matters, whereas intent and purpose are only motivations to enact the mechanics in a certain way, and if there was a way for the physical world to form in the way it has now, even if unlikely, it's still within its own mechanics to do so.

I was wondering if there are other philosophers who think this way and develop this idea further, and if they took it to any other conclusion beyond religion.

Sometimes I experience a state of uncertainty about the truth. Most recently, there was an issue in Davenport where an officer killed a family dog. The comment section and the post itself said the officer was wrong for doing so, while others claimed that he was acting in self-defense. The action itself was deemed legal. I dug into the story and a news station brought in an expert who said the dog would likely have attacked the officer and the actions taken were the best available at that time. Yet, from the bodycam video, this wasn't apparent to me. The more I looked into it, the less certain I was of any conclusion I came to.

It's impossible to know anything for certain, so is it all just leaps of faith? Approximations? There's too much information on any issue, so how can anyone come to a conclusion on anything?

Which Ancient Greek philosopher or philosophy is closest to what we've discovered and confirmed about the Universe?

Democritus was one of the founders of the atomist school of thought, and I was wondering what other philosophers that I might not have heard of have proposed similar ideas of the Universe (and such) that ended up being very similar to what we've started uncovering with modern science today.

Any examples are welcomed and should be explained. Looking forward to learning more, thanks!

My example is this:

Sam Harris is a hard determinist - so, regardless of whether he says he’s acting out an illusion (which frankly is bizzare to me, and also self refuting and if you aware of an illusion, surely it’s no longer an illusion? And if this illusion is so persuasive, then its a dead end argument as you’d never actually know…anyway).

So Sam gets arrested for a crime he did not commit. He is due in court and he requires a defence team. Before he picks up the phone to speak to the best team money can buy, because he’s facing a lengthy spell in prison - surely, he must think to himself….regardless of what i do in this situation, regardless of who I hire, regardless of who the judge is….the outcome is predetermined before I’ve picked up the phone?

Is this the logical conclusion, and if so, I am unsure in a negative situation such as this, that having no rational basis and no objective evidence REALLY helping you, how that isn’t very concerning.

I have a rather specific question concerning several passages in the B-Deduction, namely that between B157-160. I may be off-the-mark here, but let me first state what I understood him to be saying: his thesis is that we do not have a special kind of access to ourselves and consequently, our determinate judgments of ourselves are subject to the same rules/constraints as all other judgments. My specific question is about the role of temporality in this argument, namely, if I am correctly interpreting his use of temporality to deny the possibility of such privilege to introspection.

To reconstruct the premise: (1) our self-consciousness in the apperceptive sense, qua "I think" is empty and thus is distinct from self-cognition [clearly stated on B158]. So, this "apperceptive I think" yields no judgment as to what I am [as per B158: "I therefore have no cognition of myself as I am but only that I am.] (2) so, if the "apperceptive I think" is disqualified as cognition, which could have been the only way of attributing it any privilege; then all I have is self-cognition, which is subject to the same rules as any other cognition: intuition (reception of a manifold of intuitions) + thought (spontaneous synthesis of the manifold/subsuming under a concept/bringing under unity of apperception).

Then, the argument seems to be more or less this: we need a manifold to synthesize, which has to be produced by ourselves by affecting the inner sense, thus creating a manifold of temporal data, which we then synthesize in the same way as we do with spatial/perceptual data we get in the outer sense. Hence, self-cognition is the same as any other cognition, therefore, just as with objects, we only have access to appearances in self-cognition. Supposing that I am right so far (I welcome any corrections!), I am just having some difficulty with imagining what these "modifications of inner sense" can be, even if I can make sense of what the argument is trying to establish.

A second question, though, is more historical/doxographical. Especially in the footnote on B157-158, Kant sounds quite "existential" to me, so to speak: to paraphrase, he is saying that "The I think expresses the act of determining my existence. The existence is given, but the way in which I am to determine it ... is not yet given. [since I do not have some special intellectual intuition into myself] ... I cannot determine my existence as a self-active being, rather I merely represent the spontaneity of my thought ..." What I am getting out of this is too similar to Fichte for me to be confident in my interpretation: as opposed to the "empty" I-think, in self-cognition (let's say, in the "I-am"), I cognize the fact that I can effect such determinations of myself, or something like this. Whether or not my interpretation is correct, I am unsure whether Kant has further aims other than denying a privilege to self-introspection, and I would appreciate basically any pointers. Thanks!

Edit: also feel free to correct me if I misused or misconstrued any Kantian terminology anywhere. I am still trying to get used to it!

I am a bit new to all this so please answer my simple question- Why was John Locke so adamant about allowing only men with property the right to vote? What was the reasoning and thinking behind it? Also did he himself not say that one's own body was also their property....

The fine-tuning argument is supposed to be an argument for God, but even if we were to know that physical constants were fine-tuned for life, how would we conclude just from that knowledge that the fine-tuner was an agent who's omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect?

It seems like it's easily possible that something fine-tuned the constants, but not an agent with a will or intentions. And how would we even calculate a probability for it being an agent vs. not an agent?

Or if we somehow show that it an agent is more probable, what makes us think based on fine-tuning that it has the three divine attributes? Why not someone who's omnipotent but not omniscient or morally perfect? Or just someone who has enough knowledge and power to adjust physical laws, but not possessing all knowledge, power, or moral perfection?

Some universities around the world has began to offer graduate/undergraduate courses on Ethics only . They don’t offer courses on philosophy but offer courses on ethics/bioethics .

This question has bothered me for a bit, but can free will really be reduced to humoring the possibility that you could do something?

If we are talking about infinities, and you never will do action 'A' for all time, would you still say you have the free will to do it?

Does free will require you to be able to actually realize something, not just entertain the possibility? If this idea sounds familiar, what philosophers would have a say on this subject?

For instance P=P is a logical truth because wether p is true or false the statement still holds, but what does it mean for P to be false? Is P a statement or can it be an object? Could I use the law of identity to explain that weather a unicorn exist or not doesn’t matter to the fact that the thought is still identical to itself? However it isn’t necessarily true that the thought is identical to itself, as a unicorn could mean something else in a different world where it’s possible the word doesn’t have to mean itself or mean unicorn?

I vaguely remember reading a philosophical essay/book that starts with a allegory of a hunter at a lake letting a animal go but dying the next morning. Does anybody happen to have read and remember this essay or philosopher? Sorry if this is a bit vague I read it a long time ago.

During a recent conversation with a friend, we started debating the value of opinions and the ability of people to rationalize. My friend argued that because most people merely regurgitate ideas without truly understanding or rationalizing them, their opinions don’t matter and should be kept to themselves. My natural response was if that were the case, the his opinions are then regurgitated nonsense that should not matter.

He replied that 99.9% of people lack the ability to rationalize and he himself is part of a small, more enlightened minority, bolstered by his experiences and travel. I countered that while not all opinions are equally informed, everyone should still have the right to express their thoughts. Dialogue within society is essential because it fosters growth, understanding, and progress. Hearing counter-narratives, even from those we might deem less rational, has the potential to challenge our assumptions and improve our collective thinking. Maybe he’s right though. As the old saying goes, “opinions are like assholes— everybody has one and it’s mostly full of shit”.

Is it dangerous to dismiss people’s opinion? Do people’s opinions matter at all?