diff --git "a/askphilosophy/test.json" "b/askphilosophy/test.json" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/askphilosophy/test.json" @@ -0,0 +1,677 @@ +{"post_id":"m4misc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What did Carl Jung mean when he said \u201cEverything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves\u201d I feel like I\u2019ve heard this idea a couple times, but I feel like my understanding is a bit off, what\u2019s your take on this?","c_root_id_A":"gqv8y7f","c_root_id_B":"gqwlkq1","created_at_utc_A":1615694329,"created_at_utc_B":1615736415,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Where did you read this by the way? There's some real truth in that statement.....","human_ref_B":"As others have said, he's referring the Shadow rearing its head so I won't go into more detail there but for those interested in further reading, I would recommend Robert A. Johnson. Specifically, Owning Your Own Shadow and Inner Gold. Owning Your Own Shadow is (what I think) is a true-to-Jung read on the Shadow through a clinical psychology lens. Really interesting if you're curious about how the Shadow works in our every day lives and how to work with it. Inner Gold is about the good that exists in our Shadow, I would highly recommend it to gain a fuller understanding of the Shadow (in addition to reading all of Jung's work and understanding how archetypes fit into his overall view of psychology).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":42086.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"m4misc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What did Carl Jung mean when he said \u201cEverything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves\u201d I feel like I\u2019ve heard this idea a couple times, but I feel like my understanding is a bit off, what\u2019s your take on this?","c_root_id_A":"gqwlkq1","c_root_id_B":"gqva2ld","created_at_utc_A":1615736415,"created_at_utc_B":1615695083,"score_A":9,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"As others have said, he's referring the Shadow rearing its head so I won't go into more detail there but for those interested in further reading, I would recommend Robert A. Johnson. Specifically, Owning Your Own Shadow and Inner Gold. Owning Your Own Shadow is (what I think) is a true-to-Jung read on the Shadow through a clinical psychology lens. Really interesting if you're curious about how the Shadow works in our every day lives and how to work with it. Inner Gold is about the good that exists in our Shadow, I would highly recommend it to gain a fuller understanding of the Shadow (in addition to reading all of Jung's work and understanding how archetypes fit into his overall view of psychology).","human_ref_B":"Sounds like projection","labels":1,"seconds_difference":41332.0,"score_ratio":2.25} +{"post_id":"m4misc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What did Carl Jung mean when he said \u201cEverything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves\u201d I feel like I\u2019ve heard this idea a couple times, but I feel like my understanding is a bit off, what\u2019s your take on this?","c_root_id_A":"gqxqksz","c_root_id_B":"gqva2ld","created_at_utc_A":1615752581,"created_at_utc_B":1615695083,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s essentially just Freud\u2019s formulation of the narcissism of minor differences - you externalise problems you have or things about yourself that you don\u2019t particularly like on to people around you. You get disgusted in people who display the same negative tendencies that you have as a coping mechanism to not deal with your own issues.","human_ref_B":"Sounds like projection","labels":1,"seconds_difference":57498.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"m4misc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What did Carl Jung mean when he said \u201cEverything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves\u201d I feel like I\u2019ve heard this idea a couple times, but I feel like my understanding is a bit off, what\u2019s your take on this?","c_root_id_A":"gqwslnd","c_root_id_B":"gqxqksz","created_at_utc_A":1615740136,"created_at_utc_B":1615752581,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I couldnt agree more, almost everything other people do that affects us, affects our ego which when looked deeper upon shows us how pathetically insecure we are about the way people percieve us. This is how stoic philosophy is helpfull..man can thrive in the harshest of conditions when he only focuses on what he controls mainly his stance and his motives..","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s essentially just Freud\u2019s formulation of the narcissism of minor differences - you externalise problems you have or things about yourself that you don\u2019t particularly like on to people around you. You get disgusted in people who display the same negative tendencies that you have as a coping mechanism to not deal with your own issues.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12445.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"m4misc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What did Carl Jung mean when he said \u201cEverything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves\u201d I feel like I\u2019ve heard this idea a couple times, but I feel like my understanding is a bit off, what\u2019s your take on this?","c_root_id_A":"gqyjox6","c_root_id_B":"gqwslnd","created_at_utc_A":1615765366,"created_at_utc_B":1615740136,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"That quote is form Memories, Dreams, Reflections: >ii. AMERICA: THE PUEBLO INDIANS > >(Extract from an unpublished MS.) > >We always require an outside point to stand on, in order to apply the lever of criticism. This is especially so in psychology, where by the nature of the material we are much more subjectively involved than in any other science. How, for example, can we become conscious of national peculiarities if we have never had the opportunity to regard our own nation from outside? Regarding it from outside means regarding it from the standpoint of another nation. To do so, we must acquire sufficient knowledge of the foreign collective psyche, and in the course of this process of assimilation we encounter all those incompatibilities which constitute the national bias and the national peculiarity. Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. I understand England only when I see where I, as a Swiss, do not fit in. I understand Europe, our greatest problem, only when I see where I as a European do not fit into the world. Through my acquaintance with many Americans, and my trips to and in America, I have obtained an enormous amount of insight into the European character; it has always seemed to me that there can be nothing more useful for a European than some time or another to look out at Europe from the top of a skyscraper. When I contemplated for the first time the European spectacle from the Sahara, surrounded by a civilization which has more or less the same relationship to ours as Roman antiquity has to modern times, I became aware of how completely, even in America, I was still caught up and imprisoned in the cultural consciousness of the white man. The desire then grew in me to carry the historical comparisons still farther by descending to a still lower cultural level. The essay goes on. Basically, when we refer to ourselves, we are referring to our ego, that is, the complex we identify as when we say \"i\". One major point of the ego is that it is immature and cannot stand conflict. So, anything it is associated with must be on solid ground. An example of this is a mathematician, that is, someone very comfortable in his field. I can ask him some advanced question about numbers, and he might answer that according to this theory it is x, and according to another theory it is y. The same is true in philosophy, science, or any advanced field. Some questions have no definitive answers and there are just competing theories. This does not bother anyone, because all we have is our theories. Conversely, if i were to ask a politician some advanced question regarding the opinions of the opposition, the answer would be something disparaging towards them. Similarly, ask someone wrapped up in a cause about their opposition, and the best answer you will get is that they do not have time to deal with stupidity. The difference between the mathematician and the politician is the mathematician cares about the truth, and the field he is in is just a way to understand it. The theories are not important, the numbers are. If i prove or disprove a theory, he now knows more, and unless he had a personal theory he was pushing, he gets excited regardless of the outcome. The politician is different. The politician's primary focus is his own self. He must be right, and the others must be wrong. If the facts are against him, \"so much worse for the facts\". His personal opinion has decided the truth, and there simply is no other way about it. To rattle a mathematician at the core, i must prove that numbers are a farce. To rattle a politician, i merely need to present the incontrovertible truth. I do the same for both, the only difference is what they identify with. When something irritates us psychologically, it is (in this case) because it is shaking the supposedly solid ground we stand on. Our very being or identity is being challenged and we either have to admit the truth, or keep up the lie. But when we know deep down the other side is right, but we have too much invested in our current beliefs, we will ignore the truth. However, the truth still inside us will niggle at us whenever it is awakened, and it will irritate us until we put it back to sleep.","human_ref_B":"I couldnt agree more, almost everything other people do that affects us, affects our ego which when looked deeper upon shows us how pathetically insecure we are about the way people percieve us. This is how stoic philosophy is helpfull..man can thrive in the harshest of conditions when he only focuses on what he controls mainly his stance and his motives..","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25230.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i58a751","c_root_id_B":"i57wp4y","created_at_utc_A":1650301356,"created_at_utc_B":1650295949,"score_A":158,"score_B":127,"human_ref_A":"As a history teacher, I thought of Zaki al-Arsuzi, the main philosopher behind the Ba'athist Movement. He outlined a pan-Arab nationalism based on socialism and similar to Nietzsche's idea of \"Europeans.\" At least, that is how I used to teach it back during the Gulf War.","human_ref_B":"That depends on what one means by criticising Islam like Nietzsche did Christianity. I guess there are some parallels between Nietzsche and Al-Ma'arri, e.g. ideas on the lack of inherent meaning and a contempt for religious dogma. But there are stark differences as well: I don't think Nietzsche was explicitly anti-natalist (the idea that procreation is immoral), and as far as I know Nietzsche never argued for something akin to Al-Ma'arri's proto-veganism.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5407.0,"score_ratio":1.2440944882} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i580wli","c_root_id_B":"i58a751","created_at_utc_A":1650297644,"created_at_utc_B":1650301356,"score_A":29,"score_B":158,"human_ref_A":"The question of Overton Windows probably needs to be included. E.g., Judaism and Catholicism both have a strong tradition of lively debate, as long as all participants are \u201ccoloring inside the lines,\u201d so to speak. Protestantism, on the other hand, has very little room for debate between the \u201cheresy\u201d line and the \u201ca private matter for a believer to address directly to the Lord\u201d line. I am not sure where Islam falls on that spectrum, although Nietzche was clearly in the \u201cheresy\u201d sector of his culture, almost as far outside the Overton window as Aleister Crowley.","human_ref_B":"As a history teacher, I thought of Zaki al-Arsuzi, the main philosopher behind the Ba'athist Movement. He outlined a pan-Arab nationalism based on socialism and similar to Nietzsche's idea of \"Europeans.\" At least, that is how I used to teach it back during the Gulf War.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3712.0,"score_ratio":5.4482758621} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i57rj0h","c_root_id_B":"i58a751","created_at_utc_A":1650293846,"created_at_utc_B":1650301356,"score_A":7,"score_B":158,"human_ref_A":"Or a \"Jewish Nietzsche\"","human_ref_B":"As a history teacher, I thought of Zaki al-Arsuzi, the main philosopher behind the Ba'athist Movement. He outlined a pan-Arab nationalism based on socialism and similar to Nietzsche's idea of \"Europeans.\" At least, that is how I used to teach it back during the Gulf War.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7510.0,"score_ratio":22.5714285714} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i57wp4y","c_root_id_B":"i57rj0h","created_at_utc_A":1650295949,"created_at_utc_B":1650293846,"score_A":127,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"That depends on what one means by criticising Islam like Nietzsche did Christianity. I guess there are some parallels between Nietzsche and Al-Ma'arri, e.g. ideas on the lack of inherent meaning and a contempt for religious dogma. But there are stark differences as well: I don't think Nietzsche was explicitly anti-natalist (the idea that procreation is immoral), and as far as I know Nietzsche never argued for something akin to Al-Ma'arri's proto-veganism.","human_ref_B":"Or a \"Jewish Nietzsche\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2103.0,"score_ratio":18.1428571429} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i580wli","c_root_id_B":"i58gws4","created_at_utc_A":1650297644,"created_at_utc_B":1650304062,"score_A":29,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"The question of Overton Windows probably needs to be included. E.g., Judaism and Catholicism both have a strong tradition of lively debate, as long as all participants are \u201ccoloring inside the lines,\u201d so to speak. Protestantism, on the other hand, has very little room for debate between the \u201cheresy\u201d line and the \u201ca private matter for a believer to address directly to the Lord\u201d line. I am not sure where Islam falls on that spectrum, although Nietzche was clearly in the \u201cheresy\u201d sector of his culture, almost as far outside the Overton window as Aleister Crowley.","human_ref_B":"The closest thing is Ali Ahmad Said Esber aka Adonis, who is a syrian-lebanese poet associated with a rejection of islamic traditionalism and a turn back to preislamic arabic and, even further back, phoenician roots.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6418.0,"score_ratio":1.2413793103} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i58byn0","c_root_id_B":"i58gws4","created_at_utc_A":1650302082,"created_at_utc_B":1650304062,"score_A":13,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Can you specify how he \u201ecriticized Christian values\u201c? He\u2019s by far not the only one to hold a critical stance towards religion (those are as old as western philosophy itself). BTW Nietzsche had a much positive stance towards islam compared to christianity and judaism. If you are referring to his characterization of christianity as \u201eslave morals\u201c, I think you will be hard pressed to find anything similar in the muslim world.","human_ref_B":"The closest thing is Ali Ahmad Said Esber aka Adonis, who is a syrian-lebanese poet associated with a rejection of islamic traditionalism and a turn back to preislamic arabic and, even further back, phoenician roots.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1980.0,"score_ratio":2.7692307692} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i58axmr","c_root_id_B":"i58gws4","created_at_utc_A":1650301664,"created_at_utc_B":1650304062,"score_A":9,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"also Jabir ibn Hayyan","human_ref_B":"The closest thing is Ali Ahmad Said Esber aka Adonis, who is a syrian-lebanese poet associated with a rejection of islamic traditionalism and a turn back to preislamic arabic and, even further back, phoenician roots.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2398.0,"score_ratio":4.0} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i57rj0h","c_root_id_B":"i58gws4","created_at_utc_A":1650293846,"created_at_utc_B":1650304062,"score_A":7,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Or a \"Jewish Nietzsche\"","human_ref_B":"The closest thing is Ali Ahmad Said Esber aka Adonis, who is a syrian-lebanese poet associated with a rejection of islamic traditionalism and a turn back to preislamic arabic and, even further back, phoenician roots.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10216.0,"score_ratio":5.1428571429} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i58gws4","c_root_id_B":"i58cfqs","created_at_utc_A":1650304062,"created_at_utc_B":1650302273,"score_A":36,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The closest thing is Ali Ahmad Said Esber aka Adonis, who is a syrian-lebanese poet associated with a rejection of islamic traditionalism and a turn back to preislamic arabic and, even further back, phoenician roots.","human_ref_B":"Maybe Abdullah al-Qasemi","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1789.0,"score_ratio":6.0} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i580wli","c_root_id_B":"i57rj0h","created_at_utc_A":1650297644,"created_at_utc_B":1650293846,"score_A":29,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"The question of Overton Windows probably needs to be included. E.g., Judaism and Catholicism both have a strong tradition of lively debate, as long as all participants are \u201ccoloring inside the lines,\u201d so to speak. Protestantism, on the other hand, has very little room for debate between the \u201cheresy\u201d line and the \u201ca private matter for a believer to address directly to the Lord\u201d line. I am not sure where Islam falls on that spectrum, although Nietzche was clearly in the \u201cheresy\u201d sector of his culture, almost as far outside the Overton window as Aleister Crowley.","human_ref_B":"Or a \"Jewish Nietzsche\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3798.0,"score_ratio":4.1428571429} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i58hohb","c_root_id_B":"i58byn0","created_at_utc_A":1650304362,"created_at_utc_B":1650302082,"score_A":15,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Iqbal, the \"Philosopher-Poet\" who is regarded as a founding father of Pakistan--and also wrote the unofficial national anthem of India(!)--was directly influenced by Nietzsche and was looked at askance by orthodox *ulema* for his advocacy of reform may be someone in that vein: https:\/\/onemanovisionpakistan.blogspot.com\/2010\/05\/iqbal-on-nietzsche.html https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Reconstruction_of_Religious_Thought_in_Islam","human_ref_B":"Can you specify how he \u201ecriticized Christian values\u201c? He\u2019s by far not the only one to hold a critical stance towards religion (those are as old as western philosophy itself). BTW Nietzsche had a much positive stance towards islam compared to christianity and judaism. If you are referring to his characterization of christianity as \u201eslave morals\u201c, I think you will be hard pressed to find anything similar in the muslim world.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2280.0,"score_ratio":1.1538461538} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i58axmr","c_root_id_B":"i58hohb","created_at_utc_A":1650301664,"created_at_utc_B":1650304362,"score_A":9,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"also Jabir ibn Hayyan","human_ref_B":"Iqbal, the \"Philosopher-Poet\" who is regarded as a founding father of Pakistan--and also wrote the unofficial national anthem of India(!)--was directly influenced by Nietzsche and was looked at askance by orthodox *ulema* for his advocacy of reform may be someone in that vein: https:\/\/onemanovisionpakistan.blogspot.com\/2010\/05\/iqbal-on-nietzsche.html https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Reconstruction_of_Religious_Thought_in_Islam","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2698.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i58hohb","c_root_id_B":"i57rj0h","created_at_utc_A":1650304362,"created_at_utc_B":1650293846,"score_A":15,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Iqbal, the \"Philosopher-Poet\" who is regarded as a founding father of Pakistan--and also wrote the unofficial national anthem of India(!)--was directly influenced by Nietzsche and was looked at askance by orthodox *ulema* for his advocacy of reform may be someone in that vein: https:\/\/onemanovisionpakistan.blogspot.com\/2010\/05\/iqbal-on-nietzsche.html https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Reconstruction_of_Religious_Thought_in_Islam","human_ref_B":"Or a \"Jewish Nietzsche\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10516.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i58cfqs","c_root_id_B":"i58hohb","created_at_utc_A":1650302273,"created_at_utc_B":1650304362,"score_A":6,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Maybe Abdullah al-Qasemi","human_ref_B":"Iqbal, the \"Philosopher-Poet\" who is regarded as a founding father of Pakistan--and also wrote the unofficial national anthem of India(!)--was directly influenced by Nietzsche and was looked at askance by orthodox *ulema* for his advocacy of reform may be someone in that vein: https:\/\/onemanovisionpakistan.blogspot.com\/2010\/05\/iqbal-on-nietzsche.html https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Reconstruction_of_Religious_Thought_in_Islam","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2089.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i58axmr","c_root_id_B":"i58byn0","created_at_utc_A":1650301664,"created_at_utc_B":1650302082,"score_A":9,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"also Jabir ibn Hayyan","human_ref_B":"Can you specify how he \u201ecriticized Christian values\u201c? He\u2019s by far not the only one to hold a critical stance towards religion (those are as old as western philosophy itself). BTW Nietzsche had a much positive stance towards islam compared to christianity and judaism. If you are referring to his characterization of christianity as \u201eslave morals\u201c, I think you will be hard pressed to find anything similar in the muslim world.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":418.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i58byn0","c_root_id_B":"i57rj0h","created_at_utc_A":1650302082,"created_at_utc_B":1650293846,"score_A":13,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Can you specify how he \u201ecriticized Christian values\u201c? He\u2019s by far not the only one to hold a critical stance towards religion (those are as old as western philosophy itself). BTW Nietzsche had a much positive stance towards islam compared to christianity and judaism. If you are referring to his characterization of christianity as \u201eslave morals\u201c, I think you will be hard pressed to find anything similar in the muslim world.","human_ref_B":"Or a \"Jewish Nietzsche\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8236.0,"score_ratio":1.8571428571} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i58axmr","c_root_id_B":"i57rj0h","created_at_utc_A":1650301664,"created_at_utc_B":1650293846,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"also Jabir ibn Hayyan","human_ref_B":"Or a \"Jewish Nietzsche\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7818.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i5c4a2l","c_root_id_B":"i59qrah","created_at_utc_A":1650372677,"created_at_utc_B":1650323280,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I offer you to check out Omar Hayyam. Not Nietzsche extent but decent level of religous critisism surprisingly.","human_ref_B":"Idk if it's exactly what you're looking for, but you could check out Ali Abdel Raziq. He was (one of?) the first Muslim Secularist and through his tenure as a professor and imam at the Al-Azhar university argued that Islam had no place in government. He was eventually banned from the university and caused a ton of controversy for his views at the time. ​ Really interesting guy, I wrote a big part of my bachelor's thesis on him. Check him out for sure if you're interested in this subject.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":49397.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i5c4a2l","c_root_id_B":"i5bggje","created_at_utc_A":1650372677,"created_at_utc_B":1650356429,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I offer you to check out Omar Hayyam. Not Nietzsche extent but decent level of religous critisism surprisingly.","human_ref_B":"Sadeq Hedayat, Persian writer. He was more like Muslim Kafka but still lol","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16248.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i5c4a2l","c_root_id_B":"i5bh84u","created_at_utc_A":1650372677,"created_at_utc_B":1650357085,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I offer you to check out Omar Hayyam. Not Nietzsche extent but decent level of religous critisism surprisingly.","human_ref_B":"hmm what about an hindu \/sanatan dharma\/ buddhism 's nietszchse? or because of their inclusive nature even the criticism was subsumed in the dharma as well?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15592.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i5xxz43","c_root_id_B":"i5bh84u","created_at_utc_A":1650760369,"created_at_utc_B":1650357085,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Baha Tevfik. He is a fairly unknown turkish philosopher who lived in the late ottoman period and is considered a the first and I think only ottoman anarchist. He derived his \"Philosophy of the individual\" (felsefe-i ferd) mostly from western philosophers and was a advocate for materialism. He even wrote a Biography about Nietzsche in Ottoman Turkish which I find quite fascinating. He also to criticised Islam and its role in the ottoman society. He was in favour of rapid Westernisation and Individualism. I couldn't find much about him in English and my Turkish is not as good as to read his works. The only things I know are from this article: https:\/\/www.dailysabah.com\/portrait\/2019\/05\/17\/baha-tevfik-an-ottoman-anarchist","human_ref_B":"hmm what about an hindu \/sanatan dharma\/ buddhism 's nietszchse? or because of their inclusive nature even the criticism was subsumed in the dharma as well?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":403284.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"u6ermg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there a \u201cMuslim Nietzsche\u201d? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values?","c_root_id_A":"i5xxz43","c_root_id_B":"i5chfac","created_at_utc_A":1650760369,"created_at_utc_B":1650378374,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Baha Tevfik. He is a fairly unknown turkish philosopher who lived in the late ottoman period and is considered a the first and I think only ottoman anarchist. He derived his \"Philosophy of the individual\" (felsefe-i ferd) mostly from western philosophers and was a advocate for materialism. He even wrote a Biography about Nietzsche in Ottoman Turkish which I find quite fascinating. He also to criticised Islam and its role in the ottoman society. He was in favour of rapid Westernisation and Individualism. I couldn't find much about him in English and my Turkish is not as good as to read his works. The only things I know are from this article: https:\/\/www.dailysabah.com\/portrait\/2019\/05\/17\/baha-tevfik-an-ottoman-anarchist","human_ref_B":"Was Nietzsche criticizing Christian values primarily or was it just out of convenience and circumstances considering that he was born into a Christian and that his real gripe was actually with religion and organized prescriptive orders in general? Because the distinction changes everything. Especially when you want to compare to authors\/philosophers or even creative inventors in general because the landscape of Muslim societies (due to Islam, due to geographical, socio-cultural factors) is immensely different and philosophers writing out of that system must be examined with extra-care due to all the humongous incompatibilities that arise with regards to comparative endeavours because of the fact that they exist in and experienced 2 vastly different systems","labels":1,"seconds_difference":381995.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"ibukul","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is it immoral to turn your back on society and become a hermit\/recluse\/hikikomori? There are lots of different reasons for turning away from society, and people have become hermits and have shut out society for centuries, for dozens of different reasons - mental illness, misanthropy, religious zeal, and a loner personality, to name a few. But if you turn away from society for the reason that you recognize society itself has become corrupt and you want to detach from it, it is immoral to abandon it? Many hermits become artists, writers, philosophers, and solitary religious laymen. Lots of them do it because their personalities do not mix well with the society of their era. Many make great contributions to society even from solitude. But many more probably don't, at least not any contributions that could be justified by their complete withdrawal. Some become completely lost in a fantasy world of their own making, like Henry Darger or Vivian Maier. Others become so overwhelmed by modern society that they become completely frozen, like the *hikikomori.* Many recluses see the severe flaws in society and become repulsed by it to the point that they can no longer connect. I guess the crux of my question is, if a person chooses to leave society and pursue a solitary life outside of it, is it unethical to turn your back on society's problems if you could potentially help to solve them? Or are you justified in leaving them to their own devices if you're capable of pulling it off?","c_root_id_A":"g1yb96o","c_root_id_B":"g1ydywg","created_at_utc_A":1597727447,"created_at_utc_B":1597729582,"score_A":17,"score_B":55,"human_ref_A":"Well buddhist philosophy is to step away from the world, strengthen your inner soul, and work at liberating others from suffering as a higher conciousness, so it wouldnt be immoral","human_ref_B":"Since you already seem to be familiar with the Buddhist perspective, it might interest you to contrast it with a Confucian: Engagement, Withdrawal, and Social Reform: Confucian and Contemporary Perspectives From the introduction: >I sketch what I take to be Confucius\u2019 view of how an individual can appropriately respond to a corrupt society. I also discuss the responses he deems ethically unacceptable. I argue that Confucius rejects the option of withdrawal from society, even where such withdrawal aims to preserve personal moral integrity. However, Confucius also cautions against deep involvement with corrupt regimes. The path he recommends centers on the individual\u2019s power to trans-form society by modeling virtue and humanity. Although an individual may have no obligation, in certain cases, to take up government office, he does have an obligation to identify corruption in government as corruption, and he cannot fulfill this responsibility in complete isolation from others.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2135.0,"score_ratio":3.2352941176} +{"post_id":"ibukul","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is it immoral to turn your back on society and become a hermit\/recluse\/hikikomori? There are lots of different reasons for turning away from society, and people have become hermits and have shut out society for centuries, for dozens of different reasons - mental illness, misanthropy, religious zeal, and a loner personality, to name a few. But if you turn away from society for the reason that you recognize society itself has become corrupt and you want to detach from it, it is immoral to abandon it? Many hermits become artists, writers, philosophers, and solitary religious laymen. Lots of them do it because their personalities do not mix well with the society of their era. Many make great contributions to society even from solitude. But many more probably don't, at least not any contributions that could be justified by their complete withdrawal. Some become completely lost in a fantasy world of their own making, like Henry Darger or Vivian Maier. Others become so overwhelmed by modern society that they become completely frozen, like the *hikikomori.* Many recluses see the severe flaws in society and become repulsed by it to the point that they can no longer connect. I guess the crux of my question is, if a person chooses to leave society and pursue a solitary life outside of it, is it unethical to turn your back on society's problems if you could potentially help to solve them? Or are you justified in leaving them to their own devices if you're capable of pulling it off?","c_root_id_A":"g1yb96o","c_root_id_B":"g1yrneh","created_at_utc_A":1597727447,"created_at_utc_B":1597742930,"score_A":17,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Well buddhist philosophy is to step away from the world, strengthen your inner soul, and work at liberating others from suffering as a higher conciousness, so it wouldnt be immoral","human_ref_B":"> if a person chooses to leave society and pursue a solitary life outside of it, is it unethical to turn your back on society's problems if you could potentially help to solve them? I can't think of an answer within academic philosophy that would be affirmatively yes here. Utilitarians would certainly claim that you ought to improve society; if that can be done as a hermit, that's fine, but your question presupposes that one does emphatically *not* want to improve the life of others. It's also pretty hard to justify a Kantian maxim to withdraw from society, although some commentators suggest at points that autonomy might justify one's decision to live as a hermit - not necessarily in the sense that it is the right thing to do, but in the sense that it is *your* right (*Friedman, Marilyn. Autonomy, Gender, Politics* appears to also argue this point).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15483.0,"score_ratio":1.3529411765} +{"post_id":"ha1au8","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to balance consumption of information with action? I have been finding that I spend hours consuming information (news, books, articles, podcasts, etc.), but then feel drained since I\u2019m not *doing anything* with the knowledge I\u2019m taking in. It almost feels like information is potential energy that needs to be expended, but in my current life situation I don\u2019t know what to do with it. What I do know is that I love learning and I don\u2019t want to just stop consuming information. Does anyone have suggestions for me, from philosophy or otherwise, on how to handle this dilemma? Can anyone relate to this?","c_root_id_A":"fv05r6j","c_root_id_B":"fv0emlr","created_at_utc_A":1592309744,"created_at_utc_B":1592315398,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Taking action really depends on your goals (if you have some yet). For example let's say you wanted to own a fitness business in the future. If so, a good balance would be to read about fitness, exercise, nutrition but also take actionable steps such as do your PT course, set up a website etc. All whilst setting mini-goals such as an hour a day, fulfill 2 or 3 mini tasks that gets you closer to finishing that course or website - while still reading your books\/watching your videos. If you don't really have a goal with what you're learning, just do it for the fun of it, if learning is your passion! If you enjoy history, go read or watch those videos without thinking you need to take action on what you have learned! Just read.","human_ref_B":"Honestly ask yourself what you want out of learning and gaining knowledge. If the answer is that you do if for its own sake, there is nothing wrong with that. It can be its own passion and that has its own rewards. If you truly want to take action, then take action. It is your choice and neither choice is wrong.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5654.0,"score_ratio":2.25} +{"post_id":"ha1au8","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to balance consumption of information with action? I have been finding that I spend hours consuming information (news, books, articles, podcasts, etc.), but then feel drained since I\u2019m not *doing anything* with the knowledge I\u2019m taking in. It almost feels like information is potential energy that needs to be expended, but in my current life situation I don\u2019t know what to do with it. What I do know is that I love learning and I don\u2019t want to just stop consuming information. Does anyone have suggestions for me, from philosophy or otherwise, on how to handle this dilemma? Can anyone relate to this?","c_root_id_A":"fv12aox","c_root_id_B":"fv05r6j","created_at_utc_A":1592326364,"created_at_utc_B":1592309744,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"There might be a way to synthesize your desire to consume information with action, which may make it easier for you to find motivation to act. A reference point for this would be a slogan used by Foucault to describe the aims of Deleuze and Guattari's *Anti-Oedipus*, namely: \"Do not use thought to ground a political practice in Truth; nor political action to discredit, as mere speculation, a line of thought. Use political practice as an intensifier of thought, and analysis as a multiplier of the forms and domains for the intervention of political action.\" The idea is that through the urgency brought on by action, our thought is intensified, and so rather than thinking and action being distinct things where one competes for time with the other, the truth is that in fact we will think better and faster when colloquially, we have to think on our feet.","human_ref_B":"Taking action really depends on your goals (if you have some yet). For example let's say you wanted to own a fitness business in the future. If so, a good balance would be to read about fitness, exercise, nutrition but also take actionable steps such as do your PT course, set up a website etc. All whilst setting mini-goals such as an hour a day, fulfill 2 or 3 mini tasks that gets you closer to finishing that course or website - while still reading your books\/watching your videos. If you don't really have a goal with what you're learning, just do it for the fun of it, if learning is your passion! If you enjoy history, go read or watch those videos without thinking you need to take action on what you have learned! Just read.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16620.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"ha1au8","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to balance consumption of information with action? I have been finding that I spend hours consuming information (news, books, articles, podcasts, etc.), but then feel drained since I\u2019m not *doing anything* with the knowledge I\u2019m taking in. It almost feels like information is potential energy that needs to be expended, but in my current life situation I don\u2019t know what to do with it. What I do know is that I love learning and I don\u2019t want to just stop consuming information. Does anyone have suggestions for me, from philosophy or otherwise, on how to handle this dilemma? Can anyone relate to this?","c_root_id_A":"fv12aox","c_root_id_B":"fv0n8l2","created_at_utc_A":1592326364,"created_at_utc_B":1592319959,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There might be a way to synthesize your desire to consume information with action, which may make it easier for you to find motivation to act. A reference point for this would be a slogan used by Foucault to describe the aims of Deleuze and Guattari's *Anti-Oedipus*, namely: \"Do not use thought to ground a political practice in Truth; nor political action to discredit, as mere speculation, a line of thought. Use political practice as an intensifier of thought, and analysis as a multiplier of the forms and domains for the intervention of political action.\" The idea is that through the urgency brought on by action, our thought is intensified, and so rather than thinking and action being distinct things where one competes for time with the other, the truth is that in fact we will think better and faster when colloquially, we have to think on our feet.","human_ref_B":"As others have mentioned, it depends on your goals. I am a student going into psychotherapy school soon. I've spent a long time reading theory and whatnot, and I'll be putting it into practice soon. I know there will be plenty of moments of complete and utter failure, where certain theories don't work out for the circumstance. But almost everything I've read (be it psychology, philosophy, etc.) has its place in a growing 'bibliography' sorted by topic. Develop goals, organize what you learn, and be prepared to put them into action (and fail of course). Go back, revise your information, cut and paste, exclude, etc.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6405.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"kfo857","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is it morally justified to commit suicide? Now, this discussion question is partly a response to Camus\u2019 \u201cThe Myth of Sisyphus\u201d. (For those who are unfamiliar) Here, Camus essentially tries to answer one of the most fundamental philosophical questions: Should I commit suicide? Or in other words: Is life worth living? His answer goes something like this: Yes, life is worth living, but it is your responsibility to find meaning in life, and from that meaning it is your responsibility to find happiness (please refute me if you disagree with this summary). Now, don\u2019t get me wrong, this single philosophical work has changed my life\u2014it is my Bible. However, I disagree that he answers the question on whether life is worth living. I understand that Camus is partly meaning \u201cphilosophical suicide\u201d; this distinction allows his argument and allegory to be sound. But in the beginning, he specifically meant literally ending your life. Since Sisyphus (a man condemned to push a Boulder up a hill for eternity, only for it to fall back down every day) has no option to commit suicide, his only logical option is to simply enjoy his suffering, thus tricking the gods for eternity. But what if Sisyphus COULD choose to commit suicide (in the Atheist sense) and therefore cease to exist? Would this option disallow\u2014or make it more difficult for\u2014Sisyphus to find meaning and happiness in his suffering? Additionally, in a practice sense: Do I own my body? If so, why can\u2019t I commit suicide without any moral consequences? Since suicide is illegal, doesn\u2019t that mean that the State owns my body? Furthermore, doesn\u2019t the idea that suicide is selfish even more so indicate that the collective owns my body?","c_root_id_A":"gg9qqd5","c_root_id_B":"gg9jizg","created_at_utc_A":1608312292,"created_at_utc_B":1608309251,"score_A":84,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"I think Camus was saying that if one commits suicide, it would mean that the person answered the question of life\u2019s meaning, because only then can you rationally decide whether the meaning is worth it or not. But Camus says that it is impossible to answer this question because of the absurdity of life which he compares to Sisyphus\u2019s task. I think you\u2019re a little confused in the sense that you think of Sisyphus\u2019s act as \u201csuffering\u201d. As far as I understand Camus, he is in fact suggesting that it is impossible to know whether Sisyphus\u2019s task is truly even suffering or not, but it is surely absurd. Acknowledging this fact and the fate of it conquers it and therefore you can live in content acceptance.","human_ref_B":">Do I own my body? I think only Libertarians take this line. >If so, why can\u2019t I commit suicide without any moral consequences? But even if you own something it doesn't mean you don't have duties of care towards it, we might think the reverse actually, that we have the greatest duties to care for things we own. > Since suicide is illegal, doesn\u2019t that mean that the State owns my body? Suicide is legal in all western countries, but even if it wasn't I don't think this would imply the state 'owns your body', anymore than the state punishing you for committing murder indicates that they own the person's body who you murdered. >Furthermore, doesn\u2019t the idea that suicide is selfish even more so indicate that the collective owns my body? Conventionally the problem for Philosophers with suicide is not what happens to others but what happens to the person who commits suicide.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3041.0,"score_ratio":2.7096774194} +{"post_id":"kfo857","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is it morally justified to commit suicide? Now, this discussion question is partly a response to Camus\u2019 \u201cThe Myth of Sisyphus\u201d. (For those who are unfamiliar) Here, Camus essentially tries to answer one of the most fundamental philosophical questions: Should I commit suicide? Or in other words: Is life worth living? His answer goes something like this: Yes, life is worth living, but it is your responsibility to find meaning in life, and from that meaning it is your responsibility to find happiness (please refute me if you disagree with this summary). Now, don\u2019t get me wrong, this single philosophical work has changed my life\u2014it is my Bible. However, I disagree that he answers the question on whether life is worth living. I understand that Camus is partly meaning \u201cphilosophical suicide\u201d; this distinction allows his argument and allegory to be sound. But in the beginning, he specifically meant literally ending your life. Since Sisyphus (a man condemned to push a Boulder up a hill for eternity, only for it to fall back down every day) has no option to commit suicide, his only logical option is to simply enjoy his suffering, thus tricking the gods for eternity. But what if Sisyphus COULD choose to commit suicide (in the Atheist sense) and therefore cease to exist? Would this option disallow\u2014or make it more difficult for\u2014Sisyphus to find meaning and happiness in his suffering? Additionally, in a practice sense: Do I own my body? If so, why can\u2019t I commit suicide without any moral consequences? Since suicide is illegal, doesn\u2019t that mean that the State owns my body? Furthermore, doesn\u2019t the idea that suicide is selfish even more so indicate that the collective owns my body?","c_root_id_A":"gg9ln3o","c_root_id_B":"gg9qqd5","created_at_utc_A":1608310143,"created_at_utc_B":1608312292,"score_A":14,"score_B":84,"human_ref_A":"From what I understood by reading \"The Myth of Sysyphus\" is that the main argument against suicide is that to decide to end it is to ultimately answer the question about the instrinsic meaning of life by stating that existing is not worth it, and most of Camus argument is based on how either existence has no meaning or the meaning is too impossible for us to grasp that any attempt to answer it is based on a philosophical suicide where you decide by yourself to accept one interpretation of the meaning of existence instead of accepting the absurd that you don't know (and maybe never will) if there is any intrinsic meaning at all and he thinks is disingenuous to act this way, so we should as the philosopher Paul Tillich says \"exist, despite that there may be no reason to exist\".","human_ref_B":"I think Camus was saying that if one commits suicide, it would mean that the person answered the question of life\u2019s meaning, because only then can you rationally decide whether the meaning is worth it or not. But Camus says that it is impossible to answer this question because of the absurdity of life which he compares to Sisyphus\u2019s task. I think you\u2019re a little confused in the sense that you think of Sisyphus\u2019s act as \u201csuffering\u201d. As far as I understand Camus, he is in fact suggesting that it is impossible to know whether Sisyphus\u2019s task is truly even suffering or not, but it is surely absurd. Acknowledging this fact and the fate of it conquers it and therefore you can live in content acceptance.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2149.0,"score_ratio":6.0} +{"post_id":"kfo857","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is it morally justified to commit suicide? Now, this discussion question is partly a response to Camus\u2019 \u201cThe Myth of Sisyphus\u201d. (For those who are unfamiliar) Here, Camus essentially tries to answer one of the most fundamental philosophical questions: Should I commit suicide? Or in other words: Is life worth living? His answer goes something like this: Yes, life is worth living, but it is your responsibility to find meaning in life, and from that meaning it is your responsibility to find happiness (please refute me if you disagree with this summary). Now, don\u2019t get me wrong, this single philosophical work has changed my life\u2014it is my Bible. However, I disagree that he answers the question on whether life is worth living. I understand that Camus is partly meaning \u201cphilosophical suicide\u201d; this distinction allows his argument and allegory to be sound. But in the beginning, he specifically meant literally ending your life. Since Sisyphus (a man condemned to push a Boulder up a hill for eternity, only for it to fall back down every day) has no option to commit suicide, his only logical option is to simply enjoy his suffering, thus tricking the gods for eternity. But what if Sisyphus COULD choose to commit suicide (in the Atheist sense) and therefore cease to exist? Would this option disallow\u2014or make it more difficult for\u2014Sisyphus to find meaning and happiness in his suffering? Additionally, in a practice sense: Do I own my body? If so, why can\u2019t I commit suicide without any moral consequences? Since suicide is illegal, doesn\u2019t that mean that the State owns my body? Furthermore, doesn\u2019t the idea that suicide is selfish even more so indicate that the collective owns my body?","c_root_id_A":"gga7g95","c_root_id_B":"gg9ln3o","created_at_utc_A":1608319338,"created_at_utc_B":1608310143,"score_A":24,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I don\u2019t agree that Camus means to say some of those things in The Myth of Sisyphus. As I understand it, Camus accepts that there is no purpose or reason for living. Despite this, he feels that people should \u201crebel\u201d against the meaninglessness of the universe and live in spite of that. He uses the suicide example to illustrate that when people press that choice upon themselves, they are trying to reconcile their desire to seek meaning in a world which provides them none. Both the human desire to use reasoning to understand a universe that is not subject to reasoning and the inherent lack of meaning that the universe offers is what he is referring to as the \u201cabsurd\u201d. He understands the logic of someone who considers suicide but does not agree with the outcome. People who feel that way are simply following their reasoning. They are looking for a an answer, the world provides none, thus they feel that they should \u2018quit\u2019. Ultimately Camus believes that yes, the universe has no answer for what our purpose is, but that is no reason to take your own life. You must \u201crebel\u201d against the \u201cabsurd\u201d and continue to push the rock up the hill. Camus doesn\u2019t seem to argue that meaning is present in life. Rather, he suggests to the reader that you can be happy despite the lack of meaning. The position that you describe, \u201cit is your responsibility to find meaning in life\u201d, is more in line with Existentialist work. I would highly suggest you read Sartre if you vibe with that message. You will absolutely love his work then. It\u2019s all about creating your own meaning. \u201cExistence preceeds essence\u201d. You are born, then you give meaning to your life through your actions. Finally, your last questions are great questions. I suggest considering whether you think objective morality exists and whether living in a community means you should accept morality that is pressed upon you (whether objective or subjective). Hope this helps!","human_ref_B":"From what I understood by reading \"The Myth of Sysyphus\" is that the main argument against suicide is that to decide to end it is to ultimately answer the question about the instrinsic meaning of life by stating that existing is not worth it, and most of Camus argument is based on how either existence has no meaning or the meaning is too impossible for us to grasp that any attempt to answer it is based on a philosophical suicide where you decide by yourself to accept one interpretation of the meaning of existence instead of accepting the absurd that you don't know (and maybe never will) if there is any intrinsic meaning at all and he thinks is disingenuous to act this way, so we should as the philosopher Paul Tillich says \"exist, despite that there may be no reason to exist\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9195.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} +{"post_id":"n3q60t","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Doesn't the existence of mental illness, anesthetics and psychedelics make a good argument for materialism? Hopefully not too ignorant of a question, I'm pretty new to reading about theories of consciousness. Maybe I'm missing something? I understand materialism as consciousness being based on matter, some kind of result of physical reactions to inputs. Someone with a mental illness like schizophrenia, which might be related to dopamine problems in the brain, means that there's physical difference that effects their conscious experience. Similar for drugs, a new chemical is introduced and the conscious experience of the person receiving the drug changes significantly. With anesthetics consciousness seems to go away completely and psychedelics alter it. It seems like the fact that when chemicals in the brain are modified, conscious experience changes would be a strong piece of evidence for materialism? I'm asking because I haven't read about these scenarios in anything I read so far, I'm wondering if I'm off somewhere in my misunderstanding or if I\"m not good at searching and if i could get some ideas to track down or anything good to read.","c_root_id_A":"gwrcng6","c_root_id_B":"gwrl4yl","created_at_utc_A":1620029837,"created_at_utc_B":1620037312,"score_A":24,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Good question but it may not be a simple relationship between consciousness and brain activity. We know chemical changes in the brain cause neurological changes in how the brain operates. If this includes changes in the perceptual system, then the information our consciousness is receiving and processing is different. On that basis maybe consciousness has remained the same, it is simply working with different input. Like switching from reading a serious book to watching a comedy tv show. Same consciousness, different content. We also know different people can experience the same things very differently. So, we can show some correlation between consciousness and brain operations. But that correlation can vary even when everything else remains the same. But we cannot show brain function is the cause of consciousness, and certainly not show that it is the sole cause of consciousness. The best we can say is the brain is necessary for consciousness. We cannot say it is sufficient. And none of this proves materialism, or disproves it. We're just talking about conscious experience.To prove materialism, you would have to also show it is impossible for any physical thing to have any non-physical properties. Not just that they don't, but that they cannot. This is not my area, but I think the most profitable approach to that is through logic, not observation. Such as trying to show the idea of non-physical is logically incoherent, or self-contradictory.","human_ref_B":"It is true that some materialists point to this sort of phenomenon to justify their materialism. For instance, Lucretius does this. But it is too hasty. Every dualist has something to say about this. Sometimes their explanations are lacklustre. For example, Descartes in his correspondences happily accepts that there is a connection between mind and body such that this sort of thing makes perfect sense. But he also believes that it is not within the scope of philosophy to explain how this sort of everyday occurrence happens. Philosophy discovers that the mind and body are distinct from each other, but it is left to other things to discover how they act on each other and interact. (Perhaps Descartes is right but I think that his concession that philosophy simply can\u2019t explain this turns some people off.) But other dualists gave a much more systematic explanation. Check out Plato\u2019s *Timaeus* for an example, especially the last ten or fifteen pages. That part of the dialogue is a careful analysis of bodily and mental illnesses, understand as interactions between the soul and the body\u2019s chemicals.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7475.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"n3q60t","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Doesn't the existence of mental illness, anesthetics and psychedelics make a good argument for materialism? Hopefully not too ignorant of a question, I'm pretty new to reading about theories of consciousness. Maybe I'm missing something? I understand materialism as consciousness being based on matter, some kind of result of physical reactions to inputs. Someone with a mental illness like schizophrenia, which might be related to dopamine problems in the brain, means that there's physical difference that effects their conscious experience. Similar for drugs, a new chemical is introduced and the conscious experience of the person receiving the drug changes significantly. With anesthetics consciousness seems to go away completely and psychedelics alter it. It seems like the fact that when chemicals in the brain are modified, conscious experience changes would be a strong piece of evidence for materialism? I'm asking because I haven't read about these scenarios in anything I read so far, I'm wondering if I'm off somewhere in my misunderstanding or if I\"m not good at searching and if i could get some ideas to track down or anything good to read.","c_root_id_A":"gwth0h4","c_root_id_B":"gwtjumb","created_at_utc_A":1620069588,"created_at_utc_B":1620070808,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Perhaps, but you could also make the opposite argument. You could say that the qualia-laden realms of schizophrenia and the psychedelic experience indicate that consciousness ought to be studied as a thing in itself, given that the physical counterparts to such phenomena tell only a partial picture of what is happening.","human_ref_B":"There are a lot of people contrasting dualism with materialism here, but I'd also like to point out that there are other accounts of mind, too. For example, dual aspect theory is a monistic theory that there is one kind of substance, and both the mental and the physical are manifestations of, or perespectives on, this substance. In which case, \"materialism\" on its own would not be the whole picture, rather it would be one aspect of the picture. The brain wouldn't necessarily have to be more \"fundamental\" than the mind. When we see a brain state differing, and a mental state differing, these would just be two perspectives on the same substantive change. Idealism is also another alternative, which says that reality is mind-dependent. In other words, our minds constitute all of reality, and all that reality actually is, fundamentally, is how our minds represent mental contents. In which case, all that a change in brain state actually is is a change in our mental representation of reality - we're misunderstanding reality when we think that this change in brain states is referring to something apart from our minds like a physical brain separable from its representation. The idealist would say that anyone who thinks the kinds of examples you give are proofs of materialism, are actually presupposing materialism from the start. Because if you don't presuppose materialism (or something similar) then you have no reason to believe that the changes in \"brain states\" you're seeing are changes in something materially separable from the mental, and therefore no reason to assume that there is anything that needs to be accounted for by the non-materialist.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1220.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"n3q60t","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Doesn't the existence of mental illness, anesthetics and psychedelics make a good argument for materialism? Hopefully not too ignorant of a question, I'm pretty new to reading about theories of consciousness. Maybe I'm missing something? I understand materialism as consciousness being based on matter, some kind of result of physical reactions to inputs. Someone with a mental illness like schizophrenia, which might be related to dopamine problems in the brain, means that there's physical difference that effects their conscious experience. Similar for drugs, a new chemical is introduced and the conscious experience of the person receiving the drug changes significantly. With anesthetics consciousness seems to go away completely and psychedelics alter it. It seems like the fact that when chemicals in the brain are modified, conscious experience changes would be a strong piece of evidence for materialism? I'm asking because I haven't read about these scenarios in anything I read so far, I'm wondering if I'm off somewhere in my misunderstanding or if I\"m not good at searching and if i could get some ideas to track down or anything good to read.","c_root_id_A":"gwtjumb","c_root_id_B":"gwszv05","created_at_utc_A":1620070808,"created_at_utc_B":1620062407,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"There are a lot of people contrasting dualism with materialism here, but I'd also like to point out that there are other accounts of mind, too. For example, dual aspect theory is a monistic theory that there is one kind of substance, and both the mental and the physical are manifestations of, or perespectives on, this substance. In which case, \"materialism\" on its own would not be the whole picture, rather it would be one aspect of the picture. The brain wouldn't necessarily have to be more \"fundamental\" than the mind. When we see a brain state differing, and a mental state differing, these would just be two perspectives on the same substantive change. Idealism is also another alternative, which says that reality is mind-dependent. In other words, our minds constitute all of reality, and all that reality actually is, fundamentally, is how our minds represent mental contents. In which case, all that a change in brain state actually is is a change in our mental representation of reality - we're misunderstanding reality when we think that this change in brain states is referring to something apart from our minds like a physical brain separable from its representation. The idealist would say that anyone who thinks the kinds of examples you give are proofs of materialism, are actually presupposing materialism from the start. Because if you don't presuppose materialism (or something similar) then you have no reason to believe that the changes in \"brain states\" you're seeing are changes in something materially separable from the mental, and therefore no reason to assume that there is anything that needs to be accounted for by the non-materialist.","human_ref_B":"I asked a related question some time ago: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/mwyjpp\/is_the_mind_a_product_of_the_material_brain\/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share My question was more about what the evidence or arguments for anything supernatural (or simply not natural) was.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8401.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"n3q60t","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Doesn't the existence of mental illness, anesthetics and psychedelics make a good argument for materialism? Hopefully not too ignorant of a question, I'm pretty new to reading about theories of consciousness. Maybe I'm missing something? I understand materialism as consciousness being based on matter, some kind of result of physical reactions to inputs. Someone with a mental illness like schizophrenia, which might be related to dopamine problems in the brain, means that there's physical difference that effects their conscious experience. Similar for drugs, a new chemical is introduced and the conscious experience of the person receiving the drug changes significantly. With anesthetics consciousness seems to go away completely and psychedelics alter it. It seems like the fact that when chemicals in the brain are modified, conscious experience changes would be a strong piece of evidence for materialism? I'm asking because I haven't read about these scenarios in anything I read so far, I'm wondering if I'm off somewhere in my misunderstanding or if I\"m not good at searching and if i could get some ideas to track down or anything good to read.","c_root_id_A":"gwszv05","c_root_id_B":"gwth0h4","created_at_utc_A":1620062407,"created_at_utc_B":1620069588,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I asked a related question some time ago: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/mwyjpp\/is_the_mind_a_product_of_the_material_brain\/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share My question was more about what the evidence or arguments for anything supernatural (or simply not natural) was.","human_ref_B":"Perhaps, but you could also make the opposite argument. You could say that the qualia-laden realms of schizophrenia and the psychedelic experience indicate that consciousness ought to be studied as a thing in itself, given that the physical counterparts to such phenomena tell only a partial picture of what is happening.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7181.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"wa4cnt","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Do philosophers often troll? When I read about certain philosophical positions, I can't help but have a feeling that the philosophers who hold such positions troll. That is, they probably don't believe in such position themselves, but they feel that they are making an important contribution to philosophy and that they are adding value to the debate regarding such positions by holding and defending them. Perhaps they even want to make a career in philosophy based on defending certain positions, so in order to keep their careers safe, they decide to dedicate themselves to defending such positions. Why I call it trolling? Well because if you passionately defend (and sometimes quite successfully) a position you don't believe in... ***without saying you don't actually believe in it*** \\- that's sort of trolling. Or at least playing a devil's advocate. Your thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"ihz1ans","c_root_id_B":"ihz0vpn","created_at_utc_A":1659003664,"created_at_utc_B":1659003363,"score_A":61,"score_B":55,"human_ref_A":"I don't think so. Philosophers just have some pretty strange views. Note, however, that some philosophers have argued that philosophers *should* adopt the kind of strategy you're discussing here. See, e.g., Barnett's \"Philosophy Without Belief\" or Plakias's \"Publishing Without Belief.\" I think this is a bad idea, personally, or at least that the arguments that they offer are unconvincing, but ymmv.","human_ref_B":"Some people do this, but on the other hand I more often see people say things like \u201c[that philosopher] must be trolling\u201d when those people haven\u2019t reflected on why a particular position is so obviously silly or wrong. We arrive at philosophy with a lot of preconceptions as to what\u2019s simple common sense, and sometimes leave feeling the same way, but very often doing philosophy we manage to hold onto what is ultimately a fairly sensible way of looking at the world, but which nonetheless is now shorn of many of those preconceptions - sometimes our new sensible way of looking at the world would look crazy to the person we started out as even though it\u2019s now not only sensible to us, but in something like an \u201cobjective\u201d fashion is also eminently sensible on its own, and even shares common points and causes with our old worldview. Is there anybody you had particularly in mind for this question?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":301.0,"score_ratio":1.1090909091} +{"post_id":"wa4cnt","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Do philosophers often troll? When I read about certain philosophical positions, I can't help but have a feeling that the philosophers who hold such positions troll. That is, they probably don't believe in such position themselves, but they feel that they are making an important contribution to philosophy and that they are adding value to the debate regarding such positions by holding and defending them. Perhaps they even want to make a career in philosophy based on defending certain positions, so in order to keep their careers safe, they decide to dedicate themselves to defending such positions. Why I call it trolling? Well because if you passionately defend (and sometimes quite successfully) a position you don't believe in... ***without saying you don't actually believe in it*** \\- that's sort of trolling. Or at least playing a devil's advocate. Your thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"ihzqzxl","c_root_id_B":"ii0fcfr","created_at_utc_A":1659017658,"created_at_utc_B":1659027178,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"One example of that kind of trolling (lying for attention) might be Jean Paul Sartre's turn towards Judaism late in his life. I recall some interview comments in a bio I read where Sartre seemed to be almost \"winking\", it seemed like a play for attention late in his life. But there are other interpretations of this episode, it seems complicated and I don't think he was being a devil's advocate. There are other forms of trolling. Diogenes was a troll: >According to Diogenes La\u00ebrtius, when Plato gave the tongue-in-cheek\\29\\] definition of man as \"featherless bipeds,\" Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into Plato's Academy, saying, \"Behold! I've brought you a man,\" and so the Academy added \"with broad flat nails\" to the definition.\\[30\\] Diogenes La\u00ebrtius also relates a number of more bawdy tales whereby Diogenes would spit, urinate on people, break wind, and masturbate in public.\\[31\\] > >He criticized Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates, and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting listeners by bringing food and eating during the discussions. Diogenes was also noted for having mocked Alexander the Great, both in public and to his face when he visited Corinth in 336 BC.\\[7\\]\\[8\\]\\[9\\] [https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Diogenes Plato was very annoyed with Diogenes. And it seems that trolling was a doctrine of the Cynics: >The ideal Cynic would evangelise; as the watchdog of humanity, they thought it their duty to hound people about the error of their ways.\\[10\\] The example of the Cynic's life (and the use of the Cynic's biting satire) would dig up and expose the pretensions which lay at the root of everyday conventions.\\[10\\] https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cynicism\\_(philosophy)","human_ref_B":"How do *you* define \"trolling\", precisely? Or alternatively: How do you discern it from \"playing a devil's advocate\"?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9520.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"wa4cnt","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Do philosophers often troll? When I read about certain philosophical positions, I can't help but have a feeling that the philosophers who hold such positions troll. That is, they probably don't believe in such position themselves, but they feel that they are making an important contribution to philosophy and that they are adding value to the debate regarding such positions by holding and defending them. Perhaps they even want to make a career in philosophy based on defending certain positions, so in order to keep their careers safe, they decide to dedicate themselves to defending such positions. Why I call it trolling? Well because if you passionately defend (and sometimes quite successfully) a position you don't believe in... ***without saying you don't actually believe in it*** \\- that's sort of trolling. Or at least playing a devil's advocate. Your thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"ii030pz","c_root_id_B":"ii0fcfr","created_at_utc_A":1659022503,"created_at_utc_B":1659027178,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I don\u2019t know about trolling, but some philosophers I love tend to deploy wordplay and witticisms in their writings, most often than not not to be quirky but to reinforce the points they are making, like Derrida for example\u2014I know he has a certain reputation but I don\u2019t think he trolls in his work. Perhaps in interviews though, I don\u2019t know.","human_ref_B":"How do *you* define \"trolling\", precisely? Or alternatively: How do you discern it from \"playing a devil's advocate\"?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4675.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"wa4cnt","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Do philosophers often troll? When I read about certain philosophical positions, I can't help but have a feeling that the philosophers who hold such positions troll. That is, they probably don't believe in such position themselves, but they feel that they are making an important contribution to philosophy and that they are adding value to the debate regarding such positions by holding and defending them. Perhaps they even want to make a career in philosophy based on defending certain positions, so in order to keep their careers safe, they decide to dedicate themselves to defending such positions. Why I call it trolling? Well because if you passionately defend (and sometimes quite successfully) a position you don't believe in... ***without saying you don't actually believe in it*** \\- that's sort of trolling. Or at least playing a devil's advocate. Your thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"ii1o8l2","c_root_id_B":"ihzqzxl","created_at_utc_A":1659044547,"created_at_utc_B":1659017658,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Kierkegaard has been mentioned as someone who was sarcastic and delibrately confused his readers. Not sure to what degree if fits with trolling.","human_ref_B":"One example of that kind of trolling (lying for attention) might be Jean Paul Sartre's turn towards Judaism late in his life. I recall some interview comments in a bio I read where Sartre seemed to be almost \"winking\", it seemed like a play for attention late in his life. But there are other interpretations of this episode, it seems complicated and I don't think he was being a devil's advocate. There are other forms of trolling. Diogenes was a troll: >According to Diogenes La\u00ebrtius, when Plato gave the tongue-in-cheek\\29\\] definition of man as \"featherless bipeds,\" Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into Plato's Academy, saying, \"Behold! I've brought you a man,\" and so the Academy added \"with broad flat nails\" to the definition.\\[30\\] Diogenes La\u00ebrtius also relates a number of more bawdy tales whereby Diogenes would spit, urinate on people, break wind, and masturbate in public.\\[31\\] > >He criticized Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates, and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting listeners by bringing food and eating during the discussions. Diogenes was also noted for having mocked Alexander the Great, both in public and to his face when he visited Corinth in 336 BC.\\[7\\]\\[8\\]\\[9\\] [https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Diogenes Plato was very annoyed with Diogenes. And it seems that trolling was a doctrine of the Cynics: >The ideal Cynic would evangelise; as the watchdog of humanity, they thought it their duty to hound people about the error of their ways.\\[10\\] The example of the Cynic's life (and the use of the Cynic's biting satire) would dig up and expose the pretensions which lay at the root of everyday conventions.\\[10\\] https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cynicism\\_(philosophy)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26889.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"wa4cnt","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Do philosophers often troll? When I read about certain philosophical positions, I can't help but have a feeling that the philosophers who hold such positions troll. That is, they probably don't believe in such position themselves, but they feel that they are making an important contribution to philosophy and that they are adding value to the debate regarding such positions by holding and defending them. Perhaps they even want to make a career in philosophy based on defending certain positions, so in order to keep their careers safe, they decide to dedicate themselves to defending such positions. Why I call it trolling? Well because if you passionately defend (and sometimes quite successfully) a position you don't believe in... ***without saying you don't actually believe in it*** \\- that's sort of trolling. Or at least playing a devil's advocate. Your thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"ii030pz","c_root_id_B":"ii1o8l2","created_at_utc_A":1659022503,"created_at_utc_B":1659044547,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I don\u2019t know about trolling, but some philosophers I love tend to deploy wordplay and witticisms in their writings, most often than not not to be quirky but to reinforce the points they are making, like Derrida for example\u2014I know he has a certain reputation but I don\u2019t think he trolls in his work. Perhaps in interviews though, I don\u2019t know.","human_ref_B":"Kierkegaard has been mentioned as someone who was sarcastic and delibrately confused his readers. Not sure to what degree if fits with trolling.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22044.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"wa4cnt","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Do philosophers often troll? When I read about certain philosophical positions, I can't help but have a feeling that the philosophers who hold such positions troll. That is, they probably don't believe in such position themselves, but they feel that they are making an important contribution to philosophy and that they are adding value to the debate regarding such positions by holding and defending them. Perhaps they even want to make a career in philosophy based on defending certain positions, so in order to keep their careers safe, they decide to dedicate themselves to defending such positions. Why I call it trolling? Well because if you passionately defend (and sometimes quite successfully) a position you don't believe in... ***without saying you don't actually believe in it*** \\- that's sort of trolling. Or at least playing a devil's advocate. Your thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"ii14gv1","c_root_id_B":"ii1o8l2","created_at_utc_A":1659036848,"created_at_utc_B":1659044547,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Defending positions is often a rhetorical strategy that has little to do with the belief of the philosopher but plays a role in demonstrating commonly held beliefs are inadequate, so that the reader\/listener is more open to hearing out less common knowledge the philosopher wants to make a case for. It also illustrates how to rationally work through multiple arguments for incompatible conclusions. The reader\/listener, in part, learns by example over time. Plato, Hegel, Wittgenstein are some notable examples of this, and the philosopher in these examples builds a case by going through a variety of different arguments without always telling you what they believe in advance - because philosophy is about learning to figure out what's true by your own thinking a matter a through, not taking and reciting famous people's beliefs. It could be considered a benevolent form of \"trolling\" I suppose, but it's usually toward a different end than trolling to just rile people up. I think your definition, because it leaves out the end goal, is insufficient. A person can defend positions they don't believe for different ends, good or bad. Philosophy as an activity is about a particular end(knowledge), however, so using for some other end wouldn't even be doing philosophy and in Aristotelian fashion, the philosopher playing devil's advocate for other ends - such as career goals - isn't even being a philosopher insofar as they do such. So I think it's more important to ask why a philosopher is defending a position, not simply whether or not they hold that position. A person defending a position they hold can also do so for bad or not genuinely philosophical reasons, such as persuading people to believe in dogma.","human_ref_B":"Kierkegaard has been mentioned as someone who was sarcastic and delibrately confused his readers. Not sure to what degree if fits with trolling.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7699.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"ilgw68","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I just started taking a required English course, and the professor is making us read Nietzsche's \"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense\". I literally don't understand a single word of what this dude's trying to say. Could someone please summarize this essay for me as if you were talking to a child? Hello. English and philosophy are my worst subjects. I'm a very easily confused person, so trying to read this is actual hell for me. This is an online course with no scheduled meetings or lectures. The professor linked us to a brief guide for this text, but it's only confusing me even more. Like I am actually getting angry trying to read this essay. Scheduling a meeting with my professor is going to take a bit, so please help me Reddit. Explain this to me like I am in elementary school.","c_root_id_A":"g3t8tu2","c_root_id_B":"g3t3dyy","created_at_utc_A":1599109203,"created_at_utc_B":1599105513,"score_A":157,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Do not feel bad, OP. There is no good reason for an educator to throw this essay at students in an online class. I'll use this version for reference. There are a couple big chunks you need to understand. Nietzsche's project in this essay, in the most general and reductive sense, it to shit on language. To do that he needs to establish a few things. > What men avoid by excluding the liar is not so much being defrauded as it is being harmed by means of fraud. Thus, even at this stage, what they hate is basically not deception itself, but rather the unpleasant, hated consequences of certain sorts of deception. Humans do not like truth for its own sake, and dislike dishonesty for its own sake. Humans like pleasure and dislike pain. When someone says \"I dislike liars\" they mean \"I dislike the harmful, painful effects of lies.\" Nietzsche needs to establish this to undermine language. If what humans care about above all is *truth*, then Nietzsche is wrong. If what humans care about above all is *avoiding pain*, then Nietzsche can say that language and concepts and the like are fundamentally a system to try and avoid pain, rather than a system to try and convey genuine reality. Analogy\/Example: When you're on a date, you are not employing language to scientifically accurately mirror reality. You employ language to try and get laid. All language, for Nietzsche, is like that. We're trying to use language to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, rather than trying to use language to accurately articulate complete correct reality. > It is this way with all of us concerning language; we believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things\u2014metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities. For the sake of example, let's say you have a bird named Beatrice you really like. The word \"Beatrice\", the words you use to describe the bird, will never fully wholly encompass what Beatrice is. Your history with Beatrice, her colors, the tricks she knows, all of that experience is only kinda vaguely pointed to with the word \"Beatrice\", and the words you use to describe Beatrice. You're never going to capture the whole experience of interacting with \"Beatrice\" with words. That's how all words work. They are vague approximations of reality. > We know nothing whatsoever about an essential quality called \"honesty\"; but we do know of countless individualized and consequently unequal actions which we equate by omitting the aspects in which they are unequal and which we now designate as \"honest\" actions. When you say \"I love my bird Beatrice\" and your friend says \"I love my dog Hank\", you each say \"love\", but the particular feelings you have, the memories your friend has, the emotional attachment you each individually feel for your individual pets is different. And yet you use the same word, \"love\". Nietzsche thinks that is weird. The bundle of felt emotions you have, and the bundle of felt emotions your friend has, are terrifically different, compel different actions, are directed at different things. And yet we use the same words. Now go back to that first paragraph. If what we wanted was TRUTH. Then your friend and you could not use the word \"love\" to mean those two different groups of feelings and histories and etc. Your particular feelings would need a word specific to it, and your friends would need a different particular word. To sort of get through life, we go with the sloppier, functional system wherein you both say \"love\" and it works ok. > What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. All that stuff we've gone over? All the flaws and shortcomings of language, and our motivation for having that? Nietzsche thinks we forget those nuances. So, in life, your friend and you think that \"love\" really *is* the same thing, for both of you, since you use the same word. Analogy\/Example: Lots of times marriages \/ relationships fall apart because, despite using the same words, folks *mean* different things. Tom says \"I want to get married\" and Sue says \"I want to married\", so they get married, because they agree, right? But then a month into the relationship, turns out Tom thinks that marriage entails a joint bank account and Sue thinks marriage entails separate bank accounts and also she gets a cake every Thursday. So they're pissed off because they *meant* different things by \"marriage\". That's kinda what Nietzsche is on about. We forget that \"marriage\" means very different things to every person, because everyone using the same word, \"marriage\". How could Tom and Sue have such a conflict about what they thought \"marriage\" entailed if they used the same word?? If we used the Truth language Nietzsche discussed in that first quote, the conflict would have been avoided because Tom would have said he wanted marriage-bankaccounts and Sue would have said she wanted marriage-cakes. Two different expressions, so two different things, so they oughtn't get married. > Only by forgetting this primitive world of metaphor can one live with any repose, security, and consistency ... But in any case it seems to me that \"the correct perception\"\u2014which would mean \"the adequate expression of an object in the subject\"\u2014is a contradictory impossibility. The only way to avoid that \"marriage\" problem above, that results from the Beatrice problem above, which results from the \"we just want to not be hurt\" problem above, would be to have that perfect, scientific, atomistic language where every person says \"I want marriage-jointbankaccounts-twokids-apetbird-etc.\" to fully articulate every nuance of everything they experience and express. But we can't do that. Because, fundamentally, language cannot do that. Concepts cannot do that. There is always a shortcoming. > But man has an invincible inclination to allow himself to be deceived and is, as it were, enchanted with happiness when the rhapsodist tells him epic fables as if they were true Despite all the problems, we keep using the system where we say \"marriage\". Because that is easier, and we think next time it will work, and we forget why it was a problem in the first place. Tom and Sue blame each other, rather than the words and metaphors and basic structures of reality. Blaming those things would be *scarier* than just blaming each other. This is way longer than I intended so I will stop. Did some of that make sense?","human_ref_B":"Hey, here's a reading report on this text I wrote last year. Hope it helps! Frederich Nietzsche believes that, if man should be admired for something, it shouldn\u2019t be for his understanding of the world, but rather for the complex conceptual structures he develops by means of which he\u2019s able to *interpret* the world and his place in it. In his manuscript *On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense*, he argues that the so-called *truths* that are obtained from such structures are only designations of things that people agree on. As a consequence, these truths will invariably lack objectivity\u2015their validity (and the falsity of lies) hinges almost exclusively on the fluctuating principles of human mental laws. Language is a key part of the problem. According to Nietzsche, the employment of words to describe phenomena will only produce a system of classification and generalizations, rather than serving the purpose of capturing the inherent essence of things: \u201cOne designates only the relations of things to man, and to express them one calls on the boldest metaphors.\u201d (Nietzsche, 1873). We explain nature in terms of its effects with other laws of nature, not in terms of what it is in itself. Concepts such as *time* and *space* are conceived because of their practicality in human activities, and can be similarly understood by virtually everybody, for virtually everybody perceives nature the same way. Nietzsche suggests that, if that wasn\u2019t the case, we wouldn\u2019t be talking about a regularity of nature, rather, it \u201cwould be grasped only as a creation which is subjective in the highest degree\u201d (Nietzsche, 1873). Since our conceptual framework is inherently faulty, the author argues that the theoretical edifices (including those of science, politics, anthropology, and philosophy) created upon it must be faulty as well. It follows that such is our primary understanding of the world. This defective truth-seeking practice, Nietzsche concludes, is deeply ingrained in humans\u2019 very nature, and therefore inevitable. He gracefully expresses this when he says that \u201cthe drive toward the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive, which one cannot for a single instant dispense with in thought, for one would thereby dispense with man himself\u201d (Nietzsche, 1873).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3690.0,"score_ratio":14.2727272727} +{"post_id":"ilgw68","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I just started taking a required English course, and the professor is making us read Nietzsche's \"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense\". I literally don't understand a single word of what this dude's trying to say. Could someone please summarize this essay for me as if you were talking to a child? Hello. English and philosophy are my worst subjects. I'm a very easily confused person, so trying to read this is actual hell for me. This is an online course with no scheduled meetings or lectures. The professor linked us to a brief guide for this text, but it's only confusing me even more. Like I am actually getting angry trying to read this essay. Scheduling a meeting with my professor is going to take a bit, so please help me Reddit. Explain this to me like I am in elementary school.","c_root_id_A":"g3t8tu2","c_root_id_B":"g3t3pzt","created_at_utc_A":1599109203,"created_at_utc_B":1599105719,"score_A":157,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Do not feel bad, OP. There is no good reason for an educator to throw this essay at students in an online class. I'll use this version for reference. There are a couple big chunks you need to understand. Nietzsche's project in this essay, in the most general and reductive sense, it to shit on language. To do that he needs to establish a few things. > What men avoid by excluding the liar is not so much being defrauded as it is being harmed by means of fraud. Thus, even at this stage, what they hate is basically not deception itself, but rather the unpleasant, hated consequences of certain sorts of deception. Humans do not like truth for its own sake, and dislike dishonesty for its own sake. Humans like pleasure and dislike pain. When someone says \"I dislike liars\" they mean \"I dislike the harmful, painful effects of lies.\" Nietzsche needs to establish this to undermine language. If what humans care about above all is *truth*, then Nietzsche is wrong. If what humans care about above all is *avoiding pain*, then Nietzsche can say that language and concepts and the like are fundamentally a system to try and avoid pain, rather than a system to try and convey genuine reality. Analogy\/Example: When you're on a date, you are not employing language to scientifically accurately mirror reality. You employ language to try and get laid. All language, for Nietzsche, is like that. We're trying to use language to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, rather than trying to use language to accurately articulate complete correct reality. > It is this way with all of us concerning language; we believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things\u2014metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities. For the sake of example, let's say you have a bird named Beatrice you really like. The word \"Beatrice\", the words you use to describe the bird, will never fully wholly encompass what Beatrice is. Your history with Beatrice, her colors, the tricks she knows, all of that experience is only kinda vaguely pointed to with the word \"Beatrice\", and the words you use to describe Beatrice. You're never going to capture the whole experience of interacting with \"Beatrice\" with words. That's how all words work. They are vague approximations of reality. > We know nothing whatsoever about an essential quality called \"honesty\"; but we do know of countless individualized and consequently unequal actions which we equate by omitting the aspects in which they are unequal and which we now designate as \"honest\" actions. When you say \"I love my bird Beatrice\" and your friend says \"I love my dog Hank\", you each say \"love\", but the particular feelings you have, the memories your friend has, the emotional attachment you each individually feel for your individual pets is different. And yet you use the same word, \"love\". Nietzsche thinks that is weird. The bundle of felt emotions you have, and the bundle of felt emotions your friend has, are terrifically different, compel different actions, are directed at different things. And yet we use the same words. Now go back to that first paragraph. If what we wanted was TRUTH. Then your friend and you could not use the word \"love\" to mean those two different groups of feelings and histories and etc. Your particular feelings would need a word specific to it, and your friends would need a different particular word. To sort of get through life, we go with the sloppier, functional system wherein you both say \"love\" and it works ok. > What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. All that stuff we've gone over? All the flaws and shortcomings of language, and our motivation for having that? Nietzsche thinks we forget those nuances. So, in life, your friend and you think that \"love\" really *is* the same thing, for both of you, since you use the same word. Analogy\/Example: Lots of times marriages \/ relationships fall apart because, despite using the same words, folks *mean* different things. Tom says \"I want to get married\" and Sue says \"I want to married\", so they get married, because they agree, right? But then a month into the relationship, turns out Tom thinks that marriage entails a joint bank account and Sue thinks marriage entails separate bank accounts and also she gets a cake every Thursday. So they're pissed off because they *meant* different things by \"marriage\". That's kinda what Nietzsche is on about. We forget that \"marriage\" means very different things to every person, because everyone using the same word, \"marriage\". How could Tom and Sue have such a conflict about what they thought \"marriage\" entailed if they used the same word?? If we used the Truth language Nietzsche discussed in that first quote, the conflict would have been avoided because Tom would have said he wanted marriage-bankaccounts and Sue would have said she wanted marriage-cakes. Two different expressions, so two different things, so they oughtn't get married. > Only by forgetting this primitive world of metaphor can one live with any repose, security, and consistency ... But in any case it seems to me that \"the correct perception\"\u2014which would mean \"the adequate expression of an object in the subject\"\u2014is a contradictory impossibility. The only way to avoid that \"marriage\" problem above, that results from the Beatrice problem above, which results from the \"we just want to not be hurt\" problem above, would be to have that perfect, scientific, atomistic language where every person says \"I want marriage-jointbankaccounts-twokids-apetbird-etc.\" to fully articulate every nuance of everything they experience and express. But we can't do that. Because, fundamentally, language cannot do that. Concepts cannot do that. There is always a shortcoming. > But man has an invincible inclination to allow himself to be deceived and is, as it were, enchanted with happiness when the rhapsodist tells him epic fables as if they were true Despite all the problems, we keep using the system where we say \"marriage\". Because that is easier, and we think next time it will work, and we forget why it was a problem in the first place. Tom and Sue blame each other, rather than the words and metaphors and basic structures of reality. Blaming those things would be *scarier* than just blaming each other. This is way longer than I intended so I will stop. Did some of that make sense?","human_ref_B":"Just to pile onto the list of resources you have already received, I have previously written a short article on the topic of truth in Nietzsche that may be of some possible assistance to you. Just skip to the section under the heading 'Truth in Nietzsche's Earlier Essay.'","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3484.0,"score_ratio":52.3333333333} +{"post_id":"ilgw68","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I just started taking a required English course, and the professor is making us read Nietzsche's \"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense\". I literally don't understand a single word of what this dude's trying to say. Could someone please summarize this essay for me as if you were talking to a child? Hello. English and philosophy are my worst subjects. I'm a very easily confused person, so trying to read this is actual hell for me. This is an online course with no scheduled meetings or lectures. The professor linked us to a brief guide for this text, but it's only confusing me even more. Like I am actually getting angry trying to read this essay. Scheduling a meeting with my professor is going to take a bit, so please help me Reddit. Explain this to me like I am in elementary school.","c_root_id_A":"g3t03mh","c_root_id_B":"g3t8tu2","created_at_utc_A":1599103627,"created_at_utc_B":1599109203,"score_A":2,"score_B":157,"human_ref_A":"I do not study philosophy so I'm definitely not going to try and tell you what it's about. But I'll paste some links that seem like they get something right: https:\/\/campuspress.yale.edu\/modernismlab\/on-truth-and-lies-in-an-extra-moral-sense\/ https:\/\/scholar.harvard.edu\/christopherdiak\/truth-and-lies-mystical-sense https:\/\/www.brainpickings.org\/2018\/03\/26\/nietzsche-on-truth-and-lies-in-a-nonmoral-sense\/ There is also a thesis called An Attempt at Understanding Nietzsche's On Truth and Lies and you can find its pdf free online. That is probably more detailed than the pasted links. If you don't get an answer though, dm me and I'll read it and try to figure out what the main points are, but I've only done Nietzsche for around half a semester. P. S. Wikipedia can be good as an outline of major ideas and points you need to focus on while doing actual analysis or research.","human_ref_B":"Do not feel bad, OP. There is no good reason for an educator to throw this essay at students in an online class. I'll use this version for reference. There are a couple big chunks you need to understand. Nietzsche's project in this essay, in the most general and reductive sense, it to shit on language. To do that he needs to establish a few things. > What men avoid by excluding the liar is not so much being defrauded as it is being harmed by means of fraud. Thus, even at this stage, what they hate is basically not deception itself, but rather the unpleasant, hated consequences of certain sorts of deception. Humans do not like truth for its own sake, and dislike dishonesty for its own sake. Humans like pleasure and dislike pain. When someone says \"I dislike liars\" they mean \"I dislike the harmful, painful effects of lies.\" Nietzsche needs to establish this to undermine language. If what humans care about above all is *truth*, then Nietzsche is wrong. If what humans care about above all is *avoiding pain*, then Nietzsche can say that language and concepts and the like are fundamentally a system to try and avoid pain, rather than a system to try and convey genuine reality. Analogy\/Example: When you're on a date, you are not employing language to scientifically accurately mirror reality. You employ language to try and get laid. All language, for Nietzsche, is like that. We're trying to use language to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, rather than trying to use language to accurately articulate complete correct reality. > It is this way with all of us concerning language; we believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things\u2014metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities. For the sake of example, let's say you have a bird named Beatrice you really like. The word \"Beatrice\", the words you use to describe the bird, will never fully wholly encompass what Beatrice is. Your history with Beatrice, her colors, the tricks she knows, all of that experience is only kinda vaguely pointed to with the word \"Beatrice\", and the words you use to describe Beatrice. You're never going to capture the whole experience of interacting with \"Beatrice\" with words. That's how all words work. They are vague approximations of reality. > We know nothing whatsoever about an essential quality called \"honesty\"; but we do know of countless individualized and consequently unequal actions which we equate by omitting the aspects in which they are unequal and which we now designate as \"honest\" actions. When you say \"I love my bird Beatrice\" and your friend says \"I love my dog Hank\", you each say \"love\", but the particular feelings you have, the memories your friend has, the emotional attachment you each individually feel for your individual pets is different. And yet you use the same word, \"love\". Nietzsche thinks that is weird. The bundle of felt emotions you have, and the bundle of felt emotions your friend has, are terrifically different, compel different actions, are directed at different things. And yet we use the same words. Now go back to that first paragraph. If what we wanted was TRUTH. Then your friend and you could not use the word \"love\" to mean those two different groups of feelings and histories and etc. Your particular feelings would need a word specific to it, and your friends would need a different particular word. To sort of get through life, we go with the sloppier, functional system wherein you both say \"love\" and it works ok. > What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. All that stuff we've gone over? All the flaws and shortcomings of language, and our motivation for having that? Nietzsche thinks we forget those nuances. So, in life, your friend and you think that \"love\" really *is* the same thing, for both of you, since you use the same word. Analogy\/Example: Lots of times marriages \/ relationships fall apart because, despite using the same words, folks *mean* different things. Tom says \"I want to get married\" and Sue says \"I want to married\", so they get married, because they agree, right? But then a month into the relationship, turns out Tom thinks that marriage entails a joint bank account and Sue thinks marriage entails separate bank accounts and also she gets a cake every Thursday. So they're pissed off because they *meant* different things by \"marriage\". That's kinda what Nietzsche is on about. We forget that \"marriage\" means very different things to every person, because everyone using the same word, \"marriage\". How could Tom and Sue have such a conflict about what they thought \"marriage\" entailed if they used the same word?? If we used the Truth language Nietzsche discussed in that first quote, the conflict would have been avoided because Tom would have said he wanted marriage-bankaccounts and Sue would have said she wanted marriage-cakes. Two different expressions, so two different things, so they oughtn't get married. > Only by forgetting this primitive world of metaphor can one live with any repose, security, and consistency ... But in any case it seems to me that \"the correct perception\"\u2014which would mean \"the adequate expression of an object in the subject\"\u2014is a contradictory impossibility. The only way to avoid that \"marriage\" problem above, that results from the Beatrice problem above, which results from the \"we just want to not be hurt\" problem above, would be to have that perfect, scientific, atomistic language where every person says \"I want marriage-jointbankaccounts-twokids-apetbird-etc.\" to fully articulate every nuance of everything they experience and express. But we can't do that. Because, fundamentally, language cannot do that. Concepts cannot do that. There is always a shortcoming. > But man has an invincible inclination to allow himself to be deceived and is, as it were, enchanted with happiness when the rhapsodist tells him epic fables as if they were true Despite all the problems, we keep using the system where we say \"marriage\". Because that is easier, and we think next time it will work, and we forget why it was a problem in the first place. Tom and Sue blame each other, rather than the words and metaphors and basic structures of reality. Blaming those things would be *scarier* than just blaming each other. This is way longer than I intended so I will stop. Did some of that make sense?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5576.0,"score_ratio":78.5} +{"post_id":"ilgw68","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I just started taking a required English course, and the professor is making us read Nietzsche's \"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense\". I literally don't understand a single word of what this dude's trying to say. Could someone please summarize this essay for me as if you were talking to a child? Hello. English and philosophy are my worst subjects. I'm a very easily confused person, so trying to read this is actual hell for me. This is an online course with no scheduled meetings or lectures. The professor linked us to a brief guide for this text, but it's only confusing me even more. Like I am actually getting angry trying to read this essay. Scheduling a meeting with my professor is going to take a bit, so please help me Reddit. Explain this to me like I am in elementary school.","c_root_id_A":"g3t03mh","c_root_id_B":"g3t3dyy","created_at_utc_A":1599103627,"created_at_utc_B":1599105513,"score_A":2,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I do not study philosophy so I'm definitely not going to try and tell you what it's about. But I'll paste some links that seem like they get something right: https:\/\/campuspress.yale.edu\/modernismlab\/on-truth-and-lies-in-an-extra-moral-sense\/ https:\/\/scholar.harvard.edu\/christopherdiak\/truth-and-lies-mystical-sense https:\/\/www.brainpickings.org\/2018\/03\/26\/nietzsche-on-truth-and-lies-in-a-nonmoral-sense\/ There is also a thesis called An Attempt at Understanding Nietzsche's On Truth and Lies and you can find its pdf free online. That is probably more detailed than the pasted links. If you don't get an answer though, dm me and I'll read it and try to figure out what the main points are, but I've only done Nietzsche for around half a semester. P. S. Wikipedia can be good as an outline of major ideas and points you need to focus on while doing actual analysis or research.","human_ref_B":"Hey, here's a reading report on this text I wrote last year. Hope it helps! Frederich Nietzsche believes that, if man should be admired for something, it shouldn\u2019t be for his understanding of the world, but rather for the complex conceptual structures he develops by means of which he\u2019s able to *interpret* the world and his place in it. In his manuscript *On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense*, he argues that the so-called *truths* that are obtained from such structures are only designations of things that people agree on. As a consequence, these truths will invariably lack objectivity\u2015their validity (and the falsity of lies) hinges almost exclusively on the fluctuating principles of human mental laws. Language is a key part of the problem. According to Nietzsche, the employment of words to describe phenomena will only produce a system of classification and generalizations, rather than serving the purpose of capturing the inherent essence of things: \u201cOne designates only the relations of things to man, and to express them one calls on the boldest metaphors.\u201d (Nietzsche, 1873). We explain nature in terms of its effects with other laws of nature, not in terms of what it is in itself. Concepts such as *time* and *space* are conceived because of their practicality in human activities, and can be similarly understood by virtually everybody, for virtually everybody perceives nature the same way. Nietzsche suggests that, if that wasn\u2019t the case, we wouldn\u2019t be talking about a regularity of nature, rather, it \u201cwould be grasped only as a creation which is subjective in the highest degree\u201d (Nietzsche, 1873). Since our conceptual framework is inherently faulty, the author argues that the theoretical edifices (including those of science, politics, anthropology, and philosophy) created upon it must be faulty as well. It follows that such is our primary understanding of the world. This defective truth-seeking practice, Nietzsche concludes, is deeply ingrained in humans\u2019 very nature, and therefore inevitable. He gracefully expresses this when he says that \u201cthe drive toward the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive, which one cannot for a single instant dispense with in thought, for one would thereby dispense with man himself\u201d (Nietzsche, 1873).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1886.0,"score_ratio":5.5} +{"post_id":"ilgw68","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I just started taking a required English course, and the professor is making us read Nietzsche's \"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense\". I literally don't understand a single word of what this dude's trying to say. Could someone please summarize this essay for me as if you were talking to a child? Hello. English and philosophy are my worst subjects. I'm a very easily confused person, so trying to read this is actual hell for me. This is an online course with no scheduled meetings or lectures. The professor linked us to a brief guide for this text, but it's only confusing me even more. Like I am actually getting angry trying to read this essay. Scheduling a meeting with my professor is going to take a bit, so please help me Reddit. Explain this to me like I am in elementary school.","c_root_id_A":"g3t03mh","c_root_id_B":"g3t3pzt","created_at_utc_A":1599103627,"created_at_utc_B":1599105719,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I do not study philosophy so I'm definitely not going to try and tell you what it's about. But I'll paste some links that seem like they get something right: https:\/\/campuspress.yale.edu\/modernismlab\/on-truth-and-lies-in-an-extra-moral-sense\/ https:\/\/scholar.harvard.edu\/christopherdiak\/truth-and-lies-mystical-sense https:\/\/www.brainpickings.org\/2018\/03\/26\/nietzsche-on-truth-and-lies-in-a-nonmoral-sense\/ There is also a thesis called An Attempt at Understanding Nietzsche's On Truth and Lies and you can find its pdf free online. That is probably more detailed than the pasted links. If you don't get an answer though, dm me and I'll read it and try to figure out what the main points are, but I've only done Nietzsche for around half a semester. P. S. Wikipedia can be good as an outline of major ideas and points you need to focus on while doing actual analysis or research.","human_ref_B":"Just to pile onto the list of resources you have already received, I have previously written a short article on the topic of truth in Nietzsche that may be of some possible assistance to you. Just skip to the section under the heading 'Truth in Nietzsche's Earlier Essay.'","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2092.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"pr0eh6","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Why is Nietzsche such a big deal (as far as western philosophers go)?","c_root_id_A":"hdhi6sj","c_root_id_B":"hdhvtwi","created_at_utc_A":1632072379,"created_at_utc_B":1632077719,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Michael Sugrue also has a very digestable lecture on importance if Nietzche here. He argues that Nietzche was not necessarily the first person to critique Christianity and drive the Western philosophy away from metaphysics but definitely the first one to do it with such vigour that had a long term effect on future philosophers as well as 20th century Germany.","human_ref_B":"I think the main reason he was such a big deal is because he was an engaging and accessible writer at a time when impenetrable self-contained vocabularies, such as those of Hegel, were the norm. His ideas were interesting but I think the reason he was popular wasn\u2019t so much because of that as because they were so well-*expressed*. His 10 tips for writers, which are funny as hell, illustrate the point.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5340.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"fg2txv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there philosophers who address the inaccessibility of language in philosophy? Hey folks! I'm in a philosophy course right now, and have a very open-ended assignment to write on any topic I want, as long as I integrate Sartre in some way. The topic I want to write about is how academic language, particularly in philosophy, is inaccessible and this serves to divide the working class from those who have the time to dedicate learning to read this language. I am currently planning on using Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason as support but I'm going to critique it from this viewpoint because Sartre essentially invents a new language in each of his philosophical works. I'm also planning on using Marx and maybe Engels. However, Sartre only briefly mentions that language can divide more than it unifies, he doesn't go in depth on this topic. So, with that excessive explanation, does anyone know of a philosopher who addresses this specifically? Or even someone who kind of alludes to this idea? I'm okay with having to connect the dots to form this arguments, I'm just not sure which works to select for this topic.","c_root_id_A":"fk3arhd","c_root_id_B":"fk2lv19","created_at_utc_A":1583824497,"created_at_utc_B":1583803883,"score_A":12,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Ludwig Wittgenstein. Apart from Derrida he is my favorite on the subject.","human_ref_B":"LACAN","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20614.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"fg2txv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there philosophers who address the inaccessibility of language in philosophy? Hey folks! I'm in a philosophy course right now, and have a very open-ended assignment to write on any topic I want, as long as I integrate Sartre in some way. The topic I want to write about is how academic language, particularly in philosophy, is inaccessible and this serves to divide the working class from those who have the time to dedicate learning to read this language. I am currently planning on using Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason as support but I'm going to critique it from this viewpoint because Sartre essentially invents a new language in each of his philosophical works. I'm also planning on using Marx and maybe Engels. However, Sartre only briefly mentions that language can divide more than it unifies, he doesn't go in depth on this topic. So, with that excessive explanation, does anyone know of a philosopher who addresses this specifically? Or even someone who kind of alludes to this idea? I'm okay with having to connect the dots to form this arguments, I'm just not sure which works to select for this topic.","c_root_id_A":"fk2x0bn","c_root_id_B":"fk2lv19","created_at_utc_A":1583811221,"created_at_utc_B":1583803883,"score_A":12,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"There's a collection of essays, *Just Being Difficult?: Academic Writing in the Public Arena* (edited by Jonathan Culler) that might be of interest to you. Bunch of different scholars talking about 'difficult language' in the humanities. There's also Gerald Graff's \"Scholars and Soundbites: The Myth of Academic Difficulty\" \\[PDF\\] which I quite liked. Edit: Oh, and Roland Barthes has a fiery little text, *Criticism and Truth,* where he utterly blasts a couple of critics who accuse him of being too obscure and makes some excellent points about the demand for clarity along the way.","human_ref_B":"LACAN","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7338.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"p07j4k","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Is Math real? Anyone want to talk about whether math is 'real' or not? This is one of my favorite topics in philosophy and I rarely get a chance to talk t others about it. I am in no way an expert.","c_root_id_A":"h8541mk","c_root_id_B":"h859oko","created_at_utc_A":1628402682,"created_at_utc_B":1628407228,"score_A":16,"score_B":86,"human_ref_A":"I'm actually writing a paper on this very question. You might want to look at Hartry Field's Science without numbers for a fictionalist account of mathematics. Most realist accounts are platonistic, but I think this is based on two prejudices, but I'll keep that to myself. Fundamentally in the philosophy of mathematics there are 2 problems 1. If mathematics is just a fictional language, then how can we describe fundamental natural laws and make predictions through mathematics? 2. If mathematics is real (i.e. there are abstract numbers that mathematicians describe and have a structure that mathematicians discover) then how can it be that the physical world follows those abstract numbers? After all abstracta are by definition causally inert.","human_ref_B":"As with everything in philosophy, this is controversial. It's also controversial in more than one way. That's because realism in the philosophy of mathematics can generally be split into two types. Firstly, there is **sentence realism** and secondly, **object realism**. Sentence realism says that all mathematical sentences are objectively true or false, and usually also that currently accepted mathematical theory is true. Object realism says that mathematical objects exist. One theory that would answer an emphatic yes to your question would be **platonism**. Platonism is the view that there exist mathematical objects like numbers and sets. Platonism also says that these objects are abstract: i.e. that they cannot cause things to happen and that they have no spatio-temporal location. These are quite common sense properties to give to things like numbers - it seems unlikely that we could one day find the number 2 floating out in space somewhere and it would be likewise quite surprising if we found that the empty set was somehow causing things to happen in the physical world. Platonism also has the advantage of making the meanings of mathematical sentences common-sensical as well. Why is \"2 is a prime number\" true? Well according to the platonist, in exactly the same way as \"Jupiter is a planet\" is. In other words, \"2 is a prime number\" is true because there really exists an object called \"2\" and it really is a prime number, the sentence accurately describes it. Overall platonism is both object realist and sentence realist. However, there are also views that are sentence realist without being object realist. **Modal structuralism** is such a view. Modal structuralism says that mathematics is objectively true, but not because abstract numbers exist. It says that mathematical sentences aren't even making claims about mathematical objects, they're making claims about structure. To understand this let's consider the structure of the natural numbers. 0 \u2192 1 \u2192 2 \u2192 3 \u2192 4 \u2192 ... The natural numbers start with 0. Following 0 we have 1. The technical term for this is that 1 is the successor of 0. The structure of the natural numbers is that every number (starting from 0) has a successor and only a single successor, and the chain goes off to infinity. If there was an infinitely long queue with a person at the front of the queue followed by a line of others, that would be exactly the same structure. The person at the front of the queue would be acting the part of 0, the people behind them the rest of the numbers. For the modal structuralist, \"2 is a prime number\" is really saying that if a structure like this were to actually exist, then whatever was playing the part of 2 would have special properties because of the structure it is a part of. Overall modal structuralism says that mathematics is making claims about hypothetical structures, about what they would have to be like if they existed, but it doesn't have to say that such structures actually do exist. It's hard to say whether this view would make mathematics \"real\", it would certainly make it objective! Another view in the philosophy of mathematics is **mathematical fictionalism**. Mathematical fictionalism says that mathematical sentences can be true or false, but that they are in fact all false because mathematical objects do not exist. This seems to answer your question with an emphatic no. However, there are agreements between even platonism and fictionalism. It's probably important to note some things that are uncontroversial amongst all views. Nobody disputes that mathematicians exist, that they're doing this thing that they call \"mathematics\", and that this so-called mathematics has turned out to be very useful indeed, perhaps especially in its application to the natural sciences (one key aim for fictionalists is in explaining why mathematics is useful even though it is not true). One thing that platonism and fictionalism agree on - but disagree with modal structuralism on - is that mathematical sentences are about mathematical objects. This brings us to another view: **formalism**. Formalism argues that mathematical sentences don't really mean anything at all. For formalists, mathematics is akin to a game like chess. There are rules about how you can manipulate the symbols just like there are rules about how you can move the chess pieces, but this doesn't mean that these symbols actually have to represent anything. If mathematics is about anything, it's about symbols, not numbers (so says the formalist). A final view to add something interesting is the mathematical **figuralism** of Stephen Yablo. Yablo compares mathematics to figurative language. Think of sentences like \"the clouds were angry\". A sentence like that is clearly not literally true (clouds can't feel emotions) but there is a certain sense in which it carries a lot of information that might give an accurate picture of the world, or it might be inaccurate. If the clouds are dark and thick, the sentence is kind of true in a figurative way at least. If the clouds are bright on a blue sky, the sentence is just a lie. To push this further, let's think about a game of make-believe. In this game, all trees are terrifying bears. In the context of this game, pointing at a tree and shouting \"there's a bear!\" is true in a similar non-literal kind of way. The important thing here is that the make-believe is prop-oriented; what counts as \"true\" and \"false\" in the game depends on objective features of the actual real world. To point at a rose and say \"there's a bear\" is not only wrong, it goes against an objective standard of being even figuratively true. Likewise, what if mathematics make-believes the existence of numbers so that we can track information about physical things. If this were the case, mathematics would kind of not be real, but there would still be an objective standard for which mathematical sentences are *figuratively* true. Hopefully this is useful and gives a flavour of a few different positions on this. (edit: improve wording in a few places)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4546.0,"score_ratio":5.375} +{"post_id":"p07j4k","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Is Math real? Anyone want to talk about whether math is 'real' or not? This is one of my favorite topics in philosophy and I rarely get a chance to talk t others about it. I am in no way an expert.","c_root_id_A":"h854ds3","c_root_id_B":"h859oko","created_at_utc_A":1628402943,"created_at_utc_B":1628407228,"score_A":7,"score_B":86,"human_ref_A":"This is far too vast and contentious a topic to summarize in a single Reddit comment, so I think the best approach is to defer to sources summarizing the major schools of thought. SEP has an article on the philosophy of math with summaries of the major schools that I'd recommend you read. Sabine Hossenfelder's video, linked elsewhere in the thread, is also a fun introduction to start you thinking about the topic but gives a somewhat philosophically naive, and one-sidedly realist perspective -- which is fair since Hossenfelder makes videos for a general audience that need to confidently assert understandable positions. Anyway, attempting to summarize the positions on the realness of math of the schools given in the SEP article: * Logicism: neutral about the ontology of math, but considers it a product of logic * Intuitionism: math exists only within our minds * Formalism: math does not exist any more than as the rules of a game * Platonism: math really does exist, abstractly and non-physically, within the universe","human_ref_B":"As with everything in philosophy, this is controversial. It's also controversial in more than one way. That's because realism in the philosophy of mathematics can generally be split into two types. Firstly, there is **sentence realism** and secondly, **object realism**. Sentence realism says that all mathematical sentences are objectively true or false, and usually also that currently accepted mathematical theory is true. Object realism says that mathematical objects exist. One theory that would answer an emphatic yes to your question would be **platonism**. Platonism is the view that there exist mathematical objects like numbers and sets. Platonism also says that these objects are abstract: i.e. that they cannot cause things to happen and that they have no spatio-temporal location. These are quite common sense properties to give to things like numbers - it seems unlikely that we could one day find the number 2 floating out in space somewhere and it would be likewise quite surprising if we found that the empty set was somehow causing things to happen in the physical world. Platonism also has the advantage of making the meanings of mathematical sentences common-sensical as well. Why is \"2 is a prime number\" true? Well according to the platonist, in exactly the same way as \"Jupiter is a planet\" is. In other words, \"2 is a prime number\" is true because there really exists an object called \"2\" and it really is a prime number, the sentence accurately describes it. Overall platonism is both object realist and sentence realist. However, there are also views that are sentence realist without being object realist. **Modal structuralism** is such a view. Modal structuralism says that mathematics is objectively true, but not because abstract numbers exist. It says that mathematical sentences aren't even making claims about mathematical objects, they're making claims about structure. To understand this let's consider the structure of the natural numbers. 0 \u2192 1 \u2192 2 \u2192 3 \u2192 4 \u2192 ... The natural numbers start with 0. Following 0 we have 1. The technical term for this is that 1 is the successor of 0. The structure of the natural numbers is that every number (starting from 0) has a successor and only a single successor, and the chain goes off to infinity. If there was an infinitely long queue with a person at the front of the queue followed by a line of others, that would be exactly the same structure. The person at the front of the queue would be acting the part of 0, the people behind them the rest of the numbers. For the modal structuralist, \"2 is a prime number\" is really saying that if a structure like this were to actually exist, then whatever was playing the part of 2 would have special properties because of the structure it is a part of. Overall modal structuralism says that mathematics is making claims about hypothetical structures, about what they would have to be like if they existed, but it doesn't have to say that such structures actually do exist. It's hard to say whether this view would make mathematics \"real\", it would certainly make it objective! Another view in the philosophy of mathematics is **mathematical fictionalism**. Mathematical fictionalism says that mathematical sentences can be true or false, but that they are in fact all false because mathematical objects do not exist. This seems to answer your question with an emphatic no. However, there are agreements between even platonism and fictionalism. It's probably important to note some things that are uncontroversial amongst all views. Nobody disputes that mathematicians exist, that they're doing this thing that they call \"mathematics\", and that this so-called mathematics has turned out to be very useful indeed, perhaps especially in its application to the natural sciences (one key aim for fictionalists is in explaining why mathematics is useful even though it is not true). One thing that platonism and fictionalism agree on - but disagree with modal structuralism on - is that mathematical sentences are about mathematical objects. This brings us to another view: **formalism**. Formalism argues that mathematical sentences don't really mean anything at all. For formalists, mathematics is akin to a game like chess. There are rules about how you can manipulate the symbols just like there are rules about how you can move the chess pieces, but this doesn't mean that these symbols actually have to represent anything. If mathematics is about anything, it's about symbols, not numbers (so says the formalist). A final view to add something interesting is the mathematical **figuralism** of Stephen Yablo. Yablo compares mathematics to figurative language. Think of sentences like \"the clouds were angry\". A sentence like that is clearly not literally true (clouds can't feel emotions) but there is a certain sense in which it carries a lot of information that might give an accurate picture of the world, or it might be inaccurate. If the clouds are dark and thick, the sentence is kind of true in a figurative way at least. If the clouds are bright on a blue sky, the sentence is just a lie. To push this further, let's think about a game of make-believe. In this game, all trees are terrifying bears. In the context of this game, pointing at a tree and shouting \"there's a bear!\" is true in a similar non-literal kind of way. The important thing here is that the make-believe is prop-oriented; what counts as \"true\" and \"false\" in the game depends on objective features of the actual real world. To point at a rose and say \"there's a bear\" is not only wrong, it goes against an objective standard of being even figuratively true. Likewise, what if mathematics make-believes the existence of numbers so that we can track information about physical things. If this were the case, mathematics would kind of not be real, but there would still be an objective standard for which mathematical sentences are *figuratively* true. Hopefully this is useful and gives a flavour of a few different positions on this. (edit: improve wording in a few places)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4285.0,"score_ratio":12.2857142857} +{"post_id":"bedk32","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Foucault: \"I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think\" \u2014 Interpretations? Here in this interview, Foucault says and he stresses on it \u2014 > I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think. What do you think he wanted to mean by this? I have some possible explanations \u2014 - He wants to dissociate his personal self from his ideas. This would connect back his tendency towards keeping his private life away from the public, and also his theory of history of ideas where he claims that individuals who are _discovering_ ideas are not important when we compare them to the ideas themselves, and the episteme in the background. This is the most possible interpretation. - He could be using his audience as a sounding board for his ideas, which are more like criticisms than concrete theories in themselves. That's why the things he says are not what he thinks, they're rather the things he does not think. I'm interested in hearing what you all have to say about his statement. Also, I am just a amateur who just reads philosophy once in a while as a hobby, I have no academic background, so apologies if my question \/\/ ideas were half-baked.","c_root_id_A":"el51jtt","c_root_id_B":"el5bfli","created_at_utc_A":1555538717,"created_at_utc_B":1555545394,"score_A":32,"score_B":133,"human_ref_A":"I take it as a simple statement on, as we say in at least the American idiom, getting something off one's chest. He says things that he has been thinking, in the kind of habitual rumination that can plague a philosopher, and *saying* it is a kind of release by \"getting it out there,\" out of one's head, etc.","human_ref_B":"\"I don't say the things because I think them, I say the things so as to no longer think them.\" The translation sucks.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6677.0,"score_ratio":4.15625} +{"post_id":"bedk32","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Foucault: \"I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think\" \u2014 Interpretations? Here in this interview, Foucault says and he stresses on it \u2014 > I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think. What do you think he wanted to mean by this? I have some possible explanations \u2014 - He wants to dissociate his personal self from his ideas. This would connect back his tendency towards keeping his private life away from the public, and also his theory of history of ideas where he claims that individuals who are _discovering_ ideas are not important when we compare them to the ideas themselves, and the episteme in the background. This is the most possible interpretation. - He could be using his audience as a sounding board for his ideas, which are more like criticisms than concrete theories in themselves. That's why the things he says are not what he thinks, they're rather the things he does not think. I'm interested in hearing what you all have to say about his statement. Also, I am just a amateur who just reads philosophy once in a while as a hobby, I have no academic background, so apologies if my question \/\/ ideas were half-baked.","c_root_id_A":"el546yn","c_root_id_B":"el5bfli","created_at_utc_A":1555540394,"created_at_utc_B":1555545394,"score_A":5,"score_B":133,"human_ref_A":"I am not sure, and this probably depends a lot on the context of the conversation (can't look at the video now), but perhaps one interpretation is that he is separating thought from speech \u2013 when he says something, it can no longer be properly called his *thought*, but something more involved and active than thought.\u00a0 I think this would go along with Foucault's general interest in how knowledge manifests power.\u00a0 Speech is not simply externalizing thought, but something more entwined with power.\u00a0 I am tempted to say speech is something resistant to knowledge\/power, but my understanding is that Foucault was very skeptical of possibilities for resistance.","human_ref_B":"\"I don't say the things because I think them, I say the things so as to no longer think them.\" The translation sucks.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5000.0,"score_ratio":26.6} +{"post_id":"bedk32","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Foucault: \"I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think\" \u2014 Interpretations? Here in this interview, Foucault says and he stresses on it \u2014 > I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think. What do you think he wanted to mean by this? I have some possible explanations \u2014 - He wants to dissociate his personal self from his ideas. This would connect back his tendency towards keeping his private life away from the public, and also his theory of history of ideas where he claims that individuals who are _discovering_ ideas are not important when we compare them to the ideas themselves, and the episteme in the background. This is the most possible interpretation. - He could be using his audience as a sounding board for his ideas, which are more like criticisms than concrete theories in themselves. That's why the things he says are not what he thinks, they're rather the things he does not think. I'm interested in hearing what you all have to say about his statement. Also, I am just a amateur who just reads philosophy once in a while as a hobby, I have no academic background, so apologies if my question \/\/ ideas were half-baked.","c_root_id_A":"el5v5as","c_root_id_B":"el5e9vo","created_at_utc_A":1555560087,"created_at_utc_B":1555547319,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Looks a little bit like Nietzsche's answer: >*But then why do you write?* \\- A: I am not one of those who *think* with a wet quill in hand; much less one of those who abandon themselves to their passions right before the open inkwell, sitting on their chair and staring at the paper. I am annoyed or ashamed by all writing; to me, writing is nature's call - to speak of it even in simile is repugnant to me. B: But why, then, do you write? - A: Well, my friend, I say this in confidence: until now I have found no other means of getting *rid* of my thoughts. - B: And why do you want to get rid of them? - A: Why do I want to? Do I want to? I have to. - B: Enough! Enough! The Gay Science, book 2, aph. 93.","human_ref_B":"By putting out your ideas, you can criticize them and receive feedback from an audience. Even 'bad' or 'underformed' ideas need to be put under a spotlight first before they can be honed or discarded in search of the truth. In scientific terms, it'd be like running a bunch of tests with hypotheses you're already pretty sure are wrong, however if one of them actually provides a piece of valid data, then even the seemingly absurd has value. Consider all the \"wrong\" designs that get pushed out in the world, but eventually yield to the \"correct\" design -- e.g. early flying machines prior to the Wright Brothers. A similar analogy could be made to biology in terms of evolution: Nature puts out an entire generation of organisms; evolutionary pressures yield the next generation of the strong's progeny, while the weak all perish.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12768.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} +{"post_id":"bedk32","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Foucault: \"I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think\" \u2014 Interpretations? Here in this interview, Foucault says and he stresses on it \u2014 > I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think. What do you think he wanted to mean by this? I have some possible explanations \u2014 - He wants to dissociate his personal self from his ideas. This would connect back his tendency towards keeping his private life away from the public, and also his theory of history of ideas where he claims that individuals who are _discovering_ ideas are not important when we compare them to the ideas themselves, and the episteme in the background. This is the most possible interpretation. - He could be using his audience as a sounding board for his ideas, which are more like criticisms than concrete theories in themselves. That's why the things he says are not what he thinks, they're rather the things he does not think. I'm interested in hearing what you all have to say about his statement. Also, I am just a amateur who just reads philosophy once in a while as a hobby, I have no academic background, so apologies if my question \/\/ ideas were half-baked.","c_root_id_A":"el5v5as","c_root_id_B":"el546yn","created_at_utc_A":1555560087,"created_at_utc_B":1555540394,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Looks a little bit like Nietzsche's answer: >*But then why do you write?* \\- A: I am not one of those who *think* with a wet quill in hand; much less one of those who abandon themselves to their passions right before the open inkwell, sitting on their chair and staring at the paper. I am annoyed or ashamed by all writing; to me, writing is nature's call - to speak of it even in simile is repugnant to me. B: But why, then, do you write? - A: Well, my friend, I say this in confidence: until now I have found no other means of getting *rid* of my thoughts. - B: And why do you want to get rid of them? - A: Why do I want to? Do I want to? I have to. - B: Enough! Enough! The Gay Science, book 2, aph. 93.","human_ref_B":"I am not sure, and this probably depends a lot on the context of the conversation (can't look at the video now), but perhaps one interpretation is that he is separating thought from speech \u2013 when he says something, it can no longer be properly called his *thought*, but something more involved and active than thought.\u00a0 I think this would go along with Foucault's general interest in how knowledge manifests power.\u00a0 Speech is not simply externalizing thought, but something more entwined with power.\u00a0 I am tempted to say speech is something resistant to knowledge\/power, but my understanding is that Foucault was very skeptical of possibilities for resistance.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19693.0,"score_ratio":1.8} +{"post_id":"bedk32","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Foucault: \"I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think\" \u2014 Interpretations? Here in this interview, Foucault says and he stresses on it \u2014 > I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think. What do you think he wanted to mean by this? I have some possible explanations \u2014 - He wants to dissociate his personal self from his ideas. This would connect back his tendency towards keeping his private life away from the public, and also his theory of history of ideas where he claims that individuals who are _discovering_ ideas are not important when we compare them to the ideas themselves, and the episteme in the background. This is the most possible interpretation. - He could be using his audience as a sounding board for his ideas, which are more like criticisms than concrete theories in themselves. That's why the things he says are not what he thinks, they're rather the things he does not think. I'm interested in hearing what you all have to say about his statement. Also, I am just a amateur who just reads philosophy once in a while as a hobby, I have no academic background, so apologies if my question \/\/ ideas were half-baked.","c_root_id_A":"el5v5as","c_root_id_B":"el5fno3","created_at_utc_A":1555560087,"created_at_utc_B":1555548306,"score_A":9,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Looks a little bit like Nietzsche's answer: >*But then why do you write?* \\- A: I am not one of those who *think* with a wet quill in hand; much less one of those who abandon themselves to their passions right before the open inkwell, sitting on their chair and staring at the paper. I am annoyed or ashamed by all writing; to me, writing is nature's call - to speak of it even in simile is repugnant to me. B: But why, then, do you write? - A: Well, my friend, I say this in confidence: until now I have found no other means of getting *rid* of my thoughts. - B: And why do you want to get rid of them? - A: Why do I want to? Do I want to? I have to. - B: Enough! Enough! The Gay Science, book 2, aph. 93.","human_ref_B":"This is just 1 interpretation and Foucault can be a bit slippery with his aphorisms, but this is a good contextualising quote: 'People know what they do; often people know why they do what they do. But what they don't know is what what they do does.' Bit of a mouthful as a quote but it has a certain elegance if you dwell on it; Foucault is all about what our actions do and what our speech does--not why we do things in terms of internal justification, but what effects our actions\/speech have. I think it's useful to see the quote from the OP video in that context. For Foucault discourse is material and has effects upon the world; thoughts do not have effects unless transmitted into linguistic expression. So this quote could be a negation of the power of thinking in favour of centring articulation. IE Foucault is claiming he articulates certain ideas to make sure what he says is able to move beyond the realm of thought, as thought is immaterial compared to discursive articulation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11781.0,"score_ratio":2.25} +{"post_id":"bedk32","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Foucault: \"I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think\" \u2014 Interpretations? Here in this interview, Foucault says and he stresses on it \u2014 > I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think. What do you think he wanted to mean by this? I have some possible explanations \u2014 - He wants to dissociate his personal self from his ideas. This would connect back his tendency towards keeping his private life away from the public, and also his theory of history of ideas where he claims that individuals who are _discovering_ ideas are not important when we compare them to the ideas themselves, and the episteme in the background. This is the most possible interpretation. - He could be using his audience as a sounding board for his ideas, which are more like criticisms than concrete theories in themselves. That's why the things he says are not what he thinks, they're rather the things he does not think. I'm interested in hearing what you all have to say about his statement. Also, I am just a amateur who just reads philosophy once in a while as a hobby, I have no academic background, so apologies if my question \/\/ ideas were half-baked.","c_root_id_A":"el5tax3","c_root_id_B":"el5v5as","created_at_utc_A":1555558447,"created_at_utc_B":1555560087,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I always interpreted it as roughly: Discourse parses things from their inherent contradictions, so everything we hold most sacred must be undiscussed as to protect it from this discursive death. But I\u2019m not always good at knowing what is meant vs what I pull out of something","human_ref_B":"Looks a little bit like Nietzsche's answer: >*But then why do you write?* \\- A: I am not one of those who *think* with a wet quill in hand; much less one of those who abandon themselves to their passions right before the open inkwell, sitting on their chair and staring at the paper. I am annoyed or ashamed by all writing; to me, writing is nature's call - to speak of it even in simile is repugnant to me. B: But why, then, do you write? - A: Well, my friend, I say this in confidence: until now I have found no other means of getting *rid* of my thoughts. - B: And why do you want to get rid of them? - A: Why do I want to? Do I want to? I have to. - B: Enough! Enough! The Gay Science, book 2, aph. 93.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1640.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"bedk32","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Foucault: \"I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think\" \u2014 Interpretations? Here in this interview, Foucault says and he stresses on it \u2014 > I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think. What do you think he wanted to mean by this? I have some possible explanations \u2014 - He wants to dissociate his personal self from his ideas. This would connect back his tendency towards keeping his private life away from the public, and also his theory of history of ideas where he claims that individuals who are _discovering_ ideas are not important when we compare them to the ideas themselves, and the episteme in the background. This is the most possible interpretation. - He could be using his audience as a sounding board for his ideas, which are more like criticisms than concrete theories in themselves. That's why the things he says are not what he thinks, they're rather the things he does not think. I'm interested in hearing what you all have to say about his statement. Also, I am just a amateur who just reads philosophy once in a while as a hobby, I have no academic background, so apologies if my question \/\/ ideas were half-baked.","c_root_id_A":"el5e9vo","c_root_id_B":"el546yn","created_at_utc_A":1555547319,"created_at_utc_B":1555540394,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"By putting out your ideas, you can criticize them and receive feedback from an audience. Even 'bad' or 'underformed' ideas need to be put under a spotlight first before they can be honed or discarded in search of the truth. In scientific terms, it'd be like running a bunch of tests with hypotheses you're already pretty sure are wrong, however if one of them actually provides a piece of valid data, then even the seemingly absurd has value. Consider all the \"wrong\" designs that get pushed out in the world, but eventually yield to the \"correct\" design -- e.g. early flying machines prior to the Wright Brothers. A similar analogy could be made to biology in terms of evolution: Nature puts out an entire generation of organisms; evolutionary pressures yield the next generation of the strong's progeny, while the weak all perish.","human_ref_B":"I am not sure, and this probably depends a lot on the context of the conversation (can't look at the video now), but perhaps one interpretation is that he is separating thought from speech \u2013 when he says something, it can no longer be properly called his *thought*, but something more involved and active than thought.\u00a0 I think this would go along with Foucault's general interest in how knowledge manifests power.\u00a0 Speech is not simply externalizing thought, but something more entwined with power.\u00a0 I am tempted to say speech is something resistant to knowledge\/power, but my understanding is that Foucault was very skeptical of possibilities for resistance.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6925.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"g4gob2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Why does philosophy focus so much on individual thinkers? From a outside perspective, it appears that studying philosophy involves a lot of studying of individual thinks and working out what they believed, even if their ideas are not really taken seriously now. I study physics and everything we do is about theories, as they currently are, we never seem to care about what people in the past said, just the final result as it is. Why does philosophy appear to be the other way around?","c_root_id_A":"fnxog19","c_root_id_B":"fnxrbgy","created_at_utc_A":1587342945,"created_at_utc_B":1587344723,"score_A":4,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Philosophy is less interested in end results and ore interested in the reasoning behind those results. To understand the reasoning it usually helps to read the original work. It's hard to summarize philosophy arguments clearly and accurately so this necessitates reading the original source. Some philosophy *can* be summarized clearly and accurately (most logic, for example) and so those courses (like logic courses) often focus on few or no individual thinkers (like physics courses).","human_ref_B":"> Why does philosophy appear to be the other way around? When thinking about this phenomena, you should disambiguate between two questions: 1. Why do courses in philosophy seem this way (the training question) 2. Why does contemporary research in philosophy seem this way The answers are related, but smooshing them together really muddies things up, especially when you try to compare philosophy to scientific subjects. We might ask, for instance, why science education involves students doing so many demonstration-style experiments (doing experiments where the answer is known ahead of time) or why it involves students often learning the same thing over and over with increasing levels of nuance (as with Classical Physics). That is, sometimes the training question is easily answered when we start to see how students are being trained in certain kinds of skills and practices which will be later used to do things which are rather different.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1778.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"i8hsul","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"I am just finishing \"Consiousness Explained\" by Daniel Dennett. What are the books that represent the current state of concsiousness theory and approach the issue from both a philosophical and scientific perspective? If there are works specific to the mind\/body issue, that would be appreciated. In reading the Dennett work I imagine there must be advances with respect to fMRI and related technologies and clear advances in AI and computing power. I'd like to find a work, or perhaps several works, that tackle this issue from a more current perspective. Thanks in advance.","c_root_id_A":"g18k38p","c_root_id_B":"g18qzg8","created_at_utc_A":1597254880,"created_at_utc_B":1597257884,"score_A":18,"score_B":52,"human_ref_A":"He released From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds in 2017. >How did we come to have minds? >For centuries, this question has intrigued psychologists, physicists, poets, and philosophers, who have wondered how the human mind developed its unrivaled ability to create, imagine, and explain. Disciples of Darwin have long aspired to explain how consciousness, language, and culture could have appeared through natural selection, blazing promising trails that tend, however, to end in confusion and controversy. Even though our understanding of the inner workings of proteins, neurons, and DNA is deeper than ever before, the matter of how our minds came to be has largely remained a mystery. >That is now changing, says Daniel C. Dennett. In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, his most comprehensive exploration of evolutionary thinking yet, he builds on ideas from computer science and biology to show how a comprehending mind could in fact have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection. Part philosophical whodunit, part bold scientific conjecture, this landmark work enlarges themes that have sustained Dennett's legendary career at the forefront of philosophical thought. >In his inimitable style--laced with wit and arresting thought experiments--Dennett explains that a crucial shift occurred when humans developed the ability to share memes, or ways of doing things not based in genetic instinct. Language, itself composed of memes, turbocharged this interplay. Competition among memes--a form of natural selection--produced thinking tools so well-designed that they gave us the power to design our own memes. The result, a mind that not only perceives and controls but can create and comprehend, was thus largely shaped by the process of cultural evolution. >An agenda-setting book for a new generation of philosophers, scientists, and thinkers, From Bacteria to Bach and Back will delight and entertain anyone eager to make sense of how the mind works and how it came about.","human_ref_B":"In terms of the scientific perspectives, there are two leading, competing theories right now: Global Neuronal Workspace (you can read Dehaene\u2019s \u201cConsciousness and the Brain\u201d from 2014) and Integrated Information Theory (you can read Tononi\u2019s \u201cPhi\u201d from 2012). These books are more recent, written by the original proponents of those theories, and address some of the large amount of research that\u2019s been done in the last 20 years. Another interesting thing to look into (albeit written less for a lay audience) would be select chapters in Engel, Friston, and Kragic\u2019s \u201cThe Pragmatic Turn\u201d, which considers how thinking about the brain as a controller of actions might influence theories of cognition and consciousness.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3004.0,"score_ratio":2.8888888889} +{"post_id":"i8hsul","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"I am just finishing \"Consiousness Explained\" by Daniel Dennett. What are the books that represent the current state of concsiousness theory and approach the issue from both a philosophical and scientific perspective? If there are works specific to the mind\/body issue, that would be appreciated. In reading the Dennett work I imagine there must be advances with respect to fMRI and related technologies and clear advances in AI and computing power. I'd like to find a work, or perhaps several works, that tackle this issue from a more current perspective. Thanks in advance.","c_root_id_A":"g18qzg8","c_root_id_B":"g18lsg6","created_at_utc_A":1597257884,"created_at_utc_B":1597255628,"score_A":52,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"In terms of the scientific perspectives, there are two leading, competing theories right now: Global Neuronal Workspace (you can read Dehaene\u2019s \u201cConsciousness and the Brain\u201d from 2014) and Integrated Information Theory (you can read Tononi\u2019s \u201cPhi\u201d from 2012). These books are more recent, written by the original proponents of those theories, and address some of the large amount of research that\u2019s been done in the last 20 years. Another interesting thing to look into (albeit written less for a lay audience) would be select chapters in Engel, Friston, and Kragic\u2019s \u201cThe Pragmatic Turn\u201d, which considers how thinking about the brain as a controller of actions might influence theories of cognition and consciousness.","human_ref_B":"The latest in respect to fMRI is an increasing skepticism of their usefulness. This article does a bit to explain their flaws: https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2016\/9\/8\/12189784\/fmri-studies-explained Arguably, the article is too optimistic in suggesting what fMRIs can tell us","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2256.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} +{"post_id":"i8hsul","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"I am just finishing \"Consiousness Explained\" by Daniel Dennett. What are the books that represent the current state of concsiousness theory and approach the issue from both a philosophical and scientific perspective? If there are works specific to the mind\/body issue, that would be appreciated. In reading the Dennett work I imagine there must be advances with respect to fMRI and related technologies and clear advances in AI and computing power. I'd like to find a work, or perhaps several works, that tackle this issue from a more current perspective. Thanks in advance.","c_root_id_A":"g18yuc9","c_root_id_B":"g18k38p","created_at_utc_A":1597261440,"created_at_utc_B":1597254880,"score_A":19,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"I suggest reading papers from David Chalmers. He explains the spread of philosophical views pretty well and discusses many arguments. http:\/\/consc.net\/ A good summary article, though somewhat dated, can be found here: http:\/\/consc.net\/papers\/nature.pdf This paper covers essential background on the philosophical side, especially coming from a perspective that contrasts with Dennett's. To be honest, the cutting edge of philosophy is not going to be super different at the moment from what's covered here, but you can also find a few more recent papers on that first website I linked (some from this year even).","human_ref_B":"He released From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds in 2017. >How did we come to have minds? >For centuries, this question has intrigued psychologists, physicists, poets, and philosophers, who have wondered how the human mind developed its unrivaled ability to create, imagine, and explain. Disciples of Darwin have long aspired to explain how consciousness, language, and culture could have appeared through natural selection, blazing promising trails that tend, however, to end in confusion and controversy. Even though our understanding of the inner workings of proteins, neurons, and DNA is deeper than ever before, the matter of how our minds came to be has largely remained a mystery. >That is now changing, says Daniel C. Dennett. In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, his most comprehensive exploration of evolutionary thinking yet, he builds on ideas from computer science and biology to show how a comprehending mind could in fact have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection. Part philosophical whodunit, part bold scientific conjecture, this landmark work enlarges themes that have sustained Dennett's legendary career at the forefront of philosophical thought. >In his inimitable style--laced with wit and arresting thought experiments--Dennett explains that a crucial shift occurred when humans developed the ability to share memes, or ways of doing things not based in genetic instinct. Language, itself composed of memes, turbocharged this interplay. Competition among memes--a form of natural selection--produced thinking tools so well-designed that they gave us the power to design our own memes. The result, a mind that not only perceives and controls but can create and comprehend, was thus largely shaped by the process of cultural evolution. >An agenda-setting book for a new generation of philosophers, scientists, and thinkers, From Bacteria to Bach and Back will delight and entertain anyone eager to make sense of how the mind works and how it came about.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6560.0,"score_ratio":1.0555555556} +{"post_id":"i8hsul","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"I am just finishing \"Consiousness Explained\" by Daniel Dennett. What are the books that represent the current state of concsiousness theory and approach the issue from both a philosophical and scientific perspective? If there are works specific to the mind\/body issue, that would be appreciated. In reading the Dennett work I imagine there must be advances with respect to fMRI and related technologies and clear advances in AI and computing power. I'd like to find a work, or perhaps several works, that tackle this issue from a more current perspective. Thanks in advance.","c_root_id_A":"g18lsg6","c_root_id_B":"g18yuc9","created_at_utc_A":1597255628,"created_at_utc_B":1597261440,"score_A":12,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"The latest in respect to fMRI is an increasing skepticism of their usefulness. This article does a bit to explain their flaws: https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2016\/9\/8\/12189784\/fmri-studies-explained Arguably, the article is too optimistic in suggesting what fMRIs can tell us","human_ref_B":"I suggest reading papers from David Chalmers. He explains the spread of philosophical views pretty well and discusses many arguments. http:\/\/consc.net\/ A good summary article, though somewhat dated, can be found here: http:\/\/consc.net\/papers\/nature.pdf This paper covers essential background on the philosophical side, especially coming from a perspective that contrasts with Dennett's. To be honest, the cutting edge of philosophy is not going to be super different at the moment from what's covered here, but you can also find a few more recent papers on that first website I linked (some from this year even).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5812.0,"score_ratio":1.5833333333} +{"post_id":"i8hsul","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"I am just finishing \"Consiousness Explained\" by Daniel Dennett. What are the books that represent the current state of concsiousness theory and approach the issue from both a philosophical and scientific perspective? If there are works specific to the mind\/body issue, that would be appreciated. In reading the Dennett work I imagine there must be advances with respect to fMRI and related technologies and clear advances in AI and computing power. I'd like to find a work, or perhaps several works, that tackle this issue from a more current perspective. Thanks in advance.","c_root_id_A":"g18z6ue","c_root_id_B":"g191600","created_at_utc_A":1597261599,"created_at_utc_B":1597262517,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Antonio Damasio wrote about consciousness in many books from the biological perspective. He is a genius. -Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain -Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain Those are books that I can recommend.","human_ref_B":"Nobody\u2019s mentioned Kim\u2019s \u201cPhysicalism or Something Near Enough.\u201d This effectively settled the dualism\/eliminativism debates. I think other areas emerged in computational models as well as enactive\/embodied cognition. Others have explored more \u201cwild\u201d theories like extended mind and panpsychism, but my sense is they aren\u2019t taken terribly seriously.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":918.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"elginy","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are the problems of Stoicism?","c_root_id_A":"fdiaav0","c_root_id_B":"fdi5r1x","created_at_utc_A":1578438576,"created_at_utc_B":1578436217,"score_A":41,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"At the very beginning of his book, 'Beyond Good and Evil', Nietzsche tears down many philosophical viewpoints, including stoicism. He writes: You want to *live* 'according to nature'? O you noble Stoics, what fraudulent words! Think of a being such as nature is, prodigal beyond measure, indifferent beyond measure, without aims or intentions, without mercy or justice, at once faithful and barren and uncertain; think of indifference itself as a power - how *could* you live according to such indifference? To live - is that not precisely wanting to be other than this nature? Is living not valuating, preferring, being unjust, being limited, wanting to be different? And even if your imperative 'live according to nature' meant at bottom the same thing as 'live according to life' - how could you *not* do that? Why make a principle of what you yourselves are and must be?- The truth of it is, however, quite different: while you rapturously pose as deriving the canon of your law from nature, you want something quite the reverse of that, you strange actors and self-decievers! Your pride wants to prescribe your morality, your ideal, to nature, yes to nature itself, and incorporate them in it; you demand that nature should be nature 'according to the Stoa' and would like to make all existence exist only after your own image - as a tremendous eternal glorification and universalisation of Stoicism! All your love of truth notwithstanding, you have compelled yourselves for so long and with such persistence and hypnotic rigidity to view nature *falsely*, namely Stoically, you are no longer capable of viewing it in any other way - and some abysmal arrogance infects you at last with the Bedlamite hope that, *because* you know how to tyrannize over yourselves - Stoicism is self-tyranny - nature too can be tyrannized over: for is the Stoic not a *piece* of nature?... But this is and old never-ending story: what formerly happened with the Stoics still happens today as a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image, it cannot do anything otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical drive itself, the most spiritual will to power, to 'creation of the world', to *causa prima*","human_ref_B":"I think one of the biggest problems that Stoicism encounters is defining what \u201cnature\u201d or \u201cnatural\u201d actually is.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2359.0,"score_ratio":3.4166666667} +{"post_id":"elginy","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are the problems of Stoicism?","c_root_id_A":"fdj4pm5","c_root_id_B":"fdiunul","created_at_utc_A":1578458379,"created_at_utc_B":1578451428,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm not a philosopher or expert and can't say how right or wrong these other answers are. However a lot of them mention the word Nature. I think it is important to realize that when the stoics used this word it means something very different from what we usually mean today. Refer to: https:\/\/www.iep.utm.edu\/stoiceth\/ \"Thus at this level, \"living in agreement with nature\" means conforming one\u2019s will with the sequence of events that are fated to occur in the rationally constituted universe, as providentially willed by Zeus\" Please remove my post if this does not qualify as a valid answer\/post.","human_ref_B":"Stoicism allows that slavery is right, slaves should not revolt because their lot is natural. It is similar to utilitarian critiques.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6951.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"dmx7or","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How do I learn about Hegel without having to actually read him? Hegel's texts are famously difficult to understand, but are there any good secondary books which provide an introductory level explanation\/analysis of his ideas?","c_root_id_A":"f55uotd","c_root_id_B":"f55t1f3","created_at_utc_A":1572013993,"created_at_utc_B":1572013229,"score_A":85,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There are a couple issues which complicate the answer to this question. In a sense, it all depends on *which* Hegel you want to learn. One can certainly read secondary material which gives an intepretation of Hegel's project, but without any engagement with the primary source, you will be left largely unable to do 2 key things: (1) distinguish between better or worse interpretations and (2) thereby, determine when a disagreement you have with 'Hegel' is actually with him, or with an interpreter's idiosyncratic reading of him. While I believe it is generally worthwhile to engage with Hegel's primary source material, you may have specific reasons for your need to engage with Hegel that, given the difficulty of such study, make this a less valuable way to spend your time. For example, if you are really just interested in the influence of Hegel on French thought in the latter half of the 20th century, (e.g. because you want to just understand *those* projects more thoroughly), then you may not *absolutely* need to read Hegel directly -- (however, I would still of course personally recommend it.) The reason for this is that this influence was, by and large, shaped by the readings of Hegel developed by Kojeve and Hyppolite. Still, it might be argued that any adequate understanding of a philosophical project would include recognition of where that project's plausibility (or validity or whatever) depends on *mis*-understanding or only partially understanding some project to which it takes itself to respond. In that case, it may become worthwhile, yet again, to read the original texts of Hegel. Now, that's just one example, but hopefully it gives a sense of what I mean. There are many good introductory books on Hegel, but a number of them disagree on basic issues. As such, it might be helpful if you provided a little bit more context. As such, the first thing I might do is point you to the SEP article on Hegel, which gives both a rough summary of the comparatively uncontested understanding of Hegel's philosophy and a breakdown of some of the larger disagreements in the secondary literature. Likewise, it generally cites the figures to whom the major interpetative stances belong, so you can probably follow it's direction if one or the other sounds most relevant or compelling to you. I hope that helps!","human_ref_B":"I hope someone answers directly to your question. But I would like to mention that the man himself is worth reading, it depends on how you approach him. Many people suggest the Hegel\u2019s introductions book, which contains the introductions of his lectures. I do believe that\u2019s a great way to approach him (I didn\u2019t because there\u2019s no such book translated in my language). However, I did start with the *Lectures on the philosophy of history*. It is a great book and no so hard to read once you get involved with his reasoning. I do believe that reading his early writings, like the *Early theological writings* can help; I really liked the way he wrote it (not at all the very obscure Hegel he\u2019s known for). That said, to me helped a lot starting with the *Lectures on the philosophy of history*, you could read it entirely or just the introduction. I know I\u2019ll be reading that book again sometime after reading his *Phenomenology of Spirit*, *Science of Logic* and the *Encyclopedia*. Also, reading besides the main texts entries on SEP and\/or IEP really helps. From time to time I searched various Hegel\u2019s \u201cdictionaries\u201d to see how the general consensus on his concepts are. Also read papers about specific things that I didn\u2019t got clear from the man himself. Reading what history of philosophy books tell about him and his work also helps. And let\u2019s not forget to be familiarized with the philosophical context he was in. The project that Kant started and what he kinda wanted to accomplish with his system.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":764.0,"score_ratio":28.3333333333} +{"post_id":"dmx7or","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How do I learn about Hegel without having to actually read him? Hegel's texts are famously difficult to understand, but are there any good secondary books which provide an introductory level explanation\/analysis of his ideas?","c_root_id_A":"f55t1f3","c_root_id_B":"f562onq","created_at_utc_A":1572013229,"created_at_utc_B":1572017645,"score_A":3,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I hope someone answers directly to your question. But I would like to mention that the man himself is worth reading, it depends on how you approach him. Many people suggest the Hegel\u2019s introductions book, which contains the introductions of his lectures. I do believe that\u2019s a great way to approach him (I didn\u2019t because there\u2019s no such book translated in my language). However, I did start with the *Lectures on the philosophy of history*. It is a great book and no so hard to read once you get involved with his reasoning. I do believe that reading his early writings, like the *Early theological writings* can help; I really liked the way he wrote it (not at all the very obscure Hegel he\u2019s known for). That said, to me helped a lot starting with the *Lectures on the philosophy of history*, you could read it entirely or just the introduction. I know I\u2019ll be reading that book again sometime after reading his *Phenomenology of Spirit*, *Science of Logic* and the *Encyclopedia*. Also, reading besides the main texts entries on SEP and\/or IEP really helps. From time to time I searched various Hegel\u2019s \u201cdictionaries\u201d to see how the general consensus on his concepts are. Also read papers about specific things that I didn\u2019t got clear from the man himself. Reading what history of philosophy books tell about him and his work also helps. And let\u2019s not forget to be familiarized with the philosophical context he was in. The project that Kant started and what he kinda wanted to accomplish with his system.","human_ref_B":"Gregory Sadler has a video series on Hegel where he basically goes through the primary texts paragraph by paragraph while explaining their meaning and context.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4416.0,"score_ratio":9.6666666667} +{"post_id":"dmx7or","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How do I learn about Hegel without having to actually read him? Hegel's texts are famously difficult to understand, but are there any good secondary books which provide an introductory level explanation\/analysis of his ideas?","c_root_id_A":"f57071d","c_root_id_B":"f55t1f3","created_at_utc_A":1572029829,"created_at_utc_B":1572013229,"score_A":12,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"* Stephen Houlgate, *An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History* * Stephen Houlgate, *Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: A Reader's Guide* * Stephen Houlgate, *The Opening of Hegel's Logic: From Being to Infinity* * Jean Hyppolite, *Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit* * W.T. Stace, *The Philosophy of Hegel* * Terry Pinkard, *German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism* * Frederick Beiser, *German Idealism: The Struggle against Subjectivism, 1781\u20131801* (doesn't go into Hegel but gives you an understanding of German philosophy leading up to him)","human_ref_B":"I hope someone answers directly to your question. But I would like to mention that the man himself is worth reading, it depends on how you approach him. Many people suggest the Hegel\u2019s introductions book, which contains the introductions of his lectures. I do believe that\u2019s a great way to approach him (I didn\u2019t because there\u2019s no such book translated in my language). However, I did start with the *Lectures on the philosophy of history*. It is a great book and no so hard to read once you get involved with his reasoning. I do believe that reading his early writings, like the *Early theological writings* can help; I really liked the way he wrote it (not at all the very obscure Hegel he\u2019s known for). That said, to me helped a lot starting with the *Lectures on the philosophy of history*, you could read it entirely or just the introduction. I know I\u2019ll be reading that book again sometime after reading his *Phenomenology of Spirit*, *Science of Logic* and the *Encyclopedia*. Also, reading besides the main texts entries on SEP and\/or IEP really helps. From time to time I searched various Hegel\u2019s \u201cdictionaries\u201d to see how the general consensus on his concepts are. Also read papers about specific things that I didn\u2019t got clear from the man himself. Reading what history of philosophy books tell about him and his work also helps. And let\u2019s not forget to be familiarized with the philosophical context he was in. The project that Kant started and what he kinda wanted to accomplish with his system.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16600.0,"score_ratio":4.0} +{"post_id":"dmx7or","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How do I learn about Hegel without having to actually read him? Hegel's texts are famously difficult to understand, but are there any good secondary books which provide an introductory level explanation\/analysis of his ideas?","c_root_id_A":"f55t1f3","c_root_id_B":"f579lhs","created_at_utc_A":1572013229,"created_at_utc_B":1572033205,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I hope someone answers directly to your question. But I would like to mention that the man himself is worth reading, it depends on how you approach him. Many people suggest the Hegel\u2019s introductions book, which contains the introductions of his lectures. I do believe that\u2019s a great way to approach him (I didn\u2019t because there\u2019s no such book translated in my language). However, I did start with the *Lectures on the philosophy of history*. It is a great book and no so hard to read once you get involved with his reasoning. I do believe that reading his early writings, like the *Early theological writings* can help; I really liked the way he wrote it (not at all the very obscure Hegel he\u2019s known for). That said, to me helped a lot starting with the *Lectures on the philosophy of history*, you could read it entirely or just the introduction. I know I\u2019ll be reading that book again sometime after reading his *Phenomenology of Spirit*, *Science of Logic* and the *Encyclopedia*. Also, reading besides the main texts entries on SEP and\/or IEP really helps. From time to time I searched various Hegel\u2019s \u201cdictionaries\u201d to see how the general consensus on his concepts are. Also read papers about specific things that I didn\u2019t got clear from the man himself. Reading what history of philosophy books tell about him and his work also helps. And let\u2019s not forget to be familiarized with the philosophical context he was in. The project that Kant started and what he kinda wanted to accomplish with his system.","human_ref_B":"Here is a great blog post on this topic which recommends that you ONLY read tertiary literature on Hegel: How To Fake Your Way Through Hegel.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19976.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix4ktjn","c_root_id_B":"ix4ehjz","created_at_utc_A":1668969231,"created_at_utc_B":1668966718,"score_A":53,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"The 1929 debate between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger is very influential in the continental tradition.","human_ref_B":"Plato's Republic is basically this.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2513.0,"score_ratio":6.625} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix5cgi0","c_root_id_B":"ix4parn","created_at_utc_A":1668980143,"created_at_utc_B":1668970980,"score_A":35,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Professional philosophers, who study and engage in written argumentation for a living, don\u2019t seem to verbally debate often anymore, and I certainly understand why. The written argument and response in a peer reviewed journal is far superior to making off the cuff remarks in a verbal back and forth. It can be fun though. Zizek exposing how much not a philosopher Jordan Peterson was is an entertaining recent example. To answer your question though: Dugin, Fukuyama, and Krastev had a pretty good debate on political philosophy and politics in 2015. Some of what they discuss is being played out today in the conflict between Western powers and Russia over the Ukraine. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wIiKiDnMSFw","human_ref_B":"Between Bertrand Russell and fredrich copelston on god","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9163.0,"score_ratio":2.6923076923} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix554ia","c_root_id_B":"ix5cgi0","created_at_utc_A":1668977227,"created_at_utc_B":1668980143,"score_A":8,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"There are also back-and-forths between Levinas and Derrida who argued about things like the concept of God and the act of philosophizing. It wasn't recorded though and spans books\/essays.","human_ref_B":"Professional philosophers, who study and engage in written argumentation for a living, don\u2019t seem to verbally debate often anymore, and I certainly understand why. The written argument and response in a peer reviewed journal is far superior to making off the cuff remarks in a verbal back and forth. It can be fun though. Zizek exposing how much not a philosopher Jordan Peterson was is an entertaining recent example. To answer your question though: Dugin, Fukuyama, and Krastev had a pretty good debate on political philosophy and politics in 2015. Some of what they discuss is being played out today in the conflict between Western powers and Russia over the Ukraine. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wIiKiDnMSFw","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2916.0,"score_ratio":4.375} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix4ehjz","c_root_id_B":"ix5cgi0","created_at_utc_A":1668966718,"created_at_utc_B":1668980143,"score_A":8,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"Plato's Republic is basically this.","human_ref_B":"Professional philosophers, who study and engage in written argumentation for a living, don\u2019t seem to verbally debate often anymore, and I certainly understand why. The written argument and response in a peer reviewed journal is far superior to making off the cuff remarks in a verbal back and forth. It can be fun though. Zizek exposing how much not a philosopher Jordan Peterson was is an entertaining recent example. To answer your question though: Dugin, Fukuyama, and Krastev had a pretty good debate on political philosophy and politics in 2015. Some of what they discuss is being played out today in the conflict between Western powers and Russia over the Ukraine. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wIiKiDnMSFw","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13425.0,"score_ratio":4.375} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix4s2pj","c_root_id_B":"ix5cgi0","created_at_utc_A":1668972075,"created_at_utc_B":1668980143,"score_A":8,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"The platonic corpus in a nutshell","human_ref_B":"Professional philosophers, who study and engage in written argumentation for a living, don\u2019t seem to verbally debate often anymore, and I certainly understand why. The written argument and response in a peer reviewed journal is far superior to making off the cuff remarks in a verbal back and forth. It can be fun though. Zizek exposing how much not a philosopher Jordan Peterson was is an entertaining recent example. To answer your question though: Dugin, Fukuyama, and Krastev had a pretty good debate on political philosophy and politics in 2015. Some of what they discuss is being played out today in the conflict between Western powers and Russia over the Ukraine. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wIiKiDnMSFw","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8068.0,"score_ratio":4.375} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix5l6bv","c_root_id_B":"ix5yak9","created_at_utc_A":1668983874,"created_at_utc_B":1668989682,"score_A":17,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Foucault and Habermas is another: https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Foucault\u2013Habermas_debate","human_ref_B":"It doesn\u2019t deal with philosophy specifically, but the debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley is fascinating to me. The subject is whether or not the American dream has come at the expense of African Americans. Baldwin is incredibly patient, thoughtful, and empathetic, whereas Buckley is basically a cartoon villain aristocrat.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5808.0,"score_ratio":1.7058823529} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix4parn","c_root_id_B":"ix5yak9","created_at_utc_A":1668970980,"created_at_utc_B":1668989682,"score_A":13,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Between Bertrand Russell and fredrich copelston on god","human_ref_B":"It doesn\u2019t deal with philosophy specifically, but the debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley is fascinating to me. The subject is whether or not the American dream has come at the expense of African Americans. Baldwin is incredibly patient, thoughtful, and empathetic, whereas Buckley is basically a cartoon villain aristocrat.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18702.0,"score_ratio":2.2307692308} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix5yak9","c_root_id_B":"ix5sbpo","created_at_utc_A":1668989682,"created_at_utc_B":1668986998,"score_A":29,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"It doesn\u2019t deal with philosophy specifically, but the debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley is fascinating to me. The subject is whether or not the American dream has come at the expense of African Americans. Baldwin is incredibly patient, thoughtful, and empathetic, whereas Buckley is basically a cartoon villain aristocrat.","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein and Popper (and the poker)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2684.0,"score_ratio":2.9} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix554ia","c_root_id_B":"ix5yak9","created_at_utc_A":1668977227,"created_at_utc_B":1668989682,"score_A":8,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"There are also back-and-forths between Levinas and Derrida who argued about things like the concept of God and the act of philosophizing. It wasn't recorded though and spans books\/essays.","human_ref_B":"It doesn\u2019t deal with philosophy specifically, but the debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley is fascinating to me. The subject is whether or not the American dream has come at the expense of African Americans. Baldwin is incredibly patient, thoughtful, and empathetic, whereas Buckley is basically a cartoon villain aristocrat.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12455.0,"score_ratio":3.625} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix5yak9","c_root_id_B":"ix4ehjz","created_at_utc_A":1668989682,"created_at_utc_B":1668966718,"score_A":29,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"It doesn\u2019t deal with philosophy specifically, but the debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley is fascinating to me. The subject is whether or not the American dream has come at the expense of African Americans. Baldwin is incredibly patient, thoughtful, and empathetic, whereas Buckley is basically a cartoon villain aristocrat.","human_ref_B":"Plato's Republic is basically this.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22964.0,"score_ratio":3.625} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix4s2pj","c_root_id_B":"ix5yak9","created_at_utc_A":1668972075,"created_at_utc_B":1668989682,"score_A":8,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"The platonic corpus in a nutshell","human_ref_B":"It doesn\u2019t deal with philosophy specifically, but the debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley is fascinating to me. The subject is whether or not the American dream has come at the expense of African Americans. Baldwin is incredibly patient, thoughtful, and empathetic, whereas Buckley is basically a cartoon villain aristocrat.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17607.0,"score_ratio":3.625} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix5l6bv","c_root_id_B":"ix4parn","created_at_utc_A":1668983874,"created_at_utc_B":1668970980,"score_A":17,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Foucault and Habermas is another: https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Foucault\u2013Habermas_debate","human_ref_B":"Between Bertrand Russell and fredrich copelston on god","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12894.0,"score_ratio":1.3076923077} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix5l6bv","c_root_id_B":"ix554ia","created_at_utc_A":1668983874,"created_at_utc_B":1668977227,"score_A":17,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Foucault and Habermas is another: https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Foucault\u2013Habermas_debate","human_ref_B":"There are also back-and-forths between Levinas and Derrida who argued about things like the concept of God and the act of philosophizing. It wasn't recorded though and spans books\/essays.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6647.0,"score_ratio":2.125} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix5l6bv","c_root_id_B":"ix4ehjz","created_at_utc_A":1668983874,"created_at_utc_B":1668966718,"score_A":17,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Foucault and Habermas is another: https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Foucault\u2013Habermas_debate","human_ref_B":"Plato's Republic is basically this.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17156.0,"score_ratio":2.125} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix4s2pj","c_root_id_B":"ix5l6bv","created_at_utc_A":1668972075,"created_at_utc_B":1668983874,"score_A":8,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"The platonic corpus in a nutshell","human_ref_B":"Foucault and Habermas is another: https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Foucault\u2013Habermas_debate","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11799.0,"score_ratio":2.125} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix4parn","c_root_id_B":"ix4ehjz","created_at_utc_A":1668970980,"created_at_utc_B":1668966718,"score_A":13,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Between Bertrand Russell and fredrich copelston on god","human_ref_B":"Plato's Republic is basically this.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4262.0,"score_ratio":1.625} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix554ia","c_root_id_B":"ix5sbpo","created_at_utc_A":1668977227,"created_at_utc_B":1668986998,"score_A":8,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"There are also back-and-forths between Levinas and Derrida who argued about things like the concept of God and the act of philosophizing. It wasn't recorded though and spans books\/essays.","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein and Popper (and the poker)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9771.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix4ehjz","c_root_id_B":"ix5sbpo","created_at_utc_A":1668966718,"created_at_utc_B":1668986998,"score_A":8,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Plato's Republic is basically this.","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein and Popper (and the poker)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20280.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"z08eq2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any other epic debates between philosophers like the famous talk between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky? I'd like to watch\/listen to something similar. It would be preferable if it is on Youtube.","c_root_id_A":"ix4s2pj","c_root_id_B":"ix5sbpo","created_at_utc_A":1668972075,"created_at_utc_B":1668986998,"score_A":8,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"The platonic corpus in a nutshell","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein and Popper (and the poker)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14923.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"d4t1gv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"If we live in a deterministic universe, free will is impossible. I've looked into compatibilism and it's either a dazzling evasion or I just don't get it. What am I missing?","c_root_id_A":"f0g6tcd","c_root_id_B":"f0g5rlg","created_at_utc_A":1568594617,"created_at_utc_B":1568594122,"score_A":136,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"The short story is that compatibilism denies this: > If we live in a deterministic universe, free will is impossible. So, the argument between Hard Determinists and Compatibilists is about the necessary conditions for Free Will. Some people think this is a cheap semantic move or something evasive, but it isn't - it's a conceptual argument about how the burden of Free Will should be understood. Imagine someone came up to you and said, \"Hey - did you know that you can *never* make a good decision because you can *never* know what will happen with absolute certainty?\" Most people would say, \"Well, no kidding I can't know what's going to happen, but that isn't a very good way to define a \"good decision.\" That's a useless and unhelpful way to think about decision making, especially good decisions in comparison to bad decisions.\" This isn't a trivial game of word golf here - this is a substantive dispute about how we should think about what it means to make a \"good decision.\" Importantly, there isn't some rock somewhere that we turn over which has this definition printed on it. \"Free Will\" is the same way. We might first ask what the concept is supposed to do. One thing it is often thought to do is be a necessary condition for moral responsibility. That is, I can't be blamed for what I do if I had no control over what I'm doing. Once we can agree on that much (that Free Will is the thing you'd need to be morally responsible), then it should become clear that it's not obvious that libertarian free will (the kind of free will which determinism would deny - the weird freedom from causality) is necessary for moral responsibility. As a result, there have been lots of theories of moral responsibility which accept determinism going back, at least, to the ancient stoics (who developed a pretty famous ethical system and were causal determinists). In sum - it's hard to know what you do or don't \"get,\" but it may just be that you have found yourself in that spot that a lot of first-time readers of compatibilism have found themselves in - thinking that the compatibilist is trying to pull a fast one or something. That's not what's happening. If anything, it's the Hard Determinists who are doing this, by trying to claim the necessary conditions for Free Will were decided already in a way which can't be contested. This is nonsense. Abstract and material terms are subject to contest and revision. If they weren't, then the Hard Determinists couldn't avail themselves of a modern definition of causality. ETA - My above analogy seems to have been helpful, but also a bit misleading. So, to clarify a part of my analogy: > Most people would say, \"Well, no kidding I can't know what's going to happen, but that isn't a very good way to define a \"good decision.\" That's a *useless* and unhelpful way to think about decision making, especially good decisions in comparison to bad decisions.\" Some folks have seized on one clause in this hypothetical, but, really, I didn't mean it to be terribly important. Really the argument here is about a *good* definition for Free Will. (To be fair, I do also think that important concepts need some kind of utility.) The argument between my two imagined persons is about the *better* way to think about a particular concept. I avoid saying \"right\" or \"accurate\" here to avoid some other conceptual problems, though I think it's all the same thing. Anyway, imagine an alternate situation instead from the point of view of the libertarian. Say that the libertarian meets a person who declares, \"We have no free will!\" The Libertarian says, \"Oh, yes! I agree! But, just in case, why do you think this?\" The interlocutor says, \"Oh, well, having free will requires that I can do what I want. I want to fly. I cannot fly. Therefore, I cannot do what I want to do. Therefore, I don't have free will.\" Whatever we can say about Libertarians, they don't believe *this*. Clearly the Libertarian disagrees with this interlocutor. Wherein lies the disagreement? Probably the Libertarian will say this, \"No - I think you're a bit confused about what it might mean to 'do what you want' or else you're just confused about what having Free Will entails.\" (Also, by the way, might not the Libertarian point out that this is a very silly way to think about Free Will given that everyone knows before the conversation starts that humans can't will themselves into flight? This interlocutor has defined and ended the argument before it started.) Anyway, here, the Libertarian would not be engaging in some semantic mumbo jumbo by trying to show this person that they've conceived of things wrongly. If the Libertarian's response to this interlocutor is mumbo jumbo, then what does their own position even amount to? Neither party of this dispute can turn over a rock to see who wins - they'll need to give some arguments for thinking that Free Will requires [x] or [y] - regardless of whether or not is *exists*. As others have pointed out below, people have some kind of conception of Free Will and what matters about it, but this doesn't mean that all of those conceptions make sense or are equally good or, if you're willing, are *true*. When we ask people what they think about Free Will, we learn *something*, but we don't obviously learn something about Free Will *itself*. In the same way, we could ask people on the street what Time is and not learning anything about Time *itself*. Here too, there is no easy rock to look under to find out what Time *is* (or else the A vs B debate would be long dead). Or, if you don't buy this analogy, consider that folk definitions of Free Will almost always rely on a notion of Causation, and yet folk notions of Causation are often totally at odds with even what scientists think causation is like (much less philosophers). Anyway, all I meant to do above is show one way to see how the argument between Hard Determinists and Compatibilists is something other than word golf or semantics. And, to be really clear, philosophers who are divided about this are not confused here - folks in all the camps about Free Will give rather sustained arguments for their positions and understand this to be totally necessary to making their position justifiable - even the libertarians and hard determinists. As a final amendment, some folks have suggested that what Compatibilists are doing is making a \"new\" definition for Free Will. This also isn't true, since Compatibilist arguments go back *at least* to the Ancient Greek Stoics. If that counts as \"new,\" well, then *everything* about modern hard determinism, unless, of course, Hard Determinists are using a theory of physical causation, the soul, and human motivation derived from Aristotle. (Some do this, of course!)","human_ref_B":"Probably you are missing either the compelling arguments for compatibilism, or the features that make them compelling. What articles or books about compatibilism have you read?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":495.0,"score_ratio":7.5555555556} +{"post_id":"d4t1gv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"If we live in a deterministic universe, free will is impossible. I've looked into compatibilism and it's either a dazzling evasion or I just don't get it. What am I missing?","c_root_id_A":"f0g5rlg","c_root_id_B":"f0git1y","created_at_utc_A":1568594122,"created_at_utc_B":1568600368,"score_A":18,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Probably you are missing either the compelling arguments for compatibilism, or the features that make them compelling. What articles or books about compatibilism have you read?","human_ref_B":"> I just don't get it. What am I missing? I think if you made some effort to describe what your thought process is here, people would be better positioned to suggest what it might be missing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6246.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"d4t1gv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"If we live in a deterministic universe, free will is impossible. I've looked into compatibilism and it's either a dazzling evasion or I just don't get it. What am I missing?","c_root_id_A":"f0ghdy6","c_root_id_B":"f0git1y","created_at_utc_A":1568599680,"created_at_utc_B":1568600368,"score_A":2,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Probably when you think of \"free will\", you are thinking of what philosophers call \"libertarian free will.\" What you are missing is that the notion of \"libertarian free will\" might be, on close examination, an incoherent concept. If that is the case, then the compatibilist isn't shifting the goal posts by providing a definition that is not incoherent. If you want to fret over *libertarian* free will not existing in a deterministic universe, I think you can still do so, even if you accept the compatibilist notion of free will. But it may be that even in an indeterministic universe there is no coherent sense in which libertarian free will is a real possibility.","human_ref_B":"> I just don't get it. What am I missing? I think if you made some effort to describe what your thought process is here, people would be better positioned to suggest what it might be missing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":688.0,"score_ratio":10.5} +{"post_id":"d4t1gv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"If we live in a deterministic universe, free will is impossible. I've looked into compatibilism and it's either a dazzling evasion or I just don't get it. What am I missing?","c_root_id_A":"f0he6y8","c_root_id_B":"f0ghdy6","created_at_utc_A":1568619568,"created_at_utc_B":1568599680,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This reply to an old thread I found a long time ago by \/u\/Mooreat11, when I was googling this exact question, is the most compelling explanation of compatibilist free will to me and has changed me from a bit of a die hard determinist to more of a compatibilist, though I'm still unsure. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/2jwnbr\/what_makes_free_will_free_to_the_compatibilist\/clfrgem Particularly the 3rd comment in that chain.","human_ref_B":"Probably when you think of \"free will\", you are thinking of what philosophers call \"libertarian free will.\" What you are missing is that the notion of \"libertarian free will\" might be, on close examination, an incoherent concept. If that is the case, then the compatibilist isn't shifting the goal posts by providing a definition that is not incoherent. If you want to fret over *libertarian* free will not existing in a deterministic universe, I think you can still do so, even if you accept the compatibilist notion of free will. But it may be that even in an indeterministic universe there is no coherent sense in which libertarian free will is a real possibility.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19888.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"d4t1gv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"If we live in a deterministic universe, free will is impossible. I've looked into compatibilism and it's either a dazzling evasion or I just don't get it. What am I missing?","c_root_id_A":"f0he6y8","c_root_id_B":"f0gs7aj","created_at_utc_A":1568619568,"created_at_utc_B":1568605186,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This reply to an old thread I found a long time ago by \/u\/Mooreat11, when I was googling this exact question, is the most compelling explanation of compatibilist free will to me and has changed me from a bit of a die hard determinist to more of a compatibilist, though I'm still unsure. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/2jwnbr\/what_makes_free_will_free_to_the_compatibilist\/clfrgem Particularly the 3rd comment in that chain.","human_ref_B":"When is the last time joe determinism prevented you from doing something you wanted to do?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14382.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"f2yasa","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What does Nietzsche mean by \"even now, man is more monkey than any monkey\"? In *Thus spoke Zarathustra*, this quote appears. Is it just a polemic to ridicule human life, or is there a deeper meaning?","c_root_id_A":"fhflcr2","c_root_id_B":"fhg8uci","created_at_utc_A":1581545745,"created_at_utc_B":1581561244,"score_A":7,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Broader context?","human_ref_B":"If you consider the intellectual gap in \u201copportunity to think\u201d between humans and monkeys, mankind commits a worse \u201csin\u201d in still reverting to \u201cape-ness\u201d in a condition wherein they could act as a god (relative to monkeys). And from human perspective, the monkey is a monkey because he behaves as a monkey. The key difference is that we literally \u201cact\u201d like monkeys, like an actor playing a role. But the \u201cacting\u201d implies we have an ability to orchestrate our meta-behaviors, whereas the monkeys are simply being. Monkeys have a \u201cgoal\u201d driven by Darwinian narratives, yet we humans have no real goal when considering the power we have to create goals. I suppose an analogy would be the Tortoise and the Hare. Both are racers, but the Hare seems to be less of one because he has such great ability and is bound only by desires, but no real motivation to win. Whereas the Tortoise is confined by ability, and has an unsophisticated goal of finishing the race.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15499.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} +{"post_id":"gzflpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Hell is Other People When Jean-Paul Sartre says \"Hell is Other People\", what does he mean? I understand it's taken from his play No Exit, but what exactly does it mean given its context? Does it just mean other people spoil everything, but that doesn't seem like something he would say as he has a humanist view of the world?","c_root_id_A":"ftgue7x","c_root_id_B":"fthziv3","created_at_utc_A":1591703688,"created_at_utc_B":1591725736,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"This video should help! The YouTube channel as a whole is a great and offers a sort of crash course, cartoonish approach to philosophical topics. \u201cHell is Other People\u201d - Sisyphus 55 https:\/\/youtu.be\/hEg2gOOqBj0","human_ref_B":"Neither Tycho nor \/u\/Redpuppet11 have given a fully helpful answer here. Certainly Tycho is right that, in the first instance, this is a quote from a piece of fiction and, in a certain sense, Tycho is right that *from Garcin's view* the meaning of the line is rather thin because, frankly, Garcin is a vicious garbage person. When Garcin says this, he is making a dramatic observation about what it means to be in hell. It's an a-ha moment. Oh, wait, I get it - hell *just is being here with others like you two*. In particular, Garcin is being psychologically tortured by his reliance on the rather unreliable Estelle for freedom from his guilt, and all the while he is thwarted by In\u00e8z's mocking (which, really, is just saying what Garcin already knows). Certainly Redpuppet11 is right that what is going on in the play is related to Sartre's concept of \"the look\" and the way in which we find ourselves objectified by the mere idea of being held by a gaze. Because of this, we are able to imagine ourselves as being looked at and, in turn, observed, judged, etc. Thankfully, Sartre himself has a nice answer to this question: > I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell. Why? Because. . . when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, . . . we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves. Into whatever I say about myself someone else\u2019s judgment always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else\u2019s judgment enters. . . In the play, a big deal is made about the fact that there are two things missing from Hell: (1) eyelids and (2) mirrors. Well, the connection is pretty blunt - the only way to see yourself in hell is through the eyes of others. Our sense of ourselves is always already mediated by \"the look.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22048.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"at5go3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What's the deal with Nietzsche and women? In *Human, all too Human* he says contradictory passages. He mentions that there can be women of free spirit, but before that he says how incapable women are. He also mentions that women will eventually \"inherit all of men's traits\", but he also mentions the chaos that comes when women emancipate. And, of course, \"the best woman is better than the best man\". In *The Gay Science* he mentions how dumb it is to expect women to be chaste before being wed, and then sexual demons after that. In *Beyond Good and Evil* he suddenly starts throwing shit at them out of the left field, even saying that \"profound men\" should \"own women\" (238), but he also says that women are good at lies, manipulation and ignorance of truth (232, and this is probably a compliment in this context). In 234 he also says that women being bad at the kitchen is what has held humanity back, though I'm not sure if this a parable or not. From reading his books, it seems undeniable that Nietzsche was sexist, though it's hard to say if he wanted women to emancipate and was warning to its difficulties, that it was a social norm that was unbreakable, or that he thought that women were intrinsically worse than men in what he was interested in, and he thought that was okay. Also, I read in an article that he was actually in favor of women studying higher studies when he was a professor (uncommon at the time) and that he was good friends with some feminist women. So, what's going on here? Is this guy just confused about women?","c_root_id_A":"egyuvec","c_root_id_B":"egz0vwd","created_at_utc_A":1550771418,"created_at_utc_B":1550775379,"score_A":3,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Here's a counterquestion: If we acknowledge that Nietzsche operates in some capacity with the terms \"woman\" and \"man\", what would we gain from instead looking at examples of the useage of both (either in interplay or separately), rather than focusing on one of them? And also, how do they appear in comparison to other dichotomistic terms, or simply terms of importance in general?","human_ref_B":"Instead of doing a close reading of the paragraphs you just mentioned (which cannot be done within this context), I would rather ask myself, why something that Nietzsche wrote about women (as part of his philosophical prose) should tell us anything about his own sentiments. You will find will find passages that seem extremely misogynistic (at first glance) and some that don't. Even in the *Gay Science* you will find aphorisms that contradict any supposedly misogynistic tendencies (take aphorism 71 for example). Take *Thus spoke Zarathustra* and the famous passage about the whip (ZA I, 18. Old and Young Women). People take that to be the unmistakable proof that Nietzsche hated women and encourages to hit them with the whip. If we look at the context though, we find that the quote is from a passage where Zarathustra meets an old woman that asks him to talk about women with her. He does so, reluctantly (because in his opinion one should only talk about women in front of men), and says some remarkably misogynistic stuff. The last word though has the old woman who tells him: \"Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip!\"\u2014 This leaves us with several questions: (1) why should we believe Zarathustra in his misogynistic tirade? (2) Does the old woman by saying he should take the whip when he goes to women make fun of Zarathustra? (3) What, or rather: for whom, is the whip for? The above mentioned passage also includes the line: \"Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one answer\u2014it is called pregnancy.\" spoken by Zarathustra which is a direct quote by Schopenhauer. Since Zarathustra is a really ridiculous person, Nietzsche, by having him quote Schopenhauer, also ridicules Schopenhauer's sexism. I do agree though, that Nietzsche is a very tough read and that if you don't like authors that write stuff that is contradicting and seems obscure or confused, you might not have very much fun with him. Reading Nietzsche also mostly tells you more about yourself than about Nietzsche (broadly speaking: if people read Nietzsche and take him to be the first neckbeard or a massive misogynist or a quasi-nazi they only show that they haven't read carefully enough and are satisfied with superficial and easy interpretations). You can of course take everything literally and say that Nietzsche hated women, developed a proto-racist ideology with his \u00dcbermensch and disliked Jews, Christians, the English etc. but that would be either intellectually disingenuous or a really bad interpretation (or both). ​","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3961.0,"score_ratio":6.3333333333} +{"post_id":"at5go3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What's the deal with Nietzsche and women? In *Human, all too Human* he says contradictory passages. He mentions that there can be women of free spirit, but before that he says how incapable women are. He also mentions that women will eventually \"inherit all of men's traits\", but he also mentions the chaos that comes when women emancipate. And, of course, \"the best woman is better than the best man\". In *The Gay Science* he mentions how dumb it is to expect women to be chaste before being wed, and then sexual demons after that. In *Beyond Good and Evil* he suddenly starts throwing shit at them out of the left field, even saying that \"profound men\" should \"own women\" (238), but he also says that women are good at lies, manipulation and ignorance of truth (232, and this is probably a compliment in this context). In 234 he also says that women being bad at the kitchen is what has held humanity back, though I'm not sure if this a parable or not. From reading his books, it seems undeniable that Nietzsche was sexist, though it's hard to say if he wanted women to emancipate and was warning to its difficulties, that it was a social norm that was unbreakable, or that he thought that women were intrinsically worse than men in what he was interested in, and he thought that was okay. Also, I read in an article that he was actually in favor of women studying higher studies when he was a professor (uncommon at the time) and that he was good friends with some feminist women. So, what's going on here? Is this guy just confused about women?","c_root_id_A":"egzlwiu","c_root_id_B":"egyuvec","created_at_utc_A":1550789568,"created_at_utc_B":1550771418,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think it\u2019s also worth while to consider the Preface in Beyond Good and Evil. There is much interplay between Nietzsche\u2019s texts. Obviously, language plays a huge role in his philosophy and it being an \u201carmy of metaphors\/metonyms\/anthropomorphisms\u201d, etc. Anyway, in the Preface of BGaE, he asks us to imagine that Truth were a woman and that no philosophers have fully understood what Truth is because philosophers are just as awkward with the concept of Truth as they are with actual women. I think it\u2019s also important to realize Nietzsche was a philologist as well. He had a strong command of the Greek language and plays off of his knowledge of philology as well. Truth being a feminine noun in both German and Ancient Greek, it leaves much to the imagination here. It may be a stretch, but maybe it would be worth while to interpret when Nietzsche uses women in his texts to also interpret woman as Truth. Some passages make this seem like an impossibility though, so who knows? But an interesting thought experiment nonetheless.","human_ref_B":"Here's a counterquestion: If we acknowledge that Nietzsche operates in some capacity with the terms \"woman\" and \"man\", what would we gain from instead looking at examples of the useage of both (either in interplay or separately), rather than focusing on one of them? And also, how do they appear in comparison to other dichotomistic terms, or simply terms of importance in general?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18150.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"at5go3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What's the deal with Nietzsche and women? In *Human, all too Human* he says contradictory passages. He mentions that there can be women of free spirit, but before that he says how incapable women are. He also mentions that women will eventually \"inherit all of men's traits\", but he also mentions the chaos that comes when women emancipate. And, of course, \"the best woman is better than the best man\". In *The Gay Science* he mentions how dumb it is to expect women to be chaste before being wed, and then sexual demons after that. In *Beyond Good and Evil* he suddenly starts throwing shit at them out of the left field, even saying that \"profound men\" should \"own women\" (238), but he also says that women are good at lies, manipulation and ignorance of truth (232, and this is probably a compliment in this context). In 234 he also says that women being bad at the kitchen is what has held humanity back, though I'm not sure if this a parable or not. From reading his books, it seems undeniable that Nietzsche was sexist, though it's hard to say if he wanted women to emancipate and was warning to its difficulties, that it was a social norm that was unbreakable, or that he thought that women were intrinsically worse than men in what he was interested in, and he thought that was okay. Also, I read in an article that he was actually in favor of women studying higher studies when he was a professor (uncommon at the time) and that he was good friends with some feminist women. So, what's going on here? Is this guy just confused about women?","c_root_id_A":"egzzm74","c_root_id_B":"egyuvec","created_at_utc_A":1550799959,"created_at_utc_B":1550771418,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche often expresses his ideas indirectly or figuratively, employing rhetorical techniques that we wouldn\u2019t normally find in more academic philosophical writing (where the goal is maximum clarity). So there are quite a few moments in Nietzsche\u2019s works where he comes across as a bit of a provocateur (or an edgelord, as we might say these days), and his comments cannot be taken at face value in those instances. Given Nietzsche\u2019s goal of prompting us to question our assumptions and established belief systems, it is likely that Nietzsche\u2019s remarks on women (which often sound a bit facetious) are not meant to be read as direct reflections of his actual views. Nietzsche\u2019s friendship with Lou Andreas-Salom\u00e9 lends credence to the idea that he did see women as capable of intellectual achievement, and other remarks from women he knew suggest that he had a positive attitude towards them, at least on an individual basis. Of course, as someone living in the 19th century, it is probable that he viewed men and women as having different essential natures; not necessarily that one is better than the other, but that they tend towards different talents and ways of living and self-expression.","human_ref_B":"Here's a counterquestion: If we acknowledge that Nietzsche operates in some capacity with the terms \"woman\" and \"man\", what would we gain from instead looking at examples of the useage of both (either in interplay or separately), rather than focusing on one of them? And also, how do they appear in comparison to other dichotomistic terms, or simply terms of importance in general?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28541.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"at5go3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What's the deal with Nietzsche and women? In *Human, all too Human* he says contradictory passages. He mentions that there can be women of free spirit, but before that he says how incapable women are. He also mentions that women will eventually \"inherit all of men's traits\", but he also mentions the chaos that comes when women emancipate. And, of course, \"the best woman is better than the best man\". In *The Gay Science* he mentions how dumb it is to expect women to be chaste before being wed, and then sexual demons after that. In *Beyond Good and Evil* he suddenly starts throwing shit at them out of the left field, even saying that \"profound men\" should \"own women\" (238), but he also says that women are good at lies, manipulation and ignorance of truth (232, and this is probably a compliment in this context). In 234 he also says that women being bad at the kitchen is what has held humanity back, though I'm not sure if this a parable or not. From reading his books, it seems undeniable that Nietzsche was sexist, though it's hard to say if he wanted women to emancipate and was warning to its difficulties, that it was a social norm that was unbreakable, or that he thought that women were intrinsically worse than men in what he was interested in, and he thought that was okay. Also, I read in an article that he was actually in favor of women studying higher studies when he was a professor (uncommon at the time) and that he was good friends with some feminist women. So, what's going on here? Is this guy just confused about women?","c_root_id_A":"eh0el86","c_root_id_B":"egyuvec","created_at_utc_A":1550812262,"created_at_utc_B":1550771418,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"My personal reading of Nietzsche on women is that he thought women as they existed were **superior** to men, and that female emancipation would bring women **down** to the level of being stupid, boring, bourgeois men who went to work every day and discussed politics from the newspaper over dinner. Remember that in Nietzsche's philosophy, to exercise one's will on another person through words\/ideology\/philosophy is a superior form of willing than to dominate another through brute physical strength, which is dumb and easily decays. Nietzsche thought that women through their cunning and deceitful ways had enslaved men, the physically stronger sex, and this was immensely to their credit: the movement to give up this power by establishing equality between the sexes was in his view motivated by ressentiment on the part of weaker women (and men) who resented the power which the strong, socially adept women held over men and so sought to deny them it out of spite. This obviously sounds bizarre to our 21st century ears, but I think similar ideas were conventional in the 19th century. Take the ur-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who in her Vindication of the Rights of Women condemns the place of women in society because she believes their lack of education in virtue turns them into \"capricious tyrants\" over men: >Women, as well as despots, have now, perhaps, more power than they would have if the world, divided and subdivided into kingdoms and families, was governed by laws deduced from the exercise of reason; but in obtaining it, to carry on the comparison, their character is degraded, and licentiousness spread through the whole aggregate of society. > >(...)\u00a0Women, it is true, obtaining power by unjust means, by practising or fostering vice, evidently lose the rank which reason would assign them, and they become either abject slaves or capricious tyrants. They lose all simplicity, all dignity of mind, in acquiring power, and act as men are observed to act when they have been exalted by the same means. What Nietzsche is doing is taking this proto-feminist argument and turning it on its head by instead saying that women *exercising their capricious power over men is to their credit*, and to educate women in \"virtue\" would be to destroy female power and turn them into a stupid herd of cows bleating about conventional bourgeois morality like the men of his day. Obviously Nietzsche is completely and utterly wrong here because he has no understanding (perhaps because he was never married?) of how patriarchal 19th century society acted to oppress women in all sorts of ways, but it's not easy to dismiss his motivation here as being simply misogynist or chauvinistic. I think Nietzsche's attitude towards women was a weird cocktail of, yes, some resentment towards women for rejecting him, but also fascination and admiration for their intelligence and the power he thought they held as a sex.","human_ref_B":"Here's a counterquestion: If we acknowledge that Nietzsche operates in some capacity with the terms \"woman\" and \"man\", what would we gain from instead looking at examples of the useage of both (either in interplay or separately), rather than focusing on one of them? And also, how do they appear in comparison to other dichotomistic terms, or simply terms of importance in general?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":40844.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eab28g1","c_root_id_B":"eab3ue9","created_at_utc_A":1542992109,"created_at_utc_B":1542993396,"score_A":43,"score_B":72,"human_ref_A":"Waking Life talks about philosophy a lot along with films and dreams. So you might enjoy that.","human_ref_B":"Monty Python\u2019s \u2018Meaning of Life\u2019","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1287.0,"score_ratio":1.6744186047} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eab8mzl","c_root_id_B":"eab6cgt","created_at_utc_A":1542997054,"created_at_utc_B":1542995339,"score_A":42,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"*The Good Place* has been recommended to me a lot. Bryan Magee\u2019s old BBC interviews with philosophers are great, and are on YouTube. *The Matrix* is heavily influenced by Baudrillard.","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/mubi.com\/lists\/essential-movies-for-a-student-of-philosophy","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1715.0,"score_ratio":1.0243902439} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eab8mzl","c_root_id_B":"eab4e0c","created_at_utc_A":1542997054,"created_at_utc_B":1542993849,"score_A":42,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"*The Good Place* has been recommended to me a lot. Bryan Magee\u2019s old BBC interviews with philosophers are great, and are on YouTube. *The Matrix* is heavily influenced by Baudrillard.","human_ref_B":"Examined life is a series of interviews with living philosophers","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3205.0,"score_ratio":1.6153846154} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eab86fc","c_root_id_B":"eab8mzl","created_at_utc_A":1542996707,"created_at_utc_B":1542997054,"score_A":24,"score_B":42,"human_ref_A":"Arrival! It's hard to get going into it, but once you reach the conclusion you realise the whole thing is about determinism. One of my favourites!","human_ref_B":"*The Good Place* has been recommended to me a lot. Bryan Magee\u2019s old BBC interviews with philosophers are great, and are on YouTube. *The Matrix* is heavily influenced by Baudrillard.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":347.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eab7la8","c_root_id_B":"eab8mzl","created_at_utc_A":1542996267,"created_at_utc_B":1542997054,"score_A":4,"score_B":42,"human_ref_A":"Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth It\u2019s a series and is on the UK Netflix - well worth it","human_ref_B":"*The Good Place* has been recommended to me a lot. Bryan Magee\u2019s old BBC interviews with philosophers are great, and are on YouTube. *The Matrix* is heavily influenced by Baudrillard.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":787.0,"score_ratio":10.5} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eab6cgt","c_root_id_B":"eab4e0c","created_at_utc_A":1542995339,"created_at_utc_B":1542993849,"score_A":41,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/mubi.com\/lists\/essential-movies-for-a-student-of-philosophy","human_ref_B":"Examined life is a series of interviews with living philosophers","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1490.0,"score_ratio":1.5769230769} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabbufs","c_root_id_B":"eab86fc","created_at_utc_A":1542999513,"created_at_utc_B":1542996707,"score_A":26,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"The pervert's guide to ideology is quite a good choice too.","human_ref_B":"Arrival! It's hard to get going into it, but once you reach the conclusion you realise the whole thing is about determinism. One of my favourites!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2806.0,"score_ratio":1.0833333333} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabbufs","c_root_id_B":"eab7la8","created_at_utc_A":1542999513,"created_at_utc_B":1542996267,"score_A":26,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The pervert's guide to ideology is quite a good choice too.","human_ref_B":"Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth It\u2019s a series and is on the UK Netflix - well worth it","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3246.0,"score_ratio":6.5} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabbrqp","c_root_id_B":"eabbufs","created_at_utc_A":1542999457,"created_at_utc_B":1542999513,"score_A":3,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"*The Good Place* is a netflix original light comedy series. It's not *that* 'philosophical' per say until the more recent episodes but philosophy is referenced a lot since much of the series involves the interactions between a moral philosophy professor and bad people. The show itself is alright. Like, it's cheery and works as something to just watch if you're not fussed about what to watch but the writing sure doesn't make it a masterpiece.","human_ref_B":"The pervert's guide to ideology is quite a good choice too.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":56.0,"score_ratio":8.6666666667} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eab7la8","c_root_id_B":"eab86fc","created_at_utc_A":1542996267,"created_at_utc_B":1542996707,"score_A":4,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth It\u2019s a series and is on the UK Netflix - well worth it","human_ref_B":"Arrival! It's hard to get going into it, but once you reach the conclusion you realise the whole thing is about determinism. One of my favourites!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":440.0,"score_ratio":6.0} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabhzbs","c_root_id_B":"eabh6yg","created_at_utc_A":1543004539,"created_at_utc_B":1543003864,"score_A":13,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"2001: a space odyssey isnt explicit, but it captures nietzsches poetry well on film. its must-watch!","human_ref_B":"*Harold and Maude* For existentialism \/ Buddhism \/ Taoism","labels":1,"seconds_difference":675.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabh1q0","c_root_id_B":"eabhzbs","created_at_utc_A":1543003732,"created_at_utc_B":1543004539,"score_A":6,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"The matrixxxxxxxx It has so many philosophical references! Check out the wiki! Lol","human_ref_B":"2001: a space odyssey isnt explicit, but it captures nietzsches poetry well on film. its must-watch!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":807.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabhfqs","c_root_id_B":"eabhzbs","created_at_utc_A":1543004076,"created_at_utc_B":1543004539,"score_A":6,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"*The Sunset Limited* (2011)","human_ref_B":"2001: a space odyssey isnt explicit, but it captures nietzsches poetry well on film. its must-watch!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":463.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabhzbs","c_root_id_B":"eab7la8","created_at_utc_A":1543004539,"created_at_utc_B":1542996267,"score_A":13,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"2001: a space odyssey isnt explicit, but it captures nietzsches poetry well on film. its must-watch!","human_ref_B":"Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth It\u2019s a series and is on the UK Netflix - well worth it","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8272.0,"score_ratio":3.25} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabhzbs","c_root_id_B":"eabcdqy","created_at_utc_A":1543004539,"created_at_utc_B":1542999946,"score_A":13,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"2001: a space odyssey isnt explicit, but it captures nietzsches poetry well on film. its must-watch!","human_ref_B":"Mindwalk. Highly recommended. https:\/\/youtu.be\/E8s0He0560g","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4593.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabhzbs","c_root_id_B":"eabbrqp","created_at_utc_A":1543004539,"created_at_utc_B":1542999457,"score_A":13,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"2001: a space odyssey isnt explicit, but it captures nietzsches poetry well on film. its must-watch!","human_ref_B":"*The Good Place* is a netflix original light comedy series. It's not *that* 'philosophical' per say until the more recent episodes but philosophy is referenced a lot since much of the series involves the interactions between a moral philosophy professor and bad people. The show itself is alright. Like, it's cheery and works as something to just watch if you're not fussed about what to watch but the writing sure doesn't make it a masterpiece.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5082.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabd2bg","c_root_id_B":"eabhzbs","created_at_utc_A":1543000488,"created_at_utc_B":1543004539,"score_A":4,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"The film \"After the Dark\" (also known as \"The Philosophers\" for some quirk of the movie industry) It's a film about a philosophy class at a private school on their last day before graduation. It's ... got some subtext.","human_ref_B":"2001: a space odyssey isnt explicit, but it captures nietzsches poetry well on film. its must-watch!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4051.0,"score_ratio":3.25} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabh1q0","c_root_id_B":"eabh6yg","created_at_utc_A":1543003732,"created_at_utc_B":1543003864,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"The matrixxxxxxxx It has so many philosophical references! Check out the wiki! Lol","human_ref_B":"*Harold and Maude* For existentialism \/ Buddhism \/ Taoism","labels":0,"seconds_difference":132.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabh6yg","c_root_id_B":"eab7la8","created_at_utc_A":1543003864,"created_at_utc_B":1542996267,"score_A":9,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"*Harold and Maude* For existentialism \/ Buddhism \/ Taoism","human_ref_B":"Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth It\u2019s a series and is on the UK Netflix - well worth it","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7597.0,"score_ratio":2.25} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabh6yg","c_root_id_B":"eabcdqy","created_at_utc_A":1543003864,"created_at_utc_B":1542999946,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"*Harold and Maude* For existentialism \/ Buddhism \/ Taoism","human_ref_B":"Mindwalk. Highly recommended. https:\/\/youtu.be\/E8s0He0560g","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3918.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabbrqp","c_root_id_B":"eabh6yg","created_at_utc_A":1542999457,"created_at_utc_B":1543003864,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"*The Good Place* is a netflix original light comedy series. It's not *that* 'philosophical' per say until the more recent episodes but philosophy is referenced a lot since much of the series involves the interactions between a moral philosophy professor and bad people. The show itself is alright. Like, it's cheery and works as something to just watch if you're not fussed about what to watch but the writing sure doesn't make it a masterpiece.","human_ref_B":"*Harold and Maude* For existentialism \/ Buddhism \/ Taoism","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4407.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabd2bg","c_root_id_B":"eabh6yg","created_at_utc_A":1543000488,"created_at_utc_B":1543003864,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"The film \"After the Dark\" (also known as \"The Philosophers\" for some quirk of the movie industry) It's a film about a philosophy class at a private school on their last day before graduation. It's ... got some subtext.","human_ref_B":"*Harold and Maude* For existentialism \/ Buddhism \/ Taoism","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3376.0,"score_ratio":2.25} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabh1q0","c_root_id_B":"eab7la8","created_at_utc_A":1543003732,"created_at_utc_B":1542996267,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The matrixxxxxxxx It has so many philosophical references! Check out the wiki! Lol","human_ref_B":"Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth It\u2019s a series and is on the UK Netflix - well worth it","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7465.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabcdqy","c_root_id_B":"eabh1q0","created_at_utc_A":1542999946,"created_at_utc_B":1543003732,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Mindwalk. Highly recommended. https:\/\/youtu.be\/E8s0He0560g","human_ref_B":"The matrixxxxxxxx It has so many philosophical references! Check out the wiki! Lol","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3786.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabh1q0","c_root_id_B":"eabbrqp","created_at_utc_A":1543003732,"created_at_utc_B":1542999457,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The matrixxxxxxxx It has so many philosophical references! Check out the wiki! Lol","human_ref_B":"*The Good Place* is a netflix original light comedy series. It's not *that* 'philosophical' per say until the more recent episodes but philosophy is referenced a lot since much of the series involves the interactions between a moral philosophy professor and bad people. The show itself is alright. Like, it's cheery and works as something to just watch if you're not fussed about what to watch but the writing sure doesn't make it a masterpiece.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4275.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabd2bg","c_root_id_B":"eabh1q0","created_at_utc_A":1543000488,"created_at_utc_B":1543003732,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The film \"After the Dark\" (also known as \"The Philosophers\" for some quirk of the movie industry) It's a film about a philosophy class at a private school on their last day before graduation. It's ... got some subtext.","human_ref_B":"The matrixxxxxxxx It has so many philosophical references! Check out the wiki! Lol","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3244.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabhfqs","c_root_id_B":"eab7la8","created_at_utc_A":1543004076,"created_at_utc_B":1542996267,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"*The Sunset Limited* (2011)","human_ref_B":"Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth It\u2019s a series and is on the UK Netflix - well worth it","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7809.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabhfqs","c_root_id_B":"eabcdqy","created_at_utc_A":1543004076,"created_at_utc_B":1542999946,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"*The Sunset Limited* (2011)","human_ref_B":"Mindwalk. Highly recommended. https:\/\/youtu.be\/E8s0He0560g","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4130.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabbrqp","c_root_id_B":"eabhfqs","created_at_utc_A":1542999457,"created_at_utc_B":1543004076,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"*The Good Place* is a netflix original light comedy series. It's not *that* 'philosophical' per say until the more recent episodes but philosophy is referenced a lot since much of the series involves the interactions between a moral philosophy professor and bad people. The show itself is alright. Like, it's cheery and works as something to just watch if you're not fussed about what to watch but the writing sure doesn't make it a masterpiece.","human_ref_B":"*The Sunset Limited* (2011)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4619.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabd2bg","c_root_id_B":"eabhfqs","created_at_utc_A":1543000488,"created_at_utc_B":1543004076,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The film \"After the Dark\" (also known as \"The Philosophers\" for some quirk of the movie industry) It's a film about a philosophy class at a private school on their last day before graduation. It's ... got some subtext.","human_ref_B":"*The Sunset Limited* (2011)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3588.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabcdqy","c_root_id_B":"eabikm5","created_at_utc_A":1542999946,"created_at_utc_B":1543005032,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Mindwalk. Highly recommended. https:\/\/youtu.be\/E8s0He0560g","human_ref_B":"The End of the Tour is brilliant, and while it's almost more of a biopic, it's about one of the most philosophically minded writers we've had recently: David Foster Wallace. And as a movie it is mostly composed of fairly deep conversations between two characters. You could also look at it with an eye toward the topic of journalistic ethics, though. But however you want to look at it, the movie is thought provoking, and there's a lot to dig into, philosophically speaking.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5086.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabcdqy","c_root_id_B":"eabd2bg","created_at_utc_A":1542999946,"created_at_utc_B":1543000488,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Mindwalk. Highly recommended. https:\/\/youtu.be\/E8s0He0560g","human_ref_B":"The film \"After the Dark\" (also known as \"The Philosophers\" for some quirk of the movie industry) It's a film about a philosophy class at a private school on their last day before graduation. It's ... got some subtext.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":542.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabikm5","c_root_id_B":"eabbrqp","created_at_utc_A":1543005032,"created_at_utc_B":1542999457,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The End of the Tour is brilliant, and while it's almost more of a biopic, it's about one of the most philosophically minded writers we've had recently: David Foster Wallace. And as a movie it is mostly composed of fairly deep conversations between two characters. You could also look at it with an eye toward the topic of journalistic ethics, though. But however you want to look at it, the movie is thought provoking, and there's a lot to dig into, philosophically speaking.","human_ref_B":"*The Good Place* is a netflix original light comedy series. It's not *that* 'philosophical' per say until the more recent episodes but philosophy is referenced a lot since much of the series involves the interactions between a moral philosophy professor and bad people. The show itself is alright. Like, it's cheery and works as something to just watch if you're not fussed about what to watch but the writing sure doesn't make it a masterpiece.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5575.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"9zpp4f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good philosophy movies? Do any of you know if there are any good movies or tv series I could watch? I'm thinking more of something that is explicitly about philosophy rather than something having a philosophical meaning behind it","c_root_id_A":"eabbrqp","c_root_id_B":"eabd2bg","created_at_utc_A":1542999457,"created_at_utc_B":1543000488,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"*The Good Place* is a netflix original light comedy series. It's not *that* 'philosophical' per say until the more recent episodes but philosophy is referenced a lot since much of the series involves the interactions between a moral philosophy professor and bad people. The show itself is alright. Like, it's cheery and works as something to just watch if you're not fussed about what to watch but the writing sure doesn't make it a masterpiece.","human_ref_B":"The film \"After the Dark\" (also known as \"The Philosophers\" for some quirk of the movie industry) It's a film about a philosophy class at a private school on their last day before graduation. It's ... got some subtext.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1031.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"x8h1sz","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What exactly is the issue with Utilitarianism? It seems pretty logically sensible Given that I\u2019m presented with a certain situation (say like a trolley problem), is it not morally correct to choose the action that maximizes the number of lives saved? If I absolutely *had* to choose between killing two groups of people, is not better to kill off the group with the lesser number, since that leads to more people living in the end? Yet I\u2019ve seen people reject utilitarianism even though, at least at first glance, it seems to be the moral position that makes the most sense. What exactly is wrong with it?","c_root_id_A":"ini8q64","c_root_id_B":"ini82m3","created_at_utc_A":1662586284,"created_at_utc_B":1662586030,"score_A":192,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Here is a comment I've made before. The below is meant to just highlight some areas that different objections can be pursued; it's not meant to be some standalone \"final word\" on the matter. I put this disclaimer at the beginning because I am not interested in \"debating\" responses to the below (as some people *really* want to when they read the below, though I'm happy to try and clarify things); I'm merely highlighting different avenues that have been pursued. So: Much of this will certainly depend on exactly how utilitarianism is cashed out. So, first, let's get a general statement of utilitarianism on the board. How about this: \"an act is right if and only if it maximizes happiness in the world.\" Now, we could get more precise, but we can use that as a working understanding. As you note, things might change if we move to preference-utilitarianism, or rule utilitarianism Here are some of the issues that the utilitarian has to contend with: 1. Utilitarianism looks to make the notion of \"rights\" obsolete. For instance, tossing Christians to the lions in ancient Rome is bad for the Christian, but good for the Colosseum of Romans who are in ecstasy at the spectacle. If you have enough ecstatic Romans, then it looks like it's good, given utilitarianism, to toss the Christian to the lions. 2. Utilitarianism is too demanding. It seems to demand that that we always are to maximize happiness, in every action, at all times. And that's very, very, hard-- and hard in a way that seem to be too much of a cost for a moral theory. 3. Utilitarianism tries to put a single metric on value, and that's incoherent. Can we really compare the sort of value you assign to the life of your wife, with the value you assign to eating a Twinkie, with the value you assign to relieving yourself, with the value you assign to living the life of monk? For many people, it does not seem that all things that we value in life can be compared. e.g. I value twinkies. I also value my wife. How many twinkies is my wife worth to me? Utilitarianism asks questions like that all the time; for many people the question is ridiculous as a comparison is impossible. Some things differ in kind, not just in quantity. The point to be made is that the utilitarian assigns a single metric to all value, and that seem incoherent. The utilitarian says that the type of value got from scratching an itch is commensurable with the value of my wife. So, there will exist a relationship, such that some number times the value of itching a scratch equals the value of my wife. But, we might say, any equation looks wrong here. As Kant says, life has a dignity, and not just a price. The sorts of value involved here are incommensurable, if comparable. 4. Utilitarianism is under-specified, and when it is specified, those specifications are largely arbitrary. For instance, do we maximize aggregate happiness, or average happiness? Who is included? People, animals, future generations? How do we weigh \"high probability of little pleasure\" vs \"low probability of high pleasure\"? Here's another problem: assuming we can calculate the relevant utils, how do we deal with time? Do we look a second ahead, a year ahead or a century ahead? But why stop at a century? Why not 101 years, or 500 years or 865.324 years, or the second before all sentient beings are extinct? The normative prescription provided by utilitarianism can change from instant to instant. So what do you make of a theory that tells you that a certain action will produce a net +10 utils at time t, a net -5 utils at t+1, a net +100 utils at t+2, a net -1000 utils at t+3, etc, etc? If net utility can change from instant to instant (and it obviously can), then utilitarianism is of no service to moral agents in deciding how to act or how to value an action. 5. Utilitarianism seems to be a self-effacing theory in that there seem to be situations where making utilitarianism the publicly accepted moral system would actually produce less utility. So, utilitarianism might very well be a theory that works best if no one is thinking about it....very odd. 6. Related to 5. Utilitarianism tells us that an act is right if and only if it is optimific in regard to pleasure and pain. But you can't embody this reason in your motive for acting, and still have friends, loved-ones, etc. Under utilitarianism, you don't value your friends as *friends*, you value them as sources of pleasure; they are replaceable -- anything with the same effects on us will suffice. So, when you try to embody utilitarianism in your motives, you find that the person you supposedly love engages your thought not for him\/her but as a source of pleasure. To embody in one's motives the values of utilitarianism is to treat people externally and to preclude love, affection, community. To get *these* goods while holding utilitarianism requires a schizophrenia between reason and motive. To the extent that you live utilitarianism, you will fail to achieve goods like friendship, love, inquiry -- and these are goods that the utilitarian himself recognizes as good. The objection is that you cannot embody your reason in your motives, as a utilitarian. The utilitarian says that friends, and love are goods. But you can't achieve these goods, while simultaneously embodying your reason in your motive. Compare to the egoist: egoists take their own pleasure as the sole justification. From this, they should recognize the love, etc as among personal pleasures; so they have good reason on their own grounds to enter such relations. But when they act on their motive of pleasure-for-self they can't get those pleasures; to achieve these pleasures they have to abandon their egoistical motive; the egoist can't get the pleasures of love and friendship. For it is essential to the very concept of love that one care for the beloved, and be prepared to act for the sake of the beloved as a final goal. But to the extent that my consideration for you comes from my desire to lead a life that is personally pleasing, I do not act for your sake. So their motive and reasons pull apart. So, to get these goods they have to lead a sort of schizophrenic life. Here's sort of how Susan Wolf understands the point: the utilitarian values these things only because of and insofar as they are a part of the general happiness. He values them under the description, \u201ca contribution to the general happiness.\u201d In contrast, real people might love, say, literature, because of the insights into human nature, or, growing roses because they are beautiful. Sure this may contribute to happiness, but this isn't the point to the non-utilitarian. For if one values these activities in more direct ways, one may not be willing to exchange them for others that produce an equal, or even greater amount of happiness. From that point of view, it is not because they produce happiness that these activities are valuable; it is because these activities are valuable in more direct and specific ways that they produce happiness. So, the utilitarian can't value things in the right way. So, those are some basic problems. I should note, though, that utilitarians are smart people, and can give responses-- indeed, utilitarians have given responses, but the above is just supposed to be the basic sorts of issues that lead to needed refinement\/argument. One of the big responses you'll see is that \"utilitarianism is not a decision procedure!\" By this, the utilitarian means that you should take the theory as reporting when actions are \"good\" and when they are \"bad.\" So, on this reading, we shouldn't use the theory of utilitarianism to decide how to act on particular occasions. (Indeed, many utilitarians grant that, in deciding how to act, it is counterproductive to consult the theory of utilitarianism). Moreover, just because it's difficult to determine what action maximizes happiness isn't a mark against the theory -- it just shows we are limited in our knowledge. Moreover, utilitarians will be utilitarian about how they assign praise and blame. So, for instance, say I jump in the water and, unbeknownst to me, save Hitler Jr., who goes to murder a bunch of people. Well, utilitarians might still praise my act as the right one (since, they want to promote saving drowning folk), even though my action was actually \"bad\" (since it led to a decrease in utility). Another way to see the same point: just because I do a bad action, doesn't mean I should be blamed for it, since whether or not I'm to be blamed is something we have to think about along utilitarian lines. Some of the more spelled out versions of utilitarianism are interesting and deep. But, the sort of utilitarianism you sometimes see in economics, law, public policy, may be \"too quick.\" It may have a certain air of \"spurious rigour,\" where we mistake quantification and calculation for cogency of thought. It might be a great moral theory for omniscient beings (though even this is in question). But for those of us who lack that quality, utilitarianism may be seen as just a device to cloak moral bias with the guise of mathematical certainty. There's definitely more to be said, but I'll end there for now.","human_ref_B":"Welcome to \/r\/askphilosophy. **Please read our rules before commenting** and understand that your comments will be removed if they are not up to standard or otherwise break the rules. While we do not require citations in answers (but do encourage them), answers need to be reasonably substantive and well-researched, accurately portray the state of the research, and come only from those with relevant knowledge. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](\/message\/compose\/?to=\/r\/askphilosophy) if you have any questions or concerns.*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":254.0,"score_ratio":96.0} +{"post_id":"x8h1sz","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What exactly is the issue with Utilitarianism? It seems pretty logically sensible Given that I\u2019m presented with a certain situation (say like a trolley problem), is it not morally correct to choose the action that maximizes the number of lives saved? If I absolutely *had* to choose between killing two groups of people, is not better to kill off the group with the lesser number, since that leads to more people living in the end? Yet I\u2019ve seen people reject utilitarianism even though, at least at first glance, it seems to be the moral position that makes the most sense. What exactly is wrong with it?","c_root_id_A":"inidm5n","c_root_id_B":"ini8vrv","created_at_utc_A":1662588209,"created_at_utc_B":1662586344,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":">Given that I\u2019m presented with a certain situation (say like a trolley problem), is it not morally correct to choose the action that maximizes the number of lives saved? For what it's worth deontologists and virtue ethicists also think you should switch in the trolly problem, and the problem was originally written by someone who wasn't a consequentialist and she thought it was obvious that you should switch.","human_ref_B":"It seem to have a lot of implications that people find hard to accept. For example, killing an innocent person if it would maximize happiness.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1865.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} +{"post_id":"x8h1sz","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What exactly is the issue with Utilitarianism? It seems pretty logically sensible Given that I\u2019m presented with a certain situation (say like a trolley problem), is it not morally correct to choose the action that maximizes the number of lives saved? If I absolutely *had* to choose between killing two groups of people, is not better to kill off the group with the lesser number, since that leads to more people living in the end? Yet I\u2019ve seen people reject utilitarianism even though, at least at first glance, it seems to be the moral position that makes the most sense. What exactly is wrong with it?","c_root_id_A":"ini82m3","c_root_id_B":"inidm5n","created_at_utc_A":1662586030,"created_at_utc_B":1662588209,"score_A":2,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Welcome to \/r\/askphilosophy. **Please read our rules before commenting** and understand that your comments will be removed if they are not up to standard or otherwise break the rules. While we do not require citations in answers (but do encourage them), answers need to be reasonably substantive and well-researched, accurately portray the state of the research, and come only from those with relevant knowledge. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](\/message\/compose\/?to=\/r\/askphilosophy) if you have any questions or concerns.*","human_ref_B":">Given that I\u2019m presented with a certain situation (say like a trolley problem), is it not morally correct to choose the action that maximizes the number of lives saved? For what it's worth deontologists and virtue ethicists also think you should switch in the trolly problem, and the problem was originally written by someone who wasn't a consequentialist and she thought it was obvious that you should switch.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2179.0,"score_ratio":5.5} +{"post_id":"x8h1sz","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What exactly is the issue with Utilitarianism? It seems pretty logically sensible Given that I\u2019m presented with a certain situation (say like a trolley problem), is it not morally correct to choose the action that maximizes the number of lives saved? If I absolutely *had* to choose between killing two groups of people, is not better to kill off the group with the lesser number, since that leads to more people living in the end? Yet I\u2019ve seen people reject utilitarianism even though, at least at first glance, it seems to be the moral position that makes the most sense. What exactly is wrong with it?","c_root_id_A":"ini8vrv","c_root_id_B":"injyq5h","created_at_utc_A":1662586344,"created_at_utc_B":1662615732,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"It seem to have a lot of implications that people find hard to accept. For example, killing an innocent person if it would maximize happiness.","human_ref_B":"I considered myself a utilitarian for many years. Now, i still give a lot of weight to the the most utilitarian choice. It's certainly logical. But Logic and Ethics are separate fields. The scenario I always heard to illustrate one flaw with utilitarianism: a hospital. A person there (call him Jeff), the doctors somehow know Jeff has no family and no one will miss him, and they know his organs are healthy. Hypothetically, the doctors could kill Jeff and use his organs to save 10 lives. The assertion is that the utilitarian pov would say, that's the ethical course of action. (My nuanced view on this is: the scenario doesn\u2019t consider the psychological effect on the doctors of killing an innocent person.) But what persuaded me away was two concepts. Firstly, G.E. Moore's open question argument. If it were true that some property were always \"good\" (for example, pleasure, or, the greatest happiness), then given a scenario, it shouldn't still be an \"open question\" whether something pleasurable is always automatically good. So, really, no ethical principle works universally. Secondly, rational intuitionism. I strongly feel that, despite people's pre-established moral code, when a specific situation arises, almost everyone will go with what feels right, and then retroactively justify the behavior by modifying the code to include the behavior as an exception. I say, go into the decision knowing your intuition is the ultimate decider. Then, apply reason: does my intuition make sense? For me, the process here involves taking the universal ethical principles i know (utilitarianism, the categorical imperative, etc) and trying them on. I ask, what might Mill say about this decision? What might Kant say? What would Nietzsche say? What might Sartre say? If one of those feels correct, i do it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":29388.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"x8h1sz","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What exactly is the issue with Utilitarianism? It seems pretty logically sensible Given that I\u2019m presented with a certain situation (say like a trolley problem), is it not morally correct to choose the action that maximizes the number of lives saved? If I absolutely *had* to choose between killing two groups of people, is not better to kill off the group with the lesser number, since that leads to more people living in the end? Yet I\u2019ve seen people reject utilitarianism even though, at least at first glance, it seems to be the moral position that makes the most sense. What exactly is wrong with it?","c_root_id_A":"inju7jr","c_root_id_B":"injyq5h","created_at_utc_A":1662612796,"created_at_utc_B":1662615732,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Mere addition paradox Utility monster","human_ref_B":"I considered myself a utilitarian for many years. Now, i still give a lot of weight to the the most utilitarian choice. It's certainly logical. But Logic and Ethics are separate fields. The scenario I always heard to illustrate one flaw with utilitarianism: a hospital. A person there (call him Jeff), the doctors somehow know Jeff has no family and no one will miss him, and they know his organs are healthy. Hypothetically, the doctors could kill Jeff and use his organs to save 10 lives. The assertion is that the utilitarian pov would say, that's the ethical course of action. (My nuanced view on this is: the scenario doesn\u2019t consider the psychological effect on the doctors of killing an innocent person.) But what persuaded me away was two concepts. Firstly, G.E. Moore's open question argument. If it were true that some property were always \"good\" (for example, pleasure, or, the greatest happiness), then given a scenario, it shouldn't still be an \"open question\" whether something pleasurable is always automatically good. So, really, no ethical principle works universally. Secondly, rational intuitionism. I strongly feel that, despite people's pre-established moral code, when a specific situation arises, almost everyone will go with what feels right, and then retroactively justify the behavior by modifying the code to include the behavior as an exception. I say, go into the decision knowing your intuition is the ultimate decider. Then, apply reason: does my intuition make sense? For me, the process here involves taking the universal ethical principles i know (utilitarianism, the categorical imperative, etc) and trying them on. I ask, what might Mill say about this decision? What might Kant say? What would Nietzsche say? What might Sartre say? If one of those feels correct, i do it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2936.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"x8h1sz","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What exactly is the issue with Utilitarianism? It seems pretty logically sensible Given that I\u2019m presented with a certain situation (say like a trolley problem), is it not morally correct to choose the action that maximizes the number of lives saved? If I absolutely *had* to choose between killing two groups of people, is not better to kill off the group with the lesser number, since that leads to more people living in the end? Yet I\u2019ve seen people reject utilitarianism even though, at least at first glance, it seems to be the moral position that makes the most sense. What exactly is wrong with it?","c_root_id_A":"ini82m3","c_root_id_B":"injyq5h","created_at_utc_A":1662586030,"created_at_utc_B":1662615732,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Welcome to \/r\/askphilosophy. **Please read our rules before commenting** and understand that your comments will be removed if they are not up to standard or otherwise break the rules. While we do not require citations in answers (but do encourage them), answers need to be reasonably substantive and well-researched, accurately portray the state of the research, and come only from those with relevant knowledge. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](\/message\/compose\/?to=\/r\/askphilosophy) if you have any questions or concerns.*","human_ref_B":"I considered myself a utilitarian for many years. Now, i still give a lot of weight to the the most utilitarian choice. It's certainly logical. But Logic and Ethics are separate fields. The scenario I always heard to illustrate one flaw with utilitarianism: a hospital. A person there (call him Jeff), the doctors somehow know Jeff has no family and no one will miss him, and they know his organs are healthy. Hypothetically, the doctors could kill Jeff and use his organs to save 10 lives. The assertion is that the utilitarian pov would say, that's the ethical course of action. (My nuanced view on this is: the scenario doesn\u2019t consider the psychological effect on the doctors of killing an innocent person.) But what persuaded me away was two concepts. Firstly, G.E. Moore's open question argument. If it were true that some property were always \"good\" (for example, pleasure, or, the greatest happiness), then given a scenario, it shouldn't still be an \"open question\" whether something pleasurable is always automatically good. So, really, no ethical principle works universally. Secondly, rational intuitionism. I strongly feel that, despite people's pre-established moral code, when a specific situation arises, almost everyone will go with what feels right, and then retroactively justify the behavior by modifying the code to include the behavior as an exception. I say, go into the decision knowing your intuition is the ultimate decider. Then, apply reason: does my intuition make sense? For me, the process here involves taking the universal ethical principles i know (utilitarianism, the categorical imperative, etc) and trying them on. I ask, what might Mill say about this decision? What might Kant say? What would Nietzsche say? What might Sartre say? If one of those feels correct, i do it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":29702.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"x8h1sz","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What exactly is the issue with Utilitarianism? It seems pretty logically sensible Given that I\u2019m presented with a certain situation (say like a trolley problem), is it not morally correct to choose the action that maximizes the number of lives saved? If I absolutely *had* to choose between killing two groups of people, is not better to kill off the group with the lesser number, since that leads to more people living in the end? Yet I\u2019ve seen people reject utilitarianism even though, at least at first glance, it seems to be the moral position that makes the most sense. What exactly is wrong with it?","c_root_id_A":"ini82m3","c_root_id_B":"ini8vrv","created_at_utc_A":1662586030,"created_at_utc_B":1662586344,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Welcome to \/r\/askphilosophy. **Please read our rules before commenting** and understand that your comments will be removed if they are not up to standard or otherwise break the rules. While we do not require citations in answers (but do encourage them), answers need to be reasonably substantive and well-researched, accurately portray the state of the research, and come only from those with relevant knowledge. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](\/message\/compose\/?to=\/r\/askphilosophy) if you have any questions or concerns.*","human_ref_B":"It seem to have a lot of implications that people find hard to accept. For example, killing an innocent person if it would maximize happiness.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":314.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"x8h1sz","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What exactly is the issue with Utilitarianism? It seems pretty logically sensible Given that I\u2019m presented with a certain situation (say like a trolley problem), is it not morally correct to choose the action that maximizes the number of lives saved? If I absolutely *had* to choose between killing two groups of people, is not better to kill off the group with the lesser number, since that leads to more people living in the end? Yet I\u2019ve seen people reject utilitarianism even though, at least at first glance, it seems to be the moral position that makes the most sense. What exactly is wrong with it?","c_root_id_A":"inju7jr","c_root_id_B":"ini82m3","created_at_utc_A":1662612796,"created_at_utc_B":1662586030,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Mere addition paradox Utility monster","human_ref_B":"Welcome to \/r\/askphilosophy. **Please read our rules before commenting** and understand that your comments will be removed if they are not up to standard or otherwise break the rules. While we do not require citations in answers (but do encourage them), answers need to be reasonably substantive and well-researched, accurately portray the state of the research, and come only from those with relevant knowledge. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](\/message\/compose\/?to=\/r\/askphilosophy) if you have any questions or concerns.*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26766.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"okhluk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"I know my degree is useful, but do employers? We\u2019re told as undergrad philosophy majors that we have strong oral and written communication skills and great logical and critical thinking skills. But will hiring people know that or believe us when we say it in an interview? Along with this question, can anyone tell about their experiences in the job market coming out of college as a philosophy undergraduate or graduate? Or even PhD too?","c_root_id_A":"h58y583","c_root_id_B":"h5951ku","created_at_utc_A":1626331851,"created_at_utc_B":1626337813,"score_A":9,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/dailynous.com\/2019\/05\/13\/varied-careers-philosophy-majors\/ The short answer is really about A) the nature of the job at hand B) how you sell yourself doing it C) how much peer conpetition do you have. You're never going to get a job as a business analyst, team manager, or high school teacherjust because you have a degree. You, as a job applicant, are a solution package amongst hundreds of others. While being able to deploy what you learn in epistemology, logic, (insert your undergrad\/post-grad focus) etc. Could be a plus, if you're going to take 1 year to become an effective employee ina corporate setting, it's going to be an uphill battle for you.","human_ref_B":"Honestly, no they don't. My experience with employers is that most simply don't even know what philosophy *is,* and react with confusion. That's when you have to step in and try to sell them on your qualifications. This can be very difficult, and many employers will simply pick a different candidate whose background they understand better. It also doesn't help that some employers (not a *lot*, but they are there) have a popular negative, jeering view of philosophy. I had one once laugh and say 'so you studied the Ultimate Useless Subject? haha!' These people are out there. Source: I have a PhD and have been unemployed ever since I earned it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5962.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"okhluk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"I know my degree is useful, but do employers? We\u2019re told as undergrad philosophy majors that we have strong oral and written communication skills and great logical and critical thinking skills. But will hiring people know that or believe us when we say it in an interview? Along with this question, can anyone tell about their experiences in the job market coming out of college as a philosophy undergraduate or graduate? Or even PhD too?","c_root_id_A":"h588zsr","c_root_id_B":"h5951ku","created_at_utc_A":1626316093,"created_at_utc_B":1626337813,"score_A":7,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m curious to know if most philosophy majors that end up with a good job ended up going back to school of some sort?","human_ref_B":"Honestly, no they don't. My experience with employers is that most simply don't even know what philosophy *is,* and react with confusion. That's when you have to step in and try to sell them on your qualifications. This can be very difficult, and many employers will simply pick a different candidate whose background they understand better. It also doesn't help that some employers (not a *lot*, but they are there) have a popular negative, jeering view of philosophy. I had one once laugh and say 'so you studied the Ultimate Useless Subject? haha!' These people are out there. Source: I have a PhD and have been unemployed ever since I earned it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21720.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} +{"post_id":"okhluk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"I know my degree is useful, but do employers? We\u2019re told as undergrad philosophy majors that we have strong oral and written communication skills and great logical and critical thinking skills. But will hiring people know that or believe us when we say it in an interview? Along with this question, can anyone tell about their experiences in the job market coming out of college as a philosophy undergraduate or graduate? Or even PhD too?","c_root_id_A":"h58y583","c_root_id_B":"h588zsr","created_at_utc_A":1626331851,"created_at_utc_B":1626316093,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/dailynous.com\/2019\/05\/13\/varied-careers-philosophy-majors\/ The short answer is really about A) the nature of the job at hand B) how you sell yourself doing it C) how much peer conpetition do you have. You're never going to get a job as a business analyst, team manager, or high school teacherjust because you have a degree. You, as a job applicant, are a solution package amongst hundreds of others. While being able to deploy what you learn in epistemology, logic, (insert your undergrad\/post-grad focus) etc. Could be a plus, if you're going to take 1 year to become an effective employee ina corporate setting, it's going to be an uphill battle for you.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m curious to know if most philosophy majors that end up with a good job ended up going back to school of some sort?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15758.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} +{"post_id":"bgcsg6","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Do People Have an Over-Confidence in Science\/Scientists? I guess you could call me a \u2018believer in science\u2019. But the more I think about it, the more I\u2019m not so sure such belief is justified. I\u2019ve noticed that people treat the modern belief in science almost religiously. For instance, I think flat-earthers are crazy, but if someone asked me to prove to them that the Earth was round, I wouldn\u2019t be able to do it. I just believe it is because that\u2019s what I\u2019ve been told. So what\u2019s the justification for believing so heavily in \u2018science\u2019? Am I more justified in believing scientists that say the Earth is round than I am in believing a reverend who tells me God created the Earth only 6000 years ago?","c_root_id_A":"elk2g06","c_root_id_B":"elk20ly","created_at_utc_A":1556003924,"created_at_utc_B":1556003269,"score_A":22,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Minimally, we certainly have more reason to accept, or act according to, scientific conclusions than we do with YEC conclusions. This is because provided scientific anti-realism, or provided that scientific conclusions don't really give us reason to have positive epistemic attitudes towards any part of them, they certainly have predictive power. And so we should act as if they're true. Whether we should believe they're true is another matter. So while I agree with other notes in this thread that the question may be complicated or controversial, I think perhaps this might be due to reading you too literally. Reading between the lines, it seems like you think that if we have no more reason to believe the scientist over the YEC, then they're more or less in the same boat. But this is false. The YEC notwithstanding doesn't even provide us any reason to accept YEC conclusions. But the scientist provides us plenty of reason to accept her conclusions^(1). ^(1) Plausibly, this only obtains when certain conditions obtain as well.","human_ref_B":"In principal, it is better to believe someone based on their evidence than based on their credentials. In practice, there is so much to know that we generally have to take things on faith and believe people who have studies more about the subject than you. You do this all the time with your plumber, car mechanic, doctor, etc. If a person does not have enough background knowledge to notice when someone with scientific authority says something that doesn't make sense, then it is about trust, and is fundamentally very similar to listening to a reverend. This is especially true when people get the advice of scientists about something outside of their field, and ascribe them authority. However, the main difference between belief in science and in religion is that you should be able to access all the evidence necessary to prove that a scientific theory is a) likely to be true, or b)provides a useful model when interacting with the world that can allow us to do interesting things. As a flat earth example, and experiment to see if the earth is round is to watch a boat sail into shore. If you have binoculars, you will see the top of the boat before you see the bottom, because it's coming up over the curve of the earth. In this case, it's possible that flat earthers have come up with alternative explanations. In the useful model example, I would give satellites and GPS. Something exists that is able to pinpoint your location. The model that allows this to happen uses both a round earth and relativity in its model. Regardless of the truth value, this knowledge is true enough for us to perform useful tasks in reality.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":655.0,"score_ratio":2.2} +{"post_id":"bgcsg6","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Do People Have an Over-Confidence in Science\/Scientists? I guess you could call me a \u2018believer in science\u2019. But the more I think about it, the more I\u2019m not so sure such belief is justified. I\u2019ve noticed that people treat the modern belief in science almost religiously. For instance, I think flat-earthers are crazy, but if someone asked me to prove to them that the Earth was round, I wouldn\u2019t be able to do it. I just believe it is because that\u2019s what I\u2019ve been told. So what\u2019s the justification for believing so heavily in \u2018science\u2019? Am I more justified in believing scientists that say the Earth is round than I am in believing a reverend who tells me God created the Earth only 6000 years ago?","c_root_id_A":"elk20ly","c_root_id_B":"elk5ugj","created_at_utc_A":1556003269,"created_at_utc_B":1556009814,"score_A":10,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"In principal, it is better to believe someone based on their evidence than based on their credentials. In practice, there is so much to know that we generally have to take things on faith and believe people who have studies more about the subject than you. You do this all the time with your plumber, car mechanic, doctor, etc. If a person does not have enough background knowledge to notice when someone with scientific authority says something that doesn't make sense, then it is about trust, and is fundamentally very similar to listening to a reverend. This is especially true when people get the advice of scientists about something outside of their field, and ascribe them authority. However, the main difference between belief in science and in religion is that you should be able to access all the evidence necessary to prove that a scientific theory is a) likely to be true, or b)provides a useful model when interacting with the world that can allow us to do interesting things. As a flat earth example, and experiment to see if the earth is round is to watch a boat sail into shore. If you have binoculars, you will see the top of the boat before you see the bottom, because it's coming up over the curve of the earth. In this case, it's possible that flat earthers have come up with alternative explanations. In the useful model example, I would give satellites and GPS. Something exists that is able to pinpoint your location. The model that allows this to happen uses both a round earth and relativity in its model. Regardless of the truth value, this knowledge is true enough for us to perform useful tasks in reality.","human_ref_B":"Since there are already good answers in the comment section, let me answer it in a non-general way and give specific examples from the experience of the lab I work in. We work on honeybees. There is a group who works exclusively on behaviour of honeybees with some electrophysiology, and this group was very trustworthy according to my advisor(it is headed by a legend in the field of honeybee research). One of our grad students started work believing in some conclusion reached in a paper published by that group. After spending months trying to replicate it, she found out that they are wrong, she found out why they are wrong(huge flaws in experiment design), the student who published this finding even claimed as such (but he didn't have the courage to report to his mentor), and ultimately we published a paper saying so. Next, lets talk about people who make models. Modellers, unlike experimentalists, do not have the freedom of replicating experiments on a whim. They have to trust the data they are working. If the data is wrong, their entire model is wrong. And this is what my advisor found in his days of working at NIH. He showed the modeller his work, he spent a lot of time trying to convince the modeller that the data he relied on was wrong, and the gave good evidence. Ultimately nothing changed. Why? because the modeller has two advisors who both believed in that data, and he wasn't that adept at understanding the experimental aspects so he decided to \"trust\" what he already knew rather than this new contradictory information. These kinds of things we see all the time. Big journals occasionally publish things with mistakes. So my answer to your question would be to not blindly trust specific conclusions from one or two papers. Rather, trust in more general ideas and conclusions because they are more likely to be true. Also, understand that even in science the ideas are influenced by humans publishing it, some ideas are lost simply because the experimenter was not influencial enough to influence his group or peers that his idea is correct, or it didnt get published because no top journal takes null data on a regular basis. There are also lots of predatory journals that publish anything, so they are regularly used by people with ulterior motives to publish sham studies( https:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2017\/04\/study-about-nothing-highlights-perils-predatory-publishing).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6545.0,"score_ratio":1.9} +{"post_id":"p9hlpj","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What is a \"favorite color\"? Title. What does it mean to have a \"favorite color\"? How does the preference relate to qualia, precisely speaking? What meaningful information do I gain from knowing that someone \"likes color x more than color y\"? Is it even possible to reduce to a single favorite color, with no index to context? I've never heard anyone question this notion before. I've always just taken its meaning for granted, as have other people, from what I gather. Everyone I've ever asked has been able to label a color or a couple of colors as their \"favorites\". I've always been able to do the same. But upon reflection, I find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what information I gained from their answers. Other questions relating to preferences provide answers with much clearer and easily tracable meaning. \"What is your favorite dish?\", though ostensibly similar to the question of color seems to me to give me a far more meaningful insight into one's mental state. Perhaps an analogous question for the gustatory sense would be \"what is your favorite taste?\". But this question seems much more silly for some reason, which I can only ascribe to the greater intensity, and by extension clarity in communication, of visual over gustatory stimuli. Is this concept of one's \"favorite color\" specific to western culture? I ask because upon reflection, I don't even know how I would begin to find out what my favorite color is, were the concept not cemented inside my brain as a child. I can easily describe what colors I think I look good in, or what colors I prefer my bathroom's walls to be. But even the answers to these questions differ from one another. So how can I know what my favorite color is \"overall\"? Tl;dr: (1) What meaning (if any) does one's \"favorite color\" convey about their mind and experience? (2) Why doesn't an analogous concept appear to exist for any other senses (gustatory, auditory, etc.)? (3) To what extent is the idea of a \"favorite color\" cultural?","c_root_id_A":"h9xssb1","c_root_id_B":"h9yitm4","created_at_utc_A":1629657135,"created_at_utc_B":1629668658,"score_A":7,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"A very interesting question you asked there. It brings on the question of what words actually mean and if they have some kind of true meaning hiding in itself. Schopenhauer wrote about the difficulties one might have when translating or explaining words to someone else as they can mean totally different things to different people. I think his point was that things like translations of poems for example where useless as the meaning of the words in one language can not be translated to another one. He argued that some words might not have a meaning to some people at all which might explain why there is no apparent meaning or information to some words to some people as they all perceive them individually. Another interesting grasp on the meaning of words is the science of Ethymologie which Plato also wrote about. You might find more answers there I don\u2019t now mich about that.","human_ref_B":"What a wonderfully interesting question. Never heard this discussed before. I'll take a stab at your second question. >(2) Why doesn't an analogous concept appear to exist for any other senses (gustatory, auditory, etc.)? I think they do exist for those people who have stronger senses of smell and taste, at least. I consider myself to have a really robust sense of smell and taste. And I realize this is anecdotal but I have intense memories of certain smells and tastes to the point that I can vividly recall them at will. I suspect this catalog of smells allows me to rank them and have intuitions on my favorites kinds, analogous to also having a favorite color. For example, I think my favorite smell might be Hibiscus concentrate. And I really love Fruity and floral smells in general. The smell of a just ripened enough banana is heaven to me. I wonder if some of the problem of it seeming if people in general have no favorite smell but having a favorite color might stem from: (1) lacking the language for naming types of smells; (2) some people have really weak senses of taste and smell; and (3) no one ever seems to ask you time and time again what's your favorite smell like they do with what's your favorite color throughout nearly your entire life. Try it yourself and see if by looking through ten major types of smells you are then better able to rank them, if not outright pick a favorite(s). **Note:** this is not a perfectly scientific list but it should have the desired effect regardless of its astuteness. **Olfactory Space** * Fragrant (e.g. florals and perfumes) * Fruity (all non-citrus fruits) * Citrus (e.g. lemon, lime, orange) * Woody and resinous (e.g. pine or fresh cut grass) * Chemical (e.g. ammonia, bleach) * Sweet (e.g. chocolate, vanilla, caramel) * Minty and peppermint (e.g. eucalyptus and camphor) * Toasted and nutty (e.g popcorn, peanut butter, almonds) * Pungent (e.g. blue cheese, cigar smoke) * Decayed (e.g. rotting meat, sour milk)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11523.0,"score_ratio":6.7142857143} +{"post_id":"p9hlpj","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What is a \"favorite color\"? Title. What does it mean to have a \"favorite color\"? How does the preference relate to qualia, precisely speaking? What meaningful information do I gain from knowing that someone \"likes color x more than color y\"? Is it even possible to reduce to a single favorite color, with no index to context? I've never heard anyone question this notion before. I've always just taken its meaning for granted, as have other people, from what I gather. Everyone I've ever asked has been able to label a color or a couple of colors as their \"favorites\". I've always been able to do the same. But upon reflection, I find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what information I gained from their answers. Other questions relating to preferences provide answers with much clearer and easily tracable meaning. \"What is your favorite dish?\", though ostensibly similar to the question of color seems to me to give me a far more meaningful insight into one's mental state. Perhaps an analogous question for the gustatory sense would be \"what is your favorite taste?\". But this question seems much more silly for some reason, which I can only ascribe to the greater intensity, and by extension clarity in communication, of visual over gustatory stimuli. Is this concept of one's \"favorite color\" specific to western culture? I ask because upon reflection, I don't even know how I would begin to find out what my favorite color is, were the concept not cemented inside my brain as a child. I can easily describe what colors I think I look good in, or what colors I prefer my bathroom's walls to be. But even the answers to these questions differ from one another. So how can I know what my favorite color is \"overall\"? Tl;dr: (1) What meaning (if any) does one's \"favorite color\" convey about their mind and experience? (2) Why doesn't an analogous concept appear to exist for any other senses (gustatory, auditory, etc.)? (3) To what extent is the idea of a \"favorite color\" cultural?","c_root_id_A":"h9zmrvw","c_root_id_B":"h9z39a4","created_at_utc_A":1629688209,"created_at_utc_B":1629678382,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":">Colors influence object preferences in many situations in modern life, for example house paint, clothes, and furniture. Our individual preference for a particular color associated with these objects (a living room wall or an automobile) will be produced and reinforced by the positive feedback associated with the object and the color it has. Everyone has a somewhat different life experience, and so as people increasingly experience pleasure in something they bought in a particular color, they will tend to chose similar objects in the future with the same color. This leads to a self perpetuating situation. https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/the-new-brain\/201104\/why-we-prefer-certain-colors The entire article is interesting, you should read it.","human_ref_B":"(2) We don't distinguish smells and tastes the way that we do colours. Things in our visual perception are always 'colourful' while you have odourless or tasteless substances; the nose and tongue are occupied with other things, usually. I think it's probably fair to say that we *do* have favourite smells, tastes and sounds, though. Maybe we just don't talk about them much. (3) In Russian, there is a distinction between light and dark blues but apparently not 'blue' itself. I think the French see blues and greys as being closer together than the Anglosphere, or something like that. Not so much 'favourite colour,' since 'favourites' and 'colours' aren't really culturally relative concepts, so to speak. But there are differences in how we see particular colours.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9827.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"p9hlpj","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What is a \"favorite color\"? Title. What does it mean to have a \"favorite color\"? How does the preference relate to qualia, precisely speaking? What meaningful information do I gain from knowing that someone \"likes color x more than color y\"? Is it even possible to reduce to a single favorite color, with no index to context? I've never heard anyone question this notion before. I've always just taken its meaning for granted, as have other people, from what I gather. Everyone I've ever asked has been able to label a color or a couple of colors as their \"favorites\". I've always been able to do the same. But upon reflection, I find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what information I gained from their answers. Other questions relating to preferences provide answers with much clearer and easily tracable meaning. \"What is your favorite dish?\", though ostensibly similar to the question of color seems to me to give me a far more meaningful insight into one's mental state. Perhaps an analogous question for the gustatory sense would be \"what is your favorite taste?\". But this question seems much more silly for some reason, which I can only ascribe to the greater intensity, and by extension clarity in communication, of visual over gustatory stimuli. Is this concept of one's \"favorite color\" specific to western culture? I ask because upon reflection, I don't even know how I would begin to find out what my favorite color is, were the concept not cemented inside my brain as a child. I can easily describe what colors I think I look good in, or what colors I prefer my bathroom's walls to be. But even the answers to these questions differ from one another. So how can I know what my favorite color is \"overall\"? Tl;dr: (1) What meaning (if any) does one's \"favorite color\" convey about their mind and experience? (2) Why doesn't an analogous concept appear to exist for any other senses (gustatory, auditory, etc.)? (3) To what extent is the idea of a \"favorite color\" cultural?","c_root_id_A":"h9zphwe","c_root_id_B":"h9z39a4","created_at_utc_A":1629689724,"created_at_utc_B":1629678382,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"> To what extent is the idea of a \"favorite color\" cultural? Here is an r\/askhistorians answer that might be of relevance","human_ref_B":"(2) We don't distinguish smells and tastes the way that we do colours. Things in our visual perception are always 'colourful' while you have odourless or tasteless substances; the nose and tongue are occupied with other things, usually. I think it's probably fair to say that we *do* have favourite smells, tastes and sounds, though. Maybe we just don't talk about them much. (3) In Russian, there is a distinction between light and dark blues but apparently not 'blue' itself. I think the French see blues and greys as being closer together than the Anglosphere, or something like that. Not so much 'favourite colour,' since 'favourites' and 'colours' aren't really culturally relative concepts, so to speak. But there are differences in how we see particular colours.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11342.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxb2wa","c_root_id_B":"ehxbafg","created_at_utc_A":1551889281,"created_at_utc_B":1551889424,"score_A":25,"score_B":160,"human_ref_A":">Is this true? No. >Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted? Yes.","human_ref_B":"You don't get a job (or even keep one) for being brilliant. You get a job (and keep one) for doing various kinds of work - getting research published and developing and teaching classes, etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":143.0,"score_ratio":6.4} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxcg3d","c_root_id_B":"ehxc74i","created_at_utc_A":1551890198,"created_at_utc_B":1551890032,"score_A":54,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":">Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted? It's hard work. I work at a philosophy department, and very few of my colleagues (me included) are what I would call \"brilliant.\" They're intelligent people, obviously. They're also highly conscientious and hard-working. That is really the most important part. Academia is a hustle; if you expect to just skate by, you'll be disappointed. But if you're prepared to work hard, brilliance is optional. Whether or not your career will be \"fulfilling\" is, of course, a matter of your own values and psychology. What would you consider a fulfilling career?","human_ref_B":"I don\u2019t think any of my professors were what I\u2019d call brilliant. However, they were willing to work at a non-ivy league university in a small New England town.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":166.0,"score_ratio":1.8620689655} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxcg3d","c_root_id_B":"ehxb2wa","created_at_utc_A":1551890198,"created_at_utc_B":1551889281,"score_A":54,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":">Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted? It's hard work. I work at a philosophy department, and very few of my colleagues (me included) are what I would call \"brilliant.\" They're intelligent people, obviously. They're also highly conscientious and hard-working. That is really the most important part. Academia is a hustle; if you expect to just skate by, you'll be disappointed. But if you're prepared to work hard, brilliance is optional. Whether or not your career will be \"fulfilling\" is, of course, a matter of your own values and psychology. What would you consider a fulfilling career?","human_ref_B":">Is this true? No. >Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted? Yes.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":917.0,"score_ratio":2.16} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxb2wa","c_root_id_B":"ehxc74i","created_at_utc_A":1551889281,"created_at_utc_B":1551890032,"score_A":25,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":">Is this true? No. >Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted? Yes.","human_ref_B":"I don\u2019t think any of my professors were what I\u2019d call brilliant. However, they were willing to work at a non-ivy league university in a small New England town.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":751.0,"score_ratio":1.16} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxox5x","c_root_id_B":"ehxha73","created_at_utc_A":1551898486,"created_at_utc_B":1551893418,"score_A":16,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"As basically everyone else here points out, you don't need to be brilliant to do a PhD, and thinking of academic success in terms of brilliance actually has a lot of problems associated with it to the point where it'd be best to avoid the notion altogether. As for whether it's worth doing a PhD in philosophy: no. You absolutely should not do a PhD. You are almost certainly going to spend 5+ years of your life working towards a goal which will produce very little practical goods for you as you are highly unlikely to get a job teaching philosophy. You'll also very likely suffer bouts of depression and hurt yourself seriously financially (either by putting off contributing to retirement or letting interest accrue on your undergrad loans).","human_ref_B":"Brilliance is irrelevant. You go for a PhD if you\u2019re passionate and interested in the field of study. Even if you don\u2019t consider yourself brilliant now, you\u2019ll gain specified knowledge during your PhD. And if you care enough to work hard in your field, other scholars may consider your work \u201cbrilliant\u201d.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5068.0,"score_ratio":1.4545454545} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxox5x","c_root_id_B":"ehxot37","created_at_utc_A":1551898486,"created_at_utc_B":1551898414,"score_A":16,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"As basically everyone else here points out, you don't need to be brilliant to do a PhD, and thinking of academic success in terms of brilliance actually has a lot of problems associated with it to the point where it'd be best to avoid the notion altogether. As for whether it's worth doing a PhD in philosophy: no. You absolutely should not do a PhD. You are almost certainly going to spend 5+ years of your life working towards a goal which will produce very little practical goods for you as you are highly unlikely to get a job teaching philosophy. You'll also very likely suffer bouts of depression and hurt yourself seriously financially (either by putting off contributing to retirement or letting interest accrue on your undergrad loans).","human_ref_B":"I think double majoring in philosophy and computer science will help you out a lot if you can. Philosophy is a dismal field. If you must try it, do it. But computer science will open a lot of doors for careers if it doesn't work out. And there's some cool interdisciplinary stuff you can do with the two of them together. You're a high schooler though. You shouldn't focus on a specific goal. You should focus on breadth of study and exposure. Find out what you enjoy doing and what makes you curious.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":72.0,"score_ratio":1.7777777778} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxox5x","c_root_id_B":"ehxcmc8","created_at_utc_A":1551898486,"created_at_utc_B":1551890314,"score_A":16,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"As basically everyone else here points out, you don't need to be brilliant to do a PhD, and thinking of academic success in terms of brilliance actually has a lot of problems associated with it to the point where it'd be best to avoid the notion altogether. As for whether it's worth doing a PhD in philosophy: no. You absolutely should not do a PhD. You are almost certainly going to spend 5+ years of your life working towards a goal which will produce very little practical goods for you as you are highly unlikely to get a job teaching philosophy. You'll also very likely suffer bouts of depression and hurt yourself seriously financially (either by putting off contributing to retirement or letting interest accrue on your undergrad loans).","human_ref_B":"Look at it this way, a lot of people have corporate jobs that say \"ethics this\" or \"ethics that\" and I haven't seen any that have a PhD in philosophy. Some may, I just haven't seen them. I am also a CS student interested in philosophy (I have been in IT for 14 years already so our situations are difference) and I would hesitate to suggest you stop learning CS to study philosophy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8172.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxh2bs","c_root_id_B":"ehxox5x","created_at_utc_A":1551893276,"created_at_utc_B":1551898486,"score_A":5,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"This recent Daily Nous thread about the academic philosophy job market may be of interest to you. In particular, note the many comments about how tough the job market is even for very qualified\u2014brilliant, if you will\u2014people.","human_ref_B":"As basically everyone else here points out, you don't need to be brilliant to do a PhD, and thinking of academic success in terms of brilliance actually has a lot of problems associated with it to the point where it'd be best to avoid the notion altogether. As for whether it's worth doing a PhD in philosophy: no. You absolutely should not do a PhD. You are almost certainly going to spend 5+ years of your life working towards a goal which will produce very little practical goods for you as you are highly unlikely to get a job teaching philosophy. You'll also very likely suffer bouts of depression and hurt yourself seriously financially (either by putting off contributing to retirement or letting interest accrue on your undergrad loans).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5210.0,"score_ratio":3.2} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxduzv","c_root_id_B":"ehxox5x","created_at_utc_A":1551891143,"created_at_utc_B":1551898486,"score_A":5,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I have a question for you; Why wouldn't you class yourself as brilliant? How are you defining brilliance? Do you mean a person of advanced ethics or intellectually brilliant by producing ground breaking field changing ideas?","human_ref_B":"As basically everyone else here points out, you don't need to be brilliant to do a PhD, and thinking of academic success in terms of brilliance actually has a lot of problems associated with it to the point where it'd be best to avoid the notion altogether. As for whether it's worth doing a PhD in philosophy: no. You absolutely should not do a PhD. You are almost certainly going to spend 5+ years of your life working towards a goal which will produce very little practical goods for you as you are highly unlikely to get a job teaching philosophy. You'll also very likely suffer bouts of depression and hurt yourself seriously financially (either by putting off contributing to retirement or letting interest accrue on your undergrad loans).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7343.0,"score_ratio":3.2} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxnam9","c_root_id_B":"ehxha73","created_at_utc_A":1551897409,"created_at_utc_B":1551893418,"score_A":17,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"god i hope so","human_ref_B":"Brilliance is irrelevant. You go for a PhD if you\u2019re passionate and interested in the field of study. Even if you don\u2019t consider yourself brilliant now, you\u2019ll gain specified knowledge during your PhD. And if you care enough to work hard in your field, other scholars may consider your work \u201cbrilliant\u201d.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3991.0,"score_ratio":1.5454545455} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxcmc8","c_root_id_B":"ehxnam9","created_at_utc_A":1551890314,"created_at_utc_B":1551897409,"score_A":7,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Look at it this way, a lot of people have corporate jobs that say \"ethics this\" or \"ethics that\" and I haven't seen any that have a PhD in philosophy. Some may, I just haven't seen them. I am also a CS student interested in philosophy (I have been in IT for 14 years already so our situations are difference) and I would hesitate to suggest you stop learning CS to study philosophy.","human_ref_B":"god i hope so","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7095.0,"score_ratio":2.4285714286} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxh2bs","c_root_id_B":"ehxnam9","created_at_utc_A":1551893276,"created_at_utc_B":1551897409,"score_A":5,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"This recent Daily Nous thread about the academic philosophy job market may be of interest to you. In particular, note the many comments about how tough the job market is even for very qualified\u2014brilliant, if you will\u2014people.","human_ref_B":"god i hope so","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4133.0,"score_ratio":3.4} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxnam9","c_root_id_B":"ehxduzv","created_at_utc_A":1551897409,"created_at_utc_B":1551891143,"score_A":17,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"god i hope so","human_ref_B":"I have a question for you; Why wouldn't you class yourself as brilliant? How are you defining brilliance? Do you mean a person of advanced ethics or intellectually brilliant by producing ground breaking field changing ideas?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6266.0,"score_ratio":3.4} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxha73","c_root_id_B":"ehxcmc8","created_at_utc_A":1551893418,"created_at_utc_B":1551890314,"score_A":11,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Brilliance is irrelevant. You go for a PhD if you\u2019re passionate and interested in the field of study. Even if you don\u2019t consider yourself brilliant now, you\u2019ll gain specified knowledge during your PhD. And if you care enough to work hard in your field, other scholars may consider your work \u201cbrilliant\u201d.","human_ref_B":"Look at it this way, a lot of people have corporate jobs that say \"ethics this\" or \"ethics that\" and I haven't seen any that have a PhD in philosophy. Some may, I just haven't seen them. I am also a CS student interested in philosophy (I have been in IT for 14 years already so our situations are difference) and I would hesitate to suggest you stop learning CS to study philosophy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3104.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxh2bs","c_root_id_B":"ehxha73","created_at_utc_A":1551893276,"created_at_utc_B":1551893418,"score_A":5,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"This recent Daily Nous thread about the academic philosophy job market may be of interest to you. In particular, note the many comments about how tough the job market is even for very qualified\u2014brilliant, if you will\u2014people.","human_ref_B":"Brilliance is irrelevant. You go for a PhD if you\u2019re passionate and interested in the field of study. Even if you don\u2019t consider yourself brilliant now, you\u2019ll gain specified knowledge during your PhD. And if you care enough to work hard in your field, other scholars may consider your work \u201cbrilliant\u201d.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":142.0,"score_ratio":2.2} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxha73","c_root_id_B":"ehxduzv","created_at_utc_A":1551893418,"created_at_utc_B":1551891143,"score_A":11,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Brilliance is irrelevant. You go for a PhD if you\u2019re passionate and interested in the field of study. Even if you don\u2019t consider yourself brilliant now, you\u2019ll gain specified knowledge during your PhD. And if you care enough to work hard in your field, other scholars may consider your work \u201cbrilliant\u201d.","human_ref_B":"I have a question for you; Why wouldn't you class yourself as brilliant? How are you defining brilliance? Do you mean a person of advanced ethics or intellectually brilliant by producing ground breaking field changing ideas?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2275.0,"score_ratio":2.2} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxcmc8","c_root_id_B":"ehxot37","created_at_utc_A":1551890314,"created_at_utc_B":1551898414,"score_A":7,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Look at it this way, a lot of people have corporate jobs that say \"ethics this\" or \"ethics that\" and I haven't seen any that have a PhD in philosophy. Some may, I just haven't seen them. I am also a CS student interested in philosophy (I have been in IT for 14 years already so our situations are difference) and I would hesitate to suggest you stop learning CS to study philosophy.","human_ref_B":"I think double majoring in philosophy and computer science will help you out a lot if you can. Philosophy is a dismal field. If you must try it, do it. But computer science will open a lot of doors for careers if it doesn't work out. And there's some cool interdisciplinary stuff you can do with the two of them together. You're a high schooler though. You shouldn't focus on a specific goal. You should focus on breadth of study and exposure. Find out what you enjoy doing and what makes you curious.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8100.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxot37","c_root_id_B":"ehxh2bs","created_at_utc_A":1551898414,"created_at_utc_B":1551893276,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I think double majoring in philosophy and computer science will help you out a lot if you can. Philosophy is a dismal field. If you must try it, do it. But computer science will open a lot of doors for careers if it doesn't work out. And there's some cool interdisciplinary stuff you can do with the two of them together. You're a high schooler though. You shouldn't focus on a specific goal. You should focus on breadth of study and exposure. Find out what you enjoy doing and what makes you curious.","human_ref_B":"This recent Daily Nous thread about the academic philosophy job market may be of interest to you. In particular, note the many comments about how tough the job market is even for very qualified\u2014brilliant, if you will\u2014people.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5138.0,"score_ratio":1.8} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxot37","c_root_id_B":"ehxduzv","created_at_utc_A":1551898414,"created_at_utc_B":1551891143,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I think double majoring in philosophy and computer science will help you out a lot if you can. Philosophy is a dismal field. If you must try it, do it. But computer science will open a lot of doors for careers if it doesn't work out. And there's some cool interdisciplinary stuff you can do with the two of them together. You're a high schooler though. You shouldn't focus on a specific goal. You should focus on breadth of study and exposure. Find out what you enjoy doing and what makes you curious.","human_ref_B":"I have a question for you; Why wouldn't you class yourself as brilliant? How are you defining brilliance? Do you mean a person of advanced ethics or intellectually brilliant by producing ground breaking field changing ideas?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7271.0,"score_ratio":1.8} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxrg71","c_root_id_B":"ehxuhbu","created_at_utc_A":1551900151,"created_at_utc_B":1551902111,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I have a different question: is a PhD worth doing if you\u2019re not rich? I feel like I am so cut out for an intellectual career and I feel like that is where my talents lie, but it all costs $$$$","human_ref_B":"Getting a PhD does not require you to be brilliant or well above average smart. What it does require is hard work and self-discipline. If you feel you would enjoy spending few years diving deep into the topic you are interested in, go for it. Don\u2019t think about too much what happens afterwards, take it as your personal intellectual journey. That\u2019s why I\u2019m doing mine. And just because I get a PhD does not mean I will spend my life after working in academia. How would I know what is it that I want to do in 3 years? Maybe I just want to write novels, open a bookstore, or become a climate activist hippie? What you do now does not have to define your future. Just do something you feel passionate about in each moment and you\u2019ll be fine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1960.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxrg71","c_root_id_B":"ehy22ld","created_at_utc_A":1551900151,"created_at_utc_B":1551906978,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I have a different question: is a PhD worth doing if you\u2019re not rich? I feel like I am so cut out for an intellectual career and I feel like that is where my talents lie, but it all costs $$$$","human_ref_B":"You say you are doing computer science right now. If you have a natural inclination towards computer science besides your love for philosophy, the synthesis of your interests would be a welcome one in the current climate on faculties and in our culture.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6827.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxz3d1","c_root_id_B":"ehy22ld","created_at_utc_A":1551905077,"created_at_utc_B":1551906978,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"A reasonable reply: if you can get into a reputable PhD program, you'll have a 5-year job where you come out with a cool credential. If you can go in with a bit in savings, you might even enjoy grad school. My friends who have the best experiences in grad school are those who don't have to worry about money and being established. A more blunt reply: if you're really going into philosophy of science and math, then you need to go to a top program if you want an academic job in that area. There just aren't that many jobs in those areas, and when they open up, they go to the top Gourmet Report schools. You're picking an area where elitism matters the most. If you want an academic job, make sure to get an AOC (or even better, an AOS) in ethics, political theory, or some other high-demand area. And make sure to get teaching experience (adjuncting for a nearby university or teaching summer courses). Basically, anyone with interest can hang in the game. But your \"putting practicality aside\" thing is really only something rich, secure people can do. If you're not, practical stuff matters, and it's usually what keeps someone from finishing, not the academic component.","human_ref_B":"You say you are doing computer science right now. If you have a natural inclination towards computer science besides your love for philosophy, the synthesis of your interests would be a welcome one in the current climate on faculties and in our culture.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1901.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehxrg71","c_root_id_B":"ehybwni","created_at_utc_A":1551900151,"created_at_utc_B":1551913264,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I have a different question: is a PhD worth doing if you\u2019re not rich? I feel like I am so cut out for an intellectual career and I feel like that is where my talents lie, but it all costs $$$$","human_ref_B":"I was a straight C student throughout high school, I'm now doing a PhD. Being brilliant gets you so far, being imaginative is limitless.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13113.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"ay0kmv","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is a PhD worth doing if you're not brilliant? I'm a first year student, and since high school, I've been really interested in analytic philosophy, specifically philosophy of math and science. I've been trying to discern whether I want to switch to becoming a philosophy major (I'm computer science right now) and pursuing academic philosophy as a career. Putting practicality aside (e.g. bad job market, the prestige race, fighting for tenure), I've read Michael Huemer's blog about professional philosophy, and I've spoken with a number of graduate students at my university, and the feeling I'm getting is that unless you're absolutely brilliant or groundbreaking in some way, my career will be largely unfulfilling. Academic philosophy definitely does not seem to be one of those jobs where people can just skate by; it seems like you either produce excellent work, or you're better off not getting involved in the field at all. Is this true? Is academic philosophy ever worth it to anyone who isn't gifted?","c_root_id_A":"ehybwni","c_root_id_B":"ehxz3d1","created_at_utc_A":1551913264,"created_at_utc_B":1551905077,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I was a straight C student throughout high school, I'm now doing a PhD. Being brilliant gets you so far, being imaginative is limitless.","human_ref_B":"A reasonable reply: if you can get into a reputable PhD program, you'll have a 5-year job where you come out with a cool credential. If you can go in with a bit in savings, you might even enjoy grad school. My friends who have the best experiences in grad school are those who don't have to worry about money and being established. A more blunt reply: if you're really going into philosophy of science and math, then you need to go to a top program if you want an academic job in that area. There just aren't that many jobs in those areas, and when they open up, they go to the top Gourmet Report schools. You're picking an area where elitism matters the most. If you want an academic job, make sure to get an AOC (or even better, an AOS) in ethics, political theory, or some other high-demand area. And make sure to get teaching experience (adjuncting for a nearby university or teaching summer courses). Basically, anyone with interest can hang in the game. But your \"putting practicality aside\" thing is really only something rich, secure people can do. If you're not, practical stuff matters, and it's usually what keeps someone from finishing, not the academic component.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8187.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"t5rxqk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are things like age of majority , age of drinking , age of adulthood and age of consent etc based on ? What makes an 18 year old more mature than say a 16 year old to be considered an adult ? Can we truly expect most people on those ages to be considered an \"adult\" ?","c_root_id_A":"hz72e1x","c_root_id_B":"hz7ezjg","created_at_utc_A":1646323074,"created_at_utc_B":1646327965,"score_A":27,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"The historical reason is that 18 was set as the age in which an individual could vote, and after that it was understood that if you were mature enough to join and contribute to the political community, you were also mature enough to consent in all the other aspects you mention","human_ref_B":"There is a huge lot of historical and intercultural variation in how ages of majority are construed, and even what rights are bundled up in them. In the contemporary United States, there are very few rights that are not available by 21 (the President has to be 35, but that's not a right that very many people will get to exercise anyway), and so we tend to think of a certain age being the dividing line between \"partially-righted\" minors and \"fully-righted\" adult citizens. Historically, such a transition was often more piecemeal. In medieval Europe, it was common for people under 40 to be barred even from city councils. Often, they would not even be allowed to operate their own workshops below that age - guild regulations forbade it. Is there a philosophical reason behind it? Not so much - but an economic one, because it prevents competition from upstart rivals. On the other hand, in classical Judaism, the bar and bat mitzvah, which marks the entry into adulthood, are set to (for us) ridiculously low ages (12 for girls and 13 for boys). With a varied history like this, you might want to check into \/r\/AskHistorians about the historical background of how these rights developed and why and how they shifted over the course of history. It's not, I think, I strictly philosophical question, although philosophy has at times \"run in parallel\" with the very sensible assumption of lay society that it might not be a good idea to let people at younger ages do everything that adults do. You might also want to check in on \/r\/AskAnthropology on intercultural differences and the justifications cultures have for setting the transition to certain ages.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4891.0,"score_ratio":1.0740740741} +{"post_id":"t5rxqk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are things like age of majority , age of drinking , age of adulthood and age of consent etc based on ? What makes an 18 year old more mature than say a 16 year old to be considered an adult ? Can we truly expect most people on those ages to be considered an \"adult\" ?","c_root_id_A":"hz9onb4","c_root_id_B":"hz9i5m3","created_at_utc_A":1646362558,"created_at_utc_B":1646359234,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"One simple philosophical idea that is a generalized problem related to this question is Sorites Paradox, which comes up in basically any situation something smoothly goes from one state to another one. In the paradox, we wonder when, adding one grain at a time, a few specks of sand turn into a pile of sand. It's a similar problem wondering when day turns to night. Here, we add one minute or month or year at a time, wondering when someone transitions from a child or adolescent to an adult. One scientific approach is to examine outcomes based on age such as when certain parts of the brain finish changing (perhaps that deal with topics we see as adult such as morality) or when *most* people behave based on information from ways of thinking that seem necessary to be adult such as answering a moral question with a little rigor instead of something closer to the 5 year old strategy of saying, \"Because it's wrong!\" or \"I dunno\". It's \"most\", because like everything in people, some developer it sooner, others later, and some not at all or to a hindered capacity. If you're asking in an eli5 way, the matter of fact answer for American culture is probably closer to that last method although not scientifically determined. People most likely realized that kids younger than maybe 6 struggle to comprehend stuff like abstract moral philosophy, and by the time someone is around 18, he or she can write a competent paper on something like morality. A similar heuristic would be the capacity for someone to comprehend mature philosophical concepts by being taught them or researching them. It could be coincidence, but most people have the option to study in academia philosophy only once a freshman or above in college.","human_ref_B":"As other posters have mentioned, age tends to be a proxy for the point at which one should be mature enough (by whatever relevant standard). Having licensing tests for drinking, and sexual consent may be impractical to implement and enforce. But I want to add that the age of drinking is not merely about the mental capacity to consent to intoxicating oneself, but also related to the fact that young bodies are more susceptible to accidents, dependancy, and exhibit a lower tolerance. Consent, on the other hand includes a number of considerations that are related to assumed mental capacities. EG, in Canada, the age of consent is 16, but not if the other partner is both above 18 and in a position of authority over the 16 year old. In some cases, courts may legally emancipate a youth below 18 in cases where they are seen to be mature enough to be their own legal guardian and when their current guardians are for whatever reason unable or unfit to continue guardianship over them. Conversely, some adults over the age of majority may remain unable to be their own legal guardian and can have conservators given rights to make decisions with legal force on their behalf (an infamous case of this is the conservatorship of Britney Spears). Within a legal system it's often easier to choose a proxy and use other mechanisms to account for the exceptions.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3324.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"gmkevx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How do I avoid misinterpretations and misrepresentations of Philosophies and Philosophers? A bit of background, Im very new to Philosophy, and already Im finding myself contradicting on further reading many of the interpretations I adopted regarding Philosophies and Philosophers. My question is how do I avoid falling to the misrepresentations and misinterpretations of Philosophers, so that I can get the most accurate, reading of the philosophies and philosophers? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fr4cwcz","c_root_id_B":"fr4eh2p","created_at_utc_A":1589884104,"created_at_utc_B":1589885621,"score_A":14,"score_B":113,"human_ref_A":"Study them under the guidance of a philosophy professor or other similarly knowledgeable expert.","human_ref_B":"I've split my advice into two sections, as I think there's two parts to this. The first is when you're reading or learning of a philosopher, and the second is when you're asked to 'represent' a philosophy or philosophy in public or in an essay. ​ **Reading\/Getting to grips with an author** 1) Read genuinely, with good faith, and ideally twice \u2013 once skimming, and not too bothered about getting it 'right', then do a proper read to understand each paragraph. 2) Take advantage of the introductions of great authors \u2013 they're designed to introduce and prime you to learn what someone is saying, rather than interpret the text for you in a specific way (with some exceptions for late Continental authors, who it's very hard to read without interpreting). 3) Read the context of an author \u2013 frankly, that can be wikipedia in some cases, as much as people will hate me for saying that. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is also good, as is IETP. Scholarly articles and history books are great of course, but obviously longer and varying quality. Machiavelli makes more sense knowing the context of 15th century Italy, even if his message is timeless (sorry Straussians who may disagree with me). 4) Read what great scholars of that author have to say about what the author thinks. Reading Seyla Benhabib, Etienne Balibar, and Serena Parekh's views of Arendt are what gives you a masterful understanding of Arendt, above reading her primary work. This requires understanding *who* the great authors are, but knowing (2) and (3) helps you do (4). If you don't understand where they're coming from, pin down the bit where they \"lose\" you, and drill into that. Doing all this means you've read the main texts at least twice, multiple supporting authors, and a history of the person you're studying. At that point, you've done the groundwork to understand an issue. Keep in mind reading is ***hard***. It's not like reading fiction \u2013 you're *studying*, and studying tough texts. Take time, don't expect to get the answer immediately, and assume you're standing on the shoulders of giants. Great authors have written crap (Plato's rants about Phyrgian music come to mind), but great texts are great for a reason, and you're much more likely to not 'get' something than you are to have found an insightful new criticism. ​ **Writing\/Expressing your View** 1) Follow PEARL in your essay-writing: Point, evidence, analysis, reference, link. Point is a short statement of what you're saying the author says. Evidence is a primary quote. Analysis is explaining in your own modern short words what the author says. Reference is a secondary source which reinforces what you're saying, giving you a clue of the overall context. And link brings it back to your original point. For (a rushed) example: >*Arendt is sceptical of human rights' ability to protect one's liberty. In* Origins of Totalitarianism*, Arendt says clearly that human rights are the rights of those with \"the loss of home and political status\". That means they're the rights of those without a polity to defend their rights \u2013 for Arendt, the source of human rights. As Serena Parekh says,* \u201chuman rights rights are for when civil rights have failed\u201d *- Parekh is saying only those without protection, rely on human rights. And that protection, for Arendt, necessarily comes from belonging to a polity, i.e. from political status. This reinforces my overall thesis: statism is essential to Arendt's politics. Her scepticism of human rights is part of her belief in the essential nature of the state.* Writing simply in PEARL means you're forcing yourself to stick to the original source tightly. You can of course write differently and well, and writing in PEARL doesn't mean you're writing truth, but it forces you to continually refer to primary and secondary sources. As a note, PEARL doesn't lend itself to disagreeing with sources, i.e. writing 'John says X; I say Y'. There's other kinds of writing styles PEARL doesn't lend itself towards. But for the majority of ideas, writing in PEARL is helpful. 2) Put in three points what an author is saying in a text. Everything can be simplified into bullet point lists no more than 5-7 points long, and everything can be oversimplified into three key ideas. This is a judgment exercise, but doing so distils an author down and gives you a point of reference to make sure you're consistent in your interpretation of an author, which helps you avoid misinterpretation \u2013 most misinterpretation from students at all levels are revealed by inconsistency (John says Hobbes says x; that maybe makes sense in passage y, but what about passage z?). So avoiding inconsistency through summarising an author's points, is immensely helpful. 3) Talk to your peers! While lecturers and professors will tell you very often, \"it depends\", your peers will often go \"this bit makes \\*\\*\\*\\* all sense\", or have a view to what an author is saying in passage Y, that is a gross oversimplification *that gives a clear view to what an author says*. You don't need to be perfect in an interpretation, just in the right ballpark \u2013 you don't need to get Hobbes' theory of statehood exactly right, as long as you know he is very staunchly in favour of the state for stability. Academics argue endlessly about the exact right interpretation of authors; your job is to get it *roughly* right, i.e. *not objectively wrong*. Do that by talking to your peers, and getting validation that your interpretation isn't mad. ​ This is a long guide of my views on the matter \u2013 hope it helps, and feel free to follow up with any questions. Cheers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1517.0,"score_ratio":8.0714285714} +{"post_id":"gmkevx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How do I avoid misinterpretations and misrepresentations of Philosophies and Philosophers? A bit of background, Im very new to Philosophy, and already Im finding myself contradicting on further reading many of the interpretations I adopted regarding Philosophies and Philosophers. My question is how do I avoid falling to the misrepresentations and misinterpretations of Philosophers, so that I can get the most accurate, reading of the philosophies and philosophers? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fr4ui5t","c_root_id_B":"fr4wbr0","created_at_utc_A":1589897124,"created_at_utc_B":1589898107,"score_A":12,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"I think it matters more what you get out of philosophy than gaining a precise view of what each philosopher said. Some philosophers are also very hard to read, and it is to my knowledge that interpretations vary wildly even in academic circles. So what I would say is not to sweat it. Just try to engage in good faith with the philosophers and don't present yourself as an expert on the topic so you don't accidentally spread some sort of misinformation (though, practically speaking, maybe it isn't very important if you misrepresent what Spinoza said in a specific paragraph of a specific book, but w\/e). Philosophy should be about ideas, not authors.","human_ref_B":"The only one way to do this is to avoid philosophy altogether! The beautiful thing about philosophy is that it can be argued that interpretation and ones\u2019 own representation, are key to the study of philosophy. Sometimes it takes another philosopher\u2019s \u2018misinterpretation\u2019 or \u2018misrepresentation\u2019 of another philosopher\u2019s thoughts, theories, concepts, to arrive at something novel! It is rare that I have encountered a homogenous interpretation or representation of a philosopher\u2019s work! Hell, Wittgenstein even turned up at the Vienna Circle and read Tagore\u2019s mystical poetry at the wall, part in protest that the greatest analytical philosophers of the time had misinterpreted and misrepresented his Tractatus! He even told Bertrand Russell, his mentor, and marker for his PHD thesis (the Tractatus) that he misinterpreted it, and he went so far as to rudely storm out. He still wrote the preface, and I know people who have read the Tractatus purely inspired by this! It has likewise been argued that Foucault misunderstood Deleuze & Guattari in his preface to Capitalism & Schizophrenia, yet despite this the preface has some fantastic insights! Personally I would recommend Rick Roderick\u2019s three lecture series as a great introduction from the ancients to modern day, and the lecture series focusing on Nietzsche. They are remarkably accessible, and will hopefully inspire you to engage with the kind of interpretations you are interested in! If you do nothing else, do this! I also often rely on the Stanford Plato encyclopaedia, which is compiled by many academics across the globe specialising in specific subjects or philosophers, and are typically reliable representations and interpretations.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":983.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"gmkevx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How do I avoid misinterpretations and misrepresentations of Philosophies and Philosophers? A bit of background, Im very new to Philosophy, and already Im finding myself contradicting on further reading many of the interpretations I adopted regarding Philosophies and Philosophers. My question is how do I avoid falling to the misrepresentations and misinterpretations of Philosophers, so that I can get the most accurate, reading of the philosophies and philosophers? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fr4wbr0","c_root_id_B":"fr4cwcz","created_at_utc_A":1589898107,"created_at_utc_B":1589884104,"score_A":15,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"The only one way to do this is to avoid philosophy altogether! The beautiful thing about philosophy is that it can be argued that interpretation and ones\u2019 own representation, are key to the study of philosophy. Sometimes it takes another philosopher\u2019s \u2018misinterpretation\u2019 or \u2018misrepresentation\u2019 of another philosopher\u2019s thoughts, theories, concepts, to arrive at something novel! It is rare that I have encountered a homogenous interpretation or representation of a philosopher\u2019s work! Hell, Wittgenstein even turned up at the Vienna Circle and read Tagore\u2019s mystical poetry at the wall, part in protest that the greatest analytical philosophers of the time had misinterpreted and misrepresented his Tractatus! He even told Bertrand Russell, his mentor, and marker for his PHD thesis (the Tractatus) that he misinterpreted it, and he went so far as to rudely storm out. He still wrote the preface, and I know people who have read the Tractatus purely inspired by this! It has likewise been argued that Foucault misunderstood Deleuze & Guattari in his preface to Capitalism & Schizophrenia, yet despite this the preface has some fantastic insights! Personally I would recommend Rick Roderick\u2019s three lecture series as a great introduction from the ancients to modern day, and the lecture series focusing on Nietzsche. They are remarkably accessible, and will hopefully inspire you to engage with the kind of interpretations you are interested in! If you do nothing else, do this! I also often rely on the Stanford Plato encyclopaedia, which is compiled by many academics across the globe specialising in specific subjects or philosophers, and are typically reliable representations and interpretations.","human_ref_B":"Study them under the guidance of a philosophy professor or other similarly knowledgeable expert.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14003.0,"score_ratio":1.0714285714} +{"post_id":"gmkevx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How do I avoid misinterpretations and misrepresentations of Philosophies and Philosophers? A bit of background, Im very new to Philosophy, and already Im finding myself contradicting on further reading many of the interpretations I adopted regarding Philosophies and Philosophers. My question is how do I avoid falling to the misrepresentations and misinterpretations of Philosophers, so that I can get the most accurate, reading of the philosophies and philosophers? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fr4wbr0","c_root_id_B":"fr4ox9x","created_at_utc_A":1589898107,"created_at_utc_B":1589893804,"score_A":15,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The only one way to do this is to avoid philosophy altogether! The beautiful thing about philosophy is that it can be argued that interpretation and ones\u2019 own representation, are key to the study of philosophy. Sometimes it takes another philosopher\u2019s \u2018misinterpretation\u2019 or \u2018misrepresentation\u2019 of another philosopher\u2019s thoughts, theories, concepts, to arrive at something novel! It is rare that I have encountered a homogenous interpretation or representation of a philosopher\u2019s work! Hell, Wittgenstein even turned up at the Vienna Circle and read Tagore\u2019s mystical poetry at the wall, part in protest that the greatest analytical philosophers of the time had misinterpreted and misrepresented his Tractatus! He even told Bertrand Russell, his mentor, and marker for his PHD thesis (the Tractatus) that he misinterpreted it, and he went so far as to rudely storm out. He still wrote the preface, and I know people who have read the Tractatus purely inspired by this! It has likewise been argued that Foucault misunderstood Deleuze & Guattari in his preface to Capitalism & Schizophrenia, yet despite this the preface has some fantastic insights! Personally I would recommend Rick Roderick\u2019s three lecture series as a great introduction from the ancients to modern day, and the lecture series focusing on Nietzsche. They are remarkably accessible, and will hopefully inspire you to engage with the kind of interpretations you are interested in! If you do nothing else, do this! I also often rely on the Stanford Plato encyclopaedia, which is compiled by many academics across the globe specialising in specific subjects or philosophers, and are typically reliable representations and interpretations.","human_ref_B":"This may be simple but hopefully it is helpful. While I won\u2019t go in depth as the other comments I will give some advice. Do not worry too much about misinterpreting and misrepresenting when beginning in a subject. Of course It is very important to get things right. However, when learning the beginning concepts must be simple and build upwards so that in itself leaves room open for misrepresenting or misinterpreting the philosopher because you simply don\u2019t know any better. So, acknowledge what you do know and don\u2019t know and your limited perspective and continue to learn and grow!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4303.0,"score_ratio":5.0} +{"post_id":"gmkevx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How do I avoid misinterpretations and misrepresentations of Philosophies and Philosophers? A bit of background, Im very new to Philosophy, and already Im finding myself contradicting on further reading many of the interpretations I adopted regarding Philosophies and Philosophers. My question is how do I avoid falling to the misrepresentations and misinterpretations of Philosophers, so that I can get the most accurate, reading of the philosophies and philosophers? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fr4ox9x","c_root_id_B":"fr4ui5t","created_at_utc_A":1589893804,"created_at_utc_B":1589897124,"score_A":3,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"This may be simple but hopefully it is helpful. While I won\u2019t go in depth as the other comments I will give some advice. Do not worry too much about misinterpreting and misrepresenting when beginning in a subject. Of course It is very important to get things right. However, when learning the beginning concepts must be simple and build upwards so that in itself leaves room open for misrepresenting or misinterpreting the philosopher because you simply don\u2019t know any better. So, acknowledge what you do know and don\u2019t know and your limited perspective and continue to learn and grow!","human_ref_B":"I think it matters more what you get out of philosophy than gaining a precise view of what each philosopher said. Some philosophers are also very hard to read, and it is to my knowledge that interpretations vary wildly even in academic circles. So what I would say is not to sweat it. Just try to engage in good faith with the philosophers and don't present yourself as an expert on the topic so you don't accidentally spread some sort of misinformation (though, practically speaking, maybe it isn't very important if you misrepresent what Spinoza said in a specific paragraph of a specific book, but w\/e). Philosophy should be about ideas, not authors.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3320.0,"score_ratio":4.0} +{"post_id":"olxqsc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Do any philosophers touch on not giving into pessimism and cynicism (in the modern sense)? Would y\u2019all recommend any particular works, essays, books, or anything for this? As I\u2019m getting older into my mid 20\u2019s, I\u2019m finding myself becoming increasingly pessimistic about politics, the state of the world, the state of humanity as a collective group, and other things. I\u2019ve always considered myself to be overly positive and optimistic. Much of it seems to be based in ideals I hold. For example, I find myself thinking, \u201cIf only people could be like this\u201d or \u201cIf only these politicians thought this way\u201d. I have practical ideas, as in they\u2019re not crazy or far off and could reasonably seen as being helpful, but I don\u2019t expect or think they\u2019d be implemented anytime soon given the political and social climate around me. I\u2019ve been trying to figure out how to turn my \u201cpessimism\u201d into something more positive or at least constructive. Whether that be in a personal, mental way or in a real-world, practical way. I feel like this is a pretty common feeling. I think reading Vonnegut and Pratchett have helped some. They were pretty strong and convicted on their opinions and ideals and recognized issues in the world. They seemingly weren\u2019t turned into cynical people, at least permanently or for long periods.","c_root_id_A":"h5hw1s1","c_root_id_B":"h5hx0nj","created_at_utc_A":1626510477,"created_at_utc_B":1626511358,"score_A":10,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Critique of Cynical Reason by Peter Sloterdijk","human_ref_B":"As is often the case here, I'll recommend Albert Camus and specifically Myth of Sisyphus. Interestingly, Joshua Deinstag considers Camus a pessimist in his work (unsurprisingly) titled *Pessimism.* Camus, in a short essay \"Pessimism and Tyranny\" (found in *Resistance, Rebellion, and Death*) seems to make just such a claim. One central theme, however, of Camus's corpus is his persistent refusal to give into the nihilism that pessimism can bring about. In Caligula, he shows us the potential for danger in embracing the logic of nihilistic pessimism. In Sisyphus, he presents an individualistic way out. In The Rebel, he offers us a way out of collective feelings of pessimistic nihilism and a philosophical and historical look at individuals, groups, states, etc that embraced the nihilism. In short, Camus doesn't reject pessimism as a philosophically reasonable premise, but he offers solutions for how to live well despite the persistence of pessimism.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":881.0,"score_ratio":3.6} +{"post_id":"olxqsc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Do any philosophers touch on not giving into pessimism and cynicism (in the modern sense)? Would y\u2019all recommend any particular works, essays, books, or anything for this? As I\u2019m getting older into my mid 20\u2019s, I\u2019m finding myself becoming increasingly pessimistic about politics, the state of the world, the state of humanity as a collective group, and other things. I\u2019ve always considered myself to be overly positive and optimistic. Much of it seems to be based in ideals I hold. For example, I find myself thinking, \u201cIf only people could be like this\u201d or \u201cIf only these politicians thought this way\u201d. I have practical ideas, as in they\u2019re not crazy or far off and could reasonably seen as being helpful, but I don\u2019t expect or think they\u2019d be implemented anytime soon given the political and social climate around me. I\u2019ve been trying to figure out how to turn my \u201cpessimism\u201d into something more positive or at least constructive. Whether that be in a personal, mental way or in a real-world, practical way. I feel like this is a pretty common feeling. I think reading Vonnegut and Pratchett have helped some. They were pretty strong and convicted on their opinions and ideals and recognized issues in the world. They seemingly weren\u2019t turned into cynical people, at least permanently or for long periods.","c_root_id_A":"h5hx0nj","c_root_id_B":"h5hu9ve","created_at_utc_A":1626511358,"created_at_utc_B":1626508869,"score_A":36,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"As is often the case here, I'll recommend Albert Camus and specifically Myth of Sisyphus. Interestingly, Joshua Deinstag considers Camus a pessimist in his work (unsurprisingly) titled *Pessimism.* Camus, in a short essay \"Pessimism and Tyranny\" (found in *Resistance, Rebellion, and Death*) seems to make just such a claim. One central theme, however, of Camus's corpus is his persistent refusal to give into the nihilism that pessimism can bring about. In Caligula, he shows us the potential for danger in embracing the logic of nihilistic pessimism. In Sisyphus, he presents an individualistic way out. In The Rebel, he offers us a way out of collective feelings of pessimistic nihilism and a philosophical and historical look at individuals, groups, states, etc that embraced the nihilism. In short, Camus doesn't reject pessimism as a philosophically reasonable premise, but he offers solutions for how to live well despite the persistence of pessimism.","human_ref_B":"Judith Shklar, \u201cOrdinary Vices\u201d (1984) has a chapter on the danger of misanthropy. The point is that misanthropy as a result of high ethical standards disappointed by the conduct of people\u2019s may itself become a source of unethical, cruel behavior. I recommend the whole book but this chapter is most relevant.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2489.0,"score_ratio":6.0} +{"post_id":"olxqsc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Do any philosophers touch on not giving into pessimism and cynicism (in the modern sense)? Would y\u2019all recommend any particular works, essays, books, or anything for this? As I\u2019m getting older into my mid 20\u2019s, I\u2019m finding myself becoming increasingly pessimistic about politics, the state of the world, the state of humanity as a collective group, and other things. I\u2019ve always considered myself to be overly positive and optimistic. Much of it seems to be based in ideals I hold. For example, I find myself thinking, \u201cIf only people could be like this\u201d or \u201cIf only these politicians thought this way\u201d. I have practical ideas, as in they\u2019re not crazy or far off and could reasonably seen as being helpful, but I don\u2019t expect or think they\u2019d be implemented anytime soon given the political and social climate around me. I\u2019ve been trying to figure out how to turn my \u201cpessimism\u201d into something more positive or at least constructive. Whether that be in a personal, mental way or in a real-world, practical way. I feel like this is a pretty common feeling. I think reading Vonnegut and Pratchett have helped some. They were pretty strong and convicted on their opinions and ideals and recognized issues in the world. They seemingly weren\u2019t turned into cynical people, at least permanently or for long periods.","c_root_id_A":"h5hu9ve","c_root_id_B":"h5hw1s1","created_at_utc_A":1626508869,"created_at_utc_B":1626510477,"score_A":6,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Judith Shklar, \u201cOrdinary Vices\u201d (1984) has a chapter on the danger of misanthropy. The point is that misanthropy as a result of high ethical standards disappointed by the conduct of people\u2019s may itself become a source of unethical, cruel behavior. I recommend the whole book but this chapter is most relevant.","human_ref_B":"Critique of Cynical Reason by Peter Sloterdijk","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1608.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"olxqsc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Do any philosophers touch on not giving into pessimism and cynicism (in the modern sense)? Would y\u2019all recommend any particular works, essays, books, or anything for this? As I\u2019m getting older into my mid 20\u2019s, I\u2019m finding myself becoming increasingly pessimistic about politics, the state of the world, the state of humanity as a collective group, and other things. I\u2019ve always considered myself to be overly positive and optimistic. Much of it seems to be based in ideals I hold. For example, I find myself thinking, \u201cIf only people could be like this\u201d or \u201cIf only these politicians thought this way\u201d. I have practical ideas, as in they\u2019re not crazy or far off and could reasonably seen as being helpful, but I don\u2019t expect or think they\u2019d be implemented anytime soon given the political and social climate around me. I\u2019ve been trying to figure out how to turn my \u201cpessimism\u201d into something more positive or at least constructive. Whether that be in a personal, mental way or in a real-world, practical way. I feel like this is a pretty common feeling. I think reading Vonnegut and Pratchett have helped some. They were pretty strong and convicted on their opinions and ideals and recognized issues in the world. They seemingly weren\u2019t turned into cynical people, at least permanently or for long periods.","c_root_id_A":"h5hu9ve","c_root_id_B":"h5iehy0","created_at_utc_A":1626508869,"created_at_utc_B":1626526166,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Judith Shklar, \u201cOrdinary Vices\u201d (1984) has a chapter on the danger of misanthropy. The point is that misanthropy as a result of high ethical standards disappointed by the conduct of people\u2019s may itself become a source of unethical, cruel behavior. I recommend the whole book but this chapter is most relevant.","human_ref_B":"The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. \"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17297.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"olxqsc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Do any philosophers touch on not giving into pessimism and cynicism (in the modern sense)? Would y\u2019all recommend any particular works, essays, books, or anything for this? As I\u2019m getting older into my mid 20\u2019s, I\u2019m finding myself becoming increasingly pessimistic about politics, the state of the world, the state of humanity as a collective group, and other things. I\u2019ve always considered myself to be overly positive and optimistic. Much of it seems to be based in ideals I hold. For example, I find myself thinking, \u201cIf only people could be like this\u201d or \u201cIf only these politicians thought this way\u201d. I have practical ideas, as in they\u2019re not crazy or far off and could reasonably seen as being helpful, but I don\u2019t expect or think they\u2019d be implemented anytime soon given the political and social climate around me. I\u2019ve been trying to figure out how to turn my \u201cpessimism\u201d into something more positive or at least constructive. Whether that be in a personal, mental way or in a real-world, practical way. I feel like this is a pretty common feeling. I think reading Vonnegut and Pratchett have helped some. They were pretty strong and convicted on their opinions and ideals and recognized issues in the world. They seemingly weren\u2019t turned into cynical people, at least permanently or for long periods.","c_root_id_A":"h5i4xqs","c_root_id_B":"h5iehy0","created_at_utc_A":1626518754,"created_at_utc_B":1626526166,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"How to be an anti-capitalist in the 21st century, by Olsen-Wright, is a super nice combination of hopefulness and social critique. I see it as an answer to the frustration of left-leaning people in a neoliberal world -- it proposes avenues of action where there is hope to realistically change things.","human_ref_B":"The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. \"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7412.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"ck1yds","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Why is it that Eastern and Western philosophy don't appear to have interacted much, even in the ancient world, until the 19th century? Is there any evidence of cross pollination of ideas?","c_root_id_A":"eviv28a","c_root_id_B":"evjx7cu","created_at_utc_A":1564549980,"created_at_utc_B":1564571582,"score_A":7,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I would put this down to two main factors: (1) Cultural elitism (for lack of a better word). Each culture had its ideas of the classics, and of the classical civilizations worthy of study. In the West, Greek thought was considered the foundation of all philosophy, so it was Plato and Aristotle who were studied and referenced. Despite the move toward less Eurocentric thought, I would argue that this is still the case today as the majority of philosophers are working in a tradition that goes from Greece through medieval thought and on to Kant, Hegel, etc... There were influences such as Buddhism on Schopenhauer, but most philosophy departments still offer limited classes on Eastern thinkers. The idea of a Western Canon is still there, even if not referenced by name. Look to music for a similar phenomenon. For East Asia, the cultural influence was China itself (especially Confucianism and Taoism), as well as Buddhist thought from India. Philosophers from these regions, such as the neo-Confucians (e.g. Zhuxi) and the many strands of Buddhist thought referenced earlier Eastern works. They didn't feel the need to look elsewhere. Canon was a key concept here too. However, it should be noted that India and China were certainly different civilizations, and Chinese thought did become profoundly influenced by the Indian thought via Buddhism. Had this not occurred, the idea of \"Eastern\" philosophy would not exist; we'd talk separately of Indian and Chinese thought instead and perhaps would be asking why they didn't mix. They \"mixed\" due to particular historical events (and mainly in one direction from India to China and on to Korea and Japan). (2) Translation. Most works in Eastern philosophy were not translated until very late, often beginning with the Jesuits in China. The strongest influence was probably the Sacred Books of the East series in the 19thC. This was for many in the West the first access they had to Eastern texts, and they did end up being quite influential in philosophy but also in the arts. Still, these translations were limited; they were only of the most common texts. Similarly, China didn't have (to my knowledge) access to translations of Plato. The translation of Buddhist texts into Chinese was an enormous and costly project led by Xuanzang and others. This project led to Buddhist texts (in Sanskrit and Pali) being available to Chinese scholars, and through them to Japan and Korea. The project was possible due to support by the the imperial state. There wasn't a corresponding project for philosophies from other regions, so anything that did make its way to China would have been obscure. In fact, I would argue that this is still the case today, though to a lesser extent. The majority of works in the Chinese Buddhist canon (which is largely the same as Korean and Japanese) are not available in English. On the other hand, even fairly obscure philosophical texts from the West are usually available in multiple European languages. There are today far more Western scholars who can read Sanskrit or classical Chinese than there were in the 1800's, but it's still not a level playing field.","human_ref_B":"There was actually substantial interaction between those we call Western and Eastern philosophers. This article gives a thorough analysis of the influence of Greek philosophers on Islamic philosophers: https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/arabic-islamic-greek\/ This article gives an analysis of the influence of Arabic philosophers on mediaeval Christian philosophers writing in Latin: https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/arabic-islamic-influence\/ This article gives an account of Byzantine philosophy. The Byzantine Empire was peculiarly located between the Latin West and the Arabic East, and continued writing in Greek and grappling with problems inherited from the ancient Greeks while the Latin West had mostly left the language and ideas behind: https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/byzantine-philosophy\/ I'm going to simplify this explanation grossly, but hopefully you get the idea: the reason we tend not to think there was any interaction is partly due to the prevalence of colonialism. The European intellectuals who studied Asian languages and culture at the time of colonial expansion took a peculiar view of the object studied as inherently 'other'. They tended to reduce what they called The Orient to a particular historical picture that the West itself had built of the East. The project of colonial powers wasn't to learn from these cultures, but to manage them. The ideas that filtered through to the west were generally geared towards administration rather than understanding. So the people doing the translating weren't interested in preserving the richness of Eastern thought, and often edited out significant aspects. One example is that the British translated Islamic law texts, but left out all discussion of Islamic jurisprudence, meaning the result was that the British used these Westernised translations to teach Islamic law both in England and to the colonial subjects themselves, substituting Western jurisprudence instead. The idea that there was such a thing as Islamic philosophy of law was therefore inaccessible to the British in general. But as you can see from the articles above, there is an exchange of ideas between the so-called East and the so-called West, if we're prepared to look for it. If you're interested, look into postcolonialism. The seminal work is Orientalism by Edward Said. It's a huge field.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21602.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"hjms9h","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What should I read before reading \"Thus Spoke Zarathustra\"? I have read *Beyond Good and Evil* around a year ago, and it made quite an impression on me, despite me not understanding half the references to other philosophers. I heard some people recommend familiarizing myself with philosophy before I touch anti-philosophy, however, some do say that it is worth reading for the impression alone (not exactly, but something along those lines). Some experts have stated that *Thus Spoke Zarathustra's* style precedes its content and that in order to understand it properly, I must familiarize myself with the Christian Gospels, as *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* uses a similar style. I am currently reading Plato's *Republic*, as recommended by some people, with the ultimate goal of preparing myself for reading this work. Can you give me some recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"fwnbbpo","c_root_id_B":"fwn9e7q","created_at_utc_A":1593651751,"created_at_utc_B":1593650644,"score_A":36,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"You dont need preparation for any philosophy. You can always backtrack later in life if you dont understand something. An example: you read nietzsche before plato and dont understand his critique. Then you read plato 2 years later and understand both on a deeper level. It luckily works in your favor like that. Actually most things in life do. Dont waste your time \"preparing\". Read what interests you the most currently.","human_ref_B":"I'm not sure the relevance of *The Republic*. I'd advise reading *The Gay Science*.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1107.0,"score_ratio":3.6} +{"post_id":"hjms9h","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What should I read before reading \"Thus Spoke Zarathustra\"? I have read *Beyond Good and Evil* around a year ago, and it made quite an impression on me, despite me not understanding half the references to other philosophers. I heard some people recommend familiarizing myself with philosophy before I touch anti-philosophy, however, some do say that it is worth reading for the impression alone (not exactly, but something along those lines). Some experts have stated that *Thus Spoke Zarathustra's* style precedes its content and that in order to understand it properly, I must familiarize myself with the Christian Gospels, as *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* uses a similar style. I am currently reading Plato's *Republic*, as recommended by some people, with the ultimate goal of preparing myself for reading this work. Can you give me some recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"fwncz53","c_root_id_B":"fwn9e7q","created_at_utc_A":1593652709,"created_at_utc_B":1593650644,"score_A":25,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"*Thus Spoke Zarathustra* is Nietzsche at his most allegorical and poetic, and to such a degree that it'll put some people off. Many of the core concepts contained in it can be found in Nietzsche's other books - *The Gay Science*, *The Anthichrist*, *Beyond Good and Evil* - in more straightforward way. That said, if you're okay with that, give it a shot. You also have the internet and \/r\/askphilosophy if you get lost on certain bits.","human_ref_B":"I'm not sure the relevance of *The Republic*. I'd advise reading *The Gay Science*.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2065.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"hjms9h","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What should I read before reading \"Thus Spoke Zarathustra\"? I have read *Beyond Good and Evil* around a year ago, and it made quite an impression on me, despite me not understanding half the references to other philosophers. I heard some people recommend familiarizing myself with philosophy before I touch anti-philosophy, however, some do say that it is worth reading for the impression alone (not exactly, but something along those lines). Some experts have stated that *Thus Spoke Zarathustra's* style precedes its content and that in order to understand it properly, I must familiarize myself with the Christian Gospels, as *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* uses a similar style. I am currently reading Plato's *Republic*, as recommended by some people, with the ultimate goal of preparing myself for reading this work. Can you give me some recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"fwncz53","c_root_id_B":"fwnbnod","created_at_utc_A":1593652709,"created_at_utc_B":1593651942,"score_A":25,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"*Thus Spoke Zarathustra* is Nietzsche at his most allegorical and poetic, and to such a degree that it'll put some people off. Many of the core concepts contained in it can be found in Nietzsche's other books - *The Gay Science*, *The Anthichrist*, *Beyond Good and Evil* - in more straightforward way. That said, if you're okay with that, give it a shot. You also have the internet and \/r\/askphilosophy if you get lost on certain bits.","human_ref_B":"I would just read it. Sure, lots of philosophical texts are rebuttals to other texts, but do you want to spend all your time reading through the entire history of philosophy? Zarathustra is fairly accessible, and you might miss some of it, but find a guide, or just be ok with it. I found it enjoyable either way.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":767.0,"score_ratio":6.25} +{"post_id":"hjms9h","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What should I read before reading \"Thus Spoke Zarathustra\"? I have read *Beyond Good and Evil* around a year ago, and it made quite an impression on me, despite me not understanding half the references to other philosophers. I heard some people recommend familiarizing myself with philosophy before I touch anti-philosophy, however, some do say that it is worth reading for the impression alone (not exactly, but something along those lines). Some experts have stated that *Thus Spoke Zarathustra's* style precedes its content and that in order to understand it properly, I must familiarize myself with the Christian Gospels, as *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* uses a similar style. I am currently reading Plato's *Republic*, as recommended by some people, with the ultimate goal of preparing myself for reading this work. Can you give me some recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"fwnwid6","c_root_id_B":"fwnbnod","created_at_utc_A":1593664990,"created_at_utc_B":1593651942,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"In a way you\u2019re already very prepared. Nietzsche wrote Beyond Good and Evil immediately after Thus Spoke. He intended it as a clarification of Thus Spoke. Many of the themes are the same. Overcoming old ideas, overcoming your limitations, identifying what is meaningful to you, and thus giving it meaning. All of the things you enjoyed in Beyond, are the things you can enjoy in Thus spoke. However, very different style. Biblical really. Tables and short stories and so much allusion. It has some of my favorite passages. When you get to the part with biting the head off a snake. That\u2019s my jam. Beyond good and evil is my favorite book, but it only makes Thus Spoke better.","human_ref_B":"I would just read it. Sure, lots of philosophical texts are rebuttals to other texts, but do you want to spend all your time reading through the entire history of philosophy? Zarathustra is fairly accessible, and you might miss some of it, but find a guide, or just be ok with it. I found it enjoyable either way.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13048.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"hjms9h","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What should I read before reading \"Thus Spoke Zarathustra\"? I have read *Beyond Good and Evil* around a year ago, and it made quite an impression on me, despite me not understanding half the references to other philosophers. I heard some people recommend familiarizing myself with philosophy before I touch anti-philosophy, however, some do say that it is worth reading for the impression alone (not exactly, but something along those lines). Some experts have stated that *Thus Spoke Zarathustra's* style precedes its content and that in order to understand it properly, I must familiarize myself with the Christian Gospels, as *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* uses a similar style. I am currently reading Plato's *Republic*, as recommended by some people, with the ultimate goal of preparing myself for reading this work. Can you give me some recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"fwnkkzr","c_root_id_B":"fwnwid6","created_at_utc_A":1593657217,"created_at_utc_B":1593664990,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"make sure to pause when you need to: in typical Nietzsche fashion, reading it can be like drinking from a firehose. some passages have meanings that are apparent and very beautifully written while others may require closing the book to think about in order to understand. more likely than not, we\u2019re likely to be missing *something* irrespective of how much \u2018prep\u2019 goes into it. as others have said, there are plenty of resources online if you have questions on particular passages. edit: spelling","human_ref_B":"In a way you\u2019re already very prepared. Nietzsche wrote Beyond Good and Evil immediately after Thus Spoke. He intended it as a clarification of Thus Spoke. Many of the themes are the same. Overcoming old ideas, overcoming your limitations, identifying what is meaningful to you, and thus giving it meaning. All of the things you enjoyed in Beyond, are the things you can enjoy in Thus spoke. However, very different style. Biblical really. Tables and short stories and so much allusion. It has some of my favorite passages. When you get to the part with biting the head off a snake. That\u2019s my jam. Beyond good and evil is my favorite book, but it only makes Thus Spoke better.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7773.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"hjms9h","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What should I read before reading \"Thus Spoke Zarathustra\"? I have read *Beyond Good and Evil* around a year ago, and it made quite an impression on me, despite me not understanding half the references to other philosophers. I heard some people recommend familiarizing myself with philosophy before I touch anti-philosophy, however, some do say that it is worth reading for the impression alone (not exactly, but something along those lines). Some experts have stated that *Thus Spoke Zarathustra's* style precedes its content and that in order to understand it properly, I must familiarize myself with the Christian Gospels, as *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* uses a similar style. I am currently reading Plato's *Republic*, as recommended by some people, with the ultimate goal of preparing myself for reading this work. Can you give me some recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"fwnwid6","c_root_id_B":"fwnf001","created_at_utc_A":1593664990,"created_at_utc_B":1593653882,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"In a way you\u2019re already very prepared. Nietzsche wrote Beyond Good and Evil immediately after Thus Spoke. He intended it as a clarification of Thus Spoke. Many of the themes are the same. Overcoming old ideas, overcoming your limitations, identifying what is meaningful to you, and thus giving it meaning. All of the things you enjoyed in Beyond, are the things you can enjoy in Thus spoke. However, very different style. Biblical really. Tables and short stories and so much allusion. It has some of my favorite passages. When you get to the part with biting the head off a snake. That\u2019s my jam. Beyond good and evil is my favorite book, but it only makes Thus Spoke better.","human_ref_B":"Just read it with a huge ton of salt. Do not take it too seriously.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11108.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"hjms9h","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What should I read before reading \"Thus Spoke Zarathustra\"? I have read *Beyond Good and Evil* around a year ago, and it made quite an impression on me, despite me not understanding half the references to other philosophers. I heard some people recommend familiarizing myself with philosophy before I touch anti-philosophy, however, some do say that it is worth reading for the impression alone (not exactly, but something along those lines). Some experts have stated that *Thus Spoke Zarathustra's* style precedes its content and that in order to understand it properly, I must familiarize myself with the Christian Gospels, as *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* uses a similar style. I am currently reading Plato's *Republic*, as recommended by some people, with the ultimate goal of preparing myself for reading this work. Can you give me some recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"fwnkkzr","c_root_id_B":"fwnf001","created_at_utc_A":1593657217,"created_at_utc_B":1593653882,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"make sure to pause when you need to: in typical Nietzsche fashion, reading it can be like drinking from a firehose. some passages have meanings that are apparent and very beautifully written while others may require closing the book to think about in order to understand. more likely than not, we\u2019re likely to be missing *something* irrespective of how much \u2018prep\u2019 goes into it. as others have said, there are plenty of resources online if you have questions on particular passages. edit: spelling","human_ref_B":"Just read it with a huge ton of salt. Do not take it too seriously.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3335.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"us7qdh","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"About African Philosophy This might be a reach, but does anyone know anything about African continental philosophy? Like what kinds of fields did\/ does ancient\/ medieval era philosophy did African philosophy cover? I'm thinking more about sub Saharan, seeing how northern Africa was basically part of the Western world and influenced by Jewish, Christian, and Islamic philosophy. Also, by chance, would anyone know any good introduction or anthology of sub Saharan philosophies. Thank! I'm asking mostly out of curiosity.","c_root_id_A":"i91ttee","c_root_id_B":"i91teyj","created_at_utc_A":1652861779,"created_at_utc_B":1652861409,"score_A":89,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"I got my undergrad and honours at an African university and have tutored undergrads there for nearly 6 years. Especially in the last 4 years or so we\u2019ve been pushing to include more philosophy from Africa in the syllabus. Though we don\u2019t yet have any course dedicated to a complete historical overview of African philosophy, we\u2019ve been including more and more in other courses. In our ethics course we talk about the Ubuntu moral theory, in our intros and metaphysics courses we talk about African conceptions of personhood, also in our intros courses we talk about decolonising knowledge and it\u2019s effects on epistemology. While I\u2019m certainly no expert in these fields I\u2019ve read them and taught them a couple of times so if any of that sounds interesting let me know what you\u2019d like to hear about and I\u2019ll try and respond when I have time in between marking papers.","human_ref_B":"As a general source, you could refer to Peter Adamson's (of The History of Philosophy without any Gaps) podcast, History of Africana Philosophy. It's a fun and informative way to get going, and they have a couple dozen episodes on pre-colonial African Philosophy. Hope this helps!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":370.0,"score_ratio":2.696969697} +{"post_id":"us7qdh","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"About African Philosophy This might be a reach, but does anyone know anything about African continental philosophy? Like what kinds of fields did\/ does ancient\/ medieval era philosophy did African philosophy cover? I'm thinking more about sub Saharan, seeing how northern Africa was basically part of the Western world and influenced by Jewish, Christian, and Islamic philosophy. Also, by chance, would anyone know any good introduction or anthology of sub Saharan philosophies. Thank! I'm asking mostly out of curiosity.","c_root_id_A":"i939xfw","c_root_id_B":"i93bnqj","created_at_utc_A":1652891338,"created_at_utc_B":1652892036,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Check out \"An Introduction To Africana Philosophy\" by Lewis Gordon. Should give you some authors to start looking into with more depth.","human_ref_B":"I dont think we can divide African societies like this. Ethiopia is a historically christian place, and has developed some autonomous christian theologies. Western Africa is also not north africa, but it was profoundly connected to the islamic intellectual world. I am heavely influenced by some critiques of the 'Western world' conception, such as Silvia Federici's in \\*Enduring Western Civilization\\*, and one of the tangible propositions about this critique is that when we 'close the borders' of such \\*West\\*, we can no longer understand the circulations and exchanges made in these borders, and how each tradition claimed by the West has also its own roots in non-West; we can talk about this with everything - greek intellectual culture, christian religion, roman empire... None is properly western if we can understand its global history, but then the ideologues of the west insist in using vague words such as 'heritage', 'tradition' and so on to create some optical illusion about the continuity\/discontinuity of these lineages. If you adopt these imaginaries, then you can only seek some fantastical alterities to fill the gaps of the world, and this will heavely alter our capacity to understand commonalities, encounters, exchanges and such. Because of that westerns remain solipsists. After all this, my point is that looking at some radical alterity in Africa is not a good approach, and the sub-saharan thing wont save it. The point is that north africa is not influenced by 'western thinking', and because of that deprived of its authenticit, but it is \\*part\\*, equal part depending of our values, of the intellectual history of greek tought, for example. And the whole western africa also partakes in this, along with other territories.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":698.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"b0rygm","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Is absence of evidence evidence of absence? I brought this up in a philosophy class recently as something I thought was true, or at least controversial. However, my professor said it\u2019s completely false and not controversial at all. He said that to have evidence that something is false, you need to have evidence of s contrary claim, and that lack of evidence does not count. Could somebody please point me to an explanation of why this is the case? Is this really not controversial in philosophy?","c_root_id_A":"eii4lek","c_root_id_B":"eijpmpv","created_at_utc_A":1552565226,"created_at_utc_B":1552603630,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"In the Bayesian interpretation of statistics, absence of evidence is (weak) evidence of absence. If som claim is false (\"Bigfoot exists\") that makes it less likely to be able to provide observational evidence in its favor (only 'evidence' so far is shaky low-quality footage, despite the prevalence of video-capable smart-phones.) Conditioning on an absence of observational evidence leads a Bayesian reasoner to invest less credence in the claim lacking evidence. The simplest explanation for absence of evidence, is absence itself.","human_ref_B":"> Could somebody please point me to an explanation of why this is the case? Let's say my thesis is \"There has been habitat destruction threatening the conversation of polar bear populations in the past fifty years.\" Let's adopt, for sake of discussion, the thesis that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Let's suppose no one has done any significant studies of polar bear populations and habitat considering the last fifty years. Then, we get an argument like this: 1. There is no evidence that in the past fifty years polar bear habitats have been destroyed in ways that threaten their populations. 2. If there's no evidence for X, X is false. 3. Therefore, it's not true that in the past fifty years polar bear habitats have been destroyed in ways that threaten their populations. This is a terrible argument, because the fact that we haven't inquired into X is no reason to think X is false. For this reason, reasonable people reject the thesis that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Let's consider a different scenario: one where we've taken significant steps to assess the evidence regarding polar bear populations and habitats, and not found any support for the thesis in question. Then we get an argument like this: 1. The evidence fails to support the thesis that there has in the last fifty years been destruction of habitat that threatens polar bear populations. 2. If the evidence fails to support X, X is false. 3. It's not true that in the last fifty years there has been destruction of habitat that threatens polar bear populations. This is a sensible argument. The confusion here seems to arise from people failing to distinguish between these two very different sorts of arguments. There's a significant difference between \"We have gathered significant evidence which fails to support X\" and \"We haven't gathered evidence that supports X\", but the throw-away expression \"absence of evidence\" isn't clear about which one of these two things it means, so the result is a great deal of confusion on this topic. > Is this really not controversial in philosophy? I don't think the foregoing is controversial in philosophy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":38404.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"ckuj99","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What did David Hume mean when he said \"Reason is to be the slave of the passions\"? the full quote goes as follows: **\"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.\"** Does this mean irrationality driven by desire and passion is to be held as superior to reason that advises against it? Is then attacking an irritating person in a fit of rage better than to cease and contemplate the consequences of such a decision?","c_root_id_A":"evrgf54","c_root_id_B":"evr1r63","created_at_utc_A":1564707740,"created_at_utc_B":1564700382,"score_A":12,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Others have given very detailed answers here, but I wanted to respond directly to the specific example you give. Hume is definitely *not* saying that we should abandon contemplation or self-reflection and act on our immediate impulses. In the case of the scenario you lay out, Hume would likely say something to the effect of: if you do end up restraining yourself from attacking the person and instead contemplate the consequences of such an action, *this too* stemmed from some \u201cpassion\u201d within you. We may think that in such a scenario we are choosing reason over passion, but really what we are doing is choosing one of our passions over another one of our passions (instead of the immediate satisfaction of acting out of anger, we choose a different kind of satisfaction: the pleasure of self-restraint, the pride in overcoming external provocation or distraction, the urge to avoid conflict, the desire to maintain relationships with others, the wish to think of oneself as reasonable and moral, etc)","human_ref_B":"The way I understood this (Take it with a grain of salt since the last time I attended an academic course on philosophy was five years ago) is that he is responding to Medieval and by-extension Platonic ideas that moral wisdom can come through our rational faculties. It seems like Plato alludes to this in \"The Republic\" where he compares the ideal three-part soul where Rationality rules over Appetite and Spirit. (I recall he came to this conclusion through an argument by analogy where he compares the ideal city to the ideal soul) I also recall that later Medieval philosophers (Saint Augustine\/Aquinas if I remember correctly) tried to tie this in with Christianity through ideas such as Divine Illumination (The rational portion of our soul is in part due to the will of God) Therefore, by building our rational faculties (as the posters above stated through careful reflection, argumentation, Socratic debating, meditation) we can achieve moral knowledge which is central to eudaimonia. I argue Hume in his quote is stating that this doesn't work primarily because reason is not capable of driving anything. All it can do is illustrate basic facts (The way things are) versus moral truth (The way things ought to be). In fact, everything we do is driven by our appetites (hunger, lust, desire to avoid pain, seek pleasure). Rationality can reveal the ways of the world (I know that if I run for an hour it is going to be painful) but it cannot cause motivation by itself. The motivation comes from an appetite (I dislike pain \\[appetite\\]). Even in cases where we refrain from our appetites it is due to another appetite. (I dislike pain but I also like to be fit. My desire to be fit overcomes my desire to avoid pain). In your example, Hume would probably state that contemplating the consequences of such a decision is not rationality versus desires. It is multiple desires within your psyche warring against each other with rationality providing the tools. (I want to hit this person because he is irritating \\[Desire\\]. However, I also don't want to go to jail because it is painful \\[Desire\\]. If I hit this person then I will go to jail (Rationality\\]. I will not hit this person because my desire to go to jail is far greater than my desire to hit him.\\] In this case if I didn't have the desire to not go to jail, then I would hit the person irregardless of whatever I knew rationally. Reason there cannot advise for or against anything in and of itself.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7358.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"ckuj99","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What did David Hume mean when he said \"Reason is to be the slave of the passions\"? the full quote goes as follows: **\"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.\"** Does this mean irrationality driven by desire and passion is to be held as superior to reason that advises against it? Is then attacking an irritating person in a fit of rage better than to cease and contemplate the consequences of such a decision?","c_root_id_A":"evrl6my","c_root_id_B":"evryk62","created_at_utc_A":1564711268,"created_at_utc_B":1564722776,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think it means that the motivation we have to use reason is always emotional; even if the reasoning itself is not flawed due to irrationality or unwise actions fueled by desire.","human_ref_B":"There\u2019s a lot of good stuff in this thread, but I\u2019ll add that a modern take on Hume\u2019s quote can be found in Haidt\u2019s The Righteous Mind. And if you\u2019re not into reading an entire book, you can just search his analogy of the Elephant and the Rider.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11508.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"yalu1s","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"If it is moral to live in restraint, why do only sick people do so? Hello everyone, I need existential help! A puzzle troubles me endlessly. I can't decide between morality and meaning. If it is not absolutely moral to live a meaningful life, and if it is not absolutely meaningful to live a moral life, which of the two should one choose? Perhaps you care about pleasure, beauty, creativity, love, passion, peace, serenity, health, wealth, safety, excitement, competition, or relaxation. But is it ethical? A sensible, ethical person works as effectively and efficiently as possible to minimize universal suffering, maximize universal happiness, saves as many lives as possible, or support the environment. Is that the meaning of life? Is it good to water one's tulips while children are being killed in a war in another country? Is it good to feel corroded by regret because one kicked a friend off a bridge to save the lives of three strangers? Is it selfish to be passionate? Is it naive to be a savior? To what should one dedicate one's life? What should one care about? How can one defend one side of the dilemma for the other? Is there a sane way out of this? Is art a corrupt waste of time? Is a moral life a life squandered to showing off? Are passions immortal? Are moral people existential failures? Is this a savior complex leading me to take place in society? Is it good to get rid of it? Should I torture myself for its wishes? Imagine a patient is tortured by his conscience because he knows he could be of more use to the world, is this person sick? How do I decide for myself? How should I live? Is it OK to live a meaningful and only kind of not immoral live?","c_root_id_A":"itbqn61","c_root_id_B":"itcb1ly","created_at_utc_A":1666442986,"created_at_utc_B":1666452739,"score_A":7,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":">\tI can\u2019t decide between morality and meaning. If it is not absolutely moral to live a meaningful life, and if it is not absolutely meaningful to live a moral life, which of the two should one choose? Is this true? For you, to live a \u2018moral\u2019 life is to minimize suffering and maximize happiness in the world and to live a \u2018meaningful\u2019 life is to fulfill your desires which will give you pleasure and a sense of meaning, right? But they aren\u2019t mutually exclusive, and who\u2019s to say that living in your \u2018moral\u2019 sense that people will actually suffer less and be more happy? Or living in your \u2018meaningful\u2019 sense will actually give you meaning? Can you minimize suffering and maximize happiness in yourself and find meaning without the cost of harming others? Physically you may not be suffering like the people you want to help but you are suffering internally with this existential issue, so even if you \u2018help\u2019 the world won\u2019t the world still need to feel happy inside like you? And chasing one desire after another won\u2019t necessarily make your life more meaningful or happy, and in fact will just lead to more suffering by never really being fulfilled and keeping you distracted from yourself. Ideas like these, of happiness and meaning, are rooted in ignorance and ignorance causes suffering. Figure out who you are fundamentally then what ignorance can you have of the world?","human_ref_B":"I don't understand the dichotomies you're proposing. Especially re: meaning VS ethics; to me a meaningful life and an ethical life are, or at least can be closely correlated. >Perhaps you care about pleasure, beauty, creativity, love, passion, peace, serenity, health, wealth, safety, excitement, competition, or relaxation. But is it ethical? I think all of these are amoral phenomena. You could pursue each one in either extremely ethical or unethical ways. Personally, I'm generally happiest when I'm helping others, and when doing so, these are the most meaningful moments too. Not a virtue I've cultivated, I just think it's oxytocin, pack-animal evolutionary psychology. The golden rule may be of help here, especially if you consider self-regard and future-self-regard. You're part of the moral equation too, which is easy to forget. Specifically, what things interest you? What do you want to do to? And why are these things causing anxiety? Where's the disparity re: meaning and ethics for you? It sounds like you may have hyper-responsibility\/harm-focused OCD re: this, which would be worth considering as a potential skewed lens to correct for.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9753.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} +{"post_id":"zqh6oy","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"as a teenager interested in philosophy, how do i start in exploring it and then branch out to more complex ideas? i've always like the idea of questioning abstract concepts and have read up on a couple branches of philosophy but now i thought about learning the basics. does anyone know where i start as a high schooler (especially since i can't study philosophy in college due to financial reasons)","c_root_id_A":"j0yas06","c_root_id_B":"j1090jo","created_at_utc_A":1671525640,"created_at_utc_B":1671562373,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I would find a fairly recent book on a subject you are most interested in that isnt too long. I had a couple false starts by trying to get directly into Spinoza or Heidegger or whatever when I barely read as it was. Chalmers' The Conscious Mind really lit a fire and got me going. Pretty much have been continuously reading since then. But that book may not speak to you. Find one that seems very interesting and is kinda recent and not very long (so maybe find one less than 400 pages, maybe even less than 300).","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ve seen a lot of very good replies so far, but here\u2019s my take on it: What matters the most is that you enjoy the process; don\u2019t force yourself to get into the most abstract ideas as soon as you can, don\u2019t read the edgy philosophers before understanding who they were replying to, the period they were writing in, etc., because you\u2019ll miss subtlety which you will have to go over in the future to actually understand their deeper points. Honestly, you don\u2019t even have to start by reading philosophy, you can go on YouTube and watch lectures there instead, to get introductions to specific philosophers and their core concepts. I very strongly recommend you watch Michael Sugure\u2019s channel on YouTube, he was a historian of ideas teaching in Princeton in the 70s and 80s I believe, and he uploaded all of his lectures regarding introductions to core philosophers on his channel. They\u2019re all amazing, and brilliant place to get into different thinkers. Also, another important point: wether we like it or not, we live in time, and everything has a history, including philosophy; so, as much as you can, read philosophy in historical order, and also very importantly, try to understand the historical era in which philosophers were writing in: for instance, you cannot and shouldn\u2019t try to read philosophers from the 17-19th century without understanding more broadly what was going on in Western Europe during that time, namely, the Enlightnemt. Same applies to all the eras- to separate a philosopher from the era in which they were writing would be a big mistake in your path in understanding what exactly they meant: you might, for instance, find some philosophers to be bigots if you don\u2019t take into consideration how revolutionary their ideas were relative to the social context in which they were writing in, because, at the end of the day, a great many of them also had ethical motivations in mind when writing their philosophy, and therefore their writings were meant for the people of their age, not for us, x many centuries later. As for where to start precisely with reading actual philosophy, I\u2019m sure others have told you this already, but I believe Plato\u2019s Republic is by far the best place to get into philosophy; pay particular attention to the allegory of the cave, and try to understand it as deeply as you can (use your intuition, not just your reason to do so); try to put it into your context as hard as you can. I guarantee that when you understand it properly, your outlook on all of philosophy and its purpose from that point onwards will change forever. Other than that, I\u2019d tell you to prepare yourself mentally before going into non-rational 20th century enlightenment and American philosophy, because philosophy before the 20th century in America and England was, for lack of a better expression, trippin balls compared to what people in the anglophone world believe nowadays. So yeah, prepare yourself mentally, find people to talk about your thoughts if you can, and be sure to have a stable emotional support system around you, especially once you get to Spinoza, Nietzsche, Bergson, the existentialists, the post structuralists, etc., because, although they have the most amazing and beautiful ideas, they\u2019re also the most kind shattering ones too, so be prepared for when your structure of the world will change. Good luck \ud83e\udee1; you won\u2019t regret it","labels":0,"seconds_difference":36733.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"zqh6oy","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"as a teenager interested in philosophy, how do i start in exploring it and then branch out to more complex ideas? i've always like the idea of questioning abstract concepts and have read up on a couple branches of philosophy but now i thought about learning the basics. does anyone know where i start as a high schooler (especially since i can't study philosophy in college due to financial reasons)","c_root_id_A":"j1090jo","c_root_id_B":"j0zcyl3","created_at_utc_A":1671562373,"created_at_utc_B":1671549900,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019ve seen a lot of very good replies so far, but here\u2019s my take on it: What matters the most is that you enjoy the process; don\u2019t force yourself to get into the most abstract ideas as soon as you can, don\u2019t read the edgy philosophers before understanding who they were replying to, the period they were writing in, etc., because you\u2019ll miss subtlety which you will have to go over in the future to actually understand their deeper points. Honestly, you don\u2019t even have to start by reading philosophy, you can go on YouTube and watch lectures there instead, to get introductions to specific philosophers and their core concepts. I very strongly recommend you watch Michael Sugure\u2019s channel on YouTube, he was a historian of ideas teaching in Princeton in the 70s and 80s I believe, and he uploaded all of his lectures regarding introductions to core philosophers on his channel. They\u2019re all amazing, and brilliant place to get into different thinkers. Also, another important point: wether we like it or not, we live in time, and everything has a history, including philosophy; so, as much as you can, read philosophy in historical order, and also very importantly, try to understand the historical era in which philosophers were writing in: for instance, you cannot and shouldn\u2019t try to read philosophers from the 17-19th century without understanding more broadly what was going on in Western Europe during that time, namely, the Enlightnemt. Same applies to all the eras- to separate a philosopher from the era in which they were writing would be a big mistake in your path in understanding what exactly they meant: you might, for instance, find some philosophers to be bigots if you don\u2019t take into consideration how revolutionary their ideas were relative to the social context in which they were writing in, because, at the end of the day, a great many of them also had ethical motivations in mind when writing their philosophy, and therefore their writings were meant for the people of their age, not for us, x many centuries later. As for where to start precisely with reading actual philosophy, I\u2019m sure others have told you this already, but I believe Plato\u2019s Republic is by far the best place to get into philosophy; pay particular attention to the allegory of the cave, and try to understand it as deeply as you can (use your intuition, not just your reason to do so); try to put it into your context as hard as you can. I guarantee that when you understand it properly, your outlook on all of philosophy and its purpose from that point onwards will change forever. Other than that, I\u2019d tell you to prepare yourself mentally before going into non-rational 20th century enlightenment and American philosophy, because philosophy before the 20th century in America and England was, for lack of a better expression, trippin balls compared to what people in the anglophone world believe nowadays. So yeah, prepare yourself mentally, find people to talk about your thoughts if you can, and be sure to have a stable emotional support system around you, especially once you get to Spinoza, Nietzsche, Bergson, the existentialists, the post structuralists, etc., because, although they have the most amazing and beautiful ideas, they\u2019re also the most kind shattering ones too, so be prepared for when your structure of the world will change. Good luck \ud83e\udee1; you won\u2019t regret it","human_ref_B":"Once you have aquired a broad overview of the main branches, I would reccomend to pick a question which interests you and really go into the depths of the main arguments. Having grappled with one argument intensily will give you a better understanding (and appreciation) of argumentative\/logical structures and that - not necessarily the specific knowledge on metaphysics, epistemology or ethics - will benefit you the most in the long run. So, I would concentrate on depth rather than breadth at a certain point. It is much more useful imo to know the basics of logic and argumentative structure rather than different authors and their specific philosophy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12473.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"zzte21","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Who are the prominent fascist philosophers besides Schmitt and Evola? (I don\u2019t include Heidegger because while he might be a fascist and a philosopher, he was not necessarily both of those things together if that makes sense)","c_root_id_A":"j2drhht","c_root_id_B":"j2dkkgj","created_at_utc_A":1672497585,"created_at_utc_B":1672493998,"score_A":30,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Carl Schmitt is not remotely in the same league as the likes of Evola. You can look into the works by people like Paul Piccone of Telos journal to understand Schmitt's critique of liberalism. Even the likes of Marcuse, who are scathing in their assessment of fascist intellectuals had this to say about Schmitt: >\u201cThe social and political theory responsible for the development of Fascist Germany was, then, related to Hegelianism in a completely negative way. It was anti-Hegelian in all its aims and principles. **No better witness to this fact exists than the one serious political theorist of National Socialism, Carl Schmitt.** The first edition of his Begriff des Politischen raises the question of how long \u2018the spirit of Hegel\u2019 lived in Berlin, and he replies, \u2018in any case, the school that became authoritative in Prussia after 1840 \u201cpreferred to have the \u201cconservative\u201d philosophy of F. J. Stahl, while Hegel wandered from Karl Marx to Lenin and to Moscow.\u201920 And he summarizes the entire process in the striking statement that on the day of Hitler\u2019s ascent to power \u2018Hegel, so to speak, died.\u201921\u201d Excerpt From: Reason and Revolution; Marcuse, Herbert","human_ref_B":"Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin is popular with a lot of people that would commonly be considered fascist in 2022. Timothy Snyder discusses a lot of his influence, if not his philosophical views, in The Road of Unfreedom","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3587.0,"score_ratio":2.7272727273} +{"post_id":"zzte21","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Who are the prominent fascist philosophers besides Schmitt and Evola? (I don\u2019t include Heidegger because while he might be a fascist and a philosopher, he was not necessarily both of those things together if that makes sense)","c_root_id_A":"j2drhht","c_root_id_B":"j2dm7gn","created_at_utc_A":1672497585,"created_at_utc_B":1672494914,"score_A":30,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Carl Schmitt is not remotely in the same league as the likes of Evola. You can look into the works by people like Paul Piccone of Telos journal to understand Schmitt's critique of liberalism. Even the likes of Marcuse, who are scathing in their assessment of fascist intellectuals had this to say about Schmitt: >\u201cThe social and political theory responsible for the development of Fascist Germany was, then, related to Hegelianism in a completely negative way. It was anti-Hegelian in all its aims and principles. **No better witness to this fact exists than the one serious political theorist of National Socialism, Carl Schmitt.** The first edition of his Begriff des Politischen raises the question of how long \u2018the spirit of Hegel\u2019 lived in Berlin, and he replies, \u2018in any case, the school that became authoritative in Prussia after 1840 \u201cpreferred to have the \u201cconservative\u201d philosophy of F. J. Stahl, while Hegel wandered from Karl Marx to Lenin and to Moscow.\u201920 And he summarizes the entire process in the striking statement that on the day of Hitler\u2019s ascent to power \u2018Hegel, so to speak, died.\u201921\u201d Excerpt From: Reason and Revolution; Marcuse, Herbert","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/views\/2022\/03\/18\/review-matthew-rose-world-after-liberalism-philosophers-radical-right You might find this book interesting? It names and examines: Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola, Francis Parker Yockey, Alain de Benoist and Samuel Francis","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2671.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"zzte21","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Who are the prominent fascist philosophers besides Schmitt and Evola? (I don\u2019t include Heidegger because while he might be a fascist and a philosopher, he was not necessarily both of those things together if that makes sense)","c_root_id_A":"j2g8h16","c_root_id_B":"j2f72gi","created_at_utc_A":1672536079,"created_at_utc_B":1672519318,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Aleksandr Dugin and Georges Sorel, at least after the latter's turn to nationalism.","human_ref_B":"Does Chesterton count? ​ Also, pretty sure some of the Italian syndicalist dudes had some writings, Mussolini did for sure.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16761.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"up6xzy","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Is it morally wrong to torture an ant? I\u2019m no sadist, but I occasionally kill ants for seemingly no reason. Recently, I put a bottle cap over an ant and left it there. Is that action morally wrong, and if so why?","c_root_id_A":"i8jdal9","c_root_id_B":"i8j1k8r","created_at_utc_A":1652499738,"created_at_utc_B":1652493528,"score_A":24,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"According to utilitarianism, yes. You caused the ant to suffer for seemingly no reason, decreasing net utility in the situation.","human_ref_B":"According to Jainists, yes.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6210.0,"score_ratio":12.0} +{"post_id":"up6xzy","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Is it morally wrong to torture an ant? I\u2019m no sadist, but I occasionally kill ants for seemingly no reason. Recently, I put a bottle cap over an ant and left it there. Is that action morally wrong, and if so why?","c_root_id_A":"i8j1k8r","c_root_id_B":"i8jsekh","created_at_utc_A":1652493528,"created_at_utc_B":1652509820,"score_A":2,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"According to Jainists, yes.","human_ref_B":"I think I\u2019d argue it\u2019s immoral with something like this (it\u2019ll be sloppy but it\u2019ll give you the gist of the reasoning): 1) living and conscious beings can be understood in terms of their lives going well and badly 2) it is immoral to cause a being\u2018s life to go badly for any intentional and unnecessary reason (call \u201charm\u201d causing a living and conscious being\u2019s life to go badly) 3) An ant is a conscious and living being 4) An ant\u2019s life should therefore be understood in terms of its going well and badly. 5) we ought not to intentionally and unnecessarily cause an ant\u2019s life to go badly so, 6) it is immoral to torture or kill ants intentionally and unnecessarily","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16292.0,"score_ratio":10.0} +{"post_id":"up6xzy","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Is it morally wrong to torture an ant? I\u2019m no sadist, but I occasionally kill ants for seemingly no reason. Recently, I put a bottle cap over an ant and left it there. Is that action morally wrong, and if so why?","c_root_id_A":"i8ka0an","c_root_id_B":"i8kelos","created_at_utc_A":1652525097,"created_at_utc_B":1652528602,"score_A":3,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"According to kantian ethics yes. It\u2019s not about the ants suffering or that the ant deserves moral consideration. It\u2019s about the brutalization of your self.","human_ref_B":"A lot of the answers here quite rightly focus on the suffering of the ant, but something else to consider is the outlook\/patterns of thought and action that actions like this help instantiate. Buddhism talks about the cultivation of loving kindness - loving actions beget further, different loving actions. In a similar way, actions of this kind beget actions of a similar kind. So its immoral on another level, a kind of moral self harm in a sense, an instantiation and cultivation of \"unskillful\", unkind thought and action patterns.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3505.0,"score_ratio":5.6666666667} +{"post_id":"up6xzy","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Is it morally wrong to torture an ant? I\u2019m no sadist, but I occasionally kill ants for seemingly no reason. Recently, I put a bottle cap over an ant and left it there. Is that action morally wrong, and if so why?","c_root_id_A":"i8j1k8r","c_root_id_B":"i8kelos","created_at_utc_A":1652493528,"created_at_utc_B":1652528602,"score_A":2,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"According to Jainists, yes.","human_ref_B":"A lot of the answers here quite rightly focus on the suffering of the ant, but something else to consider is the outlook\/patterns of thought and action that actions like this help instantiate. Buddhism talks about the cultivation of loving kindness - loving actions beget further, different loving actions. In a similar way, actions of this kind beget actions of a similar kind. So its immoral on another level, a kind of moral self harm in a sense, an instantiation and cultivation of \"unskillful\", unkind thought and action patterns.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":35074.0,"score_ratio":8.5} +{"post_id":"up6xzy","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Is it morally wrong to torture an ant? I\u2019m no sadist, but I occasionally kill ants for seemingly no reason. Recently, I put a bottle cap over an ant and left it there. Is that action morally wrong, and if so why?","c_root_id_A":"i8j1k8r","c_root_id_B":"i8ka0an","created_at_utc_A":1652493528,"created_at_utc_B":1652525097,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"According to Jainists, yes.","human_ref_B":"According to kantian ethics yes. It\u2019s not about the ants suffering or that the ant deserves moral consideration. It\u2019s about the brutalization of your self.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":31569.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"me3lz3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"How do rationalists ground their belief in the values of their logical system? I was watching the 2018 conversation between Jordan Peterson and Matt Dillahunty. The conversation got to a point where Dillahunty was describing his (and Sam Harris') rational morality system. From my understanding, in this system they contend that societal\/personal \"wellbeing\" can be reduced to a set of axioms, and rational analysis can be applied to these axioms to maximize \"wellbeing\". This seems quite logical to me. However, a conflict occurred when Dillahunty implied that the axioms themselves can be derived through rational analysis. Peterson pushed back on this notion, infamously asking \"how do you know chopping off your head is bad for your wellbeing?\" Dillahunty replied saying if we are acting from the assumption of maximizing some aspect of life, then avoiding death is inherent in the maximization problem. This again seems perfectly logical to me. But I believe Peterson's skepticism can be applied again: why should we attempt to maximize wellbeing? More generally, I see the problem as this: a logical system (rationality) can be used to maximize some function (wellbeing) given a set of initial axioms (wellbeing is good). I have no concerns with this logical formulation. However, a skeptic can always question the axioms. The usual reply from a rationalist is that \"most can agree that wellbeing is good\", but this is an argument ad populum, which may be sufficient from a practical standpoint, but cannot be used as definitive proof of the initial axiom. So my question: a rationalist claims to only hold beliefs when evidence supports the claim. However, as the skeptic digs deeper it seems that there is some core value beliefs taken on faith that shapes the derived logical system. How does the rationalist justify this core belief taken on faith, and if not, how can this discrepancy be reconciled?","c_root_id_A":"gsds62s","c_root_id_B":"gsdodak","created_at_utc_A":1616818376,"created_at_utc_B":1616816308,"score_A":29,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"I know this isn\u2019t what you asked, but notice neither of Peterson nor Dillahunty has a degree in, uh, philosophy. (Harris has a B.A.). I mean, in principle good philosophy can be written by anyone, but... Second, a terminological point. In philosophy, \u201crationalism\u201d is often used to refer to the view that some knowledge\/justification is not derived from sense experience. Anyways, your actual question is a good one. And it\u2019s really a question about epistemology more than ethics. Okay, so let\u2019s say I\u2019m justified believing a statement S just in case S is likely given some reason R. Okay, is there some such reason R, such that S is likely given R? Take the statement saying we do have some such R. That\u2019s a statement, so I\u2019m justified believing it just in case it is likely given some reason R\u2019. And the problem just repeats itself. Now, at first glance this would appear to show that justified belief is impossible. In fact, it would seem to justify that conclusion. But wait, that would be self-defeating! So the isn\u2019t a problem peculiar to ethics, it\u2019s basically one of the hardest problems of philosophy! You should check out foundationalism (the correct view) as well as coherentism (the incorrect view that you can learn from). (Apologies to the coherentists).","human_ref_B":"Sam Harris wrote The Moral Landscape in which he purports to resolve this issue. The gist of his approach seems to be to dismiss the issue by pointing out that we have similar issues grounding epistemology. Most philosophers do not find him very persuasive. There have been a lot of attempts to ground morality. For instance, in the Groundworks on the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant makes a fairly classic move by appealing to the rational character of humans and saying basically that human morality must be about enacting that rationality. From this, he derives his categorical imperative.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2068.0,"score_ratio":1.0357142857} +{"post_id":"uxidfi","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"As far as I understand Nietzsche is fundamentally anti-anti-instinct. Yet he claims we should overcome our human nature, is opposed to morals tho they're biologically innate, and is opposed to rational inquiry, even tho rational inquiry too is a biological drive. Isn't this contradictory?","c_root_id_A":"i9yhqdx","c_root_id_B":"i9xu5n3","created_at_utc_A":1653498568,"created_at_utc_B":1653489232,"score_A":17,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"> we should overcome our human nature He doesn\u2019t believe this. He believes that human nature is fluid, and that it\u2019s innately tied (or should be innately tied) to that which is life-promoting. He wants us to overcome our social conditioning - e.g. Christianity is no longer useful to society and thus it and its corresponding values need to be \u201covercome\u201d - but that\u2019s a far cry from \u201covercoming human nature\u201d. He\u2019s arguing for a progressive further development\/refinement of human nature. > opposed to morals tho they\u2019re biologically innate They\u2019re not biologically innate - at least the morals he\u2019s criticizing, which are the mainstream morals of his time, and which are much more tightly coupled to social norms and culture than to anything that is beneficial to the individual himself. > opposed to rational inquiry He\u2019s not opposed to this at all. He does think it\u2019s only one means of exploring\/understanding\/communicating knowledge, that it\u2019s not divine or perfect, that modern society has an over-reliance on it, and that it\u2019s often pursued as a means to itself instead of a means to a life-empowering end.","human_ref_B":">Yet he claims we should overcome our human nature Does he? >is opposed to morals tho they're biologically innate Does he, and are they? He certainly doesn't think the morality we have now ('now', when he was writing) is 'biologically innate' >and is opposed to rational inquiry Is he?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9336.0,"score_ratio":2.4285714286} +{"post_id":"je94j0","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Is there a concept to describe the fact that our understanding of the world and the type of experience we have is highly dependent on our identity (gender, race, etc) ? As an example, many women experience sexual harassment at work. However, men seem oblivious to this, and even deny that it happens at their workplace, because they almost never experience this themselves, or it does not take place in front of them. Both gender cannot exactly relate to each other on this topic because their experience of the world is incompatible.","c_root_id_A":"g9d9rts","c_root_id_B":"g9d6x1d","created_at_utc_A":1603141761,"created_at_utc_B":1603140349,"score_A":38,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Standpoint epistemology","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/feminism-epistemology\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1412.0,"score_ratio":3.1666666667} +{"post_id":"zhtg60","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"As a philosophy undergrad interested in philosophy of science what 'science' should I know and how should I learn about it? I am a philosophy undergrad, and am getting more and more interested in the philosophy of science (together with philosophy of mathematics and technology), but a lot of the more technical texts, which I would like to understand, rely on knowledge the sciences, especially physics. Could those more familiar with the philosophy of science help me in which scientific theories are crucial, how it might be best to learn them as a philosophy student, and maybe mediums(lectures, podcasts books) that are especially suitable for this? Maybe there have been some particular books on science for philosophy? I have a background in mathematical statistics, so recommendations relying on a strong mathematics background are also welcome. Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer!","c_root_id_A":"iznw5pp","c_root_id_B":"izntcjr","created_at_utc_A":1670684013,"created_at_utc_B":1670682624,"score_A":27,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Is there any chance you could take some physics classes, maybe even minor in it or something? If you have a background in mathematical statistics you wouldn't have too rough a time, and I think it's really important to at least get to introductory quantum mechanics to get a sense of the metaphysics, worldview, and mathematical machinery presented in by-the-book quantum stuff, as well as familiarity with some of the really important experiment designs and findings. For self-study, I'd recommend *The Road to Reality* by Roger Penrose, a very highly regarded mathematical physicist. It's over 1,000 pages and intended for people with a background in mathematics so there's probably quite a bit of mathematics in there you'll have to learn on your own in order to be able to follow, but it really is quite a beautiful serious introduction to the main ideas in modern physics, especially theoretical physics. Good luck, and happy learning! Edit: Oh, and I wouldn't recommend any pop-science string-theory stuff. Some of them are quite good as far as reading for enjoyment (I liked Brian Greene's *The Elegant Universe*) but the topic is sooo complex that you'll really get virtually zero sense of *WHY* string theorists believe the stuff they believe, since the mathematics is far too complicated for the lay audience. In other words, it's not particularly helpful from a philosophical point of view. If you have absolutely no knowledge of relativity, Hawking's *A Brief History of Time* is a good really basic intro.","human_ref_B":"best book I've ever read in this zone is String Theory and the Scientific Method by Richard Dawid; separately imo string theory is most exciting intersection b\/c string theorists were persona non grata in physics for so long due to its supposed non-scientific, poetic, even 'cancerous' nature (nobel prize winning physicist called it a cancer and led failed campaign to bar string theorists from an ivy league physics department, i forget which school but easy to google). nevertheless string theory is dominant (majority if not total consensus) in physics today","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1389.0,"score_ratio":9.0} +{"post_id":"zhtg60","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"As a philosophy undergrad interested in philosophy of science what 'science' should I know and how should I learn about it? I am a philosophy undergrad, and am getting more and more interested in the philosophy of science (together with philosophy of mathematics and technology), but a lot of the more technical texts, which I would like to understand, rely on knowledge the sciences, especially physics. Could those more familiar with the philosophy of science help me in which scientific theories are crucial, how it might be best to learn them as a philosophy student, and maybe mediums(lectures, podcasts books) that are especially suitable for this? Maybe there have been some particular books on science for philosophy? I have a background in mathematical statistics, so recommendations relying on a strong mathematics background are also welcome. Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer!","c_root_id_A":"izntcjr","c_root_id_B":"iznza65","created_at_utc_A":1670682624,"created_at_utc_B":1670685514,"score_A":3,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"best book I've ever read in this zone is String Theory and the Scientific Method by Richard Dawid; separately imo string theory is most exciting intersection b\/c string theorists were persona non grata in physics for so long due to its supposed non-scientific, poetic, even 'cancerous' nature (nobel prize winning physicist called it a cancer and led failed campaign to bar string theorists from an ivy league physics department, i forget which school but easy to google). nevertheless string theory is dominant (majority if not total consensus) in physics today","human_ref_B":"Probably one of the best lecture series is Susskind's lectures series: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLLjeznqO-C0AVy5P39Hbybl0ew\\_03IkIx The lectures are very thoroughgoing, goes over the most important aspect of the major fields of physics, and it's presented by a very reputable physicist. ​ Another great source is MIT open courseware, some courses have exercises, lecture videos and readings https:\/\/ocw.mit.edu\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2890.0,"score_ratio":7.6666666667} +{"post_id":"zhtg60","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"As a philosophy undergrad interested in philosophy of science what 'science' should I know and how should I learn about it? I am a philosophy undergrad, and am getting more and more interested in the philosophy of science (together with philosophy of mathematics and technology), but a lot of the more technical texts, which I would like to understand, rely on knowledge the sciences, especially physics. Could those more familiar with the philosophy of science help me in which scientific theories are crucial, how it might be best to learn them as a philosophy student, and maybe mediums(lectures, podcasts books) that are especially suitable for this? Maybe there have been some particular books on science for philosophy? I have a background in mathematical statistics, so recommendations relying on a strong mathematics background are also welcome. Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer!","c_root_id_A":"izo56nm","c_root_id_B":"izntcjr","created_at_utc_A":1670688089,"created_at_utc_B":1670682624,"score_A":17,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I would also suggest trying to get some real life experience. Consider spending time in a lab. It could set you apart from your peers down the road. I have a PhD in engineering so not a \"real\" scientist by the way some people look at it but on a day to day basis we all end up living similar lives. I think actually understanding what it is like to design and run an experiment and then muddle through the results will make you so much better informed on an intuitive level. I would also strongly urge you to attend lab meetings and journal club to here scientist argue and debate. Your eyes will fall out of your head, by the way, when you start hearing discussions about writing research grants. Alot of philosophy of science that I read seems quite removed from actual science, at least science as it is done today. I think this lack of participation might have something to do with it. Also, I think it might help you translate your work if you want to bring your observations to a wider audience, like actual scientists.","human_ref_B":"best book I've ever read in this zone is String Theory and the Scientific Method by Richard Dawid; separately imo string theory is most exciting intersection b\/c string theorists were persona non grata in physics for so long due to its supposed non-scientific, poetic, even 'cancerous' nature (nobel prize winning physicist called it a cancer and led failed campaign to bar string theorists from an ivy league physics department, i forget which school but easy to google). nevertheless string theory is dominant (majority if not total consensus) in physics today","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5465.0,"score_ratio":5.6666666667} +{"post_id":"zhtg60","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"As a philosophy undergrad interested in philosophy of science what 'science' should I know and how should I learn about it? I am a philosophy undergrad, and am getting more and more interested in the philosophy of science (together with philosophy of mathematics and technology), but a lot of the more technical texts, which I would like to understand, rely on knowledge the sciences, especially physics. Could those more familiar with the philosophy of science help me in which scientific theories are crucial, how it might be best to learn them as a philosophy student, and maybe mediums(lectures, podcasts books) that are especially suitable for this? Maybe there have been some particular books on science for philosophy? I have a background in mathematical statistics, so recommendations relying on a strong mathematics background are also welcome. Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer!","c_root_id_A":"izom7em","c_root_id_B":"izofeo1","created_at_utc_A":1670695055,"created_at_utc_B":1670692355,"score_A":8,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I would take some physics classes, up to even quantum mechanics or the basics of relativity. You can't really understand the philosophy behind quantum mechanics and how the concepts came about without understanding the mathematical motivation and how the framework arose. Otherwise, you're just dealing with vague analogy of pop-sci quantum physics. I recommend relativity, because I think it provides a fascinating insight into how scientific ideas can arrive from some very clear observations\/assumptions, that build intuitively off of notions of Kantian philosophy and mathematics in a way that is rich in metaphysical interpretations about space and time (Einstein's interpretive papers are amazing). However, an understanding of the mathematics would require, at the very least, an education in mathematics (probably through real analysis to understand the basics of manifolds) at a level that would most likely be impractical. I think it would also be necessary to take at least an introduction to proofs class. You don't really understand how mathematics informs science or even how ideas in mathematics and science are foundationally formulated without a basic understanding of the logic of mathematics (though you would probably only need up through basic ideas of set theory\/proofs, you don't need the go into the deep end of mathematical logic).","human_ref_B":"Maybe I underplay the role of my scientific formation when reading Philosophy of Science (I studied Physics and read Philosophy of Science as a hobby), but I'd say the best you can do is study History of Science. Pay special attention to the arguments scientists of the time provided and the details of experiments. Generally, scientists study theories after they've been reformulated in a comprehensive way leaving aside many ideas that were fundamental for these theories to be stablished and accepted. A common example is the vital role Brownian motion played in the acceptance of atomic models and kinetic theory. Prior to it, many scientists regarded results coming from an atomistic hypothesis as a pure mathematical artefact (the best example is the poor acceptance Boltzmann's Physical Statistics received at its conception), while nowadays the atomic hypothesis is taken as granted and studied in a very naive way, taking Democritus, Dalton or Boltzmann as the ones who undoubtedly stablished it. A deep knowledge of how scientific theories are studied today doesn't grant a good understanding of Philosophy of Science. It can even lead to misconceptions. Only participating in active research can give you a hint of the conceptual problems science faces if you don't study how scientific theories were developed. Another related advice I'd like yo give you is to read historical sources as much as it is viable. I mean, reading Galileo or Darwin can give you a very good understanding of how they thought science and the problems they faced. Some foundational papers are also quite accessible, such as the research of Moseley that allowed him to complete the periodic table or the Earth's age dating by Patterson. Obviously, there are some readings that would take you way too long to understand and don't necessarily pay off, such as Kepler's or Newton's works. As much as I would like to read and study Principia some time in the future, it is a very hard task.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2700.0,"score_ratio":1.6} +{"post_id":"zhtg60","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"As a philosophy undergrad interested in philosophy of science what 'science' should I know and how should I learn about it? I am a philosophy undergrad, and am getting more and more interested in the philosophy of science (together with philosophy of mathematics and technology), but a lot of the more technical texts, which I would like to understand, rely on knowledge the sciences, especially physics. Could those more familiar with the philosophy of science help me in which scientific theories are crucial, how it might be best to learn them as a philosophy student, and maybe mediums(lectures, podcasts books) that are especially suitable for this? Maybe there have been some particular books on science for philosophy? I have a background in mathematical statistics, so recommendations relying on a strong mathematics background are also welcome. Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer!","c_root_id_A":"izom7em","c_root_id_B":"izntcjr","created_at_utc_A":1670695055,"created_at_utc_B":1670682624,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I would take some physics classes, up to even quantum mechanics or the basics of relativity. You can't really understand the philosophy behind quantum mechanics and how the concepts came about without understanding the mathematical motivation and how the framework arose. Otherwise, you're just dealing with vague analogy of pop-sci quantum physics. I recommend relativity, because I think it provides a fascinating insight into how scientific ideas can arrive from some very clear observations\/assumptions, that build intuitively off of notions of Kantian philosophy and mathematics in a way that is rich in metaphysical interpretations about space and time (Einstein's interpretive papers are amazing). However, an understanding of the mathematics would require, at the very least, an education in mathematics (probably through real analysis to understand the basics of manifolds) at a level that would most likely be impractical. I think it would also be necessary to take at least an introduction to proofs class. You don't really understand how mathematics informs science or even how ideas in mathematics and science are foundationally formulated without a basic understanding of the logic of mathematics (though you would probably only need up through basic ideas of set theory\/proofs, you don't need the go into the deep end of mathematical logic).","human_ref_B":"best book I've ever read in this zone is String Theory and the Scientific Method by Richard Dawid; separately imo string theory is most exciting intersection b\/c string theorists were persona non grata in physics for so long due to its supposed non-scientific, poetic, even 'cancerous' nature (nobel prize winning physicist called it a cancer and led failed campaign to bar string theorists from an ivy league physics department, i forget which school but easy to google). nevertheless string theory is dominant (majority if not total consensus) in physics today","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12431.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} +{"post_id":"zhtg60","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"As a philosophy undergrad interested in philosophy of science what 'science' should I know and how should I learn about it? I am a philosophy undergrad, and am getting more and more interested in the philosophy of science (together with philosophy of mathematics and technology), but a lot of the more technical texts, which I would like to understand, rely on knowledge the sciences, especially physics. Could those more familiar with the philosophy of science help me in which scientific theories are crucial, how it might be best to learn them as a philosophy student, and maybe mediums(lectures, podcasts books) that are especially suitable for this? Maybe there have been some particular books on science for philosophy? I have a background in mathematical statistics, so recommendations relying on a strong mathematics background are also welcome. Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer!","c_root_id_A":"izp74xj","c_root_id_B":"izofeo1","created_at_utc_A":1670703805,"created_at_utc_B":1670692355,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I think there are two related, but distinct, questions you might have here. One is the question of what science you should know\/study in order to better understand the classic texts in philosophy of science you'll be reading as an undergrad. Another is the question of what science would be good to know\/study in order to better direct your future studies (and perhaps someday, your own research, perhaps in a graduate program or beyond) in philosophy of science. For the former question, it's probably good to brush up on classic early 20th century logic and physics, particularly G\u00f6del's theorems and some of the classic statements of relativity and quantum mechanics. You might read Nagel and Newman's *G\u00f6del's Proof*, and perhaps Russell's *ABCs of Relativity*, and maybe Schr\u00f6dinger's *What is Life?*. (It's possible I'm slightly off on some of those titles.) But I think for the second question, it's much more relevant to just pick some area of science that interests you, and get a good in-depth understanding of it, including the enculturation of taking several classes in it and working in a lab (if the science has labs). Starting in the 1960s or so, there was a broad move away from \"general philosophy of science\" and towards philosophy of particular sciences - initially mainly just philosophy of physics and philosophy of biology, but when I was at the Conference of the Philosophy of Science Association a few weeks ago, I went to many interesting sessions where people were talking with detailed expertise about conceptual issues in paleontology, chemistry, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, climate science, and many other areas. There's been a parallel move in philosophy of mathematics a few decades later - it's no longer just logic and set theory, but people are doing interesting work on how mathematicians actually understand the knowledge they are creating in geometry or number theory or topology or whatever, and how concepts develop, and what diagrams do, and so on. (Also, if you're up on mathematical statistics, I'll give a shout out to Nash's *Elements of Statistical Thermodynamics* for giving me a much better understanding of what temperature is than anything else I've read.)","human_ref_B":"Maybe I underplay the role of my scientific formation when reading Philosophy of Science (I studied Physics and read Philosophy of Science as a hobby), but I'd say the best you can do is study History of Science. Pay special attention to the arguments scientists of the time provided and the details of experiments. Generally, scientists study theories after they've been reformulated in a comprehensive way leaving aside many ideas that were fundamental for these theories to be stablished and accepted. A common example is the vital role Brownian motion played in the acceptance of atomic models and kinetic theory. Prior to it, many scientists regarded results coming from an atomistic hypothesis as a pure mathematical artefact (the best example is the poor acceptance Boltzmann's Physical Statistics received at its conception), while nowadays the atomic hypothesis is taken as granted and studied in a very naive way, taking Democritus, Dalton or Boltzmann as the ones who undoubtedly stablished it. A deep knowledge of how scientific theories are studied today doesn't grant a good understanding of Philosophy of Science. It can even lead to misconceptions. Only participating in active research can give you a hint of the conceptual problems science faces if you don't study how scientific theories were developed. Another related advice I'd like yo give you is to read historical sources as much as it is viable. I mean, reading Galileo or Darwin can give you a very good understanding of how they thought science and the problems they faced. Some foundational papers are also quite accessible, such as the research of Moseley that allowed him to complete the periodic table or the Earth's age dating by Patterson. Obviously, there are some readings that would take you way too long to understand and don't necessarily pay off, such as Kepler's or Newton's works. As much as I would like to read and study Principia some time in the future, it is a very hard task.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11450.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"zhtg60","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"As a philosophy undergrad interested in philosophy of science what 'science' should I know and how should I learn about it? I am a philosophy undergrad, and am getting more and more interested in the philosophy of science (together with philosophy of mathematics and technology), but a lot of the more technical texts, which I would like to understand, rely on knowledge the sciences, especially physics. Could those more familiar with the philosophy of science help me in which scientific theories are crucial, how it might be best to learn them as a philosophy student, and maybe mediums(lectures, podcasts books) that are especially suitable for this? Maybe there have been some particular books on science for philosophy? I have a background in mathematical statistics, so recommendations relying on a strong mathematics background are also welcome. Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer!","c_root_id_A":"izp74xj","c_root_id_B":"izntcjr","created_at_utc_A":1670703805,"created_at_utc_B":1670682624,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think there are two related, but distinct, questions you might have here. One is the question of what science you should know\/study in order to better understand the classic texts in philosophy of science you'll be reading as an undergrad. Another is the question of what science would be good to know\/study in order to better direct your future studies (and perhaps someday, your own research, perhaps in a graduate program or beyond) in philosophy of science. For the former question, it's probably good to brush up on classic early 20th century logic and physics, particularly G\u00f6del's theorems and some of the classic statements of relativity and quantum mechanics. You might read Nagel and Newman's *G\u00f6del's Proof*, and perhaps Russell's *ABCs of Relativity*, and maybe Schr\u00f6dinger's *What is Life?*. (It's possible I'm slightly off on some of those titles.) But I think for the second question, it's much more relevant to just pick some area of science that interests you, and get a good in-depth understanding of it, including the enculturation of taking several classes in it and working in a lab (if the science has labs). Starting in the 1960s or so, there was a broad move away from \"general philosophy of science\" and towards philosophy of particular sciences - initially mainly just philosophy of physics and philosophy of biology, but when I was at the Conference of the Philosophy of Science Association a few weeks ago, I went to many interesting sessions where people were talking with detailed expertise about conceptual issues in paleontology, chemistry, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, climate science, and many other areas. There's been a parallel move in philosophy of mathematics a few decades later - it's no longer just logic and set theory, but people are doing interesting work on how mathematicians actually understand the knowledge they are creating in geometry or number theory or topology or whatever, and how concepts develop, and what diagrams do, and so on. (Also, if you're up on mathematical statistics, I'll give a shout out to Nash's *Elements of Statistical Thermodynamics* for giving me a much better understanding of what temperature is than anything else I've read.)","human_ref_B":"best book I've ever read in this zone is String Theory and the Scientific Method by Richard Dawid; separately imo string theory is most exciting intersection b\/c string theorists were persona non grata in physics for so long due to its supposed non-scientific, poetic, even 'cancerous' nature (nobel prize winning physicist called it a cancer and led failed campaign to bar string theorists from an ivy league physics department, i forget which school but easy to google). nevertheless string theory is dominant (majority if not total consensus) in physics today","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21181.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"zhtg60","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"As a philosophy undergrad interested in philosophy of science what 'science' should I know and how should I learn about it? I am a philosophy undergrad, and am getting more and more interested in the philosophy of science (together with philosophy of mathematics and technology), but a lot of the more technical texts, which I would like to understand, rely on knowledge the sciences, especially physics. Could those more familiar with the philosophy of science help me in which scientific theories are crucial, how it might be best to learn them as a philosophy student, and maybe mediums(lectures, podcasts books) that are especially suitable for this? Maybe there have been some particular books on science for philosophy? I have a background in mathematical statistics, so recommendations relying on a strong mathematics background are also welcome. Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer!","c_root_id_A":"izofeo1","c_root_id_B":"izntcjr","created_at_utc_A":1670692355,"created_at_utc_B":1670682624,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Maybe I underplay the role of my scientific formation when reading Philosophy of Science (I studied Physics and read Philosophy of Science as a hobby), but I'd say the best you can do is study History of Science. Pay special attention to the arguments scientists of the time provided and the details of experiments. Generally, scientists study theories after they've been reformulated in a comprehensive way leaving aside many ideas that were fundamental for these theories to be stablished and accepted. A common example is the vital role Brownian motion played in the acceptance of atomic models and kinetic theory. Prior to it, many scientists regarded results coming from an atomistic hypothesis as a pure mathematical artefact (the best example is the poor acceptance Boltzmann's Physical Statistics received at its conception), while nowadays the atomic hypothesis is taken as granted and studied in a very naive way, taking Democritus, Dalton or Boltzmann as the ones who undoubtedly stablished it. A deep knowledge of how scientific theories are studied today doesn't grant a good understanding of Philosophy of Science. It can even lead to misconceptions. Only participating in active research can give you a hint of the conceptual problems science faces if you don't study how scientific theories were developed. Another related advice I'd like yo give you is to read historical sources as much as it is viable. I mean, reading Galileo or Darwin can give you a very good understanding of how they thought science and the problems they faced. Some foundational papers are also quite accessible, such as the research of Moseley that allowed him to complete the periodic table or the Earth's age dating by Patterson. Obviously, there are some readings that would take you way too long to understand and don't necessarily pay off, such as Kepler's or Newton's works. As much as I would like to read and study Principia some time in the future, it is a very hard task.","human_ref_B":"best book I've ever read in this zone is String Theory and the Scientific Method by Richard Dawid; separately imo string theory is most exciting intersection b\/c string theorists were persona non grata in physics for so long due to its supposed non-scientific, poetic, even 'cancerous' nature (nobel prize winning physicist called it a cancer and led failed campaign to bar string theorists from an ivy league physics department, i forget which school but easy to google). nevertheless string theory is dominant (majority if not total consensus) in physics today","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9731.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"99bkgg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Can you really, as a rational conscious human, be totally satisfied with the widely accepted scientific belief that consciousness is purely a product of chemical reactions in the brain, and that there\u2019s nothing else to it? Yes we have evidence for this. And yes you can map all kinds of conscious states to their corresponding neural activity. But there\u2019s something else going on, this awareness concept, that is just always brushed aside as \u201cmystical woo\u201d. I mean as I\u2019m sitting here typing this, I\u2019m experiencing a reality, I\u2019m aware of *something* . This really can\u2019t be explained by atoms and reactions and neutrons. Consider this; the vast majority of what the brain does is NOT experienced consciously. The vast majority the neuronal activity in the brain does not contribute to what you would call conscious awareness (e.g. motor coordination in the cerebellum, hypothalamus regulatory centres, speech and language interpretation, responding to everyday events etc). Therefore: \u2014> complex neuronal activity CAN and DOES happen without necessarily needing to be consciously observed (or without needing to give rise to a conscious experience). Why then, am I aware of the activity in my brain? Why am I not just a biological computer instead? There\u2019s clearly a \u201csomething else\u201d factor. Can we all agree, at least, that the neurosceintific theory of consciousness is, at best, mind-boggling and profoundly uncomfortable to accept.","c_root_id_A":"e4mnl8s","c_root_id_B":"e4mf8qn","created_at_utc_A":1534943010,"created_at_utc_B":1534929718,"score_A":30,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":">Can we all agree, at least, that the neurosceintific theory of consciousness is, at best, mind-boggling and profoundly uncomfortable to accept. There are many philosophers who agree. Thomas Nagel for example, writes the following in his famous paper What is it like to be a bat?, from 1974: >If we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently available conception gives us a clue how this could be done. The problem is unique. If mental processes are indeed physical processes, then there is something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo certain physical processes. What it is for such a thing to be the case remains a mystery. Frank Jackson is another, who wrote a famous paper in 1982, Epiphenomenal Qualia, outlining the inadequacies of physicalism (the view that everything is physical, including consciousness). He and others, which he refers to as \"qualia freaks\" thought the argument was very simple, and stated it as follows: >Nothing you could tell of a physical or neurobiological] sort captures the smell of a rose, for instance. Therefore, Physicalism is false. There are many who cannot see the intuitiveness of this short argument, hence the rest of his famous paper is spelling that intuition out in the form of The Knowledge Argument. Here's another famous philosopher Colin McGinn in 1991 from *The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World*: >It is not that we know what would explain consciousness but are having trouble finding the evidence to select one explanation over the others; rather, we have no idea what an explanation of consciousness would even look like. Here's Jerry Fodor in 1998 in his *In Critical Condition: Polemical Essays on Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind*: >[We don\u2019t know], even to a first glimmer, how a brain (or anything else that is physical) could manage to be a locus of conscious experience. This ... is, surely, among the ultimate metaphysical mysteries; don\u2019t bet on anybody ever solving it. This is a small sample of fairly well known philosophers that agree with your sentiment, and there are many others, such as David Chalmers, and Philip Goff who have been mentioned. There are also others that strongly disagree with your sentiment though and \/u\/FrenchKingWithWig has done a good job of outlining a response to your sentiment that some philosophers take, including a very famous one, Dan Dennett. So the relationship between consciousness and the brain is an old problem that is currently unsolved. So although you may feel adamant that an explanation in terms of the brain is not sufficient, it's important to recognize that many disagree, and if you are interested in understanding their viewpoints you would do well to read someone like Dennett. The [SEP article on Consciousness is also a great place to start.","human_ref_B":"I think there are a few things that get in the way of properly understanding how consciousness might \"just be\" a product of chemical reactions in the brain. First, talking about \"atoms and reactions and neutrons\" and \"chemical reactions in the brain\" probably makes it difficult to make sense of mental vocabulary; it makes it difficult to get a grasp on how these non-conscious things could ever come together and be conscious. But emergent phenomena don't seem to be uncommon. For example, if you have the right configuration of matter you can find life and self-sustaining organisms. How ever could atoms and chemical reactions create something so magical as life? We have come far enough in the life sciences to not need to postulate some *\u00e9lan vital* to explain the difference between non-living and living things. Second, yes, there can be complex neuronal activity without consciousness. But complexity isn't sufficient for conscious experience, and for some creature to experience consciousness there needs to be complex organisation of *the right kind* \\-- just like complex neuronal activity isn't sufficient for speaking language, navigating the environment (it has to be the right kind of activity and organisation). What this kind of organisation is, and why it is, are some of the difficult questions in neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. It isn't obvious that there is a \"something else\" factor above and beyond complext behaviour and function. Dennett has argued forcefully against the dangers of taking this kind of approach to philosophy of mind -- if we simply introspect and assume that our instrospective methods are infallible, we will come to a lot of inconsistent conclusions about the mind (see for example his *Consciousness Explained* and 'Quining Qualia'). More recently, in *From Bacteria to Bach and Back*, Dennett has given a just so-story of how consciousness might have come about. Consciousness, to Dennett (in *FBtBaB*), is a product of cultural evolution, evolved because of a need for a \"central processor\" after the evolution of language -- a sort of user-illusion to help us navigate our environments. Conscious experience lets us go from the level of uncomprehending, but competent, creatures, to also being able to comprehend what we are doing. Consciousness is, then, an evolved user-illusion, which, just like our apps on smartphones do, smooths over a lot of cracks to help us navigate the system\/environment. Those \"cracks\" are brought out beautifully in *Consciousness Explained*. For a less biased point of view, it's worth having a read of the SEP entries on consciousness and qualia. Your point of view has been argued by Chalmers, notoriously in *The Conscious Mind* and his paper 'Consciousness and its Place in Nature', and more recently by Goff in *Consciousness and Fundamental Reality*. The standard argument (other than Chalmers's Zombie Argument, which Goff isn't entirely happy with, if I'm not wrong) goes along the lines that current physics (and the other special sciences) are not sufficient for a science of consciousness; physics has to undergo a revolution to account for consciousness. I'm not always clear on what this revolution is, but it often seems like they want a version of pansychism -- the view that consciousness is fundamental in the universe. Goff also has a really nice talk on his views\/book.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13292.0,"score_ratio":1.0714285714} +{"post_id":"99bkgg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Can you really, as a rational conscious human, be totally satisfied with the widely accepted scientific belief that consciousness is purely a product of chemical reactions in the brain, and that there\u2019s nothing else to it? Yes we have evidence for this. And yes you can map all kinds of conscious states to their corresponding neural activity. But there\u2019s something else going on, this awareness concept, that is just always brushed aside as \u201cmystical woo\u201d. I mean as I\u2019m sitting here typing this, I\u2019m experiencing a reality, I\u2019m aware of *something* . This really can\u2019t be explained by atoms and reactions and neutrons. Consider this; the vast majority of what the brain does is NOT experienced consciously. The vast majority the neuronal activity in the brain does not contribute to what you would call conscious awareness (e.g. motor coordination in the cerebellum, hypothalamus regulatory centres, speech and language interpretation, responding to everyday events etc). Therefore: \u2014> complex neuronal activity CAN and DOES happen without necessarily needing to be consciously observed (or without needing to give rise to a conscious experience). Why then, am I aware of the activity in my brain? Why am I not just a biological computer instead? There\u2019s clearly a \u201csomething else\u201d factor. Can we all agree, at least, that the neurosceintific theory of consciousness is, at best, mind-boggling and profoundly uncomfortable to accept.","c_root_id_A":"e4mnl8s","c_root_id_B":"e4melw7","created_at_utc_A":1534943010,"created_at_utc_B":1534928332,"score_A":30,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":">Can we all agree, at least, that the neurosceintific theory of consciousness is, at best, mind-boggling and profoundly uncomfortable to accept. There are many philosophers who agree. Thomas Nagel for example, writes the following in his famous paper What is it like to be a bat?, from 1974: >If we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently available conception gives us a clue how this could be done. The problem is unique. If mental processes are indeed physical processes, then there is something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo certain physical processes. What it is for such a thing to be the case remains a mystery. Frank Jackson is another, who wrote a famous paper in 1982, Epiphenomenal Qualia, outlining the inadequacies of physicalism (the view that everything is physical, including consciousness). He and others, which he refers to as \"qualia freaks\" thought the argument was very simple, and stated it as follows: >Nothing you could tell of a physical or neurobiological] sort captures the smell of a rose, for instance. Therefore, Physicalism is false. There are many who cannot see the intuitiveness of this short argument, hence the rest of his famous paper is spelling that intuition out in the form of The Knowledge Argument. Here's another famous philosopher Colin McGinn in 1991 from *The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World*: >It is not that we know what would explain consciousness but are having trouble finding the evidence to select one explanation over the others; rather, we have no idea what an explanation of consciousness would even look like. Here's Jerry Fodor in 1998 in his *In Critical Condition: Polemical Essays on Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind*: >[We don\u2019t know], even to a first glimmer, how a brain (or anything else that is physical) could manage to be a locus of conscious experience. This ... is, surely, among the ultimate metaphysical mysteries; don\u2019t bet on anybody ever solving it. This is a small sample of fairly well known philosophers that agree with your sentiment, and there are many others, such as David Chalmers, and Philip Goff who have been mentioned. There are also others that strongly disagree with your sentiment though and \/u\/FrenchKingWithWig has done a good job of outlining a response to your sentiment that some philosophers take, including a very famous one, Dan Dennett. So the relationship between consciousness and the brain is an old problem that is currently unsolved. So although you may feel adamant that an explanation in terms of the brain is not sufficient, it's important to recognize that many disagree, and if you are interested in understanding their viewpoints you would do well to read someone like Dennett. The [SEP article on Consciousness is also a great place to start.","human_ref_B":"You may want to read on the philosophical concepts of qualia, philosophical zombies and general criticism of physicalism.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14678.0,"score_ratio":3.75} +{"post_id":"99bkgg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Can you really, as a rational conscious human, be totally satisfied with the widely accepted scientific belief that consciousness is purely a product of chemical reactions in the brain, and that there\u2019s nothing else to it? Yes we have evidence for this. And yes you can map all kinds of conscious states to their corresponding neural activity. But there\u2019s something else going on, this awareness concept, that is just always brushed aside as \u201cmystical woo\u201d. I mean as I\u2019m sitting here typing this, I\u2019m experiencing a reality, I\u2019m aware of *something* . This really can\u2019t be explained by atoms and reactions and neutrons. Consider this; the vast majority of what the brain does is NOT experienced consciously. The vast majority the neuronal activity in the brain does not contribute to what you would call conscious awareness (e.g. motor coordination in the cerebellum, hypothalamus regulatory centres, speech and language interpretation, responding to everyday events etc). Therefore: \u2014> complex neuronal activity CAN and DOES happen without necessarily needing to be consciously observed (or without needing to give rise to a conscious experience). Why then, am I aware of the activity in my brain? Why am I not just a biological computer instead? There\u2019s clearly a \u201csomething else\u201d factor. Can we all agree, at least, that the neurosceintific theory of consciousness is, at best, mind-boggling and profoundly uncomfortable to accept.","c_root_id_A":"e4men0a","c_root_id_B":"e4mnl8s","created_at_utc_A":1534928403,"created_at_utc_B":1534943010,"score_A":8,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"You're making the assumption that the mind *is* those physical states, which is only one particular physicalist view. You can make an analogy of the software you write being purely in language, i.e. completely a formal concept divorced from the physical reality of semiconductors having charges and so on. The software is the concept or the program, somewhat divorced from the empirical reality of silicon. You can't just look at the silicon chips working and see what the software would be, at least on a physical level. The mind and the thoughts you're having may *arise* from your physical body, but you can't point to a part of your body and say \"that's your mind\". There isn't *clearly* a something else factor necessarily, Daniel Dennett and John Searle being pre-eminent philosophers of mind who are physicalists. It's a matter for debate. Of course determinism is uncomfortable, as is the corresponding hypothesis that there's no such thing as an afterlife. That being said, considering that the nature of consciousness is still as yet unclear, there's no party who can definitively say that they have everything figured out. ​","human_ref_B":">Can we all agree, at least, that the neurosceintific theory of consciousness is, at best, mind-boggling and profoundly uncomfortable to accept. There are many philosophers who agree. Thomas Nagel for example, writes the following in his famous paper What is it like to be a bat?, from 1974: >If we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently available conception gives us a clue how this could be done. The problem is unique. If mental processes are indeed physical processes, then there is something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo certain physical processes. What it is for such a thing to be the case remains a mystery. Frank Jackson is another, who wrote a famous paper in 1982, Epiphenomenal Qualia, outlining the inadequacies of physicalism (the view that everything is physical, including consciousness). He and others, which he refers to as \"qualia freaks\" thought the argument was very simple, and stated it as follows: >Nothing you could tell of a physical or neurobiological] sort captures the smell of a rose, for instance. Therefore, Physicalism is false. There are many who cannot see the intuitiveness of this short argument, hence the rest of his famous paper is spelling that intuition out in the form of The Knowledge Argument. Here's another famous philosopher Colin McGinn in 1991 from *The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World*: >It is not that we know what would explain consciousness but are having trouble finding the evidence to select one explanation over the others; rather, we have no idea what an explanation of consciousness would even look like. Here's Jerry Fodor in 1998 in his *In Critical Condition: Polemical Essays on Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind*: >[We don\u2019t know], even to a first glimmer, how a brain (or anything else that is physical) could manage to be a locus of conscious experience. This ... is, surely, among the ultimate metaphysical mysteries; don\u2019t bet on anybody ever solving it. This is a small sample of fairly well known philosophers that agree with your sentiment, and there are many others, such as David Chalmers, and Philip Goff who have been mentioned. There are also others that strongly disagree with your sentiment though and \/u\/FrenchKingWithWig has done a good job of outlining a response to your sentiment that some philosophers take, including a very famous one, Dan Dennett. So the relationship between consciousness and the brain is an old problem that is currently unsolved. So although you may feel adamant that an explanation in terms of the brain is not sufficient, it's important to recognize that many disagree, and if you are interested in understanding their viewpoints you would do well to read someone like Dennett. The [SEP article on Consciousness is also a great place to start.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14607.0,"score_ratio":3.75} +{"post_id":"99bkgg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Can you really, as a rational conscious human, be totally satisfied with the widely accepted scientific belief that consciousness is purely a product of chemical reactions in the brain, and that there\u2019s nothing else to it? Yes we have evidence for this. And yes you can map all kinds of conscious states to their corresponding neural activity. But there\u2019s something else going on, this awareness concept, that is just always brushed aside as \u201cmystical woo\u201d. I mean as I\u2019m sitting here typing this, I\u2019m experiencing a reality, I\u2019m aware of *something* . This really can\u2019t be explained by atoms and reactions and neutrons. Consider this; the vast majority of what the brain does is NOT experienced consciously. The vast majority the neuronal activity in the brain does not contribute to what you would call conscious awareness (e.g. motor coordination in the cerebellum, hypothalamus regulatory centres, speech and language interpretation, responding to everyday events etc). Therefore: \u2014> complex neuronal activity CAN and DOES happen without necessarily needing to be consciously observed (or without needing to give rise to a conscious experience). Why then, am I aware of the activity in my brain? Why am I not just a biological computer instead? There\u2019s clearly a \u201csomething else\u201d factor. Can we all agree, at least, that the neurosceintific theory of consciousness is, at best, mind-boggling and profoundly uncomfortable to accept.","c_root_id_A":"e4mf8qn","c_root_id_B":"e4melw7","created_at_utc_A":1534929718,"created_at_utc_B":1534928332,"score_A":28,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I think there are a few things that get in the way of properly understanding how consciousness might \"just be\" a product of chemical reactions in the brain. First, talking about \"atoms and reactions and neutrons\" and \"chemical reactions in the brain\" probably makes it difficult to make sense of mental vocabulary; it makes it difficult to get a grasp on how these non-conscious things could ever come together and be conscious. But emergent phenomena don't seem to be uncommon. For example, if you have the right configuration of matter you can find life and self-sustaining organisms. How ever could atoms and chemical reactions create something so magical as life? We have come far enough in the life sciences to not need to postulate some *\u00e9lan vital* to explain the difference between non-living and living things. Second, yes, there can be complex neuronal activity without consciousness. But complexity isn't sufficient for conscious experience, and for some creature to experience consciousness there needs to be complex organisation of *the right kind* \\-- just like complex neuronal activity isn't sufficient for speaking language, navigating the environment (it has to be the right kind of activity and organisation). What this kind of organisation is, and why it is, are some of the difficult questions in neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. It isn't obvious that there is a \"something else\" factor above and beyond complext behaviour and function. Dennett has argued forcefully against the dangers of taking this kind of approach to philosophy of mind -- if we simply introspect and assume that our instrospective methods are infallible, we will come to a lot of inconsistent conclusions about the mind (see for example his *Consciousness Explained* and 'Quining Qualia'). More recently, in *From Bacteria to Bach and Back*, Dennett has given a just so-story of how consciousness might have come about. Consciousness, to Dennett (in *FBtBaB*), is a product of cultural evolution, evolved because of a need for a \"central processor\" after the evolution of language -- a sort of user-illusion to help us navigate our environments. Conscious experience lets us go from the level of uncomprehending, but competent, creatures, to also being able to comprehend what we are doing. Consciousness is, then, an evolved user-illusion, which, just like our apps on smartphones do, smooths over a lot of cracks to help us navigate the system\/environment. Those \"cracks\" are brought out beautifully in *Consciousness Explained*. For a less biased point of view, it's worth having a read of the SEP entries on consciousness and qualia. Your point of view has been argued by Chalmers, notoriously in *The Conscious Mind* and his paper 'Consciousness and its Place in Nature', and more recently by Goff in *Consciousness and Fundamental Reality*. The standard argument (other than Chalmers's Zombie Argument, which Goff isn't entirely happy with, if I'm not wrong) goes along the lines that current physics (and the other special sciences) are not sufficient for a science of consciousness; physics has to undergo a revolution to account for consciousness. I'm not always clear on what this revolution is, but it often seems like they want a version of pansychism -- the view that consciousness is fundamental in the universe. Goff also has a really nice talk on his views\/book.","human_ref_B":"You may want to read on the philosophical concepts of qualia, philosophical zombies and general criticism of physicalism.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1386.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"99bkgg","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Can you really, as a rational conscious human, be totally satisfied with the widely accepted scientific belief that consciousness is purely a product of chemical reactions in the brain, and that there\u2019s nothing else to it? Yes we have evidence for this. And yes you can map all kinds of conscious states to their corresponding neural activity. But there\u2019s something else going on, this awareness concept, that is just always brushed aside as \u201cmystical woo\u201d. I mean as I\u2019m sitting here typing this, I\u2019m experiencing a reality, I\u2019m aware of *something* . This really can\u2019t be explained by atoms and reactions and neutrons. Consider this; the vast majority of what the brain does is NOT experienced consciously. The vast majority the neuronal activity in the brain does not contribute to what you would call conscious awareness (e.g. motor coordination in the cerebellum, hypothalamus regulatory centres, speech and language interpretation, responding to everyday events etc). Therefore: \u2014> complex neuronal activity CAN and DOES happen without necessarily needing to be consciously observed (or without needing to give rise to a conscious experience). Why then, am I aware of the activity in my brain? Why am I not just a biological computer instead? There\u2019s clearly a \u201csomething else\u201d factor. Can we all agree, at least, that the neurosceintific theory of consciousness is, at best, mind-boggling and profoundly uncomfortable to accept.","c_root_id_A":"e4mf8qn","c_root_id_B":"e4men0a","created_at_utc_A":1534929718,"created_at_utc_B":1534928403,"score_A":28,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I think there are a few things that get in the way of properly understanding how consciousness might \"just be\" a product of chemical reactions in the brain. First, talking about \"atoms and reactions and neutrons\" and \"chemical reactions in the brain\" probably makes it difficult to make sense of mental vocabulary; it makes it difficult to get a grasp on how these non-conscious things could ever come together and be conscious. But emergent phenomena don't seem to be uncommon. For example, if you have the right configuration of matter you can find life and self-sustaining organisms. How ever could atoms and chemical reactions create something so magical as life? We have come far enough in the life sciences to not need to postulate some *\u00e9lan vital* to explain the difference between non-living and living things. Second, yes, there can be complex neuronal activity without consciousness. But complexity isn't sufficient for conscious experience, and for some creature to experience consciousness there needs to be complex organisation of *the right kind* \\-- just like complex neuronal activity isn't sufficient for speaking language, navigating the environment (it has to be the right kind of activity and organisation). What this kind of organisation is, and why it is, are some of the difficult questions in neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. It isn't obvious that there is a \"something else\" factor above and beyond complext behaviour and function. Dennett has argued forcefully against the dangers of taking this kind of approach to philosophy of mind -- if we simply introspect and assume that our instrospective methods are infallible, we will come to a lot of inconsistent conclusions about the mind (see for example his *Consciousness Explained* and 'Quining Qualia'). More recently, in *From Bacteria to Bach and Back*, Dennett has given a just so-story of how consciousness might have come about. Consciousness, to Dennett (in *FBtBaB*), is a product of cultural evolution, evolved because of a need for a \"central processor\" after the evolution of language -- a sort of user-illusion to help us navigate our environments. Conscious experience lets us go from the level of uncomprehending, but competent, creatures, to also being able to comprehend what we are doing. Consciousness is, then, an evolved user-illusion, which, just like our apps on smartphones do, smooths over a lot of cracks to help us navigate the system\/environment. Those \"cracks\" are brought out beautifully in *Consciousness Explained*. For a less biased point of view, it's worth having a read of the SEP entries on consciousness and qualia. Your point of view has been argued by Chalmers, notoriously in *The Conscious Mind* and his paper 'Consciousness and its Place in Nature', and more recently by Goff in *Consciousness and Fundamental Reality*. The standard argument (other than Chalmers's Zombie Argument, which Goff isn't entirely happy with, if I'm not wrong) goes along the lines that current physics (and the other special sciences) are not sufficient for a science of consciousness; physics has to undergo a revolution to account for consciousness. I'm not always clear on what this revolution is, but it often seems like they want a version of pansychism -- the view that consciousness is fundamental in the universe. Goff also has a really nice talk on his views\/book.","human_ref_B":"You're making the assumption that the mind *is* those physical states, which is only one particular physicalist view. You can make an analogy of the software you write being purely in language, i.e. completely a formal concept divorced from the physical reality of semiconductors having charges and so on. The software is the concept or the program, somewhat divorced from the empirical reality of silicon. You can't just look at the silicon chips working and see what the software would be, at least on a physical level. The mind and the thoughts you're having may *arise* from your physical body, but you can't point to a part of your body and say \"that's your mind\". There isn't *clearly* a something else factor necessarily, Daniel Dennett and John Searle being pre-eminent philosophers of mind who are physicalists. It's a matter for debate. Of course determinism is uncomfortable, as is the corresponding hypothesis that there's no such thing as an afterlife. That being said, considering that the nature of consciousness is still as yet unclear, there's no party who can definitively say that they have everything figured out. ​","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1315.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"vhxa1l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Why is it the case that metaphysics in particular is viewed with suspicion, even though epistemology or ethics are just as non-empirical? I realise that my question might be based on a false premise - perhaps it isn\u2019t the case that metaphysics in particular is viewed with more suspicion than any other branch of philosophy. But this seems to be the case based on my own current understanding. Metaphysics is often criticised on the grounds that the questions it asks are so abstract and non-empirical that they can only be answered based on a priori intuitions or something like this - e.g. there is no empirical way to settle whether universals actually exist mind-independently. What I don\u2019t understand, though, is that the same thing could be said for many other branches of philosophy, but these other branches aren\u2019t criticised on these grounds to the same extent. Epistemology arguably relies on a priori methods just as much as metaphysics does. What could explain this?","c_root_id_A":"ida80af","c_root_id_B":"idagnvl","created_at_utc_A":1655888084,"created_at_utc_B":1655895298,"score_A":8,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Could you cite some examples of this frequent criticism in your OP so that any discussion thereof can be more concrete?","human_ref_B":"Those who have viewed metaphysics as suspect over the years tended to use the term \"metaphysics\" in a fairly distinct way --- that is, they tended not to mean \"precisely those works that go under the title 'metaphysics' in contemporary anglophone philosophy.\" The positivists, for example, were quite explicit about this. To answer your question, though, I think that a lot of the relevant critics *would* find at least some parts of epistemology and ethics to be equally shaky. Certainly this was true of the positivists, who thought that there was very little that their kind of scientific philosophy could say about ethics. (Note: that's very different from \"ethics is unimportant.\") And while positivists like Carnap did substantial work on epistemology, I think it's telling how markedly different Carnap's later work on formal epistemology is from much of epistemology as it was traditionally conceived. The same can be said for \"metaphysics,\" however: Carnap and others were explicit that there were projects that might usefully be called \"metaphysical\" that their critique didn't really touch and that they had no particular objection to. The overall lesson here is that these categories---metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, etc.---have been anything but fixed across the history of philosophy. When positivists and others have criticized metaphysics, they haven't been criticizing the general study of \"what there is\"; on the contrary, they've been criticizing a certain way of doing philosophy that can be found throughout what we now think of as different branches.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7214.0,"score_ratio":2.25} +{"post_id":"8v4rue","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I agree that we *can* imagine Sisyphus happy. But why must we *must* imagine him happy? So I've been reading Camus' the Myth of Sisyphus, and I feel I'm still unclear on the entire argument Camus is trying to make. In the beginning chapters, he seems to imply he will show that suicide is not morally permissible. We *must* imagine Sisyphus happy, not merely we *can* imagine Sisyphus happy. But I feel that his conclusion only achieves that not committing suicide is an acceptable course of action, by confronting and rebelling against the absurd, one can live alongside it. But I don't see where he says that we are obligated to rebel against the absurd. Does the Myth of Sisyphus say that not committing suicide is permissible, or that committing suicide is not permissible?","c_root_id_A":"e1kqu2j","c_root_id_B":"e1kplbk","created_at_utc_A":1530400706,"created_at_utc_B":1530399227,"score_A":42,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s a normative \u2018must\u2019, not a logical one. We need to imagine Sisyphus as happy, so as to accept our similar existence.","human_ref_B":"I think that when he says that we \"must\" picture him happy it's not in the sense of a moral law but as a logical conclusion. In the same way, revelling against the absurd is a logical step (given all the premises exposed previously by the author), and suicide an irrational one. Maybe that's where you are having trouble. Or maybe you are asking why it's a logical conclusion to his premises?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1479.0,"score_ratio":3.2307692308} +{"post_id":"8v4rue","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I agree that we *can* imagine Sisyphus happy. But why must we *must* imagine him happy? So I've been reading Camus' the Myth of Sisyphus, and I feel I'm still unclear on the entire argument Camus is trying to make. In the beginning chapters, he seems to imply he will show that suicide is not morally permissible. We *must* imagine Sisyphus happy, not merely we *can* imagine Sisyphus happy. But I feel that his conclusion only achieves that not committing suicide is an acceptable course of action, by confronting and rebelling against the absurd, one can live alongside it. But I don't see where he says that we are obligated to rebel against the absurd. Does the Myth of Sisyphus say that not committing suicide is permissible, or that committing suicide is not permissible?","c_root_id_A":"e1kqu2j","c_root_id_B":"e1klb67","created_at_utc_A":1530400706,"created_at_utc_B":1530394299,"score_A":42,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s a normative \u2018must\u2019, not a logical one. We need to imagine Sisyphus as happy, so as to accept our similar existence.","human_ref_B":"Camus is a nihilist in some sense so I don't believe he endorses there being a *moral obligation* against suicide. More likely he just thinks that suicide is perhaps something more on the lines of an unthinkable and undesirable solution to the problem, especially when we have the opportunity to rebel against the absurd instead. But I am no expert on Camus so take this with a grain of salt.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6407.0,"score_ratio":4.2} +{"post_id":"8v4rue","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I agree that we *can* imagine Sisyphus happy. But why must we *must* imagine him happy? So I've been reading Camus' the Myth of Sisyphus, and I feel I'm still unclear on the entire argument Camus is trying to make. In the beginning chapters, he seems to imply he will show that suicide is not morally permissible. We *must* imagine Sisyphus happy, not merely we *can* imagine Sisyphus happy. But I feel that his conclusion only achieves that not committing suicide is an acceptable course of action, by confronting and rebelling against the absurd, one can live alongside it. But I don't see where he says that we are obligated to rebel against the absurd. Does the Myth of Sisyphus say that not committing suicide is permissible, or that committing suicide is not permissible?","c_root_id_A":"e1kzkyt","c_root_id_B":"e1kplbk","created_at_utc_A":1530411466,"created_at_utc_B":1530399227,"score_A":36,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"The french is > il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux. In English this is something like, \"it is necessary\" or \"it is required\" or \"you are obligated\" to imagine Sisyphus happy. There are at least two senses in which we \"must\" imagine Sisyphus happy. In the first case, Sisyphus' very nature is the nature of the rebel. Camus tells us that he loved life and he hated death, and he took great pleasure in rebelling against the various 'laws' of the gods. Camus tells us in the myth that Sisyphus' afterlife *and* his life are equally absurd. That is, all the joy of Sisyphus' life is gained through this series of rebellions which he knows (because he is wise) will eventually garner him a terrible punishment. He steals the gods secrets, he blackmails them, he fools them, he lies to them, he thwarts their natural order of life and death, etc. So, he gets the thunderbolt and he gets the rock. So, if we are meant to believe that Sisyphus lived passionately and happily throughout all of this, then so too with the rock. They are, for Camus, the same thing. So we \"must\" imagine Sisyphus happy because to do otherwise would be inconsistent - it would ignore Sisyphus' very nature as rebel. In the second case, we, as hopeful rebels *ought* to imagine happiness for Sisyphus insofar as we ought to imagine space for happiness for anyone living a life at all. \"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.\" So, let it fill our hearts just as it should have filled Sisyphus'.","human_ref_B":"I think that when he says that we \"must\" picture him happy it's not in the sense of a moral law but as a logical conclusion. In the same way, revelling against the absurd is a logical step (given all the premises exposed previously by the author), and suicide an irrational one. Maybe that's where you are having trouble. Or maybe you are asking why it's a logical conclusion to his premises?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12239.0,"score_ratio":2.7692307692} +{"post_id":"8v4rue","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I agree that we *can* imagine Sisyphus happy. But why must we *must* imagine him happy? So I've been reading Camus' the Myth of Sisyphus, and I feel I'm still unclear on the entire argument Camus is trying to make. In the beginning chapters, he seems to imply he will show that suicide is not morally permissible. We *must* imagine Sisyphus happy, not merely we *can* imagine Sisyphus happy. But I feel that his conclusion only achieves that not committing suicide is an acceptable course of action, by confronting and rebelling against the absurd, one can live alongside it. But I don't see where he says that we are obligated to rebel against the absurd. Does the Myth of Sisyphus say that not committing suicide is permissible, or that committing suicide is not permissible?","c_root_id_A":"e1klb67","c_root_id_B":"e1kzkyt","created_at_utc_A":1530394299,"created_at_utc_B":1530411466,"score_A":10,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Camus is a nihilist in some sense so I don't believe he endorses there being a *moral obligation* against suicide. More likely he just thinks that suicide is perhaps something more on the lines of an unthinkable and undesirable solution to the problem, especially when we have the opportunity to rebel against the absurd instead. But I am no expert on Camus so take this with a grain of salt.","human_ref_B":"The french is > il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux. In English this is something like, \"it is necessary\" or \"it is required\" or \"you are obligated\" to imagine Sisyphus happy. There are at least two senses in which we \"must\" imagine Sisyphus happy. In the first case, Sisyphus' very nature is the nature of the rebel. Camus tells us that he loved life and he hated death, and he took great pleasure in rebelling against the various 'laws' of the gods. Camus tells us in the myth that Sisyphus' afterlife *and* his life are equally absurd. That is, all the joy of Sisyphus' life is gained through this series of rebellions which he knows (because he is wise) will eventually garner him a terrible punishment. He steals the gods secrets, he blackmails them, he fools them, he lies to them, he thwarts their natural order of life and death, etc. So, he gets the thunderbolt and he gets the rock. So, if we are meant to believe that Sisyphus lived passionately and happily throughout all of this, then so too with the rock. They are, for Camus, the same thing. So we \"must\" imagine Sisyphus happy because to do otherwise would be inconsistent - it would ignore Sisyphus' very nature as rebel. In the second case, we, as hopeful rebels *ought* to imagine happiness for Sisyphus insofar as we ought to imagine space for happiness for anyone living a life at all. \"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.\" So, let it fill our hearts just as it should have filled Sisyphus'.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17167.0,"score_ratio":3.6} +{"post_id":"8v4rue","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I agree that we *can* imagine Sisyphus happy. But why must we *must* imagine him happy? So I've been reading Camus' the Myth of Sisyphus, and I feel I'm still unclear on the entire argument Camus is trying to make. In the beginning chapters, he seems to imply he will show that suicide is not morally permissible. We *must* imagine Sisyphus happy, not merely we *can* imagine Sisyphus happy. But I feel that his conclusion only achieves that not committing suicide is an acceptable course of action, by confronting and rebelling against the absurd, one can live alongside it. But I don't see where he says that we are obligated to rebel against the absurd. Does the Myth of Sisyphus say that not committing suicide is permissible, or that committing suicide is not permissible?","c_root_id_A":"e1kplbk","c_root_id_B":"e1klb67","created_at_utc_A":1530399227,"created_at_utc_B":1530394299,"score_A":13,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I think that when he says that we \"must\" picture him happy it's not in the sense of a moral law but as a logical conclusion. In the same way, revelling against the absurd is a logical step (given all the premises exposed previously by the author), and suicide an irrational one. Maybe that's where you are having trouble. Or maybe you are asking why it's a logical conclusion to his premises?","human_ref_B":"Camus is a nihilist in some sense so I don't believe he endorses there being a *moral obligation* against suicide. More likely he just thinks that suicide is perhaps something more on the lines of an unthinkable and undesirable solution to the problem, especially when we have the opportunity to rebel against the absurd instead. But I am no expert on Camus so take this with a grain of salt.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4928.0,"score_ratio":1.3} +{"post_id":"bibn69","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How can God have a personality and be all powerful simultaneously? God is all powerful. That means that there are infinitely many possible universes God could've created, but didn't. That means God made numerous decisions. Decisions are generally determined by a personality, and should be repeatable. That is, if one absolutely knew how the other's brain works, they should be able to predict their every move. Therefore, the personality determines what will happen. One could describe a personality as a set of inhibitions and\/or motivations to make one decision or another. The Quran says that God is good. That, along with the fact that God made the decision to create this specific universe, suggests that God has a personality. But if God has a personality, that would be an entity more fundamental than God since it is what determines reality. But God is supposed to be the most fundamental entity, right? If one imagines that every reality possible exists somehow, that would remove the need for a personality. However, that would remove the point of a God in the first place, since everything happens! So what's the solution to this problem?","c_root_id_A":"elzf7hc","c_root_id_B":"elzwget","created_at_utc_A":1556462109,"created_at_utc_B":1556474307,"score_A":28,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"Pardon me if I\u2019m mistaken, but I think that your concern touches on the issue described in the Euthyphro Dilemma, which seeks to answer the following question: \u201cDoes God command this particular action because it is morally right, or is it morally right because God commands it?\u201d I think the former part of the question echoes part of your own. Some of the concerns addressed in the dilemma are particularly striking. \u201cGod is no longer the author of ethics, but rather a mere recognizer of right and wrong. As such, God no longer serves as the foundation of ethics. Moreover, it now seems that God has become subject to an external moral law, and is no longer sovereign. ...] God is no longer sovereign over the entire universe, but rather is subject to a moral law external to himself.\u201d [This article provides an elaborate explanation about the dilemma, which I think may help you.","human_ref_B":"> But if God has a personality, that would be an entity more fundamental than God since it is what determines reality. This is a peculiar inference, since it treats God's personality as a separate entity from God, which is a peculiar way to speak of a personality. Perhaps you mean that if God has a particular personality, there must be some extrinsic factor determining him to have some personality rather than another; or, more simply, if God has a particular personality, then there is something contingent about God--but that this is inconsistent with what we say about God, therefore... etc. But in monotheist theology, God does not typically have a personality in this problematic sense, so this seems like a pseudo-problem, i.e. one that starts with a false premise, or strawman, i.e. one that requires misrepresenting the theist's position.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12198.0,"score_ratio":1.0714285714} +{"post_id":"bibn69","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How can God have a personality and be all powerful simultaneously? God is all powerful. That means that there are infinitely many possible universes God could've created, but didn't. That means God made numerous decisions. Decisions are generally determined by a personality, and should be repeatable. That is, if one absolutely knew how the other's brain works, they should be able to predict their every move. Therefore, the personality determines what will happen. One could describe a personality as a set of inhibitions and\/or motivations to make one decision or another. The Quran says that God is good. That, along with the fact that God made the decision to create this specific universe, suggests that God has a personality. But if God has a personality, that would be an entity more fundamental than God since it is what determines reality. But God is supposed to be the most fundamental entity, right? If one imagines that every reality possible exists somehow, that would remove the need for a personality. However, that would remove the point of a God in the first place, since everything happens! So what's the solution to this problem?","c_root_id_A":"elzwget","c_root_id_B":"elzryw6","created_at_utc_A":1556474307,"created_at_utc_B":1556471205,"score_A":30,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"> But if God has a personality, that would be an entity more fundamental than God since it is what determines reality. This is a peculiar inference, since it treats God's personality as a separate entity from God, which is a peculiar way to speak of a personality. Perhaps you mean that if God has a particular personality, there must be some extrinsic factor determining him to have some personality rather than another; or, more simply, if God has a particular personality, then there is something contingent about God--but that this is inconsistent with what we say about God, therefore... etc. But in monotheist theology, God does not typically have a personality in this problematic sense, so this seems like a pseudo-problem, i.e. one that starts with a false premise, or strawman, i.e. one that requires misrepresenting the theist's position.","human_ref_B":">That means that there are infinitely many possible universes God could've created, but didn't. We don't know that. But if they did, the disconnect between personality and being as defined here is circular. That is, a being is defined by a personality. Suggesting that personality, which defines a being, is also in fact a being. Which has a personality, whose personality is a being. If there is a difference, and there is a fundamental entity, then one of the two must take precedence.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3102.0,"score_ratio":7.5} +{"post_id":"bibn69","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How can God have a personality and be all powerful simultaneously? God is all powerful. That means that there are infinitely many possible universes God could've created, but didn't. That means God made numerous decisions. Decisions are generally determined by a personality, and should be repeatable. That is, if one absolutely knew how the other's brain works, they should be able to predict their every move. Therefore, the personality determines what will happen. One could describe a personality as a set of inhibitions and\/or motivations to make one decision or another. The Quran says that God is good. That, along with the fact that God made the decision to create this specific universe, suggests that God has a personality. But if God has a personality, that would be an entity more fundamental than God since it is what determines reality. But God is supposed to be the most fundamental entity, right? If one imagines that every reality possible exists somehow, that would remove the need for a personality. However, that would remove the point of a God in the first place, since everything happens! So what's the solution to this problem?","c_root_id_A":"elzorko","c_root_id_B":"elzwget","created_at_utc_A":1556468942,"created_at_utc_B":1556474307,"score_A":3,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"> that would be an entity more fundamental than God since it is what determines reality Well you can say that that entity itself is then God. In a qualified sense it has a personality, because it is the power that determines a personality, perhaps ALL personalities. But you would be right, it is not fundamentally person in a typical anthropomorphic sense. You may also like to check out: \"Theistic classicalism vs Theistic Personalism\" related stuffs in internet. Eg.: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OvdGw8IbFng","human_ref_B":"> But if God has a personality, that would be an entity more fundamental than God since it is what determines reality. This is a peculiar inference, since it treats God's personality as a separate entity from God, which is a peculiar way to speak of a personality. Perhaps you mean that if God has a particular personality, there must be some extrinsic factor determining him to have some personality rather than another; or, more simply, if God has a particular personality, then there is something contingent about God--but that this is inconsistent with what we say about God, therefore... etc. But in monotheist theology, God does not typically have a personality in this problematic sense, so this seems like a pseudo-problem, i.e. one that starts with a false premise, or strawman, i.e. one that requires misrepresenting the theist's position.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5365.0,"score_ratio":10.0} +{"post_id":"bibn69","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How can God have a personality and be all powerful simultaneously? God is all powerful. That means that there are infinitely many possible universes God could've created, but didn't. That means God made numerous decisions. Decisions are generally determined by a personality, and should be repeatable. That is, if one absolutely knew how the other's brain works, they should be able to predict their every move. Therefore, the personality determines what will happen. One could describe a personality as a set of inhibitions and\/or motivations to make one decision or another. The Quran says that God is good. That, along with the fact that God made the decision to create this specific universe, suggests that God has a personality. But if God has a personality, that would be an entity more fundamental than God since it is what determines reality. But God is supposed to be the most fundamental entity, right? If one imagines that every reality possible exists somehow, that would remove the need for a personality. However, that would remove the point of a God in the first place, since everything happens! So what's the solution to this problem?","c_root_id_A":"elzorko","c_root_id_B":"elzryw6","created_at_utc_A":1556468942,"created_at_utc_B":1556471205,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"> that would be an entity more fundamental than God since it is what determines reality Well you can say that that entity itself is then God. In a qualified sense it has a personality, because it is the power that determines a personality, perhaps ALL personalities. But you would be right, it is not fundamentally person in a typical anthropomorphic sense. You may also like to check out: \"Theistic classicalism vs Theistic Personalism\" related stuffs in internet. Eg.: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OvdGw8IbFng","human_ref_B":">That means that there are infinitely many possible universes God could've created, but didn't. We don't know that. But if they did, the disconnect between personality and being as defined here is circular. That is, a being is defined by a personality. Suggesting that personality, which defines a being, is also in fact a being. Which has a personality, whose personality is a being. If there is a difference, and there is a fundamental entity, then one of the two must take precedence.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2263.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"sa175c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Do different animals possess different amounts of free will- for example does a chimpanzee possess more free will than a housefly? This question is really a few questions: Do animals have free will? At what point can we say something has no free will- what about plants, do they have free will even though all they seem to do is react to their environment? How do we know that what we are doing is not also just reacting to the environment in a more complex way? Can some animals possess more free will than others- can we say humans possess more free will than chimpanzees and dolphins, or that chimpanzees and dolphins have more free will than houseflies, and that houseflies have more free will than pot plants? This is something I'm really interested in and I would love to hear what this community thinks","c_root_id_A":"htr4822","c_root_id_B":"htqod0s","created_at_utc_A":1642865836,"created_at_utc_B":1642858253,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Aquinas & Aristotle would argue for a strict split in the kind of freedom between irrational animals and humanity. The irrational animals all possess only their will - what differentiates man, what Aristotle called the rational animal, from the rest is that man has the faculty of reason in addition to will, which allows us to deliberate on our acts; this is what gives us our freedom to choose between goods. Irrational animals, however, do not have reason; instead, they have only the appetites - the will. So they all will things based on their appetites (i.e. they act according to instinct and in response to stimuli, but they cannot deliberate on their acts and choose accordingly like man can). They may appear to deliberate, such as if an ape is given a puzzle of some kind, but they are unable to actually reason about it; at best, they may follow an instinctual algorithm, such as a computer might do, such as trial and error problem solving. They could not, however, consider universals and reason about them; they could not, for example, reason about triangles and deduce that the degrees of their three inner angles must always add up to the same number. This idea has also been picked up by modern philosophers in Animal Cognition (SEP article for reference), such as Donald Davidson, who (to roughly summarize) argued that the ability to reason is tied to language and belief - since reason is consideration of things in the mind, it must include an understanding of things different from mere observation of reality, and so there must be the ability to be surprised: to quote: > Surprise shows that one can discriminate between the purely subjective and the objective. In order to have the capacity to be surprised, and therefore to have beliefs, one needs the\u00a0concept\u00a0of belief, to be able to understand that there is an objective reality that is independent from our beliefs. At the same time, language is necessary to have the concept of belief, for it allows us to contrast what we believe with what others believe, and thus generate the notion of truth and an objective reality. Given that only humans have language, only humans can have the concept of belief, and therefore beliefs.","human_ref_B":"Nice question. I would like to understand your train thought a little better. Where do you believe free will exists? Do you think it is the brain that authors our actions? Or is free-will something that exists on it's own? If you believe it to be part of some anatomy, then you could simply see which animals or plants have that anatomy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7583.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"gq9yp7","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What did Spinoza mean when he said this? \"What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter\"","c_root_id_A":"frrgdt9","c_root_id_B":"frrmmx3","created_at_utc_A":1590409443,"created_at_utc_B":1590414042,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure he did , I could not find this quote anywhere but *Psychoanalysis and Religion* by Erich Fromm, and he provides no citation for it. Could be a misquote, a creative translation, or maybe Spinoza did write it somewhere obscure. But anyway, this is what Fromm makes of it. >A new attitude toward man's thought slowly made its appearance, of which the first utterance is Spinoza's statement : \"What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter.\" With this attitude, our interest in Paul's statement is not in what he thinks it should be, namely, in Peter ; we take it as a statement about Paul. We say that we know Paul better than he knows himself; we can decipher his thoughts because we are not taken in by the fact that he intends to communicate only a statement about Peter ; we listen, as Theodor Reik phrased it, with \"a third ear.\" Spinoza's statement contains an essential point of Freud's theory of man : that a great deal of what matters goes on behind one's back, and that people's conscious ideas are only one datum which has no greater relevancy than any other behavior datum in fact often less.","human_ref_B":"This line appears in the Ethics, I forget the precise citation, but it\u2019s when Spinoza is explaining his distinction between the \u2018objective essence\u2019 and the \u2018formal essence\u2019 of an idea. What Paul says about Peter tells us directly about the contents of Paul\u2019s mind, and only indirectly about Peter himself.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4599.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} +{"post_id":"663rx1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why does Marxism seem to be so much more prevalent in philosophical circles than in economic ones?","c_root_id_A":"dgfz6wx","c_root_id_B":"dgfdin3","created_at_utc_A":1492557477,"created_at_utc_B":1492533595,"score_A":33,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"I'd strongly recommend asking the folks at \/r\/asksocialscience and \/r\/askeconomics as well. Many of the answers you are getting here demonstrate very little knowledge of or engagement with economics.","human_ref_B":"Maybe because philosophical circles tend to have a critical eye about fundamental issues, like how to organize a just society. Marxism is not merely an economic theory but also philosophical, historical, and social. Economic circles, instead, it seems, are less concerned with theory that goes beyond explaining economic phenomena in a coherent manner. That's not to say that there isn't obvious crossover but it makes sense that philosophical-types would be more interested in kind of fundamental critique of Capitalism that Marxism levies than those who accept Capitalism, either ideologically or pragmatically.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23882.0,"score_ratio":1.2692307692} +{"post_id":"663rx1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why does Marxism seem to be so much more prevalent in philosophical circles than in economic ones?","c_root_id_A":"dgfdmkn","c_root_id_B":"dgfz6wx","created_at_utc_A":1492533709,"created_at_utc_B":1492557477,"score_A":22,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"Because Marx's economics and today's Marxian economists are very strongly opposed to the mainstream neoclassical and Keynesian economics which is by far the most prevalent. Philosophical communities tend to much more accepting of a wide range of theories and backgrounds, whereas you're hard pressed to find an economics school that has a prevalent Marxist economist throughout most of history (there is a few currently living marxist economist though they are relatively obscure and small numbered), they're all dominated by neoclassical and Keynesian theories I wouldn't say that neoclassical and Keynesian economics being in such a domination is an accident. Many mainstream neoclassical economists love to portray economics as a 'value free' science. Though, at best, they tend to take existing social structures for granted and build economic dogmas around them, so justifying them. And this is at economics best, at it's worst it's just speculation based on the necessary assumptions needed to reach the desired end. And by some strrannge coincidence these ends bolster the power and profits of the few and show how the free market is the best of all possible worlds. Even Alfred Marshall noted the usefulness of economics to the elite: \u201cFrom Metaphysics I went to Ethics, and found that the justification of the existing conditions of society was not easy. A friend, who had read a great deal of what are called the Moral Sciences, constantly said: \u2018Ah! if you understood Political Economy you would not say that\u2019\u201d I think a key part of explaining this 'coincidence' of economics benefiting the ruling class is the lack of concern of history by economics. There is lack of concern about how the current distribution of wealth and income was created, though, for the most part, it's taken as granted. Neoclassical economics has a static nature. In most of the textbooks, economic analysis starts and ends with a snapshot of time, there is a given set of commodities, how these commodities got into these specific hands is considered irrelevant. This allows these awkward questions posed by Marx and Marxists since the very beginning to be outright avoided. This is illustrated in the initial break from classical economics into neoclassical economist around 1870s. Classical economics focused its analysis on production, growth, distribution, and most importantly, the relationships between social classes. For the new economics, the focus became a rigorous theory of price determination. This meant abstracting away from production and looking at the amount of goods available at any given moment of time. So questions posed by classical economists and Marxists about class relations could be avoided by narrowing the field of analysis, asking politically harmless questions. With this, economics became a prime defender of capitalism by producing a naturalistic justification of its laws, with class structure, the distribution of capital and the differences in power very clearly present. This very not 'value free' sounding 'science' has its effects even to this day, with dissident Marxist economists being a very rare and uninfluential. Don't mind me if I plug my own video on this topic (which I based this response around): https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hpP7D4CkfnA. If you want some more resources on this I'd recommend reading some of the intro papers to the fourth volume of *Collected Economic Works* by Joan Robinson and *Debunking Economics* by Steve Keen.","human_ref_B":"I'd strongly recommend asking the folks at \/r\/asksocialscience and \/r\/askeconomics as well. Many of the answers you are getting here demonstrate very little knowledge of or engagement with economics.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23768.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"663rx1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why does Marxism seem to be so much more prevalent in philosophical circles than in economic ones?","c_root_id_A":"dgfz6wx","c_root_id_B":"dgfd1fz","created_at_utc_A":1492557477,"created_at_utc_B":1492533092,"score_A":33,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I'd strongly recommend asking the folks at \/r\/asksocialscience and \/r\/askeconomics as well. Many of the answers you are getting here demonstrate very little knowledge of or engagement with economics.","human_ref_B":"I suspect there are many different factors that contribute to this, but the largest is probably the fact that students in economics rarely read Marx. So, Marxism is rare in economics because Marxism is rare in economics: it's a self-sustaining cycle.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24385.0,"score_ratio":2.75} +{"post_id":"663rx1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why does Marxism seem to be so much more prevalent in philosophical circles than in economic ones?","c_root_id_A":"dgfhre1","c_root_id_B":"dgfz6wx","created_at_utc_A":1492538093,"created_at_utc_B":1492557477,"score_A":8,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"A lot of contemporary philosophical 'Marxists' are not so attached to the economics but to the system in general. So for instance, they may believe in historical materialism (that economic forces drive historical change), that class is a fundamental feature of society (such that you get Orthodox Marxist definitions of ideology, class consciousness, class warfare, etc), dialectical materialism, etc without believing in the labour theory of value. Economics is dealing with the LTV and says it is BS which I think many Marxists would be willing to concede. The difference is that is enough to say that one's economics are non-Marxist, but philosophically there's still enough else in Marxism that one could consider one's self a Marxist still. It may be true that economists also claim that Marxism is more fundamentally wrong, but in this case I believe the economist is likely going out of their area of expertise. Especially considering the fruitfulness of historical materialism and related aspects of Marxism. They may claim that any sort of normative aspects of Marxism are bad at satisfying people's subjective wellbeing, but I suspect that often the people saying this are people who have rarely considered organizing an alternative economic system. It is one thing to have a good sense for the dynamics of capitalism, but this cannot allow you to infer that a capitalist system is the only conceivably effective system. The usual explanations for this (e.g. the economic calculation problem) are laughably easy to knock down and often rely on certain assumptions about how distribution under socialism would work that are simply false. So basically, economists have strong critiques of Marxism in an area where Marxism can concede without losing the overall argument. Marxism overall does not need the Labour Theory of Value, when you jettison that, suddenly most other Anti-Marxist arguments are fairly weak (at least coming from the discipline of economics).","human_ref_B":"I'd strongly recommend asking the folks at \/r\/asksocialscience and \/r\/askeconomics as well. Many of the answers you are getting here demonstrate very little knowledge of or engagement with economics.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19384.0,"score_ratio":4.125} +{"post_id":"663rx1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why does Marxism seem to be so much more prevalent in philosophical circles than in economic ones?","c_root_id_A":"dgfdin3","c_root_id_B":"dgfd1fz","created_at_utc_A":1492533595,"created_at_utc_B":1492533092,"score_A":26,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Maybe because philosophical circles tend to have a critical eye about fundamental issues, like how to organize a just society. Marxism is not merely an economic theory but also philosophical, historical, and social. Economic circles, instead, it seems, are less concerned with theory that goes beyond explaining economic phenomena in a coherent manner. That's not to say that there isn't obvious crossover but it makes sense that philosophical-types would be more interested in kind of fundamental critique of Capitalism that Marxism levies than those who accept Capitalism, either ideologically or pragmatically.","human_ref_B":"I suspect there are many different factors that contribute to this, but the largest is probably the fact that students in economics rarely read Marx. So, Marxism is rare in economics because Marxism is rare in economics: it's a self-sustaining cycle.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":503.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} +{"post_id":"663rx1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why does Marxism seem to be so much more prevalent in philosophical circles than in economic ones?","c_root_id_A":"dgfzixb","c_root_id_B":"dgfdmkn","created_at_utc_A":1492557903,"created_at_utc_B":1492533709,"score_A":23,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Because simply put, the mainstream has moved on, it's similar to what happened to the Austrian school, the mainstream absorbed what was corrected and moved on. Every major economist, be it Keynes, Friedman, Fisher, or Hayek, had some idea that later turned out to be wrong. Modern economics started with the Marginal Revolution in the 1870's, the fundamental shift in the paradigm was the idea of looking at things on the margin or next unit. Hence, why if you read early classical or Marx, it reads far more like philosophy or a political economy treasie. The trouble is his theories are 150 years old and defunct. Our economy has changed and we know far more about the production process than we did in 1867, Marxist economists having when they're not fighting about what Marx actually said, are using an analysis that is primitive and poorly suited to explain the modern phenomenons. Take for example, the biggest post ww2 ideas such as the concept of \"Human Capital\". Using the ideas of Das Kapital leaves us berthed of tools to be able to understand this phenomena. This can be also applied to the Austrian school, by focusing on their on methodology of \"Praxology\" , which is basing deductions on axions and eschewing mathematics. By doing so they have isolated themselves from the mainstream. As to the mathematical element, math is essential as a language to process of modeling. It is never possible to comprehend all the subtle social, cultural, and economic dimensions of a real world situation at any one time. However a mathematical models reduces the complexity of the real world to manageable proportions. If I were to claim \" Market equilibrium are Pareto optimal\" Mathematics enables me to prove my point. Marx however, in the way he is used in anthropology or sociology is more \"literally\" than mathematical. If you wish to learn more about historical schools of economic theory, I can't recommend enough *Economists and the Economy: The evolution of economic ideas* by Roger E Backhouse. To sum up his section on Marx, much of his predictions, (failing rate of profit) and pauperization never happened, after 1850's real wages rose as did material conditions. His economics were essentially Ricardin. I would say this post also give an excellent overview of why Marxism is pretty irrelevant. I hope this helps.","human_ref_B":"Because Marx's economics and today's Marxian economists are very strongly opposed to the mainstream neoclassical and Keynesian economics which is by far the most prevalent. Philosophical communities tend to much more accepting of a wide range of theories and backgrounds, whereas you're hard pressed to find an economics school that has a prevalent Marxist economist throughout most of history (there is a few currently living marxist economist though they are relatively obscure and small numbered), they're all dominated by neoclassical and Keynesian theories I wouldn't say that neoclassical and Keynesian economics being in such a domination is an accident. Many mainstream neoclassical economists love to portray economics as a 'value free' science. Though, at best, they tend to take existing social structures for granted and build economic dogmas around them, so justifying them. And this is at economics best, at it's worst it's just speculation based on the necessary assumptions needed to reach the desired end. And by some strrannge coincidence these ends bolster the power and profits of the few and show how the free market is the best of all possible worlds. Even Alfred Marshall noted the usefulness of economics to the elite: \u201cFrom Metaphysics I went to Ethics, and found that the justification of the existing conditions of society was not easy. A friend, who had read a great deal of what are called the Moral Sciences, constantly said: \u2018Ah! if you understood Political Economy you would not say that\u2019\u201d I think a key part of explaining this 'coincidence' of economics benefiting the ruling class is the lack of concern of history by economics. There is lack of concern about how the current distribution of wealth and income was created, though, for the most part, it's taken as granted. Neoclassical economics has a static nature. In most of the textbooks, economic analysis starts and ends with a snapshot of time, there is a given set of commodities, how these commodities got into these specific hands is considered irrelevant. This allows these awkward questions posed by Marx and Marxists since the very beginning to be outright avoided. This is illustrated in the initial break from classical economics into neoclassical economist around 1870s. Classical economics focused its analysis on production, growth, distribution, and most importantly, the relationships between social classes. For the new economics, the focus became a rigorous theory of price determination. This meant abstracting away from production and looking at the amount of goods available at any given moment of time. So questions posed by classical economists and Marxists about class relations could be avoided by narrowing the field of analysis, asking politically harmless questions. With this, economics became a prime defender of capitalism by producing a naturalistic justification of its laws, with class structure, the distribution of capital and the differences in power very clearly present. This very not 'value free' sounding 'science' has its effects even to this day, with dissident Marxist economists being a very rare and uninfluential. Don't mind me if I plug my own video on this topic (which I based this response around): https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hpP7D4CkfnA. If you want some more resources on this I'd recommend reading some of the intro papers to the fourth volume of *Collected Economic Works* by Joan Robinson and *Debunking Economics* by Steve Keen.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24194.0,"score_ratio":1.0454545455} +{"post_id":"663rx1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why does Marxism seem to be so much more prevalent in philosophical circles than in economic ones?","c_root_id_A":"dgfd1fz","c_root_id_B":"dgfdmkn","created_at_utc_A":1492533092,"created_at_utc_B":1492533709,"score_A":12,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I suspect there are many different factors that contribute to this, but the largest is probably the fact that students in economics rarely read Marx. So, Marxism is rare in economics because Marxism is rare in economics: it's a self-sustaining cycle.","human_ref_B":"Because Marx's economics and today's Marxian economists are very strongly opposed to the mainstream neoclassical and Keynesian economics which is by far the most prevalent. Philosophical communities tend to much more accepting of a wide range of theories and backgrounds, whereas you're hard pressed to find an economics school that has a prevalent Marxist economist throughout most of history (there is a few currently living marxist economist though they are relatively obscure and small numbered), they're all dominated by neoclassical and Keynesian theories I wouldn't say that neoclassical and Keynesian economics being in such a domination is an accident. Many mainstream neoclassical economists love to portray economics as a 'value free' science. Though, at best, they tend to take existing social structures for granted and build economic dogmas around them, so justifying them. And this is at economics best, at it's worst it's just speculation based on the necessary assumptions needed to reach the desired end. And by some strrannge coincidence these ends bolster the power and profits of the few and show how the free market is the best of all possible worlds. Even Alfred Marshall noted the usefulness of economics to the elite: \u201cFrom Metaphysics I went to Ethics, and found that the justification of the existing conditions of society was not easy. A friend, who had read a great deal of what are called the Moral Sciences, constantly said: \u2018Ah! if you understood Political Economy you would not say that\u2019\u201d I think a key part of explaining this 'coincidence' of economics benefiting the ruling class is the lack of concern of history by economics. There is lack of concern about how the current distribution of wealth and income was created, though, for the most part, it's taken as granted. Neoclassical economics has a static nature. In most of the textbooks, economic analysis starts and ends with a snapshot of time, there is a given set of commodities, how these commodities got into these specific hands is considered irrelevant. This allows these awkward questions posed by Marx and Marxists since the very beginning to be outright avoided. This is illustrated in the initial break from classical economics into neoclassical economist around 1870s. Classical economics focused its analysis on production, growth, distribution, and most importantly, the relationships between social classes. For the new economics, the focus became a rigorous theory of price determination. This meant abstracting away from production and looking at the amount of goods available at any given moment of time. So questions posed by classical economists and Marxists about class relations could be avoided by narrowing the field of analysis, asking politically harmless questions. With this, economics became a prime defender of capitalism by producing a naturalistic justification of its laws, with class structure, the distribution of capital and the differences in power very clearly present. This very not 'value free' sounding 'science' has its effects even to this day, with dissident Marxist economists being a very rare and uninfluential. Don't mind me if I plug my own video on this topic (which I based this response around): https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hpP7D4CkfnA. If you want some more resources on this I'd recommend reading some of the intro papers to the fourth volume of *Collected Economic Works* by Joan Robinson and *Debunking Economics* by Steve Keen.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":617.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} +{"post_id":"663rx1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why does Marxism seem to be so much more prevalent in philosophical circles than in economic ones?","c_root_id_A":"dgfzixb","c_root_id_B":"dgfd1fz","created_at_utc_A":1492557903,"created_at_utc_B":1492533092,"score_A":23,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Because simply put, the mainstream has moved on, it's similar to what happened to the Austrian school, the mainstream absorbed what was corrected and moved on. Every major economist, be it Keynes, Friedman, Fisher, or Hayek, had some idea that later turned out to be wrong. Modern economics started with the Marginal Revolution in the 1870's, the fundamental shift in the paradigm was the idea of looking at things on the margin or next unit. Hence, why if you read early classical or Marx, it reads far more like philosophy or a political economy treasie. The trouble is his theories are 150 years old and defunct. Our economy has changed and we know far more about the production process than we did in 1867, Marxist economists having when they're not fighting about what Marx actually said, are using an analysis that is primitive and poorly suited to explain the modern phenomenons. Take for example, the biggest post ww2 ideas such as the concept of \"Human Capital\". Using the ideas of Das Kapital leaves us berthed of tools to be able to understand this phenomena. This can be also applied to the Austrian school, by focusing on their on methodology of \"Praxology\" , which is basing deductions on axions and eschewing mathematics. By doing so they have isolated themselves from the mainstream. As to the mathematical element, math is essential as a language to process of modeling. It is never possible to comprehend all the subtle social, cultural, and economic dimensions of a real world situation at any one time. However a mathematical models reduces the complexity of the real world to manageable proportions. If I were to claim \" Market equilibrium are Pareto optimal\" Mathematics enables me to prove my point. Marx however, in the way he is used in anthropology or sociology is more \"literally\" than mathematical. If you wish to learn more about historical schools of economic theory, I can't recommend enough *Economists and the Economy: The evolution of economic ideas* by Roger E Backhouse. To sum up his section on Marx, much of his predictions, (failing rate of profit) and pauperization never happened, after 1850's real wages rose as did material conditions. His economics were essentially Ricardin. I would say this post also give an excellent overview of why Marxism is pretty irrelevant. I hope this helps.","human_ref_B":"I suspect there are many different factors that contribute to this, but the largest is probably the fact that students in economics rarely read Marx. So, Marxism is rare in economics because Marxism is rare in economics: it's a self-sustaining cycle.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24811.0,"score_ratio":1.9166666667} +{"post_id":"663rx1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why does Marxism seem to be so much more prevalent in philosophical circles than in economic ones?","c_root_id_A":"dgfzixb","c_root_id_B":"dgfhre1","created_at_utc_A":1492557903,"created_at_utc_B":1492538093,"score_A":23,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Because simply put, the mainstream has moved on, it's similar to what happened to the Austrian school, the mainstream absorbed what was corrected and moved on. Every major economist, be it Keynes, Friedman, Fisher, or Hayek, had some idea that later turned out to be wrong. Modern economics started with the Marginal Revolution in the 1870's, the fundamental shift in the paradigm was the idea of looking at things on the margin or next unit. Hence, why if you read early classical or Marx, it reads far more like philosophy or a political economy treasie. The trouble is his theories are 150 years old and defunct. Our economy has changed and we know far more about the production process than we did in 1867, Marxist economists having when they're not fighting about what Marx actually said, are using an analysis that is primitive and poorly suited to explain the modern phenomenons. Take for example, the biggest post ww2 ideas such as the concept of \"Human Capital\". Using the ideas of Das Kapital leaves us berthed of tools to be able to understand this phenomena. This can be also applied to the Austrian school, by focusing on their on methodology of \"Praxology\" , which is basing deductions on axions and eschewing mathematics. By doing so they have isolated themselves from the mainstream. As to the mathematical element, math is essential as a language to process of modeling. It is never possible to comprehend all the subtle social, cultural, and economic dimensions of a real world situation at any one time. However a mathematical models reduces the complexity of the real world to manageable proportions. If I were to claim \" Market equilibrium are Pareto optimal\" Mathematics enables me to prove my point. Marx however, in the way he is used in anthropology or sociology is more \"literally\" than mathematical. If you wish to learn more about historical schools of economic theory, I can't recommend enough *Economists and the Economy: The evolution of economic ideas* by Roger E Backhouse. To sum up his section on Marx, much of his predictions, (failing rate of profit) and pauperization never happened, after 1850's real wages rose as did material conditions. His economics were essentially Ricardin. I would say this post also give an excellent overview of why Marxism is pretty irrelevant. I hope this helps.","human_ref_B":"A lot of contemporary philosophical 'Marxists' are not so attached to the economics but to the system in general. So for instance, they may believe in historical materialism (that economic forces drive historical change), that class is a fundamental feature of society (such that you get Orthodox Marxist definitions of ideology, class consciousness, class warfare, etc), dialectical materialism, etc without believing in the labour theory of value. Economics is dealing with the LTV and says it is BS which I think many Marxists would be willing to concede. The difference is that is enough to say that one's economics are non-Marxist, but philosophically there's still enough else in Marxism that one could consider one's self a Marxist still. It may be true that economists also claim that Marxism is more fundamentally wrong, but in this case I believe the economist is likely going out of their area of expertise. Especially considering the fruitfulness of historical materialism and related aspects of Marxism. They may claim that any sort of normative aspects of Marxism are bad at satisfying people's subjective wellbeing, but I suspect that often the people saying this are people who have rarely considered organizing an alternative economic system. It is one thing to have a good sense for the dynamics of capitalism, but this cannot allow you to infer that a capitalist system is the only conceivably effective system. The usual explanations for this (e.g. the economic calculation problem) are laughably easy to knock down and often rely on certain assumptions about how distribution under socialism would work that are simply false. So basically, economists have strong critiques of Marxism in an area where Marxism can concede without losing the overall argument. Marxism overall does not need the Labour Theory of Value, when you jettison that, suddenly most other Anti-Marxist arguments are fairly weak (at least coming from the discipline of economics).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19810.0,"score_ratio":2.875} +{"post_id":"663rx1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why does Marxism seem to be so much more prevalent in philosophical circles than in economic ones?","c_root_id_A":"dgg2gbt","c_root_id_B":"dgfd1fz","created_at_utc_A":1492561440,"created_at_utc_B":1492533092,"score_A":13,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure that Marxist ideas *aren't* prevalent in economic circles. Contract theory and corporate finance are all about peeling back the layers of abstraction and really understanding the social relation of production in terms of power, interests, and control. It's not \"neoclassical economics\" if you mean general equilibrium theory, and it also took late 20th century developments in game theory to formalize, but I think that's your best shot for finding Marx in economics. References: * Hart, Oliver. \"Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure.\" Oxford University Press. 1995. * Tirole, Jean. \"The Theory of Corporate Finance.\" Princeton University Press. 2006.","human_ref_B":"I suspect there are many different factors that contribute to this, but the largest is probably the fact that students in economics rarely read Marx. So, Marxism is rare in economics because Marxism is rare in economics: it's a self-sustaining cycle.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28348.0,"score_ratio":1.0833333333} +{"post_id":"663rx1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why does Marxism seem to be so much more prevalent in philosophical circles than in economic ones?","c_root_id_A":"dgfhre1","c_root_id_B":"dgg2gbt","created_at_utc_A":1492538093,"created_at_utc_B":1492561440,"score_A":8,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"A lot of contemporary philosophical 'Marxists' are not so attached to the economics but to the system in general. So for instance, they may believe in historical materialism (that economic forces drive historical change), that class is a fundamental feature of society (such that you get Orthodox Marxist definitions of ideology, class consciousness, class warfare, etc), dialectical materialism, etc without believing in the labour theory of value. Economics is dealing with the LTV and says it is BS which I think many Marxists would be willing to concede. The difference is that is enough to say that one's economics are non-Marxist, but philosophically there's still enough else in Marxism that one could consider one's self a Marxist still. It may be true that economists also claim that Marxism is more fundamentally wrong, but in this case I believe the economist is likely going out of their area of expertise. Especially considering the fruitfulness of historical materialism and related aspects of Marxism. They may claim that any sort of normative aspects of Marxism are bad at satisfying people's subjective wellbeing, but I suspect that often the people saying this are people who have rarely considered organizing an alternative economic system. It is one thing to have a good sense for the dynamics of capitalism, but this cannot allow you to infer that a capitalist system is the only conceivably effective system. The usual explanations for this (e.g. the economic calculation problem) are laughably easy to knock down and often rely on certain assumptions about how distribution under socialism would work that are simply false. So basically, economists have strong critiques of Marxism in an area where Marxism can concede without losing the overall argument. Marxism overall does not need the Labour Theory of Value, when you jettison that, suddenly most other Anti-Marxist arguments are fairly weak (at least coming from the discipline of economics).","human_ref_B":"I'm not sure that Marxist ideas *aren't* prevalent in economic circles. Contract theory and corporate finance are all about peeling back the layers of abstraction and really understanding the social relation of production in terms of power, interests, and control. It's not \"neoclassical economics\" if you mean general equilibrium theory, and it also took late 20th century developments in game theory to formalize, but I think that's your best shot for finding Marx in economics. References: * Hart, Oliver. \"Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure.\" Oxford University Press. 1995. * Tirole, Jean. \"The Theory of Corporate Finance.\" Princeton University Press. 2006.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23347.0,"score_ratio":1.625} +{"post_id":"zsyup9","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are the implications for Einstein's theory of general relativity for Kant's metaphysics? Kant argued that space and time were a priori fields that our mind uses to give structure to our perceptions. Einstein then showed that space and time are relative, as well as part of the same field called \"space-time\". Are there any philosophers or physicists who thought about how these two very fundamental ideas of space and time relate to each other? Do they contradict each other? Do they complement each other? Do they together lead to an entirely new insight?","c_root_id_A":"j1crqto","c_root_id_B":"j1baalm","created_at_utc_A":1671788663,"created_at_utc_B":1671757085,"score_A":40,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"In the transcendental aesthetic Kant argues for the transcendental ideality of space as the form of outer sense and for the transcendental role of this pure intuition as the condition for the a priori syntheses involved in geometry. And then this sets up a larger argument extending through the transcendental analytic, according to which geometry is then a pure science of the relations holding between spatial things, so that we can know apodictically that physical things must be adequate to geometrical description, and this thereby furnishes us with an epistemology justifying one of the methodological peculiarities of modern physics. The way these issues develop in the critical response developed from Helmholtz through Mach to logical positivism is that philosophers will increasingly distinguish different senses of space: intuitive space, as the space of our imagination and visual perception; formal space, as the space constructable in geometry; and physical space, as the space of physical relations. The challenge is that these senses seem to be collapsed, or at least intrinsically connected, on Kant's view. As, on Kant's view, it seems that intuitive space provides the conditions for formal space and these two jointly provide the conditions for physical space, such that if intuitive space is Euclidean, then so must formal and physical space be. Whereas, on the critical reception, these three senses of space become more independent. I.e., on this later view, it could be that intuitive space is Euclidean, but that doesn't mean formal space has to be, and indeed it seems that mathematicians can construct a variety of formal spaces, including both Euclidean and non-Euclidean. And since this freedom of mathematicians permits us to think of these different spaces, there is likewise a freedom in physics to choose which of them is adequate to the demands of physical theory, as happens in the choice of non-Euclidean geometry for space as constructed in general relativity. Underpinning this move is the rejection of Kant's dual-source model of knowledge which categorically distinguished between intuition and understanding as joint bases of cognition, and which manifests in the distinction in Kant's epistemology between the transcendental aesthetic and transcendental analytic. On Kant's view, this mooring of understanding to intuition, as joint factors, restricts the capacity of the understanding to posit mathematical structures to those which can be exhibited in intuition. Conversely, on the later view when the understanding has been unmoored from a supposedly distinct doctrine of intuition, it is free to construct whatever mathematical structures can be grounded on merely the principles of conceptual construction as such. And then the experimental challenge would be: if it turns out that scientific findings demand this later approach, then this would provide us with a prima facie reason to prefer it over Kant's.","human_ref_B":"You might find this overview interesting: https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/genrel-early\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31578.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} +{"post_id":"vccffr","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Leibniz (via Deleuze): why is the best possible world the one that contains the most continuity? (Context: I come at this from Deleuze, and thus am asking from a position of great ignorance about Leibniz.) In Deleuze's lectures on Leibniz, he outlines the concepts of continuity and compossibility, then says this: >So, you see, the definition at which we\u2019ve arrived, and where I want to stop, here we grasp something, a specific relation that is compossibility or incompossibility. I would say yet again that compossibility is when series of ordinaries converge, series of regular points that derive from two singularities and when their values coincide, otherwise there is discontinuity. In one case, you have the definition of compossibility, in the other case, the definition of incompossibility. Question, once again: **why did God choose this world rather than another, when another was possible?** Leibniz\u2019s answer which, in my view, becomes splendid: **it\u2019s because it is the world that mathematically implicates the maximum of continuity, and it\u2019s uniquely in this sense that it is the best, that is the best of possible worlds.** So my question is simply this: Why does Leibniz argue that the best possible world realised by God is the one with the maximum of continuity (if he indeed does argue this)?","c_root_id_A":"icfpy7g","c_root_id_B":"icfycht","created_at_utc_A":1655286211,"created_at_utc_B":1655292655,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In short terms, though having a similar background of understanding as you (with Deleuze and only a little Leibniz), I believe \u2018maximum of continuity\u2019 to simply mean that this world is one in which all potential of becoming is brought to its utter limit or possibility insofar as there is no \u2018actual\u2019 limit (yet it is immanent). In other words, this is the best of all possible worlds because it is seen to be clearly possible (pointing to why mathematical implication is so important)\u2014and one can, in practice, see that via recognizing said immanent limit\/possibility (which is really an opening for Deleuze).","human_ref_B":">(if he indeed does argue this)? Well, Leibniz doesn't. He doesn't even use such mathematical language (divergence, convergence, continuity) in his discussion of compossibility or Theodicy. He gives reasons why our actual world is the best possible world (e.g., because it has the simplest laws yet is the richest in phenomena), but they have nothing to do with continuity or mathematical maximality. I guess it's possible to (overly) charitably interpret the terms Deleuze uses as loosely corresponding to something Leibniz actually said, but I think it's easier to accept that at some point Deleuze just starts making up his own stuff.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6444.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"3ogk95","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In an SEP article, John Hare says that Divine Command Theory is getting a revival of interest and himself argues for it. Is this true? Is it taken seriously as a foundation for morality? How well do the revivers defend against objections like Plato's Euthrypho? The article: http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/religion-morality\/ Most of the mentioned stuff in the questions is at the very end of the article.","c_root_id_A":"cvwz8lw","c_root_id_B":"cvx1ob3","created_at_utc_A":1444663383,"created_at_utc_B":1444667306,"score_A":3,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"The IEP article on DCT has a section devoted to responses to Euthyphro.","human_ref_B":"I know that the strands of divine command theory that are mixed with virtue ethics, such as the program developed by Linda Zagzebski, are taken very seriously by today's moral philosophers. Here's a Christian apologist's response to the Euthyphro dilemma. That response is characteristic of nearly every major Christian response to the dilemma since antiquity. Even Augustine responded to the dilemma in the same spirit. The dilemma just is not regarded as a serious stumbling block for divine-command theorists so long as they avoid endorsing certain conceptions of the divine. On a different note, it's not even obvious to me that Plato advanced the dilemma as an attack on a conception of ethics. In the *Euthyphro*, Socrates was just pushing Euthyphro to give an account of piety, and Euthyphro ends up saying that piety is what the gods love. Now, either the gods love it because it's pious or it's pious because the gods love it. But nowadays we consider the option \"the gods love it because it's pious\" to imply something like \"there must be something higher than the gods, and external to them, and this thing diminishes their greatness!\" And then we take this apparent logical consequence to be a *reductio ad absurdum* of the view that \"the gods love it because it's pious.\" But that is not at all what Plato means. All Plato means is that if the gods love it because it's pious, then we want to know what piety is, and Euthyphro hasn't given us the definition. In other words, by taking that option, Euthyphro wouldn't be undermining divinity, or anything like that; he just wouldn't be answering the question. Socrates wants Euthyphro to give an account of piety. Euthyphro would have to give us the definition used by the gods! The readings of the *Euthyphro* that followed Plato's death didn't really square with Plato's system anyways, since Plato 1) believed that some god existed and 2) believed that piety exists external to this god. Of course, modern readers can read the *Euthyphro* however they choose. It is just interesting from a historical perspective to see how the dialogue is received.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3923.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} +{"post_id":"3ogk95","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In an SEP article, John Hare says that Divine Command Theory is getting a revival of interest and himself argues for it. Is this true? Is it taken seriously as a foundation for morality? How well do the revivers defend against objections like Plato's Euthrypho? The article: http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/religion-morality\/ Most of the mentioned stuff in the questions is at the very end of the article.","c_root_id_A":"cvwz8lw","c_root_id_B":"cvx6lmw","created_at_utc_A":1444663383,"created_at_utc_B":1444674575,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"The IEP article on DCT has a section devoted to responses to Euthyphro.","human_ref_B":"As others have said, Euthyphro isn't seen as much of a problem for divine command theory anymore. However, I wouldn't take this to mean that DCT is seen as a compelling moral theory at the very least because most philosophers aren't theists. That said, Hare's book is incredibly recent and I haven't read it, so maybe he makes some new and compelling argument that just hasn't gotten around yet.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11192.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} +{"post_id":"3ogk95","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In an SEP article, John Hare says that Divine Command Theory is getting a revival of interest and himself argues for it. Is this true? Is it taken seriously as a foundation for morality? How well do the revivers defend against objections like Plato's Euthrypho? The article: http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/religion-morality\/ Most of the mentioned stuff in the questions is at the very end of the article.","c_root_id_A":"cvx3nl1","c_root_id_B":"cvx6lmw","created_at_utc_A":1444670321,"created_at_utc_B":1444674575,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"DCT is taken seriously as a foundation for morality. The large number of religious people claiming their behaviors are right in the eyes of god should be evidence. I don't mean to bust your chops, but are you asking if it's taken seriously by philosophers or lawmakers or political leaders or some other group? If you're asking about people generally, the answer is in the affirmative.","human_ref_B":"As others have said, Euthyphro isn't seen as much of a problem for divine command theory anymore. However, I wouldn't take this to mean that DCT is seen as a compelling moral theory at the very least because most philosophers aren't theists. That said, Hare's book is incredibly recent and I haven't read it, so maybe he makes some new and compelling argument that just hasn't gotten around yet.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4254.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} +{"post_id":"wjv3hd","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Can anyone explain husserl and phenomenology to me please,ive been trying to research and study it and i am so terribly confused","c_root_id_A":"ijjw2fl","c_root_id_B":"ijjuir9","created_at_utc_A":1660030354,"created_at_utc_B":1660029144,"score_A":66,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I've been there. My first course on phenomenology was absolutely humbling. Either way: Husserl's goal is to solve what he believed to be the greatest epistemological crisis of science in general. He noticed how the sciences had been limited to the physical world by Galileo and Descartes so they could study mechanics, but, due to its great success, this method kept being used. However, scientists very quickly forgot that they were not studying \"the world\" but only a self-limited version of it (the physical world, where anything that's not quantifiable by the methods of physics gets left out as not existing). Until here, all good, right? Sort of. The problem is that science is an empirical science, which is based on perception, which is something we have access to through our subjective view of the world, i.e., the objective world of sciences is grounded upon the subjective world of perception. But sciences work, and give good results, right? Yes, they do. But, for Husserl, the matter is that science, as section of our culture, has as its goal to uncover the truth, not merely subjective or \"practical\" truths. Therefore, a new way of doing science is needed, so that science can have a strong, unwavering foundation. Husserl saw a talk by Brentano (a naturalistic psychologist of the late 19th century) where he exposed what Husserl believed to be one of the greatest discoveries of psychology ever: the intentionality. This is the base structure of conscious acts, i.e., everything that we do with our minds has this structure: the act itself (believing, doubting, seeing, hearing, wanting, etc.), the content (a door, a dog, happiness, a theory, a smell, etc.), and a degree of existence (i.e., when we hear our friends tell us about their childhood, it has a different status as when we read about Harry Potter's childhood. Not because the latter is a \"lie,\" but because it is fictional). Husserl arrived at this point by using one of his methods: the eidetic or phenomenological reduction and the epoch\u00e9. This reduction method, i.e., allows you to figure out the \"essence\" of things by changing things about this thing as much as you want without it not being that thing anymore and the epoch\u00e9 is a suspension of knowledge we have acquired from the natural world (i.e., not using things learned about the natural world to explain the subjective experience that precedes it, otherwise we would remain in an epistemological problem). You can do this with doors, changing color, size, form, etc. to understand the point. But Husserl's goal was not metaphysics, he was studying the subjectivity, so, what he did was use this method on mental structures to figure them out (like in the case of the intentionality that's present in all intentional acts). (There's also the transcendental reduction, but that one is probably not as relevant for you right now.) He did this to many other mental structures, construction of time (past, present, future), empathy\/intropathy (perceiving the other as a subjectivity like ourselves), construction of spatial objects, etc. Important to note: 1) phenomenology is *descriptive* endeavor: it does not explain things regarding subjectivity, it merely describes them as they are; 2) phenomenology is entirely restricted to the domain of subjectivity, it does not make claims about the natural world. It is entirely restricted to the study of subjectivity. It does not do metaphysics. I hope I was of help. I can answer questions if you have them.","human_ref_B":"I don't believe that anyone can sum up phenomenology and Husserl's vast amount of work in just a few words. What have you been studying? A really good starting point is Zahavi's *Husserl's Phenomenology*. Husserl's very short lectures from 1907 published as *The Idea of Phenomenology* is a helpful resource too and deserve your attention. What, in particular, is confusing you? You are going to receive much better answers if you specify what the problem you are having is.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1210.0,"score_ratio":16.5} +{"post_id":"oyel52","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Isn't it more ethical to experiment on humans than on animals? Like for medicines, cosmetics and so on. It is our business. Why bother animals?","c_root_id_A":"h7tl3to","c_root_id_B":"h7uzez8","created_at_utc_A":1628179120,"created_at_utc_B":1628199844,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Could you expand your argument?","human_ref_B":"I think a starting point, especially in medical research, is that there are experiments we want to do that have the potential (or are even expected) to kill or seriously harm the test subjects. Pre-clinical trials on animals are often used to establish the toxicity of a substance before it is allowed to proceed to Phase I clinical trials on humans. There is then a range of further ethical and practical questions we can consider that might help: * If our goal (as medical researchers) is to save human lives, is it not incumbent on us to reduce harm to humans as much as possible, even during the drug development process? Especially if we place more value on the life of a human than that of a mouse or lower primate, it seems intuitive that we would take whatever measures necessary to avoid human death or injury. * Is it ethically permissible to seriously harm or kill a person, even *with* their consent? In most nations around the world euthanasia is illegal, even at the request of the individual to be euthanised. Although the illegal is not necessarily the same as the immoral, it does suggest that their is widespread social aversion to consensual termination of human life across many cultures. * Presumably we want to continue to develop new drugs, substances, products, etc. They need to be tested for toxicity, efficacy and doseage. It might well be the case that it would be ethically preferable to do initial testing on humans who are able to consent to the harm that may (or will) be done to them, but if we cannot find a sufficiently large pool of individuals to volunteer to consent to that harm, then our trial cannot go ahead. There may, therefore, be purely practical reasons to use animals instead. Although you could, in the extreme, perhaps argue that even then it would be preferable to use humans against their will rather than animals against their will. \"Why bother animals?\" as you say. * What if the medicine is a veterinary medicine? Does that change the equation? Does each species get its own category? Would it be ethically permissible to test a drug ultimately designed for horses on mice? What about testing a drug ultimately designed for one species of mice on a different species of mouse? * Does the ultimate purpose of the product under development make a difference? Intuitively it seems to. In my market (Western Europe) most cosmetics now advertise themselves as not tested on animals. This was not the case a couple of generations ago. I have, though, never encountered a medicine advertising itself as the same. Which would suggest that maybe testing on animals *is* ethically undesirable, but we make allowances in the case of something as beneficial as drug development. As awareness of the ills of animal testing has become widespread a market consensus has developed that making a nice shampoo is not a sufficient ethical good as to outweigh the bad done by animal testing. So it seems there is some kind of ethical cost-benefit analysis being taken into account here in terms of changing social mores.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20724.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it2gwzx","c_root_id_B":"it2g6t0","created_at_utc_A":1666273094,"created_at_utc_B":1666272773,"score_A":48,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"There's no single reason for this but, instead, a lot of stuff that happened over a really long period of time across a huge geography. Like, on the one hand, Scholasticism's death has probably been exaggerated to some degree - among Catholic philosophers there is still plenty of interest in this kind of stuff and there has been more or less wave after wave of scholastic recovery periods. Yet, on the other hand, I would think it would be very surprising if such a highly specific and rather old intellectual tradition could survive so many huge cultural upheavals - the disruption of the unity of the unity of Catholicism and its institutional and linguistic connection to philosophical education in Europe *and the rest of the world* - especially while, in the usual way, people were writing critiques of all sorts of scholastic ideas and were increasingly going off to do their own things in lots of different intellectual directions in vernacular.","human_ref_B":"Did you search for whether scholasticism was collateral damage of the Protestant Reformation (e.g. sectarian fervor leading to over-broad rejection of philosophy \/ theology associated with the Catholic Church)? You didn't mention it, but it seems like a candidate.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":321.0,"score_ratio":8.0} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it48ql9","c_root_id_B":"it5iokw","created_at_utc_A":1666298102,"created_at_utc_B":1666318063,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Broadly speaking it's probably worth distinguishing between Thomism on the one hand and scholasticism on the other. My reading is that nominalism and voluntarism, both which arose out of scholasticism itself, played major roles in dethroning Thomism (and to some extent Aristotelianism) as really the only legitimate explanation of metaphysics in the Western Christian world. See Michael Gillespie's *The Theological Origins of Modernity* for a treatment of this trajectory. But Thomism\/Aristotelianism didn't die, they simply became options among others, and parts of them feature today in respectable secular philosophical discourse. Causal powers views (e.g. Madden and Harre) are, or look awfully similar to, hylomorphism; (neo-) Aristotelian metaphysics in a broad sense has been popularized by folks like Tuomas Tahko; virtue theory that does (MacIntyre) or doesn't (Foot) make explicit reference to Aristotle and Aquinas is a live option in normative ethics. And of course natural kinds\/classes have a resemblance to teleology.","human_ref_B":"Well, we could ask this question with equal rights about the philosophy of any period, right? Why did the philosophy of the Church Fathers fall out of favor? Why did the high medieval humanism of the 11th-12th centuries fall out of favor? Why did the Renaissance humanism of the 14th-15th century fall out of favor? Why did the philosophies of nature of the 15th-16th centuries fall out of favor? And so on. And in a sense the answer is trivial: we invent these sorts of distinctions as historiographic categories to pick out what seem to us to be relevant features of philosophy that change during different period. It's kind of baked into the very notion of these historiographic categories that they fall out of favor -- it 's like asking why Tuesday passes, well 'Tuesday' is a word we use for dividing up passing time, it's baked into the notion of Tuesday that it passes. We might then ask the more general question: Why does philosophy have a history? Why didn't it happen one group of philosophers say some stuff, everyone nodded, and that was it? Well, it seems there's a few reasons for this. One main one is that philosophers have disagreements with one another. Another main one is that philosophers are responsive to their social, religious, scientific, political, artistic, etc. context, and *these* things have histories, so that it is necessary that philosophy will have a history too. We might ask then, well, what sociocultural traditions led to a shift away from scholasticism? And we can point to things like the development of the humanistic model of education, out of a self-criticism in scholastic models of education, giving birth to a subsequent humanism that was defined against scholasticism. Or to the Crisis of the Late Middle ages as disrupting high medieval customs and institutions. Or to the shifting political emphasis toward the independence of the city-state. Or to the displacement of Aristotelian science. Or to the breakdown of the universal authority of the Catholic church. And so on. Or, we might ask, then, what disagreements did people have with scholasticism? But if we ask *this*, then we at once encounter a difficulty. Scholasticism isn't the name of any philosophical position someone could have disagreements with, in the straight-forward sense. Rather, it's the name of a general historical context in which philosophy was done. As for disagreements, the scholastics themselves disagreed with one another well enough on their own! The Albertists thought the Thomists were wrong, the Thomists thought the old Augustinian school was wrong, the Scotists thought the Albertists were wrong, the followers of the new way in logic thought everyone else was wrong... One can hardly find a thesis affirmed by one scholastic that isn't disputed by another. So we never had this monolith of \"scholastic philosophy\" to which we could have ever expected an answer to be given. The notion of such a monolith is largely a construction of broadly 20th century thought, and offered as a characteristically 20th century response to the cultural dilemmas of that period. This is not to say that there are not philosophically substantive and interesting questions about the historiographic construction of scholasticism, about the philosophically substantive issues at stake in natural theology, and so on. But it *is* to say that our engagement with these questions might perhaps benefit from more specificity, historicity, complexity, and nuance, that allows us to get past simple narratives people use as apologia and into the heart of the matter.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19961.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it2g6t0","c_root_id_B":"it5iokw","created_at_utc_A":1666272773,"created_at_utc_B":1666318063,"score_A":6,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Did you search for whether scholasticism was collateral damage of the Protestant Reformation (e.g. sectarian fervor leading to over-broad rejection of philosophy \/ theology associated with the Catholic Church)? You didn't mention it, but it seems like a candidate.","human_ref_B":"Well, we could ask this question with equal rights about the philosophy of any period, right? Why did the philosophy of the Church Fathers fall out of favor? Why did the high medieval humanism of the 11th-12th centuries fall out of favor? Why did the Renaissance humanism of the 14th-15th century fall out of favor? Why did the philosophies of nature of the 15th-16th centuries fall out of favor? And so on. And in a sense the answer is trivial: we invent these sorts of distinctions as historiographic categories to pick out what seem to us to be relevant features of philosophy that change during different period. It's kind of baked into the very notion of these historiographic categories that they fall out of favor -- it 's like asking why Tuesday passes, well 'Tuesday' is a word we use for dividing up passing time, it's baked into the notion of Tuesday that it passes. We might then ask the more general question: Why does philosophy have a history? Why didn't it happen one group of philosophers say some stuff, everyone nodded, and that was it? Well, it seems there's a few reasons for this. One main one is that philosophers have disagreements with one another. Another main one is that philosophers are responsive to their social, religious, scientific, political, artistic, etc. context, and *these* things have histories, so that it is necessary that philosophy will have a history too. We might ask then, well, what sociocultural traditions led to a shift away from scholasticism? And we can point to things like the development of the humanistic model of education, out of a self-criticism in scholastic models of education, giving birth to a subsequent humanism that was defined against scholasticism. Or to the Crisis of the Late Middle ages as disrupting high medieval customs and institutions. Or to the shifting political emphasis toward the independence of the city-state. Or to the displacement of Aristotelian science. Or to the breakdown of the universal authority of the Catholic church. And so on. Or, we might ask, then, what disagreements did people have with scholasticism? But if we ask *this*, then we at once encounter a difficulty. Scholasticism isn't the name of any philosophical position someone could have disagreements with, in the straight-forward sense. Rather, it's the name of a general historical context in which philosophy was done. As for disagreements, the scholastics themselves disagreed with one another well enough on their own! The Albertists thought the Thomists were wrong, the Thomists thought the old Augustinian school was wrong, the Scotists thought the Albertists were wrong, the followers of the new way in logic thought everyone else was wrong... One can hardly find a thesis affirmed by one scholastic that isn't disputed by another. So we never had this monolith of \"scholastic philosophy\" to which we could have ever expected an answer to be given. The notion of such a monolith is largely a construction of broadly 20th century thought, and offered as a characteristically 20th century response to the cultural dilemmas of that period. This is not to say that there are not philosophically substantive and interesting questions about the historiographic construction of scholasticism, about the philosophically substantive issues at stake in natural theology, and so on. But it *is* to say that our engagement with these questions might perhaps benefit from more specificity, historicity, complexity, and nuance, that allows us to get past simple narratives people use as apologia and into the heart of the matter.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":45290.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it3yxot","c_root_id_B":"it5iokw","created_at_utc_A":1666294346,"created_at_utc_B":1666318063,"score_A":5,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"There are basically two questions here: (1) Did Medieval scholasticism fall out of favor? (2) If Medieval scholasticism fell out of favor, why did it fall out of favor? The answer to (2) depends on the answer to (1), but historians are not generally agreed about how to answer (1). So, you aren't going to find a consistent answer to your question in academic or popular literature. Historians who support the \"continuity thesis\" argue that modern science grew out of Medieval scholasticism, such that the notion the \"Scientific Revolution\" is either exaggerated or mistaken. If you want to read more about this, a good book I would recommend is *The Beginnings of Western Science*.","human_ref_B":"Well, we could ask this question with equal rights about the philosophy of any period, right? Why did the philosophy of the Church Fathers fall out of favor? Why did the high medieval humanism of the 11th-12th centuries fall out of favor? Why did the Renaissance humanism of the 14th-15th century fall out of favor? Why did the philosophies of nature of the 15th-16th centuries fall out of favor? And so on. And in a sense the answer is trivial: we invent these sorts of distinctions as historiographic categories to pick out what seem to us to be relevant features of philosophy that change during different period. It's kind of baked into the very notion of these historiographic categories that they fall out of favor -- it 's like asking why Tuesday passes, well 'Tuesday' is a word we use for dividing up passing time, it's baked into the notion of Tuesday that it passes. We might then ask the more general question: Why does philosophy have a history? Why didn't it happen one group of philosophers say some stuff, everyone nodded, and that was it? Well, it seems there's a few reasons for this. One main one is that philosophers have disagreements with one another. Another main one is that philosophers are responsive to their social, religious, scientific, political, artistic, etc. context, and *these* things have histories, so that it is necessary that philosophy will have a history too. We might ask then, well, what sociocultural traditions led to a shift away from scholasticism? And we can point to things like the development of the humanistic model of education, out of a self-criticism in scholastic models of education, giving birth to a subsequent humanism that was defined against scholasticism. Or to the Crisis of the Late Middle ages as disrupting high medieval customs and institutions. Or to the shifting political emphasis toward the independence of the city-state. Or to the displacement of Aristotelian science. Or to the breakdown of the universal authority of the Catholic church. And so on. Or, we might ask, then, what disagreements did people have with scholasticism? But if we ask *this*, then we at once encounter a difficulty. Scholasticism isn't the name of any philosophical position someone could have disagreements with, in the straight-forward sense. Rather, it's the name of a general historical context in which philosophy was done. As for disagreements, the scholastics themselves disagreed with one another well enough on their own! The Albertists thought the Thomists were wrong, the Thomists thought the old Augustinian school was wrong, the Scotists thought the Albertists were wrong, the followers of the new way in logic thought everyone else was wrong... One can hardly find a thesis affirmed by one scholastic that isn't disputed by another. So we never had this monolith of \"scholastic philosophy\" to which we could have ever expected an answer to be given. The notion of such a monolith is largely a construction of broadly 20th century thought, and offered as a characteristically 20th century response to the cultural dilemmas of that period. This is not to say that there are not philosophically substantive and interesting questions about the historiographic construction of scholasticism, about the philosophically substantive issues at stake in natural theology, and so on. But it *is* to say that our engagement with these questions might perhaps benefit from more specificity, historicity, complexity, and nuance, that allows us to get past simple narratives people use as apologia and into the heart of the matter.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23717.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it556s2","c_root_id_B":"it5iokw","created_at_utc_A":1666312126,"created_at_utc_B":1666318063,"score_A":4,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"There's a classical \"decline and fall\" narrative associated with the phrase \"decadent scholasticism.\" The story goes that medieval scholasticism culminated in St. Thomas Aquinas, but his elegant system gave way to more cumbersome but sophisticated successors, who, eventually, began to buckle under tensions because their systems had become overly elaborate, evident for example in the writings of Bl. Duns Scotus. According to this narrative, the working out of unresolved tensions in high scholasticism became too abstruse, and finally William of Ockham, Gabriel Biel, and other nominalists exposed these errors. The confusion was finally swept away with the advent of modern philosophy in Descartes, who began things anew, apart from the overly complicated scholastic vocabulary. I think most historians now accept that this is a highly ideologically motivated and largely inaccurate distortion of the actual history. Medieval scholasticism never really \"collapsed\" - rather, its fundamental problems and basic alternatives were formulated and reformulated over the centuries, without any moment of decisive discontinuity (Descartes, the great hero or villain of the \"decline and fall\" story, was, after all, trained by Jesuit scholastics, and elements of Suarezian Jesuit thought can be found in his works). That said, there definitely was a prolonged transformation of European philosophy which eventually became more and more removed from its scholastic roots, and, in its self-interpretation, projected a moment of genealogical discontinuity onto the past (which, as historical tend to do, reveals much more about the self-interpretation of our present moment than it does about actual history). The most common explanation, I think, locates the cause of this transformation in nominalism: the relationship between mind and world that nominalism involves led (the standard narrative goes) to a set of skeptical worries concerning the possibility of knowledge, which of course are reflected in the basic Cartesian worry of the *Meditations*. This skeptical problem becomes the fundamental question of modern philosophy, and, in retrospect, Scholastic metaphysics seems naive and unconcerned with skepticism (when in fact the scholastics were for the most part - but not entirely - 'unconcerned' because they shared very different assumptions about the nature of mind and world).","human_ref_B":"Well, we could ask this question with equal rights about the philosophy of any period, right? Why did the philosophy of the Church Fathers fall out of favor? Why did the high medieval humanism of the 11th-12th centuries fall out of favor? Why did the Renaissance humanism of the 14th-15th century fall out of favor? Why did the philosophies of nature of the 15th-16th centuries fall out of favor? And so on. And in a sense the answer is trivial: we invent these sorts of distinctions as historiographic categories to pick out what seem to us to be relevant features of philosophy that change during different period. It's kind of baked into the very notion of these historiographic categories that they fall out of favor -- it 's like asking why Tuesday passes, well 'Tuesday' is a word we use for dividing up passing time, it's baked into the notion of Tuesday that it passes. We might then ask the more general question: Why does philosophy have a history? Why didn't it happen one group of philosophers say some stuff, everyone nodded, and that was it? Well, it seems there's a few reasons for this. One main one is that philosophers have disagreements with one another. Another main one is that philosophers are responsive to their social, religious, scientific, political, artistic, etc. context, and *these* things have histories, so that it is necessary that philosophy will have a history too. We might ask then, well, what sociocultural traditions led to a shift away from scholasticism? And we can point to things like the development of the humanistic model of education, out of a self-criticism in scholastic models of education, giving birth to a subsequent humanism that was defined against scholasticism. Or to the Crisis of the Late Middle ages as disrupting high medieval customs and institutions. Or to the shifting political emphasis toward the independence of the city-state. Or to the displacement of Aristotelian science. Or to the breakdown of the universal authority of the Catholic church. And so on. Or, we might ask, then, what disagreements did people have with scholasticism? But if we ask *this*, then we at once encounter a difficulty. Scholasticism isn't the name of any philosophical position someone could have disagreements with, in the straight-forward sense. Rather, it's the name of a general historical context in which philosophy was done. As for disagreements, the scholastics themselves disagreed with one another well enough on their own! The Albertists thought the Thomists were wrong, the Thomists thought the old Augustinian school was wrong, the Scotists thought the Albertists were wrong, the followers of the new way in logic thought everyone else was wrong... One can hardly find a thesis affirmed by one scholastic that isn't disputed by another. So we never had this monolith of \"scholastic philosophy\" to which we could have ever expected an answer to be given. The notion of such a monolith is largely a construction of broadly 20th century thought, and offered as a characteristically 20th century response to the cultural dilemmas of that period. This is not to say that there are not philosophically substantive and interesting questions about the historiographic construction of scholasticism, about the philosophically substantive issues at stake in natural theology, and so on. But it *is* to say that our engagement with these questions might perhaps benefit from more specificity, historicity, complexity, and nuance, that allows us to get past simple narratives people use as apologia and into the heart of the matter.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5937.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it3ieva","c_root_id_B":"it5iokw","created_at_utc_A":1666287922,"created_at_utc_B":1666318063,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"There's an old saying that the stock of the Catholic Church rises and falls according to its embrace of Aquinas. As long as there are students studying philosophers like gilson, lonergan, rorty, geach, etc. then scholasticism hasn't fallen out of favor.","human_ref_B":"Well, we could ask this question with equal rights about the philosophy of any period, right? Why did the philosophy of the Church Fathers fall out of favor? Why did the high medieval humanism of the 11th-12th centuries fall out of favor? Why did the Renaissance humanism of the 14th-15th century fall out of favor? Why did the philosophies of nature of the 15th-16th centuries fall out of favor? And so on. And in a sense the answer is trivial: we invent these sorts of distinctions as historiographic categories to pick out what seem to us to be relevant features of philosophy that change during different period. It's kind of baked into the very notion of these historiographic categories that they fall out of favor -- it 's like asking why Tuesday passes, well 'Tuesday' is a word we use for dividing up passing time, it's baked into the notion of Tuesday that it passes. We might then ask the more general question: Why does philosophy have a history? Why didn't it happen one group of philosophers say some stuff, everyone nodded, and that was it? Well, it seems there's a few reasons for this. One main one is that philosophers have disagreements with one another. Another main one is that philosophers are responsive to their social, religious, scientific, political, artistic, etc. context, and *these* things have histories, so that it is necessary that philosophy will have a history too. We might ask then, well, what sociocultural traditions led to a shift away from scholasticism? And we can point to things like the development of the humanistic model of education, out of a self-criticism in scholastic models of education, giving birth to a subsequent humanism that was defined against scholasticism. Or to the Crisis of the Late Middle ages as disrupting high medieval customs and institutions. Or to the shifting political emphasis toward the independence of the city-state. Or to the displacement of Aristotelian science. Or to the breakdown of the universal authority of the Catholic church. And so on. Or, we might ask, then, what disagreements did people have with scholasticism? But if we ask *this*, then we at once encounter a difficulty. Scholasticism isn't the name of any philosophical position someone could have disagreements with, in the straight-forward sense. Rather, it's the name of a general historical context in which philosophy was done. As for disagreements, the scholastics themselves disagreed with one another well enough on their own! The Albertists thought the Thomists were wrong, the Thomists thought the old Augustinian school was wrong, the Scotists thought the Albertists were wrong, the followers of the new way in logic thought everyone else was wrong... One can hardly find a thesis affirmed by one scholastic that isn't disputed by another. So we never had this monolith of \"scholastic philosophy\" to which we could have ever expected an answer to be given. The notion of such a monolith is largely a construction of broadly 20th century thought, and offered as a characteristically 20th century response to the cultural dilemmas of that period. This is not to say that there are not philosophically substantive and interesting questions about the historiographic construction of scholasticism, about the philosophically substantive issues at stake in natural theology, and so on. But it *is* to say that our engagement with these questions might perhaps benefit from more specificity, historicity, complexity, and nuance, that allows us to get past simple narratives people use as apologia and into the heart of the matter.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":30141.0,"score_ratio":5.0} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it3oxfe","c_root_id_B":"it2g6t0","created_at_utc_A":1666290456,"created_at_utc_B":1666272773,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"A whole lot happened! If you read many of the thinkers I mention below, you\u2019ll see areas of direct engagement, like Hume\u2019s argument against Aristotelian\/Scholastic unactualized potentials. If you\u2019re really interested, I suggest you check out Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Kant. Otherwise, you can check out Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles on particular topics and you\u2019ll probably find a good discussion about historical trends and the arguments that facilitated change. I\u2019m not sure what really precipitated Descartes\u2019 thought, except that he felt the Scholastics were mired in verbal disputes and had failed to make progress in science. Ultimately part of his philosophy was an attempt to ground the science that he later occupied himself with, so that could have been a major contributor to his motivation for critiquing Scholastics. Keep in mind that Descartes was a younger contemporary of Galileo, and he was aware of the Copernican revolution, which included Tycho Brahe\u2019s observation of a comet crossing through what Aristotle had described as impassible celestial spheres. Aristotelian science was not only stagnant, it was falling apart before everyone\u2019s eyes. And other people with other ideas were making progress. For an overview of the philosophical side, Descartes and Locke challenged the place of the **Aristotelian syllogism** in reasoning, the former choosing to replace it with something like the geometric method and the latter opting for greater reliance on empirical support. In both cases, more work on **epistemology generally** was needed to replace the Aristotelian syllogism and its role in Scholastic epistemology, and emerging discoveries in optics refueled discussions about the relation of experience, epistemology, and direct\/indirect realism and idealism. Moreover, both Descartes and Locke came up with revised doctrines about **substances\/essences**, with Locke notably arguing that nominal essences alone are sufficient for our desiderata. It\u2019s hard to understate the impact of switching from essentialism to nominalism on epistemology and metaphysics. The application of geometric and empirical methods alongside other newfangled epistemological tools to causation led to interesting historical conversations with participants like Berkeley, Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Reid, and Kant, each of whom certainly brought some level of cultural spin. For example, Kant\u2019s ethics are clearly influenced by his upbringing as a Pietist, while Leibniz was perpetually engaged with attempts to unite diverse views he happened to see sympathetically (including Protestant and Catholic views). So their works reflect not just straightforward counterarguments, but also the changing landscape of epistemology, the hot topics of the time, and whatever cultural values they appreciated or strained against. Edit: and don\u2019t forget the Renaissance! Scholastic thought had separate roots in ancient Christian thought and Aristotelian\/Platonic thought. But it wasn\u2019t until the Renaissance that the range of Ancient Greek thought was re-opened up to the world - Epicureanism and Skepticism had always been contenders against Aristotle and Plato\u2019s scientific, ethical, and epistemological views. Although Scholastics had done a lot of work in their own branch of philosophy, it became difficult to ignore foundational critiques by other ancient thinkers, kind of like the way Enlightenment critiques of the Aristotelian syllogism, essentialism, and lessons from optics in epistemology were aimed at the foundations of Scholastic thought rather than the uppermost branches. Another edit: You may appreciate this essay by C.S. Peirce. He\u2019s a fan of the Scholastics, and discusses Berkeley\u2019s nominalism in relationship to the medieval conversation about Universals, particularly between Scotus and Ockham.","human_ref_B":"Did you search for whether scholasticism was collateral damage of the Protestant Reformation (e.g. sectarian fervor leading to over-broad rejection of philosophy \/ theology associated with the Catholic Church)? You didn't mention it, but it seems like a candidate.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17683.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it3ieva","c_root_id_B":"it3oxfe","created_at_utc_A":1666287922,"created_at_utc_B":1666290456,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"There's an old saying that the stock of the Catholic Church rises and falls according to its embrace of Aquinas. As long as there are students studying philosophers like gilson, lonergan, rorty, geach, etc. then scholasticism hasn't fallen out of favor.","human_ref_B":"A whole lot happened! If you read many of the thinkers I mention below, you\u2019ll see areas of direct engagement, like Hume\u2019s argument against Aristotelian\/Scholastic unactualized potentials. If you\u2019re really interested, I suggest you check out Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Kant. Otherwise, you can check out Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles on particular topics and you\u2019ll probably find a good discussion about historical trends and the arguments that facilitated change. I\u2019m not sure what really precipitated Descartes\u2019 thought, except that he felt the Scholastics were mired in verbal disputes and had failed to make progress in science. Ultimately part of his philosophy was an attempt to ground the science that he later occupied himself with, so that could have been a major contributor to his motivation for critiquing Scholastics. Keep in mind that Descartes was a younger contemporary of Galileo, and he was aware of the Copernican revolution, which included Tycho Brahe\u2019s observation of a comet crossing through what Aristotle had described as impassible celestial spheres. Aristotelian science was not only stagnant, it was falling apart before everyone\u2019s eyes. And other people with other ideas were making progress. For an overview of the philosophical side, Descartes and Locke challenged the place of the **Aristotelian syllogism** in reasoning, the former choosing to replace it with something like the geometric method and the latter opting for greater reliance on empirical support. In both cases, more work on **epistemology generally** was needed to replace the Aristotelian syllogism and its role in Scholastic epistemology, and emerging discoveries in optics refueled discussions about the relation of experience, epistemology, and direct\/indirect realism and idealism. Moreover, both Descartes and Locke came up with revised doctrines about **substances\/essences**, with Locke notably arguing that nominal essences alone are sufficient for our desiderata. It\u2019s hard to understate the impact of switching from essentialism to nominalism on epistemology and metaphysics. The application of geometric and empirical methods alongside other newfangled epistemological tools to causation led to interesting historical conversations with participants like Berkeley, Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Reid, and Kant, each of whom certainly brought some level of cultural spin. For example, Kant\u2019s ethics are clearly influenced by his upbringing as a Pietist, while Leibniz was perpetually engaged with attempts to unite diverse views he happened to see sympathetically (including Protestant and Catholic views). So their works reflect not just straightforward counterarguments, but also the changing landscape of epistemology, the hot topics of the time, and whatever cultural values they appreciated or strained against. Edit: and don\u2019t forget the Renaissance! Scholastic thought had separate roots in ancient Christian thought and Aristotelian\/Platonic thought. But it wasn\u2019t until the Renaissance that the range of Ancient Greek thought was re-opened up to the world - Epicureanism and Skepticism had always been contenders against Aristotle and Plato\u2019s scientific, ethical, and epistemological views. Although Scholastics had done a lot of work in their own branch of philosophy, it became difficult to ignore foundational critiques by other ancient thinkers, kind of like the way Enlightenment critiques of the Aristotelian syllogism, essentialism, and lessons from optics in epistemology were aimed at the foundations of Scholastic thought rather than the uppermost branches. Another edit: You may appreciate this essay by C.S. Peirce. He\u2019s a fan of the Scholastics, and discusses Berkeley\u2019s nominalism in relationship to the medieval conversation about Universals, particularly between Scotus and Ockham.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2534.0,"score_ratio":5.0} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it48ql9","c_root_id_B":"it2g6t0","created_at_utc_A":1666298102,"created_at_utc_B":1666272773,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Broadly speaking it's probably worth distinguishing between Thomism on the one hand and scholasticism on the other. My reading is that nominalism and voluntarism, both which arose out of scholasticism itself, played major roles in dethroning Thomism (and to some extent Aristotelianism) as really the only legitimate explanation of metaphysics in the Western Christian world. See Michael Gillespie's *The Theological Origins of Modernity* for a treatment of this trajectory. But Thomism\/Aristotelianism didn't die, they simply became options among others, and parts of them feature today in respectable secular philosophical discourse. Causal powers views (e.g. Madden and Harre) are, or look awfully similar to, hylomorphism; (neo-) Aristotelian metaphysics in a broad sense has been popularized by folks like Tuomas Tahko; virtue theory that does (MacIntyre) or doesn't (Foot) make explicit reference to Aristotle and Aquinas is a live option in normative ethics. And of course natural kinds\/classes have a resemblance to teleology.","human_ref_B":"Did you search for whether scholasticism was collateral damage of the Protestant Reformation (e.g. sectarian fervor leading to over-broad rejection of philosophy \/ theology associated with the Catholic Church)? You didn't mention it, but it seems like a candidate.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25329.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it3yxot","c_root_id_B":"it48ql9","created_at_utc_A":1666294346,"created_at_utc_B":1666298102,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"There are basically two questions here: (1) Did Medieval scholasticism fall out of favor? (2) If Medieval scholasticism fell out of favor, why did it fall out of favor? The answer to (2) depends on the answer to (1), but historians are not generally agreed about how to answer (1). So, you aren't going to find a consistent answer to your question in academic or popular literature. Historians who support the \"continuity thesis\" argue that modern science grew out of Medieval scholasticism, such that the notion the \"Scientific Revolution\" is either exaggerated or mistaken. If you want to read more about this, a good book I would recommend is *The Beginnings of Western Science*.","human_ref_B":"Broadly speaking it's probably worth distinguishing between Thomism on the one hand and scholasticism on the other. My reading is that nominalism and voluntarism, both which arose out of scholasticism itself, played major roles in dethroning Thomism (and to some extent Aristotelianism) as really the only legitimate explanation of metaphysics in the Western Christian world. See Michael Gillespie's *The Theological Origins of Modernity* for a treatment of this trajectory. But Thomism\/Aristotelianism didn't die, they simply became options among others, and parts of them feature today in respectable secular philosophical discourse. Causal powers views (e.g. Madden and Harre) are, or look awfully similar to, hylomorphism; (neo-) Aristotelian metaphysics in a broad sense has been popularized by folks like Tuomas Tahko; virtue theory that does (MacIntyre) or doesn't (Foot) make explicit reference to Aristotle and Aquinas is a live option in normative ethics. And of course natural kinds\/classes have a resemblance to teleology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3756.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it3ieva","c_root_id_B":"it48ql9","created_at_utc_A":1666287922,"created_at_utc_B":1666298102,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"There's an old saying that the stock of the Catholic Church rises and falls according to its embrace of Aquinas. As long as there are students studying philosophers like gilson, lonergan, rorty, geach, etc. then scholasticism hasn't fallen out of favor.","human_ref_B":"Broadly speaking it's probably worth distinguishing between Thomism on the one hand and scholasticism on the other. My reading is that nominalism and voluntarism, both which arose out of scholasticism itself, played major roles in dethroning Thomism (and to some extent Aristotelianism) as really the only legitimate explanation of metaphysics in the Western Christian world. See Michael Gillespie's *The Theological Origins of Modernity* for a treatment of this trajectory. But Thomism\/Aristotelianism didn't die, they simply became options among others, and parts of them feature today in respectable secular philosophical discourse. Causal powers views (e.g. Madden and Harre) are, or look awfully similar to, hylomorphism; (neo-) Aristotelian metaphysics in a broad sense has been popularized by folks like Tuomas Tahko; virtue theory that does (MacIntyre) or doesn't (Foot) make explicit reference to Aristotle and Aquinas is a live option in normative ethics. And of course natural kinds\/classes have a resemblance to teleology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10180.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it3ieva","c_root_id_B":"it3yxot","created_at_utc_A":1666287922,"created_at_utc_B":1666294346,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There's an old saying that the stock of the Catholic Church rises and falls according to its embrace of Aquinas. As long as there are students studying philosophers like gilson, lonergan, rorty, geach, etc. then scholasticism hasn't fallen out of favor.","human_ref_B":"There are basically two questions here: (1) Did Medieval scholasticism fall out of favor? (2) If Medieval scholasticism fell out of favor, why did it fall out of favor? The answer to (2) depends on the answer to (1), but historians are not generally agreed about how to answer (1). So, you aren't going to find a consistent answer to your question in academic or popular literature. Historians who support the \"continuity thesis\" argue that modern science grew out of Medieval scholasticism, such that the notion the \"Scientific Revolution\" is either exaggerated or mistaken. If you want to read more about this, a good book I would recommend is *The Beginnings of Western Science*.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6424.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"y8y5j5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did medieval scholasticism fell out of favor? So I'm on a binge of scholastic philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas. Long story short, I didn't begin so long ago but so far it seems like good reasoning, at least assuming that concepts like actuality-potentiality are correctly argued for. However I don't really understand why this line of philosophy isn't explored as much in discussions about God's existence nowadays. When I searched for this, I just found vague claims about the scientific revolution ruining them(but no specifics as to how) or a Blaise Pascal quote that you can't know God with reason(but again, no further explanation). I think it's important because the thomistic arguments have a logic-oriented perspective but I've never seen an accurate ,,debunk\" of the arguments, except for strawmans. Does someone know an explanation?","c_root_id_A":"it556s2","c_root_id_B":"it3ieva","created_at_utc_A":1666312126,"created_at_utc_B":1666287922,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"There's a classical \"decline and fall\" narrative associated with the phrase \"decadent scholasticism.\" The story goes that medieval scholasticism culminated in St. Thomas Aquinas, but his elegant system gave way to more cumbersome but sophisticated successors, who, eventually, began to buckle under tensions because their systems had become overly elaborate, evident for example in the writings of Bl. Duns Scotus. According to this narrative, the working out of unresolved tensions in high scholasticism became too abstruse, and finally William of Ockham, Gabriel Biel, and other nominalists exposed these errors. The confusion was finally swept away with the advent of modern philosophy in Descartes, who began things anew, apart from the overly complicated scholastic vocabulary. I think most historians now accept that this is a highly ideologically motivated and largely inaccurate distortion of the actual history. Medieval scholasticism never really \"collapsed\" - rather, its fundamental problems and basic alternatives were formulated and reformulated over the centuries, without any moment of decisive discontinuity (Descartes, the great hero or villain of the \"decline and fall\" story, was, after all, trained by Jesuit scholastics, and elements of Suarezian Jesuit thought can be found in his works). That said, there definitely was a prolonged transformation of European philosophy which eventually became more and more removed from its scholastic roots, and, in its self-interpretation, projected a moment of genealogical discontinuity onto the past (which, as historical tend to do, reveals much more about the self-interpretation of our present moment than it does about actual history). The most common explanation, I think, locates the cause of this transformation in nominalism: the relationship between mind and world that nominalism involves led (the standard narrative goes) to a set of skeptical worries concerning the possibility of knowledge, which of course are reflected in the basic Cartesian worry of the *Meditations*. This skeptical problem becomes the fundamental question of modern philosophy, and, in retrospect, Scholastic metaphysics seems naive and unconcerned with skepticism (when in fact the scholastics were for the most part - but not entirely - 'unconcerned' because they shared very different assumptions about the nature of mind and world).","human_ref_B":"There's an old saying that the stock of the Catholic Church rises and falls according to its embrace of Aquinas. As long as there are students studying philosophers like gilson, lonergan, rorty, geach, etc. then scholasticism hasn't fallen out of favor.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24204.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"5qphj9","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is there a term for one sentence or phrase that is intended by the author to have two different meanings, both of which are true, even in the same context? Take for example the sentence, \"Hegel had the right idea.\" And the author of this sentence cleverly intends to mean both that \"Hegel's thinking was correct\" and that \"Hegel had the idea of right in his Philosophy of Right\". I think it would be an interesting project to construct a list of all possible sentences that one could intend to have multiple meanings that do not contradict one another. diaskopic (dia, skopos, ic) sentences?","c_root_id_A":"dd142e2","c_root_id_B":"dd12iev","created_at_utc_A":1485637512,"created_at_utc_B":1485635369,"score_A":15,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"It's *ambiguity*. It was something of great interest around Hegel's time, and it was something of direct interest and importance for Hegel's philosophy and its presentation.","human_ref_B":"Hegel often employs what he calls \"speculative words,\" words that have two contradictory meanings. The most famous example is *aufheben* which means \"to preserve and negate.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2143.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} +{"post_id":"5qphj9","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is there a term for one sentence or phrase that is intended by the author to have two different meanings, both of which are true, even in the same context? Take for example the sentence, \"Hegel had the right idea.\" And the author of this sentence cleverly intends to mean both that \"Hegel's thinking was correct\" and that \"Hegel had the idea of right in his Philosophy of Right\". I think it would be an interesting project to construct a list of all possible sentences that one could intend to have multiple meanings that do not contradict one another. diaskopic (dia, skopos, ic) sentences?","c_root_id_A":"dd1eo5g","c_root_id_B":"dd1g6je","created_at_utc_A":1485652374,"created_at_utc_B":1485654452,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"This is ambiguity. You may be interested in William Empson's book *Seven Types of Ambiguity* -- the example you gave would fall under no. 3.","human_ref_B":"Where the ambiguity is intentional, and clear in its intended meaning, it's a rhetorical\/literary device called *zeugma*.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2078.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"6ylp42","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best philosophy YouTube channels and podcasts? Always loved philosophy (I chance upon it but don't seem to seek it, so I'm quite the ignoramus) but realised I don't expose myself to it enough and as YT and podcasts are my most accessible information channels I'd thought I'd ask you guys. What do you suggest?","c_root_id_A":"dmof9hu","c_root_id_B":"dmodfqr","created_at_utc_A":1504778536,"created_at_utc_B":1504773052,"score_A":17,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"podcast: The Partially Examined Life! Sooooo good!!!!!","human_ref_B":"Have a look at our FAQ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskPhilosophyFAQ\/comments\/4i0faz\/what_are_some_good_philosophy_podcasts","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5484.0,"score_ratio":1.8888888889} +{"post_id":"6ylp42","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best philosophy YouTube channels and podcasts? Always loved philosophy (I chance upon it but don't seem to seek it, so I'm quite the ignoramus) but realised I don't expose myself to it enough and as YT and podcasts are my most accessible information channels I'd thought I'd ask you guys. What do you suggest?","c_root_id_A":"dmof9hu","c_root_id_B":"dmod4jj","created_at_utc_A":1504778536,"created_at_utc_B":1504772141,"score_A":17,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"podcast: The Partially Examined Life! Sooooo good!!!!!","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/historyofphilosophy.net\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6395.0,"score_ratio":3.4} +{"post_id":"6ylp42","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best philosophy YouTube channels and podcasts? Always loved philosophy (I chance upon it but don't seem to seek it, so I'm quite the ignoramus) but realised I don't expose myself to it enough and as YT and podcasts are my most accessible information channels I'd thought I'd ask you guys. What do you suggest?","c_root_id_A":"dmof9hu","c_root_id_B":"dmoewbc","created_at_utc_A":1504778536,"created_at_utc_B":1504777475,"score_A":17,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"podcast: The Partially Examined Life! Sooooo good!!!!!","human_ref_B":"Do yourself a huge favour and watch this series on the entire history of philosophy: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Yat0ZKduW18&list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0zjrnUVl-KBNSM&index=1","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1061.0,"score_ratio":2.8333333333} +{"post_id":"6ylp42","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best philosophy YouTube channels and podcasts? Always loved philosophy (I chance upon it but don't seem to seek it, so I'm quite the ignoramus) but realised I don't expose myself to it enough and as YT and podcasts are my most accessible information channels I'd thought I'd ask you guys. What do you suggest?","c_root_id_A":"dmod4jj","c_root_id_B":"dmodfqr","created_at_utc_A":1504772141,"created_at_utc_B":1504773052,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/historyofphilosophy.net\/","human_ref_B":"Have a look at our FAQ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskPhilosophyFAQ\/comments\/4i0faz\/what_are_some_good_philosophy_podcasts","labels":0,"seconds_difference":911.0,"score_ratio":1.8} +{"post_id":"6ylp42","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best philosophy YouTube channels and podcasts? Always loved philosophy (I chance upon it but don't seem to seek it, so I'm quite the ignoramus) but realised I don't expose myself to it enough and as YT and podcasts are my most accessible information channels I'd thought I'd ask you guys. What do you suggest?","c_root_id_A":"dmod4jj","c_root_id_B":"dmoqs4c","created_at_utc_A":1504772141,"created_at_utc_B":1504797267,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/historyofphilosophy.net\/","human_ref_B":"Very Bad Wizards is a great podcast. Their latest, episode 122, is pretty great.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25126.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"6ylp42","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best philosophy YouTube channels and podcasts? Always loved philosophy (I chance upon it but don't seem to seek it, so I'm quite the ignoramus) but realised I don't expose myself to it enough and as YT and podcasts are my most accessible information channels I'd thought I'd ask you guys. What do you suggest?","c_root_id_A":"dmoewbc","c_root_id_B":"dmoqs4c","created_at_utc_A":1504777475,"created_at_utc_B":1504797267,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Do yourself a huge favour and watch this series on the entire history of philosophy: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Yat0ZKduW18&list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0zjrnUVl-KBNSM&index=1","human_ref_B":"Very Bad Wizards is a great podcast. Their latest, episode 122, is pretty great.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19792.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"6ylp42","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best philosophy YouTube channels and podcasts? Always loved philosophy (I chance upon it but don't seem to seek it, so I'm quite the ignoramus) but realised I don't expose myself to it enough and as YT and podcasts are my most accessible information channels I'd thought I'd ask you guys. What do you suggest?","c_root_id_A":"dmoqs4c","c_root_id_B":"dmolu3l","created_at_utc_A":1504797267,"created_at_utc_B":1504791256,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Very Bad Wizards is a great podcast. Their latest, episode 122, is pretty great.","human_ref_B":"Kane B","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6011.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"6ylp42","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best philosophy YouTube channels and podcasts? Always loved philosophy (I chance upon it but don't seem to seek it, so I'm quite the ignoramus) but realised I don't expose myself to it enough and as YT and podcasts are my most accessible information channels I'd thought I'd ask you guys. What do you suggest?","c_root_id_A":"dmod4jj","c_root_id_B":"dmoewbc","created_at_utc_A":1504772141,"created_at_utc_B":1504777475,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/historyofphilosophy.net\/","human_ref_B":"Do yourself a huge favour and watch this series on the entire history of philosophy: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Yat0ZKduW18&list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0zjrnUVl-KBNSM&index=1","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5334.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"3yvanq","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"How do philosophers manage to seem so comfortable questioning the nature of reality? Faced with unsettling questions about the nature of reality philosophers seem remarkably serene and secure in who they are. In short the vast majority of philosophers don't seem to be constantly having existential crises. As someone who frequently suffers from quite crippling existential anxiety it would be nice to have some insight into how philosophers cope so well. At the moment I'm struggling with eternalism if anyone has an specific insight. How can I look forward to a future which is already existing and experienced? Why should I be glad a painful experience is over if it still exists? How do I reconcile any of this with my experience of the world where I seem to be moving from one present moment to the next? These questions might contain some dubious logic but they bother me significantly.","c_root_id_A":"cygxx00","c_root_id_B":"cygzunz","created_at_utc_A":1451533905,"created_at_utc_B":1451537704,"score_A":4,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Eventually, if asking the same questions over and over in a professional context, it becomes a matter of routine rather than personal questioning. Just like any task done enough becomes a matter of rules and negotiation. Existentialism, at least Sartrean strains, implies a kind of Kant like super-ego responsibility wherein we must always be conscious of everything we do to the point where even simple decisions are matters of extreme anxiety. Philosophy often becomes mere language games in professional contexts, when it likely should be closer to a matter of politics Alta Peter Singer where philosophical insights should be \"mandates\" to how one lives or acts (especially as regards the role of the public intellectuals).","human_ref_B":"> How can I look forward to a future which is already existing and experienced? The same way you would normally look forward to the future, i.e. by anticipating the future event as something pleasant, or something like this. For instance, I'm thinking of having a club sandwich tomorrow and those are yummy, so when I think about having a club sandwich tomorrow I look forward to it. > Why should I be glad a painful experience is over if it still exists? Because you like not to be in pain. For instance, a few days ago I stubbed my toe and it hurt. Then a few minutes later it stopped hurting, and since I like not to be in pain, I was glad. > How do I reconcile any of this with my experience of the world where I seem to be moving from one present moment to the next? I have no idea. Why do you think something is true if you regard as irreconcilable with your experience? > These questions might contain some dubious logic but they bother me significantly. I think they do contain some dubious logic, and I wonder if that's relevant to your original question. We have frequently gotten people here expressing that they're in an existential crisis because of such-and-such an insight they regard as philosophical--and looking therefore to commiserate with philosophers. But it seems to me that what gets represented as philosophical insights in those cases is fairly reliably a piece of highly dubious reasoning. Accordingly, what get called philosophical insights in these cases, it seems to me, are typically reasoning of a kind philosophers are likely to repudiate, rather than reasoning of a kind we'd be inclined to associate with philosophers--or at least reasoning of a kind which philosophical training would incline one to quickly see as untenable. If that's right, then we might suppose that the reason philosophers are so unperturbed by these dilemmas is that they're readily able to see through the shoddy reasoning that rests behind them. It might be doing harm if people think that the profession of philosophy somehow supports the idea of being severely anxious because one has gained the right kind of insight into the world, so it might at least be worthwhile to clarify that this idea is probably a misunderstanding of philosophy. When people have severe anxiety which they report as being over a highly dubious piece of reasoning, I think we ought to wonder whether it's a case of pre-existing anxiety that is being worked into a narrative or explanation, rather than such reasoning really sufficing to explain the anxiety. In any case, while I do think there's some merit to the idea of philosophical practice as a kind of mental therapy, I'd suggest that anyone having severe anxiety should consult with their family doctor or a mental health practitioner, even if they feel that anxiety is motivated by a philosophical problem.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3799.0,"score_ratio":3.75} +{"post_id":"3yvanq","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"How do philosophers manage to seem so comfortable questioning the nature of reality? Faced with unsettling questions about the nature of reality philosophers seem remarkably serene and secure in who they are. In short the vast majority of philosophers don't seem to be constantly having existential crises. As someone who frequently suffers from quite crippling existential anxiety it would be nice to have some insight into how philosophers cope so well. At the moment I'm struggling with eternalism if anyone has an specific insight. How can I look forward to a future which is already existing and experienced? Why should I be glad a painful experience is over if it still exists? How do I reconcile any of this with my experience of the world where I seem to be moving from one present moment to the next? These questions might contain some dubious logic but they bother me significantly.","c_root_id_A":"cygxx00","c_root_id_B":"cyh0rin","created_at_utc_A":1451533905,"created_at_utc_B":1451539650,"score_A":4,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Eventually, if asking the same questions over and over in a professional context, it becomes a matter of routine rather than personal questioning. Just like any task done enough becomes a matter of rules and negotiation. Existentialism, at least Sartrean strains, implies a kind of Kant like super-ego responsibility wherein we must always be conscious of everything we do to the point where even simple decisions are matters of extreme anxiety. Philosophy often becomes mere language games in professional contexts, when it likely should be closer to a matter of politics Alta Peter Singer where philosophical insights should be \"mandates\" to how one lives or acts (especially as regards the role of the public intellectuals).","human_ref_B":"I think it was David Hume who said something to the effect that even a radical skeptic has to at least *act* like the floor will be there when he swings his feet out of bed in the morning, or else he'll never get anything done. To a certain extent, the answers to a lot of \"big questions\" don't change our lived experiences much one way or the other. This is true just as much in philosophy as it is in science; the fact that atomic theory tells me that my desk is mostly empty space doesn't keep me from treating it like a single solid object in my everyday life. Understanding that there's a lot of empty space there helps me understand the world better (and helps me make predictions about what it will do under a specific set of circumstances, and from a particular perspective), but when I want to set my coffee cup down it's not particularly relevant. The same is true for a lot of philosophical or foundational problems--while the answers to those questions are important and interesting, many of them don't change my priorities or concerns when I'm living my life as a regular person. I think that once you've spent enough time dealing with questions like these, you realize that at the end of the day, knowing that (say) I don't have free will doesn't keep me from *feeling* like I'm acting with agency, and so there's not much reason to worry about it in that kind of way. To take one of your examples: >How can I look forward to a future which is already existing and experienced? Well, suppose that tomorrow someone were to conclusively prove that the \"block universe\" theory is correct. What would change for you, in terms of how you experience the passage of time or the difference between the future and the past? Nothing would: you still can't get information about the future (or, at least, not in the same way you can get information about the past), and you're still going to experience tomorrow as a novelty in a way that you don't experience yesterday as a novelty. >How do I reconcile any of this with my experience of the world where I seem to be moving from one present moment to the next? In the same way that you reconcile the fact that your table is a dynamic quantum mechanical system with your impression of it as a stable, solid object: you just do. When you want to set your beer down or arrange the furniture in your house, you treat it as an individual solid object, and when you want to do condensed matter physics, you treat it as a collection of mutually constraining quantum mechanical particles. The fact that the second perspective is useful in the second context doesn't make the first perspective any less useful in the first context, because given the kind of thing you are and the kind of environment in which you live, treating tables and chairs as solid objects comes in extremely handy. Why shouldn't that be enough?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5745.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"3yvanq","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"How do philosophers manage to seem so comfortable questioning the nature of reality? Faced with unsettling questions about the nature of reality philosophers seem remarkably serene and secure in who they are. In short the vast majority of philosophers don't seem to be constantly having existential crises. As someone who frequently suffers from quite crippling existential anxiety it would be nice to have some insight into how philosophers cope so well. At the moment I'm struggling with eternalism if anyone has an specific insight. How can I look forward to a future which is already existing and experienced? Why should I be glad a painful experience is over if it still exists? How do I reconcile any of this with my experience of the world where I seem to be moving from one present moment to the next? These questions might contain some dubious logic but they bother me significantly.","c_root_id_A":"cyhkpv5","c_root_id_B":"cyhoe4m","created_at_utc_A":1451590246,"created_at_utc_B":1451596578,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think professional philosophers deal with these questions in a more theoretical manner than most people. An example would be Sartre's rather theoretical-esque existentialism vs Camus' raw and emotional existentialism. Sartre considered himself a philosopher, Camus was more of a writer and playwright who enjoyed using philosophy in his work. I have dealt with fairly severe existential anguish (crippling, like you said). If you approach the situation in more of an agnostic and theoretical perspective it is less capable to giving your despair. Whether or not this is merely compartmentalization, I'm not sure, but it beats feeling like you're going insane while still allowing you to explore these questions.","human_ref_B":"Partly because a lot of them already feel some deep agitation about the nature of the reality in their day-to-day activities, and feel they cannot proceed with life until they have investigated it. As Chesterton says of Chaucer inserting himself as a character in his own work > Chaucer is mocking not merely bad poets but good poets; the best poet he knows; 'the best in this kind are but shadows'. Chaucer, having to represent himself as reciting bad verse, did very probably take the opportunity of parodying somebody else's bad verse. But the parody is not the point. The point is in the admirable irony of the whole conception of the dumb or doggerel rhymer who is nevertheless the author of all the other rhymes; nay, even the author of their authors. Among all the types and trades, the coarse miller, the hard-fisted reeve, the clerk, the cook, the shipman, the poet is the only man who knows no poetry. But the irony is wider and even deeper than that. There is in it some hint of those huge and abysmal ideas of which the poets are half-conscious when they write; the primal and elemental ideas connected with the very nature of creation and reality. It has in it something of the philosophy of a phenomenal world, and all that was meant by those sages, by no means pessimists, who have said that we are in a world of shadows. Chaucer has made a world of his own shadows, and, when he is on a certain plane, finds himself equally shadowy. It has in it all the mystery of the relation of the maker with things made. There falls on it from afar even some dark ray of the irony of God, who was mocked when He entered His own world, and killed when He came among His creatures. So to a certain extent, the reason they \"don't seem to be constantly having existential crises\" is that a lot of them are already struggling with these questions in day-to-day living in the first place. But even then, *engaging with these questions explicitly is only one element of knowing them.* As Chesterton says, Chaucer's solution was not to clutter himself with formal philosophical questions alone, but a deep engagement with the reality that led him to these questions in the first place, *some of which provided him the answers he needed.*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6332.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"nnkt85","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What books would you recommend to someone trying to get into philosophy? What\u2019s a good place to start?","c_root_id_A":"gzv6zfp","c_root_id_B":"gzv3dxb","created_at_utc_A":1622292182,"created_at_utc_B":1622289504,"score_A":21,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"On of my professors highly recommended to read Platos dialogues to get started in philosophy. Three reasons this may be a good approach: 1. Plato is pretty much the most influential thinker in western philosophy (I'll spare you the Whitehead quote), thus getting acquainted with him is a good start and important to understand many later positions. 2. Plato's works are accessible and easy to read (for philosophy standards, that is). The way they are written is also often genuinely entertaining, which can't be said for everything that has been written in philosophy. 3. Plato discusses a lot of the topics that are still central fields of inquiry in contemporary philosophy. Reading Plato thus serves as a great introduction into the topics of philosophy and - given that most philosophy today is written in papers which are either direct or indirect responses to other papers - in a way also into its methodology, as Plato wrote his works as dialogues (although, of course, there isn't a fixed set of methods in philosophy, I believe that goes without saying). The Republic, Phaidon or Menon would be good places to start.","human_ref_B":"Have a look at this.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2678.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"nnkt85","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What books would you recommend to someone trying to get into philosophy? What\u2019s a good place to start?","c_root_id_A":"gzvgtxy","c_root_id_B":"gzv88kr","created_at_utc_A":1622298353,"created_at_utc_B":1622293045,"score_A":15,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm gonna be a little against the grain of this comment thread and say Descartes' Meditations over Plato. I say this because Descartes' work is short, not too dense, and I think helps you associate more with how modern philosophy is--because he is the catalyst for it. Plato is great and you won't go wrong with him. But I feel that the Meditations is an easier introduction. It's what I always recommend.","human_ref_B":"Start with Plato Aristotle and Stoics","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5308.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"nnkt85","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What books would you recommend to someone trying to get into philosophy? What\u2019s a good place to start?","c_root_id_A":"gzv3dxb","c_root_id_B":"gzvgtxy","created_at_utc_A":1622289504,"created_at_utc_B":1622298353,"score_A":6,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Have a look at this.","human_ref_B":"I'm gonna be a little against the grain of this comment thread and say Descartes' Meditations over Plato. I say this because Descartes' work is short, not too dense, and I think helps you associate more with how modern philosophy is--because he is the catalyst for it. Plato is great and you won't go wrong with him. But I feel that the Meditations is an easier introduction. It's what I always recommend.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8849.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"nnkt85","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What books would you recommend to someone trying to get into philosophy? What\u2019s a good place to start?","c_root_id_A":"gzvgtxy","c_root_id_B":"gzvfksp","created_at_utc_A":1622298353,"created_at_utc_B":1622297637,"score_A":15,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm gonna be a little against the grain of this comment thread and say Descartes' Meditations over Plato. I say this because Descartes' work is short, not too dense, and I think helps you associate more with how modern philosophy is--because he is the catalyst for it. Plato is great and you won't go wrong with him. But I feel that the Meditations is an easier introduction. It's what I always recommend.","human_ref_B":"Layperson here answering this. I'd second what u\/mm182899 says about Plato But also, I'd say you should start with what you're interested in. It might be worth editing your post or making another one letting people know what (if anything) you think you'll be attracted to, if nothing else because a lot of the time people who haven't read any philosophy have a really specific idea of what philosophy ***is***, and that can be useful for making recommendations too. If you think modern philosophy is going to be your bag, an obvious kickoff is Descartes, for example. Anyway, Peter Adamson has a series of very accessible books on the history of philosophy based on his podcast called, well, *The History of Philosophy*, so that's always a good way to dip your toe in.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":716.0,"score_ratio":3.75} +{"post_id":"8sphgh","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Vegans do not eat honey. Is there a good argument for the consumption of honey being unethical? Arguments for veganism from the perspective of normative systems like utilitarianism and Kantianism are very well-developed and serious. For example, if you are a utilitarian vegan, you ought not contribute to unnecessary suffering of beings that are capable of suffering, and by consuming factory farmed meat where animal suffering is present you are contributing to the demand for such farms and consequently such suffering. Is there a good utilitarian argument for the eating of honey being unethical however? Can bees and insects experience utility? Can a bee suffer? If a good utilitarian argument can't be made, can arguments from other normative systems be made for the moral impermissibility of honey consumption?","c_root_id_A":"e11ub94","c_root_id_B":"e11o4fx","created_at_utc_A":1529592593,"created_at_utc_B":1529586548,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"As a vegan, I don't eat honey not because I'm certain that bees can suffer but because it's not obvious that they can't. A strong case can be made that you act in a morally objectionable way when you take unnecessary risks which may or may not actually cause real suffering. This moral wrongdoing would likely be amplified the more trivial the reason for taking said risk. An example of this idea that I find persuasive is imagining a pilot who, because he is running a few minutes behind schedule, neglects to have the proper safety inspections done in his plane. By doing this, he's able to get on route at the time scheduled so he doesn't face any repercussions for his tardiness (Whether this relates to how pilots really work is something I have no clue of. This example, as it was explained to me, is just about the principle). Now, say we discover that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the plane. All the equipment is stacked appropriately, the oxygen masks come down correctly, ect. Did the pilot do something wrong? I think so. The potential negative consequences were high enough and the benefit low enough that it seems to me that he has made a morally objectionable risk. It could turn out that bees are simply incapable of suffering, in which case our current practices (absent ecological concerns) are acceptable, but it's at least plausible that they do. The benefit I receive from eating honey, which is actually fairly easy to avoid, doesn't, to me, seem to offset the risk of contributing to industrialized harms.","human_ref_B":">Is there a good utilitarian argument for the eating of honey being unethical however? Eating honey may or may not have a negative impact on bees. It seems most folks argue that some amount of honey consumption is harmless, even good, insofar as it supports beekeepers and crops. Our consumption of honey does not seem to be a driver of the present decline in honeybees. >Among the most important drivers are land-use change with the consequent loss and fragmentation of habitats \\15,21,42,43\\]; increasing pesticide application and environmental pollution \\[44,45\\]; decreased resource diversity \\[18\\]; alien species \\[46,47\\]; the spread of pathogens \\[48,49\\]; and climate change \\[50,51\\] This supports the comment u\/uinviel linked to ([here). This doesn't mean that utilitarians shouldn't worry about bees at all. Serious disruptions to ecosystems can reduce the well-being of large populations of sentient creatures. By some estimates, 80 - 90% of our food depends on bee pollination, and we can expect the impact on plants to similarly disrupt the eating habits of other animals. Because so many plants rely on pollinators like bees, any disruptions to the bees could result in negative cascade effects. >Can bees and insects experience utility? Given the speculative nature of consciousness-related research, it isn't surprising that some folks have argued that bees can suffer. See this piece, for example: >The scientists at Newcastle wanted to know if stress would affect the bees\u2019 mood, so they vigorously shook one group of bees to simulate an invasion into the hive. The bees, it turns out, were not just physically but also psychologically shaken. Not only did they exhibit lower levels of serotonin and dopamine, they also became pessimistic in their responses, anticipating that samples would be bitter instead of sweet, amounting to punishment, as indicated by expression of the face. > >The pessimistic reaction, seen as an emotional response to stress, thrilled the researchers. \u2018We show that the bees\u2019 response to a negatively valenced event has more in common with that of vertebrates than previously thought,\u2019 the team wrote in *Current Biology* in 2011. The finding suggests \u2018that honeybees could be regarded as exhibiting emotions\u2019.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6045.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"yo7ipi","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Does some philosophy exist that claims that everything that exists is physical? I'm a physics student and I've noticed that a lot of my colleagues have this belief that nothing spiritual can exist, and everything that exists is strictly physical. That's fair and all, but I think most of them have this philosophical stance confused for science. Their statements go something like: \"I'm a scientist and science says that everything must be physical, so I'm objectively correct\". Have you had some similar experience? And if so, how would you go about explaining their mistake? Is there some philosophy that they are describing, so I can say, \"you have this philosophy confused with science\"?","c_root_id_A":"iveo6dx","c_root_id_B":"ivefxoh","created_at_utc_A":1667824869,"created_at_utc_B":1667819439,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Science doesn't say that everything is physical. It's domain of function happens to be the physical.","human_ref_B":"My feeling is that this is the fulminant (first-semesters) stage of a *deformation professionelle*; the idea that the constraints of methodological focus are the limits of reality. Physics entails *methodological* naturalism; it does not entail *ontological* naturalism. The impossibility of physics telling you anything about non-physical entities (whether they exist or don't exist, for example) flows directly from the constraints of its methodology. It's no surprise that physics finds everything to be physical, because its methodology detects physical entitites and their properties. But no seasoned physicist would underwrite that it is an ontological argument that, using the means to detect physical entities, nothing non-physical has been detected and thus only physical things exist. edit: sentence construction","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5430.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"9vl0p3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Are there any similarities between stoicism and Buddhism or asian philosophy in general? Been reading Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and I'm pretty ignorant about asian philosophy in general but somehow stoicism seems to resemble something Buddha would say, although I can't quite put my finger on it. One thing that comes to mind is accepting your circumstances and being content with how things are, although the flavor of it is very different, with Buddhism having the idea of reincarnation and stoicism believen in predestination. Also been reading Confucius. At least Aurelius is also about doing your best and serving your society without aiming for glory and riches, Confucius has something similar but while stoicism is about finding content for yourself, Cofucius is more about being humble and honorable so other citizens can trust you and see that you are a good person, so society works more efficiently. Probably saying things out of my ass, not very deep into my studies yet but what do you guys think?","c_root_id_A":"e9dr4am","c_root_id_B":"e9dgw89","created_at_utc_A":1541796646,"created_at_utc_B":1541788733,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"While they do resonate well with Buddhism\/Taoism and the like, it's important to recognise that stoicism doesn't exactly square the circle. If we were to sum stoicism up crudely, we might consider it an attempt to alleviate suffering through cognitive evaluation of what we experience. Epictetus, for example, asks us to consider our experiences and classify them as things we either can or cannot control. We should worry about what we can do something about, but it makes no sense to concern ourselves with what we can't control. Some of his examples are pretty out there, let's take being on a ship stricken by a violent storm. Epictetus chastises his students for \"talking the talk\" but not putting what they have learned into practice. They might wail and cry at the storm and the threat of a terrible death by drowning. However, in order to truly be philosophers, they ought to be able to suppress their fear of death by recognising the whole situation as being beyond their control and nothing worth worrying about. It is the same with the sickness of a child, being sentenced to death, suffering grievous bodily harm, etc. In Buddhist practice the approach is somewhat different. Classification of experiences can play a role, but attaining non-attachment through the intellect is no Buddhist objective. Buddhist practice encourages us to let our thoughts and feelings pass and subside *without* judgement (which is a kind of attachment). Trying to suppress our thinking\/feeling with thinking is like trying to pull our way out of a Chinese finger trap. The difference is that stoics assume that feelings result from judgements and that by getting the judgements right, you'll get the feelings right too. Buddhist practice, on the other hand, reveals that feelings emerge in the absence of judgements and are not reliant on them. Feelings are even the soil out of which thoughts grow. Buddhism also lays greater emphasis on the body. To assume and sustain the right posture *is* to assume and sustain the right attitude. For Epictetus, however, our body is an external and something out of our control - the only thing which is truly \"ours\" is our power to evaluate things. Epictetus, as is well known, lived a life of privation and was a slave for many years. A man with little or nothing to his name. I wonder, though, when Epictetus retired into obscurity and adopted a child if he found it as easy to \"walk the walk\" as he did when he was a bachelor running a philosophy school? How might he have felt with a crying, sick child? We can't know for sure of course...","human_ref_B":"There are similarities. Both ask you to let go of things not in your control . But that is where similarities ends. Buddhism goes much deeper into the metaphysical aspect while stoicism as is viewed now is only a handbook of how to live life. I think stoicism is like a digest Buddhism which has been adapted for a Greek rationalists kind of audience.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7913.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"9vl0p3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Are there any similarities between stoicism and Buddhism or asian philosophy in general? Been reading Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and I'm pretty ignorant about asian philosophy in general but somehow stoicism seems to resemble something Buddha would say, although I can't quite put my finger on it. One thing that comes to mind is accepting your circumstances and being content with how things are, although the flavor of it is very different, with Buddhism having the idea of reincarnation and stoicism believen in predestination. Also been reading Confucius. At least Aurelius is also about doing your best and serving your society without aiming for glory and riches, Confucius has something similar but while stoicism is about finding content for yourself, Cofucius is more about being humble and honorable so other citizens can trust you and see that you are a good person, so society works more efficiently. Probably saying things out of my ass, not very deep into my studies yet but what do you guys think?","c_root_id_A":"e9e0y6l","c_root_id_B":"e9ep2rn","created_at_utc_A":1541804753,"created_at_utc_B":1541832182,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Well, the Milindapanha is a dialogue with a Greek ruler about the existence of the self, although it strikes me as more Socratic than stoic.","human_ref_B":"Buddhism preaches a type of serenity as a high goal that very few things codify in that explicit of a way other than stoicism. So in that sense it does match. But in stoicism this is the final goal, whereas in buddhism its just a high virtue. Stoicism also has a little bit in common with taoism in that both kind of talk about the world pushing you in a certain way and how you should follow this path it set out rather than struggling against it. But the connotations are not the same for both. But both seek to basically frame yourself in the right frame of mind so that you are okay with the path and events the world has for you, and taking the good and the bad as it comes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27429.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"ognfl8","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any good books on how the scientific revolution of the 16th century brought about that \"science\" and \"philosophy\" started to mean different things?","c_root_id_A":"h4kvy23","c_root_id_B":"h4kf0zd","created_at_utc_A":1625829941,"created_at_utc_B":1625814717,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"A History of Truth in the West by Mauricio Nieto sounds like a good place to start. It's focused on the development of modern science, specially the belief that it is possible to reach universal truths, and goes from Greece to the Enlightenment and Colonialism. It also is very critical of the idea of a scientific revolution and the mostly artificial divide between science, philosophy, magic and arts that is proyected in hindsight towards times like the renaissance, so I think it just might be what you're looking for.","human_ref_B":"I think this was touched upon, but not heavily, in 'The Age of Wonders'","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15224.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm29ob9","c_root_id_B":"dm27oaz","created_at_utc_A":1503583599,"created_at_utc_B":1503581049,"score_A":91,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"Marx influenced a few guys out in Russia in the early 20th c.","human_ref_B":"Marcus Aurelius invaded a bunch of places.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2550.0,"score_ratio":1.8571428571} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2b4gk","c_root_id_B":"dm29wuw","created_at_utc_A":1503585293,"created_at_utc_B":1503583883,"score_A":41,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Peter Singer has had a huge hand in the animal rights movement.","human_ref_B":"I don't think philosophy has value for society in just a couple sentences. Don't bother impressing people who sneer at what you like. Mill in On Liberty defined principles for democratic free speech that we articulate the conversation on today. Philosophers work with cognitive scientists to map the brain. Many social affairs were advanced via the ideas propogated in philosophy - did you ever wonder why we think so highly of the self? Existentialist thought did that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1410.0,"score_ratio":1.8636363636} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2aidd","c_root_id_B":"dm2b4gk","created_at_utc_A":1503584591,"created_at_utc_B":1503585293,"score_A":18,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"This Hegel dude seems to have left an impression.","human_ref_B":"Peter Singer has had a huge hand in the animal rights movement.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":702.0,"score_ratio":2.2777777778} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2b4gk","c_root_id_B":"dm2ak77","created_at_utc_A":1503585293,"created_at_utc_B":1503584649,"score_A":41,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Peter Singer has had a huge hand in the animal rights movement.","human_ref_B":"Plato's theory of ideas created the structure that made possible the creation of scientific models; People aren't \"born-slaves\" anymore; Democracies aren't just a \"small city\" thing; We aren't ruled by people with a special a bloodline chosen by god (kings); The world is at its peacefullest point in whole human history; We recognize that we have duties towards animals which are converted into protection from the law; We're aware we aren't the \"special beings of the universe\"; Blablabla.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":644.0,"score_ratio":10.25} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2atp5","c_root_id_B":"dm2b4gk","created_at_utc_A":1503584953,"created_at_utc_B":1503585293,"score_A":3,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"I guess it takes a while for ideas to spread and inspire wider social change. Someone mentioned Marx; his ideas continue to inspire radical social movements. Perhaps a bigger example are enlightenment thinkers, whose ideas about universal knowledge made people believe truth was not the result of some god, but of human reasoning. This underpinned the transition from monarchy to democracy; it also arguably underpinned capitalism and colonialism. Somewhere some nerd is philosophising, and her ideas may change the course of history!","human_ref_B":"Peter Singer has had a huge hand in the animal rights movement.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":340.0,"score_ratio":13.6666666667} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2bb8d","c_root_id_B":"dm29wuw","created_at_utc_A":1503585509,"created_at_utc_B":1503583883,"score_A":39,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"The development and refinement of science, both in theory and practice, from Aristotle to today is largely a philosophical project. Might need a few more sentences since people are generally ignorant of the history of science outside of the names and discoveries of famous scientists. The United States of America is largely founded on political philosophy of people like John Locke, Thomas Paine, and others.","human_ref_B":"I don't think philosophy has value for society in just a couple sentences. Don't bother impressing people who sneer at what you like. Mill in On Liberty defined principles for democratic free speech that we articulate the conversation on today. Philosophers work with cognitive scientists to map the brain. Many social affairs were advanced via the ideas propogated in philosophy - did you ever wonder why we think so highly of the self? Existentialist thought did that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1626.0,"score_ratio":1.7727272727} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2aidd","c_root_id_B":"dm2bb8d","created_at_utc_A":1503584591,"created_at_utc_B":1503585509,"score_A":18,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"This Hegel dude seems to have left an impression.","human_ref_B":"The development and refinement of science, both in theory and practice, from Aristotle to today is largely a philosophical project. Might need a few more sentences since people are generally ignorant of the history of science outside of the names and discoveries of famous scientists. The United States of America is largely founded on political philosophy of people like John Locke, Thomas Paine, and others.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":918.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2ak77","c_root_id_B":"dm2bb8d","created_at_utc_A":1503584649,"created_at_utc_B":1503585509,"score_A":4,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Plato's theory of ideas created the structure that made possible the creation of scientific models; People aren't \"born-slaves\" anymore; Democracies aren't just a \"small city\" thing; We aren't ruled by people with a special a bloodline chosen by god (kings); The world is at its peacefullest point in whole human history; We recognize that we have duties towards animals which are converted into protection from the law; We're aware we aren't the \"special beings of the universe\"; Blablabla.","human_ref_B":"The development and refinement of science, both in theory and practice, from Aristotle to today is largely a philosophical project. Might need a few more sentences since people are generally ignorant of the history of science outside of the names and discoveries of famous scientists. The United States of America is largely founded on political philosophy of people like John Locke, Thomas Paine, and others.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":860.0,"score_ratio":9.75} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2atp5","c_root_id_B":"dm2bb8d","created_at_utc_A":1503584953,"created_at_utc_B":1503585509,"score_A":3,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"I guess it takes a while for ideas to spread and inspire wider social change. Someone mentioned Marx; his ideas continue to inspire radical social movements. Perhaps a bigger example are enlightenment thinkers, whose ideas about universal knowledge made people believe truth was not the result of some god, but of human reasoning. This underpinned the transition from monarchy to democracy; it also arguably underpinned capitalism and colonialism. Somewhere some nerd is philosophising, and her ideas may change the course of history!","human_ref_B":"The development and refinement of science, both in theory and practice, from Aristotle to today is largely a philosophical project. Might need a few more sentences since people are generally ignorant of the history of science outside of the names and discoveries of famous scientists. The United States of America is largely founded on political philosophy of people like John Locke, Thomas Paine, and others.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":556.0,"score_ratio":13.0} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2ece3","c_root_id_B":"dm2ak77","created_at_utc_A":1503588849,"created_at_utc_B":1503584649,"score_A":12,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Just some examples off the top of my head * Human rights * Plato's influence on Christianity * Free Market Economy * The way we do science","human_ref_B":"Plato's theory of ideas created the structure that made possible the creation of scientific models; People aren't \"born-slaves\" anymore; Democracies aren't just a \"small city\" thing; We aren't ruled by people with a special a bloodline chosen by god (kings); The world is at its peacefullest point in whole human history; We recognize that we have duties towards animals which are converted into protection from the law; We're aware we aren't the \"special beings of the universe\"; Blablabla.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4200.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2ece3","c_root_id_B":"dm2atp5","created_at_utc_A":1503588849,"created_at_utc_B":1503584953,"score_A":12,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Just some examples off the top of my head * Human rights * Plato's influence on Christianity * Free Market Economy * The way we do science","human_ref_B":"I guess it takes a while for ideas to spread and inspire wider social change. Someone mentioned Marx; his ideas continue to inspire radical social movements. Perhaps a bigger example are enlightenment thinkers, whose ideas about universal knowledge made people believe truth was not the result of some god, but of human reasoning. This underpinned the transition from monarchy to democracy; it also arguably underpinned capitalism and colonialism. Somewhere some nerd is philosophising, and her ideas may change the course of history!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3896.0,"score_ratio":4.0} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2ece3","c_root_id_B":"dm2cl12","created_at_utc_A":1503588849,"created_at_utc_B":1503586945,"score_A":12,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Just some examples off the top of my head * Human rights * Plato's influence on Christianity * Free Market Economy * The way we do science","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/6vjwgi\/what_are_some_ways_in_which_nonpolitical\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1904.0,"score_ratio":6.0} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm33ol8","c_root_id_B":"dm3631a","created_at_utc_A":1503616383,"created_at_utc_B":1503619532,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Mary Wollstonecraft on feminism...","human_ref_B":"Foucault gave us some ways to rethink prisons and prison reform.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3149.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2ak77","c_root_id_B":"dm33ol8","created_at_utc_A":1503584649,"created_at_utc_B":1503616383,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Plato's theory of ideas created the structure that made possible the creation of scientific models; People aren't \"born-slaves\" anymore; Democracies aren't just a \"small city\" thing; We aren't ruled by people with a special a bloodline chosen by god (kings); The world is at its peacefullest point in whole human history; We recognize that we have duties towards animals which are converted into protection from the law; We're aware we aren't the \"special beings of the universe\"; Blablabla.","human_ref_B":"Mary Wollstonecraft on feminism...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":31734.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm33ol8","c_root_id_B":"dm2h1o7","created_at_utc_A":1503616383,"created_at_utc_B":1503591682,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Mary Wollstonecraft on feminism...","human_ref_B":"There wouldn't be poker without Adam Smith.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24701.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm33ol8","c_root_id_B":"dm2atp5","created_at_utc_A":1503616383,"created_at_utc_B":1503584953,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Mary Wollstonecraft on feminism...","human_ref_B":"I guess it takes a while for ideas to spread and inspire wider social change. Someone mentioned Marx; his ideas continue to inspire radical social movements. Perhaps a bigger example are enlightenment thinkers, whose ideas about universal knowledge made people believe truth was not the result of some god, but of human reasoning. This underpinned the transition from monarchy to democracy; it also arguably underpinned capitalism and colonialism. Somewhere some nerd is philosophising, and her ideas may change the course of history!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31430.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2cl12","c_root_id_B":"dm33ol8","created_at_utc_A":1503586945,"created_at_utc_B":1503616383,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/6vjwgi\/what_are_some_ways_in_which_nonpolitical\/","human_ref_B":"Mary Wollstonecraft on feminism...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":29438.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2ak77","c_root_id_B":"dm3631a","created_at_utc_A":1503584649,"created_at_utc_B":1503619532,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Plato's theory of ideas created the structure that made possible the creation of scientific models; People aren't \"born-slaves\" anymore; Democracies aren't just a \"small city\" thing; We aren't ruled by people with a special a bloodline chosen by god (kings); The world is at its peacefullest point in whole human history; We recognize that we have duties towards animals which are converted into protection from the law; We're aware we aren't the \"special beings of the universe\"; Blablabla.","human_ref_B":"Foucault gave us some ways to rethink prisons and prison reform.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":34883.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm3631a","c_root_id_B":"dm2h1o7","created_at_utc_A":1503619532,"created_at_utc_B":1503591682,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Foucault gave us some ways to rethink prisons and prison reform.","human_ref_B":"There wouldn't be poker without Adam Smith.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27850.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2atp5","c_root_id_B":"dm3631a","created_at_utc_A":1503584953,"created_at_utc_B":1503619532,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I guess it takes a while for ideas to spread and inspire wider social change. Someone mentioned Marx; his ideas continue to inspire radical social movements. Perhaps a bigger example are enlightenment thinkers, whose ideas about universal knowledge made people believe truth was not the result of some god, but of human reasoning. This underpinned the transition from monarchy to democracy; it also arguably underpinned capitalism and colonialism. Somewhere some nerd is philosophising, and her ideas may change the course of history!","human_ref_B":"Foucault gave us some ways to rethink prisons and prison reform.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":34579.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2cl12","c_root_id_B":"dm3631a","created_at_utc_A":1503586945,"created_at_utc_B":1503619532,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/6vjwgi\/what_are_some_ways_in_which_nonpolitical\/","human_ref_B":"Foucault gave us some ways to rethink prisons and prison reform.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":32587.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"6vqqo2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some examples of philosophers directly influencing societal developments? I'm a Philosophy student born and raised among people who smirk at the very mention of the word philosophy. They have repeatedly proven that they think of it only in connection with wasting time on asking stupid questions and not contributing to society whatsoever. I first tried changing their minds rather naively, just by talking about all the different questions philosophers of the world pose and try to answer. When that didn't work, I tried doing research on the importance of philosophy for society as such. This turned out to be harder than I thought, especially since I'm looking for the kind of examples you could relate to anyone in just a couple of sentences. So I need your help! I would really appreciate it if you could give me some examples or recommend materials in which to look for them. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"dm2cl12","c_root_id_B":"dm2h1o7","created_at_utc_A":1503586945,"created_at_utc_B":1503591682,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/6vjwgi\/what_are_some_ways_in_which_nonpolitical\/","human_ref_B":"There wouldn't be poker without Adam Smith.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4737.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkd20s","c_root_id_B":"dlkkln8","created_at_utc_A":1502642108,"created_at_utc_B":1502651348,"score_A":36,"score_B":43,"human_ref_A":"Meditations - Marcus Aurelius Varieties of Religious Experience - William James I live in Utah (extremely religious) and my default is to ridicule the Mormons for their many contradictions. So James helps me understand the separation between religious experience, and Religions.","human_ref_B":"The Myth of Sisyphus is great for motivating myself.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9240.0,"score_ratio":1.1944444444} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkexmk","c_root_id_B":"dlkkln8","created_at_utc_A":1502644339,"created_at_utc_B":1502651348,"score_A":11,"score_B":43,"human_ref_A":"I find myself always going back to Chomsky to sharpen myself. In my college days I was infatuated with existentialism. I then began to take postmodernism more seriously, but suddenly realized the shortcomings of it. Chomsky in general helps me be less abstract and more practical; he helps me get rid of philosophical garbage that's merely rhetorical by moving me towards practical and objective thinking. This is not to say that Chomsky is a perfect man. But in general, I find Chomsky's and Foucault's debate on human nature to be very stimulating.","human_ref_B":"The Myth of Sisyphus is great for motivating myself.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7009.0,"score_ratio":3.9090909091} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkpo58","c_root_id_B":"dlkqbsr","created_at_utc_A":1502657517,"created_at_utc_B":1502658301,"score_A":18,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Everything Foucault--- including public interviews and transcribed lectures. His mind always feels... relevant.","human_ref_B":"*Republic* - it brings something new every time I read it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":784.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkqbsr","c_root_id_B":"dlkm90z","created_at_utc_A":1502658301,"created_at_utc_B":1502653406,"score_A":20,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"*Republic* - it brings something new every time I read it.","human_ref_B":"Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein I like language","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4895.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkqbsr","c_root_id_B":"dlko7t4","created_at_utc_A":1502658301,"created_at_utc_B":1502655804,"score_A":20,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"*Republic* - it brings something new every time I read it.","human_ref_B":"Being and Time has been the book that I've consistently returned to since I first discovered Heidegger as an undergrad. Mostly because, like most continental philosophers my work is building on his I guess, and also because he presented a new perspective I hadn't come across before and I find that reminding myself of that moment of wonder is very helpful for motivation when I wonder why I'm still bothering.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2497.0,"score_ratio":1.5384615385} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkqbsr","c_root_id_B":"dlkexmk","created_at_utc_A":1502658301,"created_at_utc_B":1502644339,"score_A":20,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"*Republic* - it brings something new every time I read it.","human_ref_B":"I find myself always going back to Chomsky to sharpen myself. In my college days I was infatuated with existentialism. I then began to take postmodernism more seriously, but suddenly realized the shortcomings of it. Chomsky in general helps me be less abstract and more practical; he helps me get rid of philosophical garbage that's merely rhetorical by moving me towards practical and objective thinking. This is not to say that Chomsky is a perfect man. But in general, I find Chomsky's and Foucault's debate on human nature to be very stimulating.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13962.0,"score_ratio":1.8181818182} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkmtdr","c_root_id_B":"dlkqbsr","created_at_utc_A":1502654108,"created_at_utc_B":1502658301,"score_A":4,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Walden.","human_ref_B":"*Republic* - it brings something new every time I read it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4193.0,"score_ratio":5.0} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkmqc8","c_root_id_B":"dlkqbsr","created_at_utc_A":1502654003,"created_at_utc_B":1502658301,"score_A":3,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"*Thus Spoke Zathurusta* by Nietsche *Unit Operations: A Approach to Videogame Criticism* by Ian Bogust No specific titles but I find myself revisiting the following a lot: Foucault, Kristeva, Lacan, and Judith Butler a lot.","human_ref_B":"*Republic* - it brings something new every time I read it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4298.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkpo58","c_root_id_B":"dlko7t4","created_at_utc_A":1502657517,"created_at_utc_B":1502655804,"score_A":18,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Everything Foucault--- including public interviews and transcribed lectures. His mind always feels... relevant.","human_ref_B":"Being and Time has been the book that I've consistently returned to since I first discovered Heidegger as an undergrad. Mostly because, like most continental philosophers my work is building on his I guess, and also because he presented a new perspective I hadn't come across before and I find that reminding myself of that moment of wonder is very helpful for motivation when I wonder why I'm still bothering.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1713.0,"score_ratio":1.3846153846} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkexmk","c_root_id_B":"dlkpo58","created_at_utc_A":1502644339,"created_at_utc_B":1502657517,"score_A":11,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"I find myself always going back to Chomsky to sharpen myself. In my college days I was infatuated with existentialism. I then began to take postmodernism more seriously, but suddenly realized the shortcomings of it. Chomsky in general helps me be less abstract and more practical; he helps me get rid of philosophical garbage that's merely rhetorical by moving me towards practical and objective thinking. This is not to say that Chomsky is a perfect man. But in general, I find Chomsky's and Foucault's debate on human nature to be very stimulating.","human_ref_B":"Everything Foucault--- including public interviews and transcribed lectures. His mind always feels... relevant.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13178.0,"score_ratio":1.6363636364} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkpo58","c_root_id_B":"dlkmtdr","created_at_utc_A":1502657517,"created_at_utc_B":1502654108,"score_A":18,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Everything Foucault--- including public interviews and transcribed lectures. His mind always feels... relevant.","human_ref_B":"Walden.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3409.0,"score_ratio":4.5} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkpo58","c_root_id_B":"dlkmqc8","created_at_utc_A":1502657517,"created_at_utc_B":1502654003,"score_A":18,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Everything Foucault--- including public interviews and transcribed lectures. His mind always feels... relevant.","human_ref_B":"*Thus Spoke Zathurusta* by Nietsche *Unit Operations: A Approach to Videogame Criticism* by Ian Bogust No specific titles but I find myself revisiting the following a lot: Foucault, Kristeva, Lacan, and Judith Butler a lot.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3514.0,"score_ratio":6.0} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkexmk","c_root_id_B":"dlkm90z","created_at_utc_A":1502644339,"created_at_utc_B":1502653406,"score_A":11,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"I find myself always going back to Chomsky to sharpen myself. In my college days I was infatuated with existentialism. I then began to take postmodernism more seriously, but suddenly realized the shortcomings of it. Chomsky in general helps me be less abstract and more practical; he helps me get rid of philosophical garbage that's merely rhetorical by moving me towards practical and objective thinking. This is not to say that Chomsky is a perfect man. But in general, I find Chomsky's and Foucault's debate on human nature to be very stimulating.","human_ref_B":"Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein I like language","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9067.0,"score_ratio":1.6363636364} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkexmk","c_root_id_B":"dlko7t4","created_at_utc_A":1502644339,"created_at_utc_B":1502655804,"score_A":11,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I find myself always going back to Chomsky to sharpen myself. In my college days I was infatuated with existentialism. I then began to take postmodernism more seriously, but suddenly realized the shortcomings of it. Chomsky in general helps me be less abstract and more practical; he helps me get rid of philosophical garbage that's merely rhetorical by moving me towards practical and objective thinking. This is not to say that Chomsky is a perfect man. But in general, I find Chomsky's and Foucault's debate on human nature to be very stimulating.","human_ref_B":"Being and Time has been the book that I've consistently returned to since I first discovered Heidegger as an undergrad. Mostly because, like most continental philosophers my work is building on his I guess, and also because he presented a new perspective I hadn't come across before and I find that reminding myself of that moment of wonder is very helpful for motivation when I wonder why I'm still bothering.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11465.0,"score_ratio":1.1818181818} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkmtdr","c_root_id_B":"dlko7t4","created_at_utc_A":1502654108,"created_at_utc_B":1502655804,"score_A":4,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Walden.","human_ref_B":"Being and Time has been the book that I've consistently returned to since I first discovered Heidegger as an undergrad. Mostly because, like most continental philosophers my work is building on his I guess, and also because he presented a new perspective I hadn't come across before and I find that reminding myself of that moment of wonder is very helpful for motivation when I wonder why I'm still bothering.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1696.0,"score_ratio":3.25} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlko7t4","c_root_id_B":"dlkmqc8","created_at_utc_A":1502655804,"created_at_utc_B":1502654003,"score_A":13,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Being and Time has been the book that I've consistently returned to since I first discovered Heidegger as an undergrad. Mostly because, like most continental philosophers my work is building on his I guess, and also because he presented a new perspective I hadn't come across before and I find that reminding myself of that moment of wonder is very helpful for motivation when I wonder why I'm still bothering.","human_ref_B":"*Thus Spoke Zathurusta* by Nietsche *Unit Operations: A Approach to Videogame Criticism* by Ian Bogust No specific titles but I find myself revisiting the following a lot: Foucault, Kristeva, Lacan, and Judith Butler a lot.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1801.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dll8h8h","c_root_id_B":"dlkmtdr","created_at_utc_A":1502681297,"created_at_utc_B":1502654108,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Spinoza's Ethics. I read it because I think Spinoza is probably right. Right in the sense that Einstein thought him right: \"I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.\" I think there is some lasting truth within Spinoza's writings that has yet to be revealed. Einstein took that trick of equating two presumed-to-be-disparate things and equated matter and energy, later space and time...which turned out to be true. A similar trick is found in proposition 2P43: He, who has a true idea, simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt of the truth of the thing perceived. * Matter = Energy * Space = Time * Idea = Thing I can't work it out yet, but I'm pretty sure that third one holds just as much as the first two. I just can't work it out yet. But once we work out that equivalence, we'll solve every problem, since problems result from false ideas.","human_ref_B":"Walden.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27189.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dll8h8h","c_root_id_B":"dlkmqc8","created_at_utc_A":1502681297,"created_at_utc_B":1502654003,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Spinoza's Ethics. I read it because I think Spinoza is probably right. Right in the sense that Einstein thought him right: \"I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.\" I think there is some lasting truth within Spinoza's writings that has yet to be revealed. Einstein took that trick of equating two presumed-to-be-disparate things and equated matter and energy, later space and time...which turned out to be true. A similar trick is found in proposition 2P43: He, who has a true idea, simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt of the truth of the thing perceived. * Matter = Energy * Space = Time * Idea = Thing I can't work it out yet, but I'm pretty sure that third one holds just as much as the first two. I just can't work it out yet. But once we work out that equivalence, we'll solve every problem, since problems result from false ideas.","human_ref_B":"*Thus Spoke Zathurusta* by Nietsche *Unit Operations: A Approach to Videogame Criticism* by Ian Bogust No specific titles but I find myself revisiting the following a lot: Foucault, Kristeva, Lacan, and Judith Butler a lot.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27294.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dll8h8h","c_root_id_B":"dll1jwy","created_at_utc_A":1502681297,"created_at_utc_B":1502672599,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Spinoza's Ethics. I read it because I think Spinoza is probably right. Right in the sense that Einstein thought him right: \"I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.\" I think there is some lasting truth within Spinoza's writings that has yet to be revealed. Einstein took that trick of equating two presumed-to-be-disparate things and equated matter and energy, later space and time...which turned out to be true. A similar trick is found in proposition 2P43: He, who has a true idea, simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt of the truth of the thing perceived. * Matter = Energy * Space = Time * Idea = Thing I can't work it out yet, but I'm pretty sure that third one holds just as much as the first two. I just can't work it out yet. But once we work out that equivalence, we'll solve every problem, since problems result from false ideas.","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein's *Tractatus* Popper's *Objective Knowledge* Kant's *Critique* and *Groundwork* Whitehead's *Science and the Modern World* and *Process and Reality* Bergson's *Time and Free Will* Searle's *Rationality in Action*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8698.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dlkmqc8","c_root_id_B":"dlkmtdr","created_at_utc_A":1502654003,"created_at_utc_B":1502654108,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"*Thus Spoke Zathurusta* by Nietsche *Unit Operations: A Approach to Videogame Criticism* by Ian Bogust No specific titles but I find myself revisiting the following a lot: Foucault, Kristeva, Lacan, and Judith Butler a lot.","human_ref_B":"Walden.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":105.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"6tfx0c","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Which philosophy books and papers do you constantly read over and over again? Why? Or in other words, which philosophy books and papers are most important to you?","c_root_id_A":"dll1jwy","c_root_id_B":"dlldo48","created_at_utc_A":1502672599,"created_at_utc_B":1502689280,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Wittgenstein's *Tractatus* Popper's *Objective Knowledge* Kant's *Critique* and *Groundwork* Whitehead's *Science and the Modern World* and *Process and Reality* Bergson's *Time and Free Will* Searle's *Rationality in Action*","human_ref_B":"*Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals*, because every time I read it, I realize how little of it I had actually understood on my previous reading.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16681.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"oj2zf0","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"good books to read to start getting into philosophy \u2018properly\u2019? so far i\u2019ve only read bits and pieces of different philosophers books-as i\u2019m waiting for a couple to arrive-and mini thesis\u2019\/ essays on different philosophies. i\u2019m pretty young so i know that it\u2019s gonna be pretty difficult for me to understand the majority of the wording (already finding the first paragraphs of aristotle\u2019s \u2018the complete works\u2019 slightly difficult lol) but i want to give it a shot. at the moment, i only have: -*exploring philosophy: faking nature* - the open university -*Aristotle; the complete works* - aristotle (obviously lol) -*an introduction to philosophy* - George stuart fullerton -*philosophy: the nature of persons* - the open university -*between psychology and philosophy, palgrave studies in comparative east-west philosophy* - michael slote these are ones my mum previously had, i didn\u2019t actively go out and looks for these so i\u2019m not sure on what philosophy a lot of these look into. are any of these good reads? i\u2019m aiming to at least try read all of these as much as i can anyways, but i think having a priority list would be beneficial. i know there\u2019s not a way to properly be into philosophy but i am genuinely interested and want to try find a way to best figure things out. for reference, the books ordered are the myth of sisyphus, the stranger and i\u2019m planning on getting sartre\u2019s work, nietzsche\u2019s work, some things on metaphysics, and i\u2019m not too sure what else. it\u2019s possible i\u2019m getting ahead of myself, but who knows? but yeah, any recommendations or advice?","c_root_id_A":"h4zo83b","c_root_id_B":"h4zspfh","created_at_utc_A":1626141167,"created_at_utc_B":1626143598,"score_A":5,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"how to be a philosopher by gary cox is a good introduction because it walks you through the main areas of philosophy. once you've finished that (or really, ANY pop-philosophy book), take u\/Philosopher013's advice and follow up on what was most interesting in that book.","human_ref_B":"\u201cThe safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.\u201d Alfred North Whitehead Start with Plato\u2019s Dialogues and branch off from there. Then, when you find the search for meaning waning, read the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing) and follow the Eastern branches of philosophy. This is a semi-autobiographical response. That\u2019s what helped me through my philosophical journey and I found the contrast between East and West the most fruitful. In the West, the idea is that truth is out there somewhere and we must find it, isolate it, capture it. In the East, the idea is that you already possess the truth and must search within. An obvious oversimplification","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2431.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"s6zvdb","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Who or what is the god of Spinoza? I've been reading his \"Ethics\", but i cannot really comprehend who he calls god. Is it a metaphor, or does he really believe in a higher force that \"rules the world\"?","c_root_id_A":"ht7fmez","c_root_id_B":"ht7rs6v","created_at_utc_A":1642529348,"created_at_utc_B":1642533839,"score_A":4,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"For Spinoza, God does not rule the world because God is not a person with a will or desires. Rather, God just is the world. I forget exactly where in the Ethics this occurs, but I seem to recall him referring to his concept of God as \u201cGod, or Nature.\u201d","human_ref_B":"God is not a who, in Spinoza. The Appendix to Book 1 has a good overview of what Spinoza tries to say about God, written in a manner that is more approachable to most readers. > All such opinions spring from the notion commonly entertained, that all things in nature act as men themselves act, namely, with an end in view. It is accepted as certain, that God himself directs all things to a definite goal (for it is said that God made all things for man, and man that he might worship him). I will, therefore, consider this opinion, asking first why it obtains general credence, and why all men are naturally so prone to adopt it ? secondly, I will point out its falsity; and, lastly, I will show how it has given rise to prejudices about good and bad, right and wrong, praise and blame, order and confusion, beauty and ugliness, and the like. God, in Spinoza, is not an invisible man living in the sky. God is Nature: \"For the eternal and infinite Being, which we call God or Nature, acts by the same necessity as that whereby it exists.\" Once you understand that bit, you should go back and re-read Book 1. It will likely make much more sense.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4491.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"soeabx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is Michael Sugrue reliable? I watched a few of his lectures on youtube and really enjoyed them. I ended up listening to his podcast with his daughter. I\u2019m very much a beginner at philosophy (only just started reading) but this episode is concerning to me. In it, he sums up Fanon\u2019s philosophy as wanting to get revenge on white people by black people becoming the oppressors. Then he kinda just rambles about how every nation has had oppressed classes and that most places in the 1800\/1900s were shit for most people, not just those colonised. He does clarify that what the west did was wrong and says we should do better, but then he kinda just goes back to talking about how the colonised aren\u2019t unique victims of oppression and how so many humanities courses just talk about \u201cbullshit\u201d like gender theory, post colonialism and poststructualism. This just seems lazy and irresponsible as an episode on Fanon. You take one of the most influential post colonial writers, sum up his philosophy as \u201ci want blacks to oppress whites now\u201d and then chat shit about how humanities courses suck. His main point is just \u201ceveryone was barbaric pre modernity\u201d. I don\u2019t disagree with that but i think it\u2019s obvious that POC were seen and treated differently than even white people who had shit lives. I just don\u2019t understand why you\u2019d make this the point of the episode. Michael Sugrue - Fanon podcast","c_root_id_A":"hw8pa4o","c_root_id_B":"hw855z9","created_at_utc_A":1644423911,"created_at_utc_B":1644415784,"score_A":50,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"That's a super painful 17 minutes. I would say, in the first place, let's take it for what it is - it's not a podcast about Fanon, right. Sugrue is more or less shooting the breeze with his daughter in relation to a chapter she just read - I don't say \"about\" because they don't say anything about the subject of that chapter, the relationship between the colonized subject and language. What Sugrue does say is puzzling and on a range between accidentally deceptive to the audience (when he talks about emotion and violence) to just wrong (when he talks about the reversal of colonialism ending with nothing other than amoral black supremacy). Moreover, parts of his analysis are weirdly self-contradictory, as when he seems to criticize Fanon's psychologism, and then basically gives a (incredibly superficial) psychologistic reading of Fanon as being, basically, a very mad dying guy who is angry about \"every slight\" ever visited on him. Yet, later, it seems like he more or less cops to the idea that colonialism was horrible and genocide is horrible and that atonement is necessary, but, like, the idea that this atonement might itself be violent is, I guess, so unimaginable that Fanon is just a guy \"with matches.\" As you estimate, this just can't be a very good reading of Fanon, and I don't think it really intends to be. I think we could and should reasonably criticize him for putting this nonsense out into the ether, but it's plainly non-serious discourse where he's just kind of dishing dissess and platitudes with his daughter as the two of them share cross-generational catholic angst about the downfall of western civilization thanks to the bankruptcy of academia - he a late\/end career Great Books professor and she an undergraduate struggling through the detritus of the 20th century post-blah-blah humanities. So, anyway, I think the question here ought to be reigned in with respect to what happens. Is Sugrue reliable? Well, about what and in what setting? I'm not really sure what we could take him to be reliable *about* here because he doesn't really talk about anything specific in much level of detail and, when it does, it's a kind of weird mess (as you suggest). Now, compare this to what his old *Great Courses* lectures are like. They're prepared, for one thing, and they're specific and exegetical, for another thing. So, centering this on the person is, I think, likely to be confounding because a person can do a lot of things in a lot of contexts. If you want an entertaining (if partial, because of how he see's Plato historically) detailed exegesis of Plato, then his old lectures are great. And, to his credit, he's actually a pretty serviceable interpreter of Nietzsche and (at least back when he did his old *Great Courses* lectures) gives a pretty sensitive reading of Nietzsche. (He calls him both one of the greatest thinkers in the whole western tradition, and also calls him a racist, mysoginist, and anti-semite.) Things, though, start to come apart as he gets closer and closer to the 21st century. His critiques of Lyotard and the Frankfurt school, for instance, often appear as something more like schematic afterthoughts rather than sustained commentary, but the exegesis is still sometimes good.","human_ref_B":"That doesn't sound much like what Fanon wrote, no, and someone who thinks gender theory, post colonialism and poststructualism are 'bullshit' isn't going to be able to give a full and proper account of the history of Philosophy in of gender theory, post colonialism and poststructualism being part of the history of Philosophy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8127.0,"score_ratio":1.0204081633} +{"post_id":"soeabx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is Michael Sugrue reliable? I watched a few of his lectures on youtube and really enjoyed them. I ended up listening to his podcast with his daughter. I\u2019m very much a beginner at philosophy (only just started reading) but this episode is concerning to me. In it, he sums up Fanon\u2019s philosophy as wanting to get revenge on white people by black people becoming the oppressors. Then he kinda just rambles about how every nation has had oppressed classes and that most places in the 1800\/1900s were shit for most people, not just those colonised. He does clarify that what the west did was wrong and says we should do better, but then he kinda just goes back to talking about how the colonised aren\u2019t unique victims of oppression and how so many humanities courses just talk about \u201cbullshit\u201d like gender theory, post colonialism and poststructualism. This just seems lazy and irresponsible as an episode on Fanon. You take one of the most influential post colonial writers, sum up his philosophy as \u201ci want blacks to oppress whites now\u201d and then chat shit about how humanities courses suck. His main point is just \u201ceveryone was barbaric pre modernity\u201d. I don\u2019t disagree with that but i think it\u2019s obvious that POC were seen and treated differently than even white people who had shit lives. I just don\u2019t understand why you\u2019d make this the point of the episode. Michael Sugrue - Fanon podcast","c_root_id_A":"hw8e4js","c_root_id_B":"hw8pa4o","created_at_utc_A":1644419574,"created_at_utc_B":1644423911,"score_A":29,"score_B":50,"human_ref_A":"I mean, this is the kind of question that answers itself after you've finished writing it out.","human_ref_B":"That's a super painful 17 minutes. I would say, in the first place, let's take it for what it is - it's not a podcast about Fanon, right. Sugrue is more or less shooting the breeze with his daughter in relation to a chapter she just read - I don't say \"about\" because they don't say anything about the subject of that chapter, the relationship between the colonized subject and language. What Sugrue does say is puzzling and on a range between accidentally deceptive to the audience (when he talks about emotion and violence) to just wrong (when he talks about the reversal of colonialism ending with nothing other than amoral black supremacy). Moreover, parts of his analysis are weirdly self-contradictory, as when he seems to criticize Fanon's psychologism, and then basically gives a (incredibly superficial) psychologistic reading of Fanon as being, basically, a very mad dying guy who is angry about \"every slight\" ever visited on him. Yet, later, it seems like he more or less cops to the idea that colonialism was horrible and genocide is horrible and that atonement is necessary, but, like, the idea that this atonement might itself be violent is, I guess, so unimaginable that Fanon is just a guy \"with matches.\" As you estimate, this just can't be a very good reading of Fanon, and I don't think it really intends to be. I think we could and should reasonably criticize him for putting this nonsense out into the ether, but it's plainly non-serious discourse where he's just kind of dishing dissess and platitudes with his daughter as the two of them share cross-generational catholic angst about the downfall of western civilization thanks to the bankruptcy of academia - he a late\/end career Great Books professor and she an undergraduate struggling through the detritus of the 20th century post-blah-blah humanities. So, anyway, I think the question here ought to be reigned in with respect to what happens. Is Sugrue reliable? Well, about what and in what setting? I'm not really sure what we could take him to be reliable *about* here because he doesn't really talk about anything specific in much level of detail and, when it does, it's a kind of weird mess (as you suggest). Now, compare this to what his old *Great Courses* lectures are like. They're prepared, for one thing, and they're specific and exegetical, for another thing. So, centering this on the person is, I think, likely to be confounding because a person can do a lot of things in a lot of contexts. If you want an entertaining (if partial, because of how he see's Plato historically) detailed exegesis of Plato, then his old lectures are great. And, to his credit, he's actually a pretty serviceable interpreter of Nietzsche and (at least back when he did his old *Great Courses* lectures) gives a pretty sensitive reading of Nietzsche. (He calls him both one of the greatest thinkers in the whole western tradition, and also calls him a racist, mysoginist, and anti-semite.) Things, though, start to come apart as he gets closer and closer to the 21st century. His critiques of Lyotard and the Frankfurt school, for instance, often appear as something more like schematic afterthoughts rather than sustained commentary, but the exegesis is still sometimes good.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4337.0,"score_ratio":1.724137931} +{"post_id":"soeabx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is Michael Sugrue reliable? I watched a few of his lectures on youtube and really enjoyed them. I ended up listening to his podcast with his daughter. I\u2019m very much a beginner at philosophy (only just started reading) but this episode is concerning to me. In it, he sums up Fanon\u2019s philosophy as wanting to get revenge on white people by black people becoming the oppressors. Then he kinda just rambles about how every nation has had oppressed classes and that most places in the 1800\/1900s were shit for most people, not just those colonised. He does clarify that what the west did was wrong and says we should do better, but then he kinda just goes back to talking about how the colonised aren\u2019t unique victims of oppression and how so many humanities courses just talk about \u201cbullshit\u201d like gender theory, post colonialism and poststructualism. This just seems lazy and irresponsible as an episode on Fanon. You take one of the most influential post colonial writers, sum up his philosophy as \u201ci want blacks to oppress whites now\u201d and then chat shit about how humanities courses suck. His main point is just \u201ceveryone was barbaric pre modernity\u201d. I don\u2019t disagree with that but i think it\u2019s obvious that POC were seen and treated differently than even white people who had shit lives. I just don\u2019t understand why you\u2019d make this the point of the episode. Michael Sugrue - Fanon podcast","c_root_id_A":"hw8pa4o","c_root_id_B":"hw8hpq0","created_at_utc_A":1644423911,"created_at_utc_B":1644421003,"score_A":50,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"That's a super painful 17 minutes. I would say, in the first place, let's take it for what it is - it's not a podcast about Fanon, right. Sugrue is more or less shooting the breeze with his daughter in relation to a chapter she just read - I don't say \"about\" because they don't say anything about the subject of that chapter, the relationship between the colonized subject and language. What Sugrue does say is puzzling and on a range between accidentally deceptive to the audience (when he talks about emotion and violence) to just wrong (when he talks about the reversal of colonialism ending with nothing other than amoral black supremacy). Moreover, parts of his analysis are weirdly self-contradictory, as when he seems to criticize Fanon's psychologism, and then basically gives a (incredibly superficial) psychologistic reading of Fanon as being, basically, a very mad dying guy who is angry about \"every slight\" ever visited on him. Yet, later, it seems like he more or less cops to the idea that colonialism was horrible and genocide is horrible and that atonement is necessary, but, like, the idea that this atonement might itself be violent is, I guess, so unimaginable that Fanon is just a guy \"with matches.\" As you estimate, this just can't be a very good reading of Fanon, and I don't think it really intends to be. I think we could and should reasonably criticize him for putting this nonsense out into the ether, but it's plainly non-serious discourse where he's just kind of dishing dissess and platitudes with his daughter as the two of them share cross-generational catholic angst about the downfall of western civilization thanks to the bankruptcy of academia - he a late\/end career Great Books professor and she an undergraduate struggling through the detritus of the 20th century post-blah-blah humanities. So, anyway, I think the question here ought to be reigned in with respect to what happens. Is Sugrue reliable? Well, about what and in what setting? I'm not really sure what we could take him to be reliable *about* here because he doesn't really talk about anything specific in much level of detail and, when it does, it's a kind of weird mess (as you suggest). Now, compare this to what his old *Great Courses* lectures are like. They're prepared, for one thing, and they're specific and exegetical, for another thing. So, centering this on the person is, I think, likely to be confounding because a person can do a lot of things in a lot of contexts. If you want an entertaining (if partial, because of how he see's Plato historically) detailed exegesis of Plato, then his old lectures are great. And, to his credit, he's actually a pretty serviceable interpreter of Nietzsche and (at least back when he did his old *Great Courses* lectures) gives a pretty sensitive reading of Nietzsche. (He calls him both one of the greatest thinkers in the whole western tradition, and also calls him a racist, mysoginist, and anti-semite.) Things, though, start to come apart as he gets closer and closer to the 21st century. His critiques of Lyotard and the Frankfurt school, for instance, often appear as something more like schematic afterthoughts rather than sustained commentary, but the exegesis is still sometimes good.","human_ref_B":"I am personally a fan of Dr. Sugrue's lectures which he originally gave for the great courses but later made available on Youtube for free. I am particularly fond of his lectures on Platonic dialogues and I find them especially good for beginners. Other lectures I found good where the ones on Hegel, Roland Barthes and structuralism as well as the ones where he talked about the Bible. The podcast I did not really listen to. To the capacity I can answer your question, I can confidently say that: Dr. Michael Sugrue is a very competent introductory lecturer to Plato. Hope this helps.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2908.0,"score_ratio":1.9230769231} +{"post_id":"soeabx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is Michael Sugrue reliable? I watched a few of his lectures on youtube and really enjoyed them. I ended up listening to his podcast with his daughter. I\u2019m very much a beginner at philosophy (only just started reading) but this episode is concerning to me. In it, he sums up Fanon\u2019s philosophy as wanting to get revenge on white people by black people becoming the oppressors. Then he kinda just rambles about how every nation has had oppressed classes and that most places in the 1800\/1900s were shit for most people, not just those colonised. He does clarify that what the west did was wrong and says we should do better, but then he kinda just goes back to talking about how the colonised aren\u2019t unique victims of oppression and how so many humanities courses just talk about \u201cbullshit\u201d like gender theory, post colonialism and poststructualism. This just seems lazy and irresponsible as an episode on Fanon. You take one of the most influential post colonial writers, sum up his philosophy as \u201ci want blacks to oppress whites now\u201d and then chat shit about how humanities courses suck. His main point is just \u201ceveryone was barbaric pre modernity\u201d. I don\u2019t disagree with that but i think it\u2019s obvious that POC were seen and treated differently than even white people who had shit lives. I just don\u2019t understand why you\u2019d make this the point of the episode. Michael Sugrue - Fanon podcast","c_root_id_A":"hw8pa4o","c_root_id_B":"hw8fxy4","created_at_utc_A":1644423911,"created_at_utc_B":1644420302,"score_A":50,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"That's a super painful 17 minutes. I would say, in the first place, let's take it for what it is - it's not a podcast about Fanon, right. Sugrue is more or less shooting the breeze with his daughter in relation to a chapter she just read - I don't say \"about\" because they don't say anything about the subject of that chapter, the relationship between the colonized subject and language. What Sugrue does say is puzzling and on a range between accidentally deceptive to the audience (when he talks about emotion and violence) to just wrong (when he talks about the reversal of colonialism ending with nothing other than amoral black supremacy). Moreover, parts of his analysis are weirdly self-contradictory, as when he seems to criticize Fanon's psychologism, and then basically gives a (incredibly superficial) psychologistic reading of Fanon as being, basically, a very mad dying guy who is angry about \"every slight\" ever visited on him. Yet, later, it seems like he more or less cops to the idea that colonialism was horrible and genocide is horrible and that atonement is necessary, but, like, the idea that this atonement might itself be violent is, I guess, so unimaginable that Fanon is just a guy \"with matches.\" As you estimate, this just can't be a very good reading of Fanon, and I don't think it really intends to be. I think we could and should reasonably criticize him for putting this nonsense out into the ether, but it's plainly non-serious discourse where he's just kind of dishing dissess and platitudes with his daughter as the two of them share cross-generational catholic angst about the downfall of western civilization thanks to the bankruptcy of academia - he a late\/end career Great Books professor and she an undergraduate struggling through the detritus of the 20th century post-blah-blah humanities. So, anyway, I think the question here ought to be reigned in with respect to what happens. Is Sugrue reliable? Well, about what and in what setting? I'm not really sure what we could take him to be reliable *about* here because he doesn't really talk about anything specific in much level of detail and, when it does, it's a kind of weird mess (as you suggest). Now, compare this to what his old *Great Courses* lectures are like. They're prepared, for one thing, and they're specific and exegetical, for another thing. So, centering this on the person is, I think, likely to be confounding because a person can do a lot of things in a lot of contexts. If you want an entertaining (if partial, because of how he see's Plato historically) detailed exegesis of Plato, then his old lectures are great. And, to his credit, he's actually a pretty serviceable interpreter of Nietzsche and (at least back when he did his old *Great Courses* lectures) gives a pretty sensitive reading of Nietzsche. (He calls him both one of the greatest thinkers in the whole western tradition, and also calls him a racist, mysoginist, and anti-semite.) Things, though, start to come apart as he gets closer and closer to the 21st century. His critiques of Lyotard and the Frankfurt school, for instance, often appear as something more like schematic afterthoughts rather than sustained commentary, but the exegesis is still sometimes good.","human_ref_B":"He and his daughter also have a wildly incorrect reading of Kierkegaard so I wouldn't be surprised. Which is a shame because his lecture videos on youtube are quite nice.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3609.0,"score_ratio":4.1666666667} +{"post_id":"soeabx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is Michael Sugrue reliable? I watched a few of his lectures on youtube and really enjoyed them. I ended up listening to his podcast with his daughter. I\u2019m very much a beginner at philosophy (only just started reading) but this episode is concerning to me. In it, he sums up Fanon\u2019s philosophy as wanting to get revenge on white people by black people becoming the oppressors. Then he kinda just rambles about how every nation has had oppressed classes and that most places in the 1800\/1900s were shit for most people, not just those colonised. He does clarify that what the west did was wrong and says we should do better, but then he kinda just goes back to talking about how the colonised aren\u2019t unique victims of oppression and how so many humanities courses just talk about \u201cbullshit\u201d like gender theory, post colonialism and poststructualism. This just seems lazy and irresponsible as an episode on Fanon. You take one of the most influential post colonial writers, sum up his philosophy as \u201ci want blacks to oppress whites now\u201d and then chat shit about how humanities courses suck. His main point is just \u201ceveryone was barbaric pre modernity\u201d. I don\u2019t disagree with that but i think it\u2019s obvious that POC were seen and treated differently than even white people who had shit lives. I just don\u2019t understand why you\u2019d make this the point of the episode. Michael Sugrue - Fanon podcast","c_root_id_A":"hw8e4js","c_root_id_B":"hw9kg96","created_at_utc_A":1644419574,"created_at_utc_B":1644435419,"score_A":29,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"I mean, this is the kind of question that answers itself after you've finished writing it out.","human_ref_B":"In the following episode on Foucault, after about ten minutes of making it clear what a pedophile and amoral monster Foucault was (as poorly supported as either claim might be), once his daughter mentions she doesn't really know much about \"postmodernism\", Sugrue says she knows well enough, better than her teachers, to recognize it as the end of philosophy. Postmodernism is to call everything a day, to \"beat each other up and fuck at random\" was the rough choice of words. Then we transition to Sugrue's opinions on *the transgenders*, who are men in dresses making unreasonable demands about what to call them. I remember taking some issue with some of his old lectures on French thinkers, but those disagreements seemed like serious engagements with the thinkers. They made me consider my positions critically, and I felt I got a lot out of his Great Thinkers lecture series in general. It's hard to believe this talk radio pundit sounding crank is the same guy. I would still recommend the old lectures to people, but to proceed with caution on topics from the mid 20th century onwards.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15845.0,"score_ratio":1.275862069} +{"post_id":"soeabx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is Michael Sugrue reliable? I watched a few of his lectures on youtube and really enjoyed them. I ended up listening to his podcast with his daughter. I\u2019m very much a beginner at philosophy (only just started reading) but this episode is concerning to me. In it, he sums up Fanon\u2019s philosophy as wanting to get revenge on white people by black people becoming the oppressors. Then he kinda just rambles about how every nation has had oppressed classes and that most places in the 1800\/1900s were shit for most people, not just those colonised. He does clarify that what the west did was wrong and says we should do better, but then he kinda just goes back to talking about how the colonised aren\u2019t unique victims of oppression and how so many humanities courses just talk about \u201cbullshit\u201d like gender theory, post colonialism and poststructualism. This just seems lazy and irresponsible as an episode on Fanon. You take one of the most influential post colonial writers, sum up his philosophy as \u201ci want blacks to oppress whites now\u201d and then chat shit about how humanities courses suck. His main point is just \u201ceveryone was barbaric pre modernity\u201d. I don\u2019t disagree with that but i think it\u2019s obvious that POC were seen and treated differently than even white people who had shit lives. I just don\u2019t understand why you\u2019d make this the point of the episode. Michael Sugrue - Fanon podcast","c_root_id_A":"hw9kg96","c_root_id_B":"hw8hpq0","created_at_utc_A":1644435419,"created_at_utc_B":1644421003,"score_A":37,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"In the following episode on Foucault, after about ten minutes of making it clear what a pedophile and amoral monster Foucault was (as poorly supported as either claim might be), once his daughter mentions she doesn't really know much about \"postmodernism\", Sugrue says she knows well enough, better than her teachers, to recognize it as the end of philosophy. Postmodernism is to call everything a day, to \"beat each other up and fuck at random\" was the rough choice of words. Then we transition to Sugrue's opinions on *the transgenders*, who are men in dresses making unreasonable demands about what to call them. I remember taking some issue with some of his old lectures on French thinkers, but those disagreements seemed like serious engagements with the thinkers. They made me consider my positions critically, and I felt I got a lot out of his Great Thinkers lecture series in general. It's hard to believe this talk radio pundit sounding crank is the same guy. I would still recommend the old lectures to people, but to proceed with caution on topics from the mid 20th century onwards.","human_ref_B":"I am personally a fan of Dr. Sugrue's lectures which he originally gave for the great courses but later made available on Youtube for free. I am particularly fond of his lectures on Platonic dialogues and I find them especially good for beginners. Other lectures I found good where the ones on Hegel, Roland Barthes and structuralism as well as the ones where he talked about the Bible. The podcast I did not really listen to. To the capacity I can answer your question, I can confidently say that: Dr. Michael Sugrue is a very competent introductory lecturer to Plato. Hope this helps.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14416.0,"score_ratio":1.4230769231} +{"post_id":"soeabx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is Michael Sugrue reliable? I watched a few of his lectures on youtube and really enjoyed them. I ended up listening to his podcast with his daughter. I\u2019m very much a beginner at philosophy (only just started reading) but this episode is concerning to me. In it, he sums up Fanon\u2019s philosophy as wanting to get revenge on white people by black people becoming the oppressors. Then he kinda just rambles about how every nation has had oppressed classes and that most places in the 1800\/1900s were shit for most people, not just those colonised. He does clarify that what the west did was wrong and says we should do better, but then he kinda just goes back to talking about how the colonised aren\u2019t unique victims of oppression and how so many humanities courses just talk about \u201cbullshit\u201d like gender theory, post colonialism and poststructualism. This just seems lazy and irresponsible as an episode on Fanon. You take one of the most influential post colonial writers, sum up his philosophy as \u201ci want blacks to oppress whites now\u201d and then chat shit about how humanities courses suck. His main point is just \u201ceveryone was barbaric pre modernity\u201d. I don\u2019t disagree with that but i think it\u2019s obvious that POC were seen and treated differently than even white people who had shit lives. I just don\u2019t understand why you\u2019d make this the point of the episode. Michael Sugrue - Fanon podcast","c_root_id_A":"hw9kg96","c_root_id_B":"hw8fxy4","created_at_utc_A":1644435419,"created_at_utc_B":1644420302,"score_A":37,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"In the following episode on Foucault, after about ten minutes of making it clear what a pedophile and amoral monster Foucault was (as poorly supported as either claim might be), once his daughter mentions she doesn't really know much about \"postmodernism\", Sugrue says she knows well enough, better than her teachers, to recognize it as the end of philosophy. Postmodernism is to call everything a day, to \"beat each other up and fuck at random\" was the rough choice of words. Then we transition to Sugrue's opinions on *the transgenders*, who are men in dresses making unreasonable demands about what to call them. I remember taking some issue with some of his old lectures on French thinkers, but those disagreements seemed like serious engagements with the thinkers. They made me consider my positions critically, and I felt I got a lot out of his Great Thinkers lecture series in general. It's hard to believe this talk radio pundit sounding crank is the same guy. I would still recommend the old lectures to people, but to proceed with caution on topics from the mid 20th century onwards.","human_ref_B":"He and his daughter also have a wildly incorrect reading of Kierkegaard so I wouldn't be surprised. Which is a shame because his lecture videos on youtube are quite nice.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15117.0,"score_ratio":3.0833333333} +{"post_id":"soeabx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is Michael Sugrue reliable? I watched a few of his lectures on youtube and really enjoyed them. I ended up listening to his podcast with his daughter. I\u2019m very much a beginner at philosophy (only just started reading) but this episode is concerning to me. In it, he sums up Fanon\u2019s philosophy as wanting to get revenge on white people by black people becoming the oppressors. Then he kinda just rambles about how every nation has had oppressed classes and that most places in the 1800\/1900s were shit for most people, not just those colonised. He does clarify that what the west did was wrong and says we should do better, but then he kinda just goes back to talking about how the colonised aren\u2019t unique victims of oppression and how so many humanities courses just talk about \u201cbullshit\u201d like gender theory, post colonialism and poststructualism. This just seems lazy and irresponsible as an episode on Fanon. You take one of the most influential post colonial writers, sum up his philosophy as \u201ci want blacks to oppress whites now\u201d and then chat shit about how humanities courses suck. His main point is just \u201ceveryone was barbaric pre modernity\u201d. I don\u2019t disagree with that but i think it\u2019s obvious that POC were seen and treated differently than even white people who had shit lives. I just don\u2019t understand why you\u2019d make this the point of the episode. Michael Sugrue - Fanon podcast","c_root_id_A":"hw8fxy4","c_root_id_B":"hw8hpq0","created_at_utc_A":1644420302,"created_at_utc_B":1644421003,"score_A":12,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"He and his daughter also have a wildly incorrect reading of Kierkegaard so I wouldn't be surprised. Which is a shame because his lecture videos on youtube are quite nice.","human_ref_B":"I am personally a fan of Dr. Sugrue's lectures which he originally gave for the great courses but later made available on Youtube for free. I am particularly fond of his lectures on Platonic dialogues and I find them especially good for beginners. Other lectures I found good where the ones on Hegel, Roland Barthes and structuralism as well as the ones where he talked about the Bible. The podcast I did not really listen to. To the capacity I can answer your question, I can confidently say that: Dr. Michael Sugrue is a very competent introductory lecturer to Plato. Hope this helps.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":701.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} +{"post_id":"1v35zj","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Humans see in color, pigeons see millions of hues, dogs see in black and white, snakes can sense heat, and flies have millions of lenses in which they perceive the world. How then, do we know what the world actually looks like?","c_root_id_A":"ceo9jsk","c_root_id_B":"ceo9voa","created_at_utc_A":1389591286,"created_at_utc_B":1389592265,"score_A":6,"score_B":53,"human_ref_A":"It seems analytically true that the way the world appears to you depends on the processes you have by which to look at the world. The question is, I think, why this is supposed to be a problem.","human_ref_B":"It doesn't \"actually\" look like anything. \"Looking like\" is something the world does in various ways to things that perceive things visually. There's no \"actual\" version of it that isn't relative to things doing the perceiving.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":979.0,"score_ratio":8.8333333333} +{"post_id":"4gsuya","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are any schools particularly well known for their undergraduate philosophy education? I TA a class that meets in a maximum security prison and one of the students is getting released soon. He's expressed a desire to study philosophy once he gets out and has asked the professor and I for a list of schools where he might want to do that. Bracketing for the time being the practical factors involved in this decision, what should we tell him? I know what the top schools for graduate study are, and I assume their undergraduate programs are accordingly good to at least some extent, but are there any schools that have a particular reputation for quality undergrad philosophical education? I feel like I've heard UMKC brought up before in this regard, am I making that up? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"d2kl90q","c_root_id_B":"d2kod1k","created_at_utc_A":1461846368,"created_at_utc_B":1461851966,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Western Washington University has been recognized as having one of the nation's best philosophy departments among schools that only offer a bachelors in the discipline.","human_ref_B":">I know what the top schools for graduate study are, and I assume their undergraduate programs are accordingly good to at least some extent Noooope! I've heard from plenty of people that Columbia, for instance, has a crummy undergrad program in terms of the education you receive. In general I don't think there's a lot of information floating around professional philosophers in terms of who has a good undergraduate program. The best way to find this out would be to ask current students. You said \"bracketing for the time being the practical factors involved in this decision\" but really what you ought to do is narrow down colleges based on those factors and *then* check which ones have good undergrad philosophy programs, because that's doable. What's *not* doable is surveying every college ever to find the good undergrad programs.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5598.0,"score_ratio":1.8} +{"post_id":"4gsuya","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are any schools particularly well known for their undergraduate philosophy education? I TA a class that meets in a maximum security prison and one of the students is getting released soon. He's expressed a desire to study philosophy once he gets out and has asked the professor and I for a list of schools where he might want to do that. Bracketing for the time being the practical factors involved in this decision, what should we tell him? I know what the top schools for graduate study are, and I assume their undergraduate programs are accordingly good to at least some extent, but are there any schools that have a particular reputation for quality undergrad philosophical education? I feel like I've heard UMKC brought up before in this regard, am I making that up? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"d2kkc10","c_root_id_B":"d2kod1k","created_at_utc_A":1461844222,"created_at_utc_B":1461851966,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"If he has a strong interest in the cog sci \/ phil mind intersection, my school would be good. If he doesn't, as I suspect is true for most people, avoid at all costs.","human_ref_B":">I know what the top schools for graduate study are, and I assume their undergraduate programs are accordingly good to at least some extent Noooope! I've heard from plenty of people that Columbia, for instance, has a crummy undergrad program in terms of the education you receive. In general I don't think there's a lot of information floating around professional philosophers in terms of who has a good undergraduate program. The best way to find this out would be to ask current students. You said \"bracketing for the time being the practical factors involved in this decision\" but really what you ought to do is narrow down colleges based on those factors and *then* check which ones have good undergrad philosophy programs, because that's doable. What's *not* doable is surveying every college ever to find the good undergrad programs.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7744.0,"score_ratio":4.5} +{"post_id":"4gsuya","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are any schools particularly well known for their undergraduate philosophy education? I TA a class that meets in a maximum security prison and one of the students is getting released soon. He's expressed a desire to study philosophy once he gets out and has asked the professor and I for a list of schools where he might want to do that. Bracketing for the time being the practical factors involved in this decision, what should we tell him? I know what the top schools for graduate study are, and I assume their undergraduate programs are accordingly good to at least some extent, but are there any schools that have a particular reputation for quality undergrad philosophical education? I feel like I've heard UMKC brought up before in this regard, am I making that up? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"d2kkc10","c_root_id_B":"d2kl90q","created_at_utc_A":1461844222,"created_at_utc_B":1461846368,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"If he has a strong interest in the cog sci \/ phil mind intersection, my school would be good. If he doesn't, as I suspect is true for most people, avoid at all costs.","human_ref_B":"Western Washington University has been recognized as having one of the nation's best philosophy departments among schools that only offer a bachelors in the discipline.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2146.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"4gsuya","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are any schools particularly well known for their undergraduate philosophy education? I TA a class that meets in a maximum security prison and one of the students is getting released soon. He's expressed a desire to study philosophy once he gets out and has asked the professor and I for a list of schools where he might want to do that. Bracketing for the time being the practical factors involved in this decision, what should we tell him? I know what the top schools for graduate study are, and I assume their undergraduate programs are accordingly good to at least some extent, but are there any schools that have a particular reputation for quality undergrad philosophical education? I feel like I've heard UMKC brought up before in this regard, am I making that up? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"d2kqmki","c_root_id_B":"d2kkc10","created_at_utc_A":1461855267,"created_at_utc_B":1461844222,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Echoing the other comments, I don't think people usually compare undergrad education in *philosophy specifically*, so there's probably not going to be much reliable information available on this. However, you could look for institutions known for their undergrad education *generally* and look at the philosophy departments at those institutions. If the institution is known for undergrad education generally and its philosophy faculty is good, the philosophy course listings sufficiently diverse, etc., then that's probably a good sign (though, of course, by no means a guarantee). If admissions weren't a factor, I'd recommend the top undergrads. The class sizes are small, the professors teach the courses\/lead the seminars, the students are interested in the subject, and many offer related special programs (e.g. Yale has a Directed Studies program which covers the \"great\" works of the western canon).","human_ref_B":"If he has a strong interest in the cog sci \/ phil mind intersection, my school would be good. If he doesn't, as I suspect is true for most people, avoid at all costs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11045.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"4gsuya","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are any schools particularly well known for their undergraduate philosophy education? I TA a class that meets in a maximum security prison and one of the students is getting released soon. He's expressed a desire to study philosophy once he gets out and has asked the professor and I for a list of schools where he might want to do that. Bracketing for the time being the practical factors involved in this decision, what should we tell him? I know what the top schools for graduate study are, and I assume their undergraduate programs are accordingly good to at least some extent, but are there any schools that have a particular reputation for quality undergrad philosophical education? I feel like I've heard UMKC brought up before in this regard, am I making that up? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"d2kqmki","c_root_id_B":"d2kpfpj","created_at_utc_A":1461855267,"created_at_utc_B":1461853602,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Echoing the other comments, I don't think people usually compare undergrad education in *philosophy specifically*, so there's probably not going to be much reliable information available on this. However, you could look for institutions known for their undergrad education *generally* and look at the philosophy departments at those institutions. If the institution is known for undergrad education generally and its philosophy faculty is good, the philosophy course listings sufficiently diverse, etc., then that's probably a good sign (though, of course, by no means a guarantee). If admissions weren't a factor, I'd recommend the top undergrads. The class sizes are small, the professors teach the courses\/lead the seminars, the students are interested in the subject, and many offer related special programs (e.g. Yale has a Directed Studies program which covers the \"great\" works of the western canon).","human_ref_B":"Awesome question! What are his academics like? What kind of schools is he competitive for?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1665.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"4gsuya","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are any schools particularly well known for their undergraduate philosophy education? I TA a class that meets in a maximum security prison and one of the students is getting released soon. He's expressed a desire to study philosophy once he gets out and has asked the professor and I for a list of schools where he might want to do that. Bracketing for the time being the practical factors involved in this decision, what should we tell him? I know what the top schools for graduate study are, and I assume their undergraduate programs are accordingly good to at least some extent, but are there any schools that have a particular reputation for quality undergrad philosophical education? I feel like I've heard UMKC brought up before in this regard, am I making that up? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"d2kqmki","c_root_id_B":"d2kpw6o","created_at_utc_A":1461855267,"created_at_utc_B":1461854256,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Echoing the other comments, I don't think people usually compare undergrad education in *philosophy specifically*, so there's probably not going to be much reliable information available on this. However, you could look for institutions known for their undergrad education *generally* and look at the philosophy departments at those institutions. If the institution is known for undergrad education generally and its philosophy faculty is good, the philosophy course listings sufficiently diverse, etc., then that's probably a good sign (though, of course, by no means a guarantee). If admissions weren't a factor, I'd recommend the top undergrads. The class sizes are small, the professors teach the courses\/lead the seminars, the students are interested in the subject, and many offer related special programs (e.g. Yale has a Directed Studies program which covers the \"great\" works of the western canon).","human_ref_B":"There are lots of schools-a big part of the question is, what particular type\/area of philosophy is he interested in?' My own school is one of the best around as far as undergraduate Medieval philosophy is concerned. If he's interested in that, pm me. (Odds are he isn't, since few people are).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1011.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"9t9323","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is the fact that the universe exists, proof that the problem of infinite regress can somehow be solved? It's always been puzzled how the universe came into existence, because whatever the first cause was, there must have been a cause responsible for that cause, and so on. And if space and time did not exist before the big bang, why would anything happen at all? So it's been asked. ​ But, there is something rather than nothing. The problem of infinite regress for some reason just doesn't apply. Does that mean this problem is solvable, but we just don't know how?","c_root_id_A":"e8uh2w6","c_root_id_B":"e8uqy0u","created_at_utc_A":1541077664,"created_at_utc_B":1541086763,"score_A":12,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"Hegel answers this in his top-down\/bottom-up justification of 'true infinite'. He also makes the distinction between true vs bad infinite. Bad infinite would be infinite regress whereas true infinite is the absolute. Worth a read.","human_ref_B":"Some philosophers would question the notion as to whether we should assume there ever was a cause to the universe, thereby solving your infinite regression dilemma. In other words, how are we to know that matter hasn\u2019t always existed, if even in a condensed form? David Hume comes to mind. In his *Treatise of Human Nature*, he makes the observation that the Cosmological Argument for the necessary existence of God is built on the presupposition that X leads to Y, but that we only believe X causes Y because that\u2019s all we\u2019ve ever experienced. However, as Hume argues, we shouldn\u2019t assume the notion that X leads to Y applies to all things\u2014or that because there is matter, therefore there must have been a cause (God). Just because causal relationships between the existence of things is all that we have observed does not mean that we should assume this applies to matter itself, of which a cause has yet to be observed. As Hume illustrates, just because every swan we see pass under the bridge is white does not mean the next swan we see pass under the bridge will also be white; just because all we have seen are white swans, does not mean that all swans are white. More info on Hume\u2019s take on the Cosmological Argument can be found here: Hume\u2019s Take on the Cosmological Argument \u2014 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9099.0,"score_ratio":4.0833333333} +{"post_id":"9t9323","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is the fact that the universe exists, proof that the problem of infinite regress can somehow be solved? It's always been puzzled how the universe came into existence, because whatever the first cause was, there must have been a cause responsible for that cause, and so on. And if space and time did not exist before the big bang, why would anything happen at all? So it's been asked. ​ But, there is something rather than nothing. The problem of infinite regress for some reason just doesn't apply. Does that mean this problem is solvable, but we just don't know how?","c_root_id_A":"e8usfso","c_root_id_B":"e8uwdvf","created_at_utc_A":1541087984,"created_at_utc_B":1541091205,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"How much traction does Kant's explanation still have? I don't want to try to apply all of his terminology, but as I recall, he suggested that it's one thing to adopt the principle that every event has a cause -- you can assume this is true because it holds true in everything you have observed, and you can use this assumption for purposes of analysis and prediction -- but it's quite another thing to say \"I know that every event has a cause.\" Reason can be used as a tool for ordering and investigating, but it cannot be used to make claims about ultimate reality. When we disregard that limitation, we always runs into paradoxes.","human_ref_B":"Generally philosophers *do* want to avoid an infinite regress, but they probably have something different in mind than you do. You seem to think that the \"rule\" is that everything requires a cause, but that's not obvious. The much more popular idea is the principle of sufficient reason. Also worth noting that the explanatory worry here focuses on the universe's contingent nature, that it seems like the universe doesn't necessarily have to exist, and therefore requires some necessary existent to explain it (God?). It's also worth pointing out that this necessary\/contingent issue seems to exist even if the universe is eternal, but that's perhaps a bit more debatable. Philosophers are generally more open to an eternal universe than you seem to be though.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3221.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"5gujqi","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"If Albert Camus' Sisyphus was happy, does this mean he wasn't really punished, or is he lying to himself? The idea of Sisyphus being punished and being happy at the same time, seems contradicting to me. If he was happy with the task, it wouldn't be a punishment to him.","c_root_id_A":"dav5au5","c_root_id_B":"dav8cql","created_at_utc_A":1481049544,"created_at_utc_B":1481053086,"score_A":13,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"The whole \"punishment\" aspect of the myth isn't super relevant to the point Camus is making.","human_ref_B":"The punishment part is only relevant within his interpretation of the myth. Camus assumes that for the rock-rolling to be a punishment at all, Sisyphus needs to know the rock-rolling will never succeed. Otherwise, Camus thinks, Sisyphus would be, at worst, frustrated. So, what you say is exactly the point. By taking joy in the task itself it ceases to be a punishment and Sisyphus demonstrates that Zeus' actions are self-defeating. He cannot punish Sisyphus in the way he wishes. Thus, \"there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3542.0,"score_ratio":1.1538461538} +{"post_id":"twrzfb","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How can objective morality overcome language? Say that we are realists. We agree that 'child abuse' is objectively wrong. But what exactly is child abuse? For extreme cases, child abuse is well defined and understood. But for more nuanced cases, we have endless complexities and components that defines the conduct. Let's say we are trying to find the threshold where an act is considered not an abuse, but if only added a tiny component, it becomes an abuse. The point where we raise the flag and enter the realm of child abuse and its moral implications. Given the enormous amount of components to consider, we cannot really reduce it to a linear progression of severity and articulate a threshold point. However as objectivists, we believe it exist, right? We have acts which are not child abuse, we have acts which are child abuse -- there is a line, somewhere. In our mission to find out this threshold, we build an AI program that analyses trillions over trillions of borderline cases (let's put aside the mechanism which determines if an act is moral and consider that it does know how to do that), and rule out if they are an abuse or not. Can this AI ever provide a clear definition of what considers a child abuse? of this threshold area? Can it give us clear examples of cases which lack this tiny component in order to become an abuse?","c_root_id_A":"i3h3btg","c_root_id_B":"i3h2nc6","created_at_utc_A":1649156034,"created_at_utc_B":1649155559,"score_A":23,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The situation is even worse than you think! For by the very same virtue, we must ask, how can objective knowledge claims in general overcome language? Say we are realists. We agree that the Earth is round. But what exactly is the Earth? And what exactly is roundness?","human_ref_B":"This among, other things, is what normative ethicists study. But a belief in moral realism doesn't require you to have total confidence that we can work out based on our judgement exactly what cases are bad and which are good, merely the assumption is just that there is an objective standard to be judge against.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":475.0,"score_ratio":3.8333333333} +{"post_id":"twrzfb","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How can objective morality overcome language? Say that we are realists. We agree that 'child abuse' is objectively wrong. But what exactly is child abuse? For extreme cases, child abuse is well defined and understood. But for more nuanced cases, we have endless complexities and components that defines the conduct. Let's say we are trying to find the threshold where an act is considered not an abuse, but if only added a tiny component, it becomes an abuse. The point where we raise the flag and enter the realm of child abuse and its moral implications. Given the enormous amount of components to consider, we cannot really reduce it to a linear progression of severity and articulate a threshold point. However as objectivists, we believe it exist, right? We have acts which are not child abuse, we have acts which are child abuse -- there is a line, somewhere. In our mission to find out this threshold, we build an AI program that analyses trillions over trillions of borderline cases (let's put aside the mechanism which determines if an act is moral and consider that it does know how to do that), and rule out if they are an abuse or not. Can this AI ever provide a clear definition of what considers a child abuse? of this threshold area? Can it give us clear examples of cases which lack this tiny component in order to become an abuse?","c_root_id_A":"i3i3oez","c_root_id_B":"i3h2nc6","created_at_utc_A":1649173173,"created_at_utc_B":1649155559,"score_A":11,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"As u\/wokeupabug indicates, the \"problem\" you're identifying here is a general problem with language, not specifically a problem with morality. It's akin to the Sorites paradox. However, just as we can call a heap of sand a heap despite not knowing exactly how many grains of sand are necessary for a heap to be a heap, we don't necessarily need to know the *exact set of conditions* necessary for something to constitute, say, child abuse, for us to be able to call child abuse child abuse. We examine a particular instance of a thing (a collection of grains of sand, or actions perpetrated against a child) and determine *in that instance* whether or not it fits the conditions we'd consider to be one thing or another. I would refrain from thought experiments involving, say, AI programs, because it's unclear that an AI program analyzing cases of a thing would be any more able to differentiate than a rational human would be. You may be interested in moral particularism as a possible moral realist (\"moral objectivist\" isn't really a commonly used term) answer to this sort of objection as well.","human_ref_B":"This among, other things, is what normative ethicists study. But a belief in moral realism doesn't require you to have total confidence that we can work out based on our judgement exactly what cases are bad and which are good, merely the assumption is just that there is an objective standard to be judge against.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17614.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} +{"post_id":"334axn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"In Western Political Philosophy textbooks, why is there such a huge gap between Augustine and Aquinas? A number of textbooks I've encountered usually skip everyone after Augustine and jump directly into Aquinas when narrating the development and\/or varieties of western political philosophies through the ages. Why is it so? Why are Orthodox Christians (Eastern\/Oriental) like Michael Psellos or Severus not included? Was there really no prominent political philosophers in the tumultous late antique period?","c_root_id_A":"cqhmeg6","c_root_id_B":"cqhkeyj","created_at_utc_A":1429465437,"created_at_utc_B":1429461724,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This roughly covers the period when philosophy in Europe and the Middle East was dominated by neo-Platonism (a period starting a little before Augustine and ending a little before Aquinas).Part of what is happening is that the author of the textbook is sparing themselves from covering a thousand years of complex philosophy that is somewhat out of step with what we do today and very few people now pursue in any detail, and which is certainly out of the purview of most any undergrad curriculum. Ditto for the shorter period also being skipped over, being medieval Islamic philosophy, with only 400 years of progress being ignored in this case. Just be glad they didn't for the same reason also skip over scholasticism, or Hellenistic philosophy, or the Church Fathers. As has been mentioned in the thread, it's easy to find textbooks that go straight from Aristotle to early modern philosophy, jumping over about 2000 years without a word. I don't think it's an especially good thing that enormous traditions get ignored in this way, but (a) God knows that not many people are likely to assign neo-Platonist political philosophy in their undergrad classes, meaning that almost nobody would read it, and (b) God knows it's hard enough to get students to engage even with stuff that's of immediate contemporary relevance, or the direct ancestors of stuff that's of immediate contemporary relevance, or damn-near anything at all, never mind stuff as unfamiliar as neo-Platonism.","human_ref_B":"This is not unique to political philosophy. Late antiquity is generally poorly represented in most areas of contemporary academic philosophy. I'm not qualified to say whether this is because the philosophy was bad or unimportant, or because we just forgot about it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3713.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"ulparn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What was Wittgenstein's actual level of expertise in mathematics and logic? The other day I was wondering what would be Wittgenstein's contributions to mathematics if he decided to be a mathematician instead of a philosopher. I engaged in conversation online on this topic and the other guy's opinion was pretty interesting. He was very critical of Wittgenstein. He said: \" Wittgenstein actually had glaring gaps in his understanding of mathematical logic. E.g., in the Tractatus, he argues against Russell's Paradox on the basis that a function \"can't be its own argument,\" which one reviewer described as \"appearing philistine and arrogant\" (in light of the untyped Lambda Calculus), and which seems to have been based on a misunderstanding of the origin of the paradox that it stemmed from Basic Law V of Frege's Begriffsschrift admitting the course\/range of values of a function (i.e., sets of ordered pairs) and extensions of \"concepts\" (predicates) as objects in the domain of discourse. But one can actually prove easily that \u2203x\u2200y(y \u2208 x <-> \\~(y \u2208 y)) leads to a contradiction in \\*First-Order Logic\\* (meaning \\~\u2203x\u2200y(y \u2208 x <-> \\~(y \u2208 y)) is a theorem of FOL). So the actual culprit is naive, unrestricted set comprehension, not the second-order nature of Frege's system. His writings also display a shocking lack of understanding of Godel's Incompleteness theorems. He also made no formal contributions to mathematical logic (in terms of proving novel metatheorems). There's no \"Wittgenstein's theorem,\" for example. Compare him with a powerhouse like Tarski, who derived numerous fundamental results in mathematical logic (e.g., the upward and downward arbitrary cardinal versions of the Loweheim-Skolem Theorem), and also made contributions to the philosophy of logic (e.g., on the nature of the logical consequence relation, and the argument for the primacy of the semantic version over the syntactic version). \" Can anybody here confirm this? It seems like he knows what he's talking about. At the same time, I find it strange that the philosopher which Russell considered to be his successor would turn out to be a mediocre logician.","c_root_id_A":"i7x1bwd","c_root_id_B":"i7x08v4","created_at_utc_A":1652103150,"created_at_utc_B":1652102630,"score_A":29,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"> He also made no formal contributions to mathematical logic (in terms of proving novel metatheorems). But he did invent truth tables, and that's pretty cool. Another gap: he didn't seem to understand Cantor's diagonal argument, but maybe he just disagreed with Cantor's concept of infinity. Not sure.","human_ref_B":"iirc he engineered a more efficient propeller shape for either a plane or a boat. Which these days is done with Computer Aided Design and massive amounts of modelling so to even make an 'advance' pre computer requires fairly impressive math skills as he wasn't trial and erroring them. He derived it with pen and paper. I suspect the number of people who could do the same today is vanishingly small. Edit fluid dynamics is not my forte so maybe a high schooler can do it now","labels":1,"seconds_difference":520.0,"score_ratio":1.9333333333} +{"post_id":"ulparn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What was Wittgenstein's actual level of expertise in mathematics and logic? The other day I was wondering what would be Wittgenstein's contributions to mathematics if he decided to be a mathematician instead of a philosopher. I engaged in conversation online on this topic and the other guy's opinion was pretty interesting. He was very critical of Wittgenstein. He said: \" Wittgenstein actually had glaring gaps in his understanding of mathematical logic. E.g., in the Tractatus, he argues against Russell's Paradox on the basis that a function \"can't be its own argument,\" which one reviewer described as \"appearing philistine and arrogant\" (in light of the untyped Lambda Calculus), and which seems to have been based on a misunderstanding of the origin of the paradox that it stemmed from Basic Law V of Frege's Begriffsschrift admitting the course\/range of values of a function (i.e., sets of ordered pairs) and extensions of \"concepts\" (predicates) as objects in the domain of discourse. But one can actually prove easily that \u2203x\u2200y(y \u2208 x <-> \\~(y \u2208 y)) leads to a contradiction in \\*First-Order Logic\\* (meaning \\~\u2203x\u2200y(y \u2208 x <-> \\~(y \u2208 y)) is a theorem of FOL). So the actual culprit is naive, unrestricted set comprehension, not the second-order nature of Frege's system. His writings also display a shocking lack of understanding of Godel's Incompleteness theorems. He also made no formal contributions to mathematical logic (in terms of proving novel metatheorems). There's no \"Wittgenstein's theorem,\" for example. Compare him with a powerhouse like Tarski, who derived numerous fundamental results in mathematical logic (e.g., the upward and downward arbitrary cardinal versions of the Loweheim-Skolem Theorem), and also made contributions to the philosophy of logic (e.g., on the nature of the logical consequence relation, and the argument for the primacy of the semantic version over the syntactic version). \" Can anybody here confirm this? It seems like he knows what he's talking about. At the same time, I find it strange that the philosopher which Russell considered to be his successor would turn out to be a mediocre logician.","c_root_id_A":"i7x08v4","c_root_id_B":"i7ye6nu","created_at_utc_A":1652102630,"created_at_utc_B":1652123202,"score_A":15,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"iirc he engineered a more efficient propeller shape for either a plane or a boat. Which these days is done with Computer Aided Design and massive amounts of modelling so to even make an 'advance' pre computer requires fairly impressive math skills as he wasn't trial and erroring them. He derived it with pen and paper. I suspect the number of people who could do the same today is vanishingly small. Edit fluid dynamics is not my forte so maybe a high schooler can do it now","human_ref_B":"For what it's worth, Wittgenstein's response that claims the impossibility of self-applicability of functions is basically Russell's response too in coming up with type theory. Wittgenstein's views in the Tractatus suggest a lot of things that contemporary logicians reject - for instance, he doesn't even allow two distinct bound variables to refer to the same object, so in his system it is a theorem that \u2200x\u2200y~(x=y)! Wittgenstein and Russell are both figures that are relevant in the history of logic, but they're not in anyone's list of top 5 or top 10 logicians. (You'd probably have people like G\u00f6del, Frege, Tarski, Aristotle, and then depending on how you count, people like Turing, Boole, Scott, Church, Montague, Cantor, Skolem, ...) Russell's paradox is of course a major contribution (even though it's just a nice distillation of the contradiction of trying to prove Cantor's theorem on power sets in Frege's system where there is a largest set) as is Wittgenstein's method of truth tables. But Principia Mathematica and the theory of types aren't actually that much bigger of a contribution to logic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20572.0,"score_ratio":1.0666666667} +{"post_id":"nlpap9","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What were Marx\u2019s conceptions of human rights? This is obviously a very broad question. I\u2019m looking for specific passages in Marx\u2019s works in which he critiques the Enlightenment conceptions of human rights. How did he critique and build upon liberalism in regard to human rights? According to the SEP article on Marx, he views liberal rights as \u201crights of separation\u201d and only categorized as negative liberties and, while a significant improvement over feudalistic governments, will eventually fall short of \u201cgenuine human emancipation.\u201d Anything from primary sources (Marx\/Engels) to guide my reading is much appreciated, thank you in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gzjx7wu","c_root_id_B":"gzjyrmg","created_at_utc_A":1622058401,"created_at_utc_B":1622059036,"score_A":5,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"See his \"On the Jewish Question\"","human_ref_B":"In part 1 of Critique of the Gotha Programme he suggests the possibility that in the first stage of communism, there will be a \"right\" to draw goods from the shared supply in proportion to the amount of labor one has put in, and while he presumably sees this as improving the situation of the workers relative to capitalism, he thinks that ultimately any concept of \"equal rights\" must be superseded in the \"higher stage\" of communism, where the principle of \"to each according to his needs\" avoids abstracting away the differences between individuals: >Hence, equal right here is still in principle \u2013 bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case. >In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor. >But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. **It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only \u2013 for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored.** Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal. >But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby. >In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly \u2013 **only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety** and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! In general Marx seems to have seen moral and legal concepts of justice as not having any timeless truth but just being the product of a particular mode of production (the historical materialist idea of the material base shaping the ideological superstructure), see this article for an extensive discussion with a bunch of quotes from Marx and Engels along with later Marxists.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":635.0,"score_ratio":2.8} +{"post_id":"5md6l3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What are some good YouTube videos on philosophy? I recently finished CrashCourses philosophy segment and I feel like I learned a lot. I know they got a few facts wrong and were too brief but overall I feel like they did a good job. I really enjoyed how easily digestible the videos were and I am wondering if there are any other channels or videos like CC","c_root_id_A":"dc2nbuv","c_root_id_B":"dc2pb38","created_at_utc_A":1483705774,"created_at_utc_B":1483709955,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/flame0430","human_ref_B":"I second \"Wireless Philosophy.\" Also, check out \"8-Bit Philosophy.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4181.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"5md6l3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What are some good YouTube videos on philosophy? I recently finished CrashCourses philosophy segment and I feel like I learned a lot. I know they got a few facts wrong and were too brief but overall I feel like they did a good job. I really enjoyed how easily digestible the videos were and I am wondering if there are any other channels or videos like CC","c_root_id_A":"dc2nbuv","c_root_id_B":"dc2v1xw","created_at_utc_A":1483705774,"created_at_utc_B":1483718291,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/flame0430","human_ref_B":"PhilosophyTube is very informative on various subjects. Specifically as a lot of the subjects are up to date. The School of Life has good videos to introduce you to philosophers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12517.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"5md6l3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What are some good YouTube videos on philosophy? I recently finished CrashCourses philosophy segment and I feel like I learned a lot. I know they got a few facts wrong and were too brief but overall I feel like they did a good job. I really enjoyed how easily digestible the videos were and I am wondering if there are any other channels or videos like CC","c_root_id_A":"dc39s0c","c_root_id_B":"dc2v3sn","created_at_utc_A":1483734679,"created_at_utc_B":1483718354,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Ill give you a list of names, which are channels with philosophical content in youtube. Then Ill put some of my favorites. Wes Cecil, Rick Rodrick, Academy of Ideas, Eric Donson, Carneades.org, Christopher Haugen, European Graduate School Video Lectures, Georgy Dr.Sadler, Kotti Everdene, Mark Thorsby, Philosophical Overdose, Philosophy Tube, Wireless philosophy, Zizekian studies. Now Wes Cecil have good introductionary lectures on big philosophers, he is quite funny also. My favorites are his Marx and Sartre. Then Erid Donson have a lot of good short videos on Existentialism and Phenomenology. Christopher Haugen is very layed back, he got very basic lectures. European Graduate have more sophisticated and specific stuff. Georgy Dr.Sadler is great! I use him a lot. He is especially awesome after reading the material that he lectures. For example books by Sartre or Camus, or Plato's dialogues. Kotti Everdene is specifically for Marx and Nietzsche. Mark Thorsby for very throughout lectures with presentations on phenomenology and logic in general, argumentations etc... Philosophical Overdose have mainly podcasts and radio talks, some lectures, they are all over the place. I just listened to their latest podcast on Marx and it was great. (All in youtube) Philosophy Tube is for beginners and less professional. Wireless philosophy is very streamlined philosophical ideas, Zizekian studies is about Zizek! That the copy pasta. I want to emphasis Eric Dodson and Zizek's Perverts Guide for Ideology which is a film on youtube on ideological critique with the all funny Zizek.","human_ref_B":"This might not be what you're looking for, but I recommend Closer To Truth. Not the same style, but definitely worth a look. Pretty much all of the videos are short interviews with interesting scholars. It's especially useful if you're interested in Phil of Mind, Phil of Religion and Metaphysics. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/CloserToTruth1 Official Website: https:\/\/www.closertotruth.com\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16325.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"5md6l3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What are some good YouTube videos on philosophy? I recently finished CrashCourses philosophy segment and I feel like I learned a lot. I know they got a few facts wrong and were too brief but overall I feel like they did a good job. I really enjoyed how easily digestible the videos were and I am wondering if there are any other channels or videos like CC","c_root_id_A":"dc2nbuv","c_root_id_B":"dc39s0c","created_at_utc_A":1483705774,"created_at_utc_B":1483734679,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/flame0430","human_ref_B":"Ill give you a list of names, which are channels with philosophical content in youtube. Then Ill put some of my favorites. Wes Cecil, Rick Rodrick, Academy of Ideas, Eric Donson, Carneades.org, Christopher Haugen, European Graduate School Video Lectures, Georgy Dr.Sadler, Kotti Everdene, Mark Thorsby, Philosophical Overdose, Philosophy Tube, Wireless philosophy, Zizekian studies. Now Wes Cecil have good introductionary lectures on big philosophers, he is quite funny also. My favorites are his Marx and Sartre. Then Erid Donson have a lot of good short videos on Existentialism and Phenomenology. Christopher Haugen is very layed back, he got very basic lectures. European Graduate have more sophisticated and specific stuff. Georgy Dr.Sadler is great! I use him a lot. He is especially awesome after reading the material that he lectures. For example books by Sartre or Camus, or Plato's dialogues. Kotti Everdene is specifically for Marx and Nietzsche. Mark Thorsby for very throughout lectures with presentations on phenomenology and logic in general, argumentations etc... Philosophical Overdose have mainly podcasts and radio talks, some lectures, they are all over the place. I just listened to their latest podcast on Marx and it was great. (All in youtube) Philosophy Tube is for beginners and less professional. Wireless philosophy is very streamlined philosophical ideas, Zizekian studies is about Zizek! That the copy pasta. I want to emphasis Eric Dodson and Zizek's Perverts Guide for Ideology which is a film on youtube on ideological critique with the all funny Zizek.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":28905.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"5md6l3","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What are some good YouTube videos on philosophy? I recently finished CrashCourses philosophy segment and I feel like I learned a lot. I know they got a few facts wrong and were too brief but overall I feel like they did a good job. I really enjoyed how easily digestible the videos were and I am wondering if there are any other channels or videos like CC","c_root_id_A":"dc2v3sn","c_root_id_B":"dc2nbuv","created_at_utc_A":1483718354,"created_at_utc_B":1483705774,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This might not be what you're looking for, but I recommend Closer To Truth. Not the same style, but definitely worth a look. Pretty much all of the videos are short interviews with interesting scholars. It's especially useful if you're interested in Phil of Mind, Phil of Religion and Metaphysics. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/CloserToTruth1 Official Website: https:\/\/www.closertotruth.com\/","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/flame0430","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12580.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"5b3dbf","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What is rationality according to Kant? Why does it give us intrinsic value? I cannot find a single source that gives me this answer without throwing a lot of jargon my way.","c_root_id_A":"d9m2l82","c_root_id_B":"d9lg0bd","created_at_utc_A":1478294231,"created_at_utc_B":1478266801,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Kant's \"*Formula for Humanity*\" contains his argument for why we possess intrinsic value from rationality. And don't worry, it's a very simple argument without any jargon. In this argument, rationality is the action of choosing ends for oneself. (choice) **1.**\tI value ends that I set for myself, and I take myself to have reason to pursue them. **2.**\tBut I recognize that their value is only conditional: if I did not set them as my ends, I would have no reason to pursue them. *But why, Kant asks, should I think that I can generate reasons to promote some end just by adopting the end.* **3.**\tSo I must see myself as having a worth-bestowing status. **4.**\tSo, I must see myself as having an unconditional value (as being an end in myself) in virtue of my capacity to bestow worth on my ends **5.**\tI must similarly accord another rational being the same unconditional value I accord myself. **6.**\tSo I should act in a manner that respects this unconditional value: I should use humanity, whether in my own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means. **5 + 6 are where he concludes that our rationality is what gives us intrinsic unconditional value because we have this inherent ability to bestow worth upon ends.** Hope this helps!","human_ref_B":"I can't recall off the top of my head how Kant defines rationality, but I know it gives us intrinsic value, because it allows us to follow moral laws.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27430.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"5b3dbf","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What is rationality according to Kant? Why does it give us intrinsic value? I cannot find a single source that gives me this answer without throwing a lot of jargon my way.","c_root_id_A":"d9ljjwn","c_root_id_B":"d9m2l82","created_at_utc_A":1478271694,"created_at_utc_B":1478294231,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"This article is a pretty thorough response to the first question.","human_ref_B":"Kant's \"*Formula for Humanity*\" contains his argument for why we possess intrinsic value from rationality. And don't worry, it's a very simple argument without any jargon. In this argument, rationality is the action of choosing ends for oneself. (choice) **1.**\tI value ends that I set for myself, and I take myself to have reason to pursue them. **2.**\tBut I recognize that their value is only conditional: if I did not set them as my ends, I would have no reason to pursue them. *But why, Kant asks, should I think that I can generate reasons to promote some end just by adopting the end.* **3.**\tSo I must see myself as having a worth-bestowing status. **4.**\tSo, I must see myself as having an unconditional value (as being an end in myself) in virtue of my capacity to bestow worth on my ends **5.**\tI must similarly accord another rational being the same unconditional value I accord myself. **6.**\tSo I should act in a manner that respects this unconditional value: I should use humanity, whether in my own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means. **5 + 6 are where he concludes that our rationality is what gives us intrinsic unconditional value because we have this inherent ability to bestow worth upon ends.** Hope this helps!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22537.0,"score_ratio":1.6} +{"post_id":"txhmpe","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What do philosophers mean when they characterise, say, an argument as 'dialectical'? For example, 'The analysis of this argument by Taylor seems to me to ignore the dialectical character of the argument'. What does this mean? What is dialectical supposed to contrast with? I'm not sure I am really getting the dictionary definitions I have seen.","c_root_id_A":"i3mc3m0","c_root_id_B":"i3lshxk","created_at_utc_A":1649249912,"created_at_utc_B":1649237364,"score_A":10,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s a tough question to answer, you sorta just have to experience dialectical argumentation by reading it. Plato and Hegel are good examples. But broadly, dialectic involves the evolution and emergence of new ideas through ideas interacting with each other. The most clear example of this would be a conversation, like in Plato\u2019s dialogues. One person presents an idea, another responds, and the idea slowly shifts and becomes more refined. This should be contrasted with directly presenting to conclusion of an argument. Dialectic builds up to it.","human_ref_B":"As this would depend on what the argument actually is, I don't think there is enough context to give you a definitive answer. For a guess, though, if this were referring to the rather famous concept of the Hegelian dialectic, this dialectical character might be concerning something like the argument's interest in juxtaposing some pair of contradicting forces, ideas, what have you. It's not Hegel, but I feel it's easier to explain... consider Marx's model of the base and superstructure: *the base*, roughly, the means and relations of production (who has stuff), is seen as primary in shaping *the superstructure*, our political, social, cultural reality in the more abstract, ideal sense. The superstructure then again helps maintaining the base, creating rules and myths and regulations and such to justify who has stuff. The relationship is dialectical in the sense that the two parts are not only opposed, but in a constant tension of interacting with each other. They are contradictory, but rather than the contradiction seeking immediate resolution, it is an engine of change for both of the model's components. The interesting part in this *dialectical character* might then be in something like a resonance between opposing forces within the (likely two primary) constituent parts of whatever the argument in question is analyzing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12548.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} +{"post_id":"txhmpe","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What do philosophers mean when they characterise, say, an argument as 'dialectical'? For example, 'The analysis of this argument by Taylor seems to me to ignore the dialectical character of the argument'. What does this mean? What is dialectical supposed to contrast with? I'm not sure I am really getting the dictionary definitions I have seen.","c_root_id_A":"i3mc3m0","c_root_id_B":"i3mbzgm","created_at_utc_A":1649249912,"created_at_utc_B":1649249857,"score_A":10,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s a tough question to answer, you sorta just have to experience dialectical argumentation by reading it. Plato and Hegel are good examples. But broadly, dialectic involves the evolution and emergence of new ideas through ideas interacting with each other. The most clear example of this would be a conversation, like in Plato\u2019s dialogues. One person presents an idea, another responds, and the idea slowly shifts and becomes more refined. This should be contrasted with directly presenting to conclusion of an argument. Dialectic builds up to it.","human_ref_B":"As the other commentor replied, it's hard to say anything about such a statement when it's divorced from the context in which it's used. However the meaning of the statement could be exactly that: ignoring the historical context in this the argument exists, i.e. the argument(s) and\/or view(s) that the argument in question is responding to, the broader trends prior or at the time of the argument. By analysizing an argument in isolation from its relation to other ideas and arguments, the analysis could miss out on details that are important to a comprehensive understanding of the argument, like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":55.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} +{"post_id":"a1dzwx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What makes a work of art 'good' by contemporary philosophy of art standards?","c_root_id_A":"eapd49k","c_root_id_B":"eapbk4a","created_at_utc_A":1543479776,"created_at_utc_B":1543477908,"score_A":37,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m an undergraduate taking an Aesthetics course. Gordon Graham provides three normative theories for evaluating art: expressivism, cognitivism, and hedonism. Graham is a cognitivist, meaning he thinks what the extent to which art helps us understand truths about the world and our place in it is the metric by which we (should) judge the value of art.","human_ref_B":"While I feel beauty may not be the best standard of art, thus making a beautiful painting not necessarily good art, here is a place to start: https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/beauty\/ To give one example of why I would say beauty may not be the best standard of art, I would list a couple of side debates. For example, there is also a side debate on if a piece of art endorses something immoral that it would then be a worse piece of art, and I think this may call into question the standard of beauty for what good art is. Here is an IEP article on this debate: https:\/\/www.iep.utm.edu\/art-eth\/ Another side debate would actual be more general, which is sort of asking what is art. A reason this would matter is the fact that if a video game claims to be a work of art, yet video games by the definition of art cannot be art, the video game would fail to be a good piece of art. Here is an sep article on that issue: https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/art-definition\/ My point is that your question is implying that there is an answer to a lot of little other questions that we just don\u2019t really have an answer for. Which fucking sucks.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1868.0,"score_ratio":2.8461538462} +{"post_id":"570yld","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Does anyone take moral relativism seriously any more? I think I might be a moral relativist but I get the impression that's considered way uncool.","c_root_id_A":"d8o1fqc","c_root_id_B":"d8o5cer","created_at_utc_A":1476228028,"created_at_utc_B":1476233616,"score_A":5,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"You may find this article helpful.","human_ref_B":"For sure dude: * Sharon Street - \"How To Be A Relativist About Normativity\" * Bernard Williams - \"The Truth In Relativism\" * Gilbert Harman - \"Moral Relativism Defended\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5588.0,"score_ratio":2.6} +{"post_id":"570yld","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Does anyone take moral relativism seriously any more? I think I might be a moral relativist but I get the impression that's considered way uncool.","c_root_id_A":"d8o5u9d","c_root_id_B":"d8o1fqc","created_at_utc_A":1476234316,"created_at_utc_B":1476228028,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I wrote a Weekly Discussion piece on this on \/r\/philosophy some time ago, surveying some contemporary forms of relativism that is taken seriously by philosophers. Take a look.","human_ref_B":"You may find this article helpful.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6288.0,"score_ratio":1.8} +{"post_id":"570yld","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Does anyone take moral relativism seriously any more? I think I might be a moral relativist but I get the impression that's considered way uncool.","c_root_id_A":"d8o6bus","c_root_id_B":"d8o1fqc","created_at_utc_A":1476235013,"created_at_utc_B":1476228028,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I think the belief(or lack thereof) you're thinking of is na\u00efve moral relativism which has become the go-to pop philosophy of cheaply written antiheroes, edgy teens and the like, and has therefore seen a backlash in academic circles. There are more structured accounts of relativism, going back to Hume, but I'd really recommend Garber and Rosen's Moral Philosophy to appreciate how all these systems interact.","human_ref_B":"You may find this article helpful.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6985.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"570yld","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Does anyone take moral relativism seriously any more? I think I might be a moral relativist but I get the impression that's considered way uncool.","c_root_id_A":"d8oadl9","c_root_id_B":"d8ocpgr","created_at_utc_A":1476240950,"created_at_utc_B":1476244614,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"To add another name to the list, Jesse Prinz. He has an accessible article here: https:\/\/philosophynow.org\/issues\/82\/Morality_is_a_Culturally_Conditioned_Response","human_ref_B":"Taken seriously is a vague term. Is it taken seriously as in considered a real position? Yes. But is it taken seriously as a highly plausible one? Not really. Very few ethicists are relativists because most of the reasons given to be one by random people are considered simple mistakes that an ethicist would know to avoid. Its also extremely dubious as a position since it nullifies the possibility of moral progress, and forces us to accept some bizarre demands like that if we were dropped into a culture where everyone believed stoning gays was correct that we should actively do so.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3664.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"oqtn0g","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Are we in the Modern \"allegory of the cave\"? Plato's cave shot through my mind the other night, as I was holding up my phone to my face, and questioned why I wasn't \"just thinking\" using my own mind to power my thoughts, and raise questions, I locked my phone for a few seconds and just did it that night, and since, I've been philosophizing heavily about the implications of it..... The idea of the allegory of the cave is that people are in a cave seeing shadows on the wall, and believing the shadows are the real object, not knowing that it's really a false reality that they are seeing projected to them by shapes passing in front of a flame. with social media, cell phones, tvs, computer screens, could we all be in plato's cave by choice? the very \"situations\" we see on television, politics, and news, and \"information\" we hear and see, through the various social media outlets, what if what we are seeing could be the shadows on the wall, and that we've been seeing them so much, that it's hard for us to distinguish from reality anymore. I can still remember the time before cell phones and social media and how I could easily occupy my time just thinking.....daydreaming, but now, I don't see a future where a single soul is out of the cave, constantly bombarded by information, some sensory stimulation, they all soon could see this way of living as \"life\" as what reality just is, \"disconnecting\" or coming out the cave would be unknown, or turned into some high priced weekend retreat for the next generation, \"electronic-less living\" I think they'd call it, filled to the brim of course with negatives against it as the corporatism ravages society pushing us further to be consumers. are there any contemporary philosophers who speak on the allegory in this way?","c_root_id_A":"h6eksxk","c_root_id_B":"h6ewwr1","created_at_utc_A":1627160255,"created_at_utc_B":1627166538,"score_A":14,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Forgive me if I am wrong, but the analogy of the cave was to highlight different degrees of knowledgr and most importantly that percieved reality is a result of the \"forms\". That the idea or concept of an ideal thing, like a chair or a horse exist on a metaphysical level, and our material world is a derivative of these concepts and forms, also that only the philosphers could reason their way to discern these forms.","human_ref_B":"It seems like you are talking about something more akin to Baudrillard's *hyperreality* than Plato's cave allegory. See https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/baudrillard\/ for more on Baudrillard. People here hate Wikipedia links but see here for a quick, albeit sloppy, intro to the concept of hyperreality: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hyperreality","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6283.0,"score_ratio":2.0714285714} +{"post_id":"oqtn0g","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Are we in the Modern \"allegory of the cave\"? Plato's cave shot through my mind the other night, as I was holding up my phone to my face, and questioned why I wasn't \"just thinking\" using my own mind to power my thoughts, and raise questions, I locked my phone for a few seconds and just did it that night, and since, I've been philosophizing heavily about the implications of it..... The idea of the allegory of the cave is that people are in a cave seeing shadows on the wall, and believing the shadows are the real object, not knowing that it's really a false reality that they are seeing projected to them by shapes passing in front of a flame. with social media, cell phones, tvs, computer screens, could we all be in plato's cave by choice? the very \"situations\" we see on television, politics, and news, and \"information\" we hear and see, through the various social media outlets, what if what we are seeing could be the shadows on the wall, and that we've been seeing them so much, that it's hard for us to distinguish from reality anymore. I can still remember the time before cell phones and social media and how I could easily occupy my time just thinking.....daydreaming, but now, I don't see a future where a single soul is out of the cave, constantly bombarded by information, some sensory stimulation, they all soon could see this way of living as \"life\" as what reality just is, \"disconnecting\" or coming out the cave would be unknown, or turned into some high priced weekend retreat for the next generation, \"electronic-less living\" I think they'd call it, filled to the brim of course with negatives against it as the corporatism ravages society pushing us further to be consumers. are there any contemporary philosophers who speak on the allegory in this way?","c_root_id_A":"h6eclnt","c_root_id_B":"h6ewwr1","created_at_utc_A":1627156078,"created_at_utc_B":1627166538,"score_A":5,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"It's a highly common thought for those who read up on the allegory. Though not directly inspired by Plato, you'll get a similar exposition of what you're looking for in the Situationists' concept of the Spectacle.","human_ref_B":"It seems like you are talking about something more akin to Baudrillard's *hyperreality* than Plato's cave allegory. See https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/baudrillard\/ for more on Baudrillard. People here hate Wikipedia links but see here for a quick, albeit sloppy, intro to the concept of hyperreality: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hyperreality","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10460.0,"score_ratio":5.8} +{"post_id":"oqtn0g","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Are we in the Modern \"allegory of the cave\"? Plato's cave shot through my mind the other night, as I was holding up my phone to my face, and questioned why I wasn't \"just thinking\" using my own mind to power my thoughts, and raise questions, I locked my phone for a few seconds and just did it that night, and since, I've been philosophizing heavily about the implications of it..... The idea of the allegory of the cave is that people are in a cave seeing shadows on the wall, and believing the shadows are the real object, not knowing that it's really a false reality that they are seeing projected to them by shapes passing in front of a flame. with social media, cell phones, tvs, computer screens, could we all be in plato's cave by choice? the very \"situations\" we see on television, politics, and news, and \"information\" we hear and see, through the various social media outlets, what if what we are seeing could be the shadows on the wall, and that we've been seeing them so much, that it's hard for us to distinguish from reality anymore. I can still remember the time before cell phones and social media and how I could easily occupy my time just thinking.....daydreaming, but now, I don't see a future where a single soul is out of the cave, constantly bombarded by information, some sensory stimulation, they all soon could see this way of living as \"life\" as what reality just is, \"disconnecting\" or coming out the cave would be unknown, or turned into some high priced weekend retreat for the next generation, \"electronic-less living\" I think they'd call it, filled to the brim of course with negatives against it as the corporatism ravages society pushing us further to be consumers. are there any contemporary philosophers who speak on the allegory in this way?","c_root_id_A":"h6eclnt","c_root_id_B":"h6eksxk","created_at_utc_A":1627156078,"created_at_utc_B":1627160255,"score_A":5,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"It's a highly common thought for those who read up on the allegory. Though not directly inspired by Plato, you'll get a similar exposition of what you're looking for in the Situationists' concept of the Spectacle.","human_ref_B":"Forgive me if I am wrong, but the analogy of the cave was to highlight different degrees of knowledgr and most importantly that percieved reality is a result of the \"forms\". That the idea or concept of an ideal thing, like a chair or a horse exist on a metaphysical level, and our material world is a derivative of these concepts and forms, also that only the philosphers could reason their way to discern these forms.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4177.0,"score_ratio":2.8} +{"post_id":"oqtn0g","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Are we in the Modern \"allegory of the cave\"? Plato's cave shot through my mind the other night, as I was holding up my phone to my face, and questioned why I wasn't \"just thinking\" using my own mind to power my thoughts, and raise questions, I locked my phone for a few seconds and just did it that night, and since, I've been philosophizing heavily about the implications of it..... The idea of the allegory of the cave is that people are in a cave seeing shadows on the wall, and believing the shadows are the real object, not knowing that it's really a false reality that they are seeing projected to them by shapes passing in front of a flame. with social media, cell phones, tvs, computer screens, could we all be in plato's cave by choice? the very \"situations\" we see on television, politics, and news, and \"information\" we hear and see, through the various social media outlets, what if what we are seeing could be the shadows on the wall, and that we've been seeing them so much, that it's hard for us to distinguish from reality anymore. I can still remember the time before cell phones and social media and how I could easily occupy my time just thinking.....daydreaming, but now, I don't see a future where a single soul is out of the cave, constantly bombarded by information, some sensory stimulation, they all soon could see this way of living as \"life\" as what reality just is, \"disconnecting\" or coming out the cave would be unknown, or turned into some high priced weekend retreat for the next generation, \"electronic-less living\" I think they'd call it, filled to the brim of course with negatives against it as the corporatism ravages society pushing us further to be consumers. are there any contemporary philosophers who speak on the allegory in this way?","c_root_id_A":"h6eytly","c_root_id_B":"h6fnj9m","created_at_utc_A":1627167572,"created_at_utc_B":1627181456,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"If you're interested in works on the effects of disconnectedness you could read Ian McGilchrists work The Master and his Emissary. It's a half and half text, the first part focusing on brain research and the second more on philosophical implications. He speaks on our disconnectedness in modernity mirroring Schitszophrenia or at least the hyper conscious aspect of it. Louis Sass' work, Madness and Modernism deals with the same concepts as well.","human_ref_B":"You MUST read *Simulacra and Simulations* by Jean Baudrillard. You MUST. This isn't an advice, this is an order. You basically are starting to come to the same realizations he has. Except he gives an explanation as to how this dynamic started way before the age of the media, how by example the cross came to have such a heavy meaning when it's just a cross. This is the book that makes an appearance in the *Matrix* movie and I believe the real meaning of the movie is based on this.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13884.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"oqtn0g","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Are we in the Modern \"allegory of the cave\"? Plato's cave shot through my mind the other night, as I was holding up my phone to my face, and questioned why I wasn't \"just thinking\" using my own mind to power my thoughts, and raise questions, I locked my phone for a few seconds and just did it that night, and since, I've been philosophizing heavily about the implications of it..... The idea of the allegory of the cave is that people are in a cave seeing shadows on the wall, and believing the shadows are the real object, not knowing that it's really a false reality that they are seeing projected to them by shapes passing in front of a flame. with social media, cell phones, tvs, computer screens, could we all be in plato's cave by choice? the very \"situations\" we see on television, politics, and news, and \"information\" we hear and see, through the various social media outlets, what if what we are seeing could be the shadows on the wall, and that we've been seeing them so much, that it's hard for us to distinguish from reality anymore. I can still remember the time before cell phones and social media and how I could easily occupy my time just thinking.....daydreaming, but now, I don't see a future where a single soul is out of the cave, constantly bombarded by information, some sensory stimulation, they all soon could see this way of living as \"life\" as what reality just is, \"disconnecting\" or coming out the cave would be unknown, or turned into some high priced weekend retreat for the next generation, \"electronic-less living\" I think they'd call it, filled to the brim of course with negatives against it as the corporatism ravages society pushing us further to be consumers. are there any contemporary philosophers who speak on the allegory in this way?","c_root_id_A":"h6feloe","c_root_id_B":"h6fnj9m","created_at_utc_A":1627176339,"created_at_utc_B":1627181456,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":">could we all be in plato's cave by choice? That was always the point: we cling to our mythologies and illusions. This is especially true if we've had to struggle and work hard to make sense of the shadows on the wall. There's a fascinating take on this, by a game designer, of all people, about how it works with qanon, of all things. https:\/\/medium.com\/curiouserinstitute\/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5 \"Apophenia is : \u201cthe tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas)\u201d \"QAnon grows on the wild misinterpretation of random data, presented in a suggestive fashion in a milieu designed to help the users come to the intended misunderstanding. Maybe \u201cguided apophenia\u201d is a better phrase. Guided because the puppet masters are directly involved in hinting about the desired conclusions. They have pre-seeded the conclusions. They are constantly getting the player lost by pointing out unrelated random events and creating a meaning for them that fits the propaganda message Q is delivering.\" \"There is no reality here. No actual solution in the real world. Instead, this is a breadcrumb trail AWAY from reality. Away from actual solutions and towards a dangerous psychological rush. It works very well because when you \u201cfigure it out yourself\u201d you own it. You experience the thrill of discovery, the excitement of the rabbit hole, the acceptance of a community that loves and respects you. Because you were convinced to \u201cconnect the dots yourself\u201d you can see the absolute logic of it. This is the conclusion you arrived at. \" The rest of the article makes the point: these folks have worked hard to make sense of the patterns of shadows, and because they're worked hard, they've grown very attached to their 'explanations.' Seriously, it's a fascinating read, in light of The Cave.","human_ref_B":"You MUST read *Simulacra and Simulations* by Jean Baudrillard. You MUST. This isn't an advice, this is an order. You basically are starting to come to the same realizations he has. Except he gives an explanation as to how this dynamic started way before the age of the media, how by example the cross came to have such a heavy meaning when it's just a cross. This is the book that makes an appearance in the *Matrix* movie and I believe the real meaning of the movie is based on this.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5117.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"94jdfi","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it worth trying to read the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus without an understanding of formal logic? I\u2019ve been listening to the Philosophy for our Times podcast lately, and quite a few guests have mentioned this intellectual behemoth of a work by Wittgenstein, and I was intrigued. Halfway through the introduction, I realized that while I have some understanding of logic as a formal language, it\u2019s minor pieces picked up from philosophy classes here and there, and never a formal class. Will I still get something out of attempting to trudge through this book? Or would I be better off getting at least a basic understanding of logic prior to reading it?","c_root_id_A":"e3liwsj","c_root_id_B":"e3lhpty","created_at_utc_A":1533396890,"created_at_utc_B":1533395628,"score_A":10,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Yes, very much so. If you don't mind skipping some of Proposition 6, i.e. the general form of the proposition, etc., everything else doesn't require much of a formal logic background. I think the general view of the book can be understood without a formal logic background.","human_ref_B":"You might pick up interesting things by reading if free of course! It\u2019s not merely a work on logic after all. However, like most philosophy a sturdy base in logic will certainly be extremely valuable to your readings in the future. You might also consider getting a companion to the text.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1262.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"nawmm1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Do philosophers believe that consciousness inherently unmeasurable? Why would or wouldn't it be? The fact that I can type \"I experience consciousness\" is proof that my consciousness can affect the physical universe. It's also obviously affected by the physical universe. Is it then not just a part of the physical universe? And if it's part of the physical universe, how could it be inherently unmeasurable? I heard an argument in a TED talk that compared consciousness to life. It was thought centuries ago that life was an immeasurable force that we would never understand. And nowadays, we understand the chemical processes of life pretty well thanks to things like microscopes etc. This argument at first didn't appeal to me, for two reasons. One was that the chemical process of life is very different than our experience of consciousness. And another one was that I didn't think it would necessarily be reasonable for a person in history to assume life is a set of chemical reactions given lack of evidence, and therefore it may be unreasonable for a modern person to assume something similar about consciousness. But then I began to think on it further, and I no longer think such a theory of life would have been so unreasonable. I think an especially wise person back in history could have postulated that things life water flowing, freezing, melting is some kind of \"small scale life,\" followed by a process like fire being slightly \"more alive,\" followed by molds, then plants, then animals. Of course water isn't alive, but all of these are chemical processes with increasing complexity. And similarly, I think looking at machines of the day like mills would have been able to give a wise person the idea that life is machinery -- this is actually pretty apparent with things like the watchmaker argument. Another example that comes to mind is color. I could imagine that there were once people who may have argued that color is not measurable -- like how red something is. Maybe this is a strawman, and that nobody ever argued this. But I certainly do find it fantastic that color is now very very measurable due to our understanding of the wavelengths of light. I feel like a reasonable person otherwise could be convinced that color is inherently subjective in the way we nowadays argue that pain and happiness is inherently subjective. I think the argument for life applies to consciousness. I am most familiar with my own, but I have good reason to believe everyone else is too. And to a lesser degree, I can be pretty confident that my dog is conscious. Down to bugs perhaps less so. Plants could be, they do move to follow the sun. Bacteria could be barely conscious too. Looking at it from this lens, it seems sort of absurd to say consciousness has an arbitrary cutoff point where it suddenly arises in fish or whatever. Is it not reasonable to imagine that we merely lack the instruments to measure it? That perhaps one day, I'll be able to experience another beings consciousness directly thanks to technology? And perhaps be able to answer fundamental questions like \"do we see red the same way or just call it by the same name?\" Is the lack of a current technology that can do this a good argument that we won't be able to in the future? Of course, it would be naive of me to think that this is a novel line of thinking. I'm curious, do philosophers believe that consciousness is fundamentally unmeasurable? And reasons are given on either side of that argument?","c_root_id_A":"gxxpvzl","c_root_id_B":"gxwmgit","created_at_utc_A":1620875019,"created_at_utc_B":1620855890,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"If I understood what your getting at, Integrated Information Theory tries to do this with something it calls \"phi\". It measures how much a system is interconnected and uses information to describe how conscious that system is.","human_ref_B":"I certainly can't give a complete answer to this, but a lot of what you're saying is reminding me of a paper I came across a couple weeks ago (https:\/\/opentheory.net\/PrincipiaQualia.pdf). Haven't read through all of it, but it generally discusses developing a scientific theory of qualitative experience.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19129.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"nawmm1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Do philosophers believe that consciousness inherently unmeasurable? Why would or wouldn't it be? The fact that I can type \"I experience consciousness\" is proof that my consciousness can affect the physical universe. It's also obviously affected by the physical universe. Is it then not just a part of the physical universe? And if it's part of the physical universe, how could it be inherently unmeasurable? I heard an argument in a TED talk that compared consciousness to life. It was thought centuries ago that life was an immeasurable force that we would never understand. And nowadays, we understand the chemical processes of life pretty well thanks to things like microscopes etc. This argument at first didn't appeal to me, for two reasons. One was that the chemical process of life is very different than our experience of consciousness. And another one was that I didn't think it would necessarily be reasonable for a person in history to assume life is a set of chemical reactions given lack of evidence, and therefore it may be unreasonable for a modern person to assume something similar about consciousness. But then I began to think on it further, and I no longer think such a theory of life would have been so unreasonable. I think an especially wise person back in history could have postulated that things life water flowing, freezing, melting is some kind of \"small scale life,\" followed by a process like fire being slightly \"more alive,\" followed by molds, then plants, then animals. Of course water isn't alive, but all of these are chemical processes with increasing complexity. And similarly, I think looking at machines of the day like mills would have been able to give a wise person the idea that life is machinery -- this is actually pretty apparent with things like the watchmaker argument. Another example that comes to mind is color. I could imagine that there were once people who may have argued that color is not measurable -- like how red something is. Maybe this is a strawman, and that nobody ever argued this. But I certainly do find it fantastic that color is now very very measurable due to our understanding of the wavelengths of light. I feel like a reasonable person otherwise could be convinced that color is inherently subjective in the way we nowadays argue that pain and happiness is inherently subjective. I think the argument for life applies to consciousness. I am most familiar with my own, but I have good reason to believe everyone else is too. And to a lesser degree, I can be pretty confident that my dog is conscious. Down to bugs perhaps less so. Plants could be, they do move to follow the sun. Bacteria could be barely conscious too. Looking at it from this lens, it seems sort of absurd to say consciousness has an arbitrary cutoff point where it suddenly arises in fish or whatever. Is it not reasonable to imagine that we merely lack the instruments to measure it? That perhaps one day, I'll be able to experience another beings consciousness directly thanks to technology? And perhaps be able to answer fundamental questions like \"do we see red the same way or just call it by the same name?\" Is the lack of a current technology that can do this a good argument that we won't be able to in the future? Of course, it would be naive of me to think that this is a novel line of thinking. I'm curious, do philosophers believe that consciousness is fundamentally unmeasurable? And reasons are given on either side of that argument?","c_root_id_A":"gxwmgit","c_root_id_B":"gxy59fe","created_at_utc_A":1620855890,"created_at_utc_B":1620885164,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I certainly can't give a complete answer to this, but a lot of what you're saying is reminding me of a paper I came across a couple weeks ago (https:\/\/opentheory.net\/PrincipiaQualia.pdf). Haven't read through all of it, but it generally discusses developing a scientific theory of qualitative experience.","human_ref_B":"I think it is measurable in a rather different way than we measure other things scientifically. If you accept Hume's causal problem, though, and recognize that strong correlation is all we really have, then correlative data between first-person experience and empirical data becomes at least an honorable path for explanation. For instance: a neuroscientist might correlate the activity of frontal electrodes with a certain reaction time. This alone says nothing about the experience of consciousness or attention involved in reacting. If you, however, use a certain interview technique to gather insight about the level of attention each person has, you might be able to associate the level of attention with the amount of activity of frontal electrodes. If you take the qualitative data of those interviews seriously, suddenly you have qualitative insight about attentiveness to accompany the empirical findings of brain activity and reaction time. In essence, a marriage of phenomenology and cognitive science. The aforementioned example is from an experiment done by Lutz et al in 1996 with Francisco Varela who \"pioneered\" neurophenomenology. Other studies have recreated these successes. Claire Petitmengin in 2006 did a study which successfully showed that epileptic patients could be forewarned of upcoming epileptic seizures by paying attention to certain aspects of their experience. Further, their nothing of those experiential changes actually preceded the neurological insights of the time; i.e. patients were able to predict their own seizures even before neuroscientists who were observing them could. There is a way forward, but the tools are unconventional and rely on induction *and* empirical data.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":29274.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"nawmm1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Do philosophers believe that consciousness inherently unmeasurable? Why would or wouldn't it be? The fact that I can type \"I experience consciousness\" is proof that my consciousness can affect the physical universe. It's also obviously affected by the physical universe. Is it then not just a part of the physical universe? And if it's part of the physical universe, how could it be inherently unmeasurable? I heard an argument in a TED talk that compared consciousness to life. It was thought centuries ago that life was an immeasurable force that we would never understand. And nowadays, we understand the chemical processes of life pretty well thanks to things like microscopes etc. This argument at first didn't appeal to me, for two reasons. One was that the chemical process of life is very different than our experience of consciousness. And another one was that I didn't think it would necessarily be reasonable for a person in history to assume life is a set of chemical reactions given lack of evidence, and therefore it may be unreasonable for a modern person to assume something similar about consciousness. But then I began to think on it further, and I no longer think such a theory of life would have been so unreasonable. I think an especially wise person back in history could have postulated that things life water flowing, freezing, melting is some kind of \"small scale life,\" followed by a process like fire being slightly \"more alive,\" followed by molds, then plants, then animals. Of course water isn't alive, but all of these are chemical processes with increasing complexity. And similarly, I think looking at machines of the day like mills would have been able to give a wise person the idea that life is machinery -- this is actually pretty apparent with things like the watchmaker argument. Another example that comes to mind is color. I could imagine that there were once people who may have argued that color is not measurable -- like how red something is. Maybe this is a strawman, and that nobody ever argued this. But I certainly do find it fantastic that color is now very very measurable due to our understanding of the wavelengths of light. I feel like a reasonable person otherwise could be convinced that color is inherently subjective in the way we nowadays argue that pain and happiness is inherently subjective. I think the argument for life applies to consciousness. I am most familiar with my own, but I have good reason to believe everyone else is too. And to a lesser degree, I can be pretty confident that my dog is conscious. Down to bugs perhaps less so. Plants could be, they do move to follow the sun. Bacteria could be barely conscious too. Looking at it from this lens, it seems sort of absurd to say consciousness has an arbitrary cutoff point where it suddenly arises in fish or whatever. Is it not reasonable to imagine that we merely lack the instruments to measure it? That perhaps one day, I'll be able to experience another beings consciousness directly thanks to technology? And perhaps be able to answer fundamental questions like \"do we see red the same way or just call it by the same name?\" Is the lack of a current technology that can do this a good argument that we won't be able to in the future? Of course, it would be naive of me to think that this is a novel line of thinking. I'm curious, do philosophers believe that consciousness is fundamentally unmeasurable? And reasons are given on either side of that argument?","c_root_id_A":"gxyxkv9","c_root_id_B":"gxwmgit","created_at_utc_A":1620908736,"created_at_utc_B":1620855890,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Couple of remarks here, along with some overviews you should take a look at (because I think this way serves you better than taking your post at face value). - >The fact that I can type \"I experience consciousness\" is proof that my consciousness can affect the physical universe. I think if you're taking this sentence as your starting point, you're setting yourself up for failure. The topics you're trying to cram together here require much more careful handling, especially if you want something specific to follow from it. It's probably better to investigate the rather complex aspects first, and then come back and see if the sentence can carry what it initially was meant to, or whether it would be better to say something else that was much more precise or even split into different parts altogether. https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/consciousness\/ https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/self-consciousness\/ https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/identity-personal\/ https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/dualism\/ - >I think the argument for life applies to consciousness. Perhaps it's not viable to compare the two, if we don't approach them in the same way at all. As you can already tell from above, there's certainly a difference in the way we investigate these topics. We don't talk about life in the same way we talk about consciousness, so even if an argument worked with regards to life, it doesn't follow that it works for consciousness too, being a different topic with different structures. It'd be really important to show what exactly the comparability rests on, and what sort of explanation we're dealing with, in order to tell if it does work or not. Simply comparing them as \"things that are explained\" is too abstract. https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/life\/ https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/scientific-explanation\/ - >I certainly do find it fantastic that color is now very very measurable due to our understanding of the wavelengths of light. There are different aspects to talking about color, and depending on which definition and context you're using, it might not be doing the work for you that you expect it to. https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/color\/ - >I am most familiar with my own, but I have good reason to believe everyone else is too. Perhaps you're more or less directly familiar with others too, without needing reasons - there's a conceptual unclarity at stake here, depending on what kind of work you think we need to do to show something, and if that work is itself required before we can do the thing we want to show. https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/other-minds\/ - >And to a lesser degree, I can be pretty confident that my dog is conscious. That's going to depend on what you think it means, and whether or not the defintions are compatible with what you're talking about elsewhere. https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/cognition-animal\/ - All in all, I think your notion of \"measurability\" is going to be affected by looking closer at the above topics. There might not be a single pivotal point of understanding that you can rely on.","human_ref_B":"I certainly can't give a complete answer to this, but a lot of what you're saying is reminding me of a paper I came across a couple weeks ago (https:\/\/opentheory.net\/PrincipiaQualia.pdf). Haven't read through all of it, but it generally discusses developing a scientific theory of qualitative experience.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":52846.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"cmjkon","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are there any examples of famous philosophers grossly misinterpreting\/misunderstanding other philosophers? I haven\u2019t read it myself, but I\u2019ve heard that Bertrand Russell\u2019s characterisation of Hegel\u2019s philosophy in his *History of Western Philosophy* is quite bad. I was wondering if there are any other examples of philosophers misunderstanding other philosophers in a big way.","c_root_id_A":"ew3frwx","c_root_id_B":"ew32ts5","created_at_utc_A":1565076688,"created_at_utc_B":1565062488,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Any time Searle has ever represented another philosopher. My favorite is his representation of Hume on causation in *Intentionality*.","human_ref_B":"In my view Marx misunderstood Hegel pretty badly. He references some of the different *shapes of consciousness* which appear in Hegel's history of natural consciousness sort of like they're recurring structures which show themselves over and over in the course of human interactions and politics, where many of them, such as the master slave dialectic, are really meant to be historical relics of how consciousness had come to develop up until it reached a position where a phenomenology of spirit (or at least a phenomenology of consciousness and self-consciousness) was possible. In other words I believe he mistakes the stages that consciousness must have gone through in the past for a description of consciousness and position it finds itself in from the time of the modern era.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14200.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"cmjkon","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are there any examples of famous philosophers grossly misinterpreting\/misunderstanding other philosophers? I haven\u2019t read it myself, but I\u2019ve heard that Bertrand Russell\u2019s characterisation of Hegel\u2019s philosophy in his *History of Western Philosophy* is quite bad. I was wondering if there are any other examples of philosophers misunderstanding other philosophers in a big way.","c_root_id_A":"ew32ts5","c_root_id_B":"ew3htmr","created_at_utc_A":1565062488,"created_at_utc_B":1565079617,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"In my view Marx misunderstood Hegel pretty badly. He references some of the different *shapes of consciousness* which appear in Hegel's history of natural consciousness sort of like they're recurring structures which show themselves over and over in the course of human interactions and politics, where many of them, such as the master slave dialectic, are really meant to be historical relics of how consciousness had come to develop up until it reached a position where a phenomenology of spirit (or at least a phenomenology of consciousness and self-consciousness) was possible. In other words I believe he mistakes the stages that consciousness must have gone through in the past for a description of consciousness and position it finds itself in from the time of the modern era.","human_ref_B":"Schopenhauer's \"readings\" of his contemporaries in German Idealism are infamous for how comically uncharitable they are; rather than attempt to actually engage with the writings of, say, Hegel, he insists that they're literally and intentionally meaningless, and that Hegel is intentionally trying to con people into pretending they understand because they're afraid of being seen as stupid.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17129.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"dlj1xa","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What would Foucault think of the statement \"Prisons are tools for containing and controlling \u2018undesirable populations\u2019 \" Hey everyone, I have an assignment for school and was wondering what everyone thinks Foucault would respond to the statement: \"Prisons are tools for containing and controlling \u2018undesirable populations\u2019 \". I am to hone in on one aspect of his work (i.e., bodies, soul, discipline) and present a nuanced argument. I was thinking to argue that Foucault would think that the objective of prisons is not only to control and contain but rather to correct individuals and to create a 'docile body' and making them more effective. However I am not sure about this and find Foucault's ideas rather complex and hard to break down properly. help? cheers, a desperate science student who is on the verge of tears","c_root_id_A":"f4qvv5y","c_root_id_B":"f4r01nh","created_at_utc_A":1571758966,"created_at_utc_B":1571760654,"score_A":5,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I think to understand what Foucault would say about this statement, we have to follow his own line of argument. It goes something like this: Historically, the whole prison complex seems to be nothing but a big mistake. Prison as the nowadays main form of penalty seems to be just a byproduct of a failed transition from a pre-modern justice, where the goal was physical punishment of the body and soul of the felon, to a modern justice, where the goal was to correct and re-socialize the felon. But the prison, in fact, does neither, it's neither an effective form of punishment, nor an effective form of correction our re-socialization. It seems to be a failure. But nonetheless, the system of imprisonment is thriving as the main and often only form of penalty. So the question is: why? If it doesn't successfully \"corrects\" people, even though that still seems to be the main justification for prison, then there seems to be a different reason for it's continuing existence. And indeed, maybe the reason is that it allows to \"contain and control certain populations\" more or less effectively, in continuance of \"the great imprisonment\" in pre-modern Europe that Foucault described in \"the history of madness\". But I'm not sure anymore what Foucault's own final argument in \"discipline and punishment\" was, as in what the prison complex was really for. I just remember that the main argument was that in terms of punishment and correction, the prison is nothing but a mistake. \"Discipline and punishment\" was more of an argument against a common rationale for it's existence.","human_ref_B":"Take that and run with it! You\u2019re on the right track!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1688.0,"score_ratio":2.4} +{"post_id":"dlj1xa","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What would Foucault think of the statement \"Prisons are tools for containing and controlling \u2018undesirable populations\u2019 \" Hey everyone, I have an assignment for school and was wondering what everyone thinks Foucault would respond to the statement: \"Prisons are tools for containing and controlling \u2018undesirable populations\u2019 \". I am to hone in on one aspect of his work (i.e., bodies, soul, discipline) and present a nuanced argument. I was thinking to argue that Foucault would think that the objective of prisons is not only to control and contain but rather to correct individuals and to create a 'docile body' and making them more effective. However I am not sure about this and find Foucault's ideas rather complex and hard to break down properly. help? cheers, a desperate science student who is on the verge of tears","c_root_id_A":"f4s2tx7","c_root_id_B":"f4qvv5y","created_at_utc_A":1571773926,"created_at_utc_B":1571758966,"score_A":11,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"On one level, yeah that's what Foucault thought. I mean, he certainly *would agree* that prisons are tools for containing and controlling undesirable populations, and you're right about the way in which they correct individuals in order to create 'docile bodies'. All of that is correct. But in a way that's not really what Foucault's interested in, particularly in *Discipline and Punish*. What he's really interested in is the way in which the disciplinary technologies developed in prisons metastasized and expanded into many other areas of society, from hospitals to schools. It's the means by which broad technologies of power (specifically, the disciplinary model) developed and expanded throughout society. Which is why he traces these models back *before* the prisons, to the ways in which plagues were dealt with, and the military began to 'discipline' and train its officers, and so on. 'How did this specific form of power develop and become the dominant form?' is more his question, rather than 'Why did the bourgeoisie place 'undesirables' in prisons?'","human_ref_B":"I think to understand what Foucault would say about this statement, we have to follow his own line of argument. It goes something like this: Historically, the whole prison complex seems to be nothing but a big mistake. Prison as the nowadays main form of penalty seems to be just a byproduct of a failed transition from a pre-modern justice, where the goal was physical punishment of the body and soul of the felon, to a modern justice, where the goal was to correct and re-socialize the felon. But the prison, in fact, does neither, it's neither an effective form of punishment, nor an effective form of correction our re-socialization. It seems to be a failure. But nonetheless, the system of imprisonment is thriving as the main and often only form of penalty. So the question is: why? If it doesn't successfully \"corrects\" people, even though that still seems to be the main justification for prison, then there seems to be a different reason for it's continuing existence. And indeed, maybe the reason is that it allows to \"contain and control certain populations\" more or less effectively, in continuance of \"the great imprisonment\" in pre-modern Europe that Foucault described in \"the history of madness\". But I'm not sure anymore what Foucault's own final argument in \"discipline and punishment\" was, as in what the prison complex was really for. I just remember that the main argument was that in terms of punishment and correction, the prison is nothing but a mistake. \"Discipline and punishment\" was more of an argument against a common rationale for it's existence.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14960.0,"score_ratio":2.2} +{"post_id":"nzot2f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"High school Philosophy Club I am a high school teacher and I started a philosophy club this past school year. We spent the year basically bouncing around every philosophical topic I could think of and touching them briefly. But I want to do something different for this next year. Maybe some sort of curriculum as a more organized way to go at philosophy. I could also take them through a book but I have no idea where to start. I would love to hear thoughts\/suggestions. Thank you in advance!","c_root_id_A":"h1rryrt","c_root_id_B":"h1rh4sh","created_at_utc_A":1623702807,"created_at_utc_B":1623697893,"score_A":14,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"It's amazing that you've stated a philosophy club in high-school. Kudos for that! I agree with other suggestions regarding making the students curious. But I would also suggest that you maybe also start with basic critical thinking stuff like basic logic, argumentation etc. These tools will help the students a lot in the long run.","human_ref_B":"Do you live anywhere near a local university? From my experience, philosophy profs LOVE talking to high schoolers about philosophy, especially if they get to talk about essays they are working on. Also, the usual intro texts like Sophie's World are good, but you could also incorporate primary texts. Plato's Euthyphro is short and fun to learn about. A few opening chapters of Descartes's Meditations is another go-to.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4914.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"nzot2f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"High school Philosophy Club I am a high school teacher and I started a philosophy club this past school year. We spent the year basically bouncing around every philosophical topic I could think of and touching them briefly. But I want to do something different for this next year. Maybe some sort of curriculum as a more organized way to go at philosophy. I could also take them through a book but I have no idea where to start. I would love to hear thoughts\/suggestions. Thank you in advance!","c_root_id_A":"h1rqhav","c_root_id_B":"h1rryrt","created_at_utc_A":1623702126,"created_at_utc_B":1623702807,"score_A":4,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I always suggest Plato's *Dialogues* as a starting point as that is what was assigned in my intro courses, and as I understand it others have also been assigned these at different institutions. I was also president of the philosophy club at my university, and we did something similar with what you have detailed above: we took questions that either the general members had or those that the club officers had encountered in our studies and branched off from there in our club meetings. The main focus of the club were the discussions being held, not necessarily the topic at hand. I always liked the approach to philosophy that Plato writes about, where there is a couple interlocutors and they go back and forth with perhaps contending or conceding statements, hypotheses what have you, and all are trying to reach a greater understanding of the topic at hand. (Though to be sure, Plato's *Dialogues* at times ended with confusion and no apparent progress.) I would also think about what you are comfortable doing; if a curriculum is something you would like to follow, by all means go for it! There are many resources online you could consult to help develop a curriculum, and perhaps you may contact the philosophy departments of nearby institutions for ideas, or even to reach out for possible guest lecture events and the like! I hope this helps, and good luck. :)","human_ref_B":"It's amazing that you've stated a philosophy club in high-school. Kudos for that! I agree with other suggestions regarding making the students curious. But I would also suggest that you maybe also start with basic critical thinking stuff like basic logic, argumentation etc. These tools will help the students a lot in the long run.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":681.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"nzot2f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"High school Philosophy Club I am a high school teacher and I started a philosophy club this past school year. We spent the year basically bouncing around every philosophical topic I could think of and touching them briefly. But I want to do something different for this next year. Maybe some sort of curriculum as a more organized way to go at philosophy. I could also take them through a book but I have no idea where to start. I would love to hear thoughts\/suggestions. Thank you in advance!","c_root_id_A":"h1rbwvl","c_root_id_B":"h1rryrt","created_at_utc_A":1623695505,"created_at_utc_B":1623702807,"score_A":4,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Philosophy of Science, History, etc. are interesting in their own right, and you can involve other faculty as \"guest lecturers\" on their subject areas.","human_ref_B":"It's amazing that you've stated a philosophy club in high-school. Kudos for that! I agree with other suggestions regarding making the students curious. But I would also suggest that you maybe also start with basic critical thinking stuff like basic logic, argumentation etc. These tools will help the students a lot in the long run.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7302.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"nzot2f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"High school Philosophy Club I am a high school teacher and I started a philosophy club this past school year. We spent the year basically bouncing around every philosophical topic I could think of and touching them briefly. But I want to do something different for this next year. Maybe some sort of curriculum as a more organized way to go at philosophy. I could also take them through a book but I have no idea where to start. I would love to hear thoughts\/suggestions. Thank you in advance!","c_root_id_A":"h1rryrt","c_root_id_B":"h1rk5po","created_at_utc_A":1623702807,"created_at_utc_B":1623699268,"score_A":14,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"It's amazing that you've stated a philosophy club in high-school. Kudos for that! I agree with other suggestions regarding making the students curious. But I would also suggest that you maybe also start with basic critical thinking stuff like basic logic, argumentation etc. These tools will help the students a lot in the long run.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m not sure if others would find this a good choice, but one of the first books I read of philosophy was Bertrand Russel\u2019s \u201cProblems of Philosophy\u201d. It gives a broad overview and then after going through that (as it\u2019s reasonably short), you could ask the students what pieces they enjoyed the most and it might give you a chance to then expand on a certain idea or school of philosophy and you could then develop a plan through that","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3539.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"nzot2f","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"High school Philosophy Club I am a high school teacher and I started a philosophy club this past school year. We spent the year basically bouncing around every philosophical topic I could think of and touching them briefly. But I want to do something different for this next year. Maybe some sort of curriculum as a more organized way to go at philosophy. I could also take them through a book but I have no idea where to start. I would love to hear thoughts\/suggestions. Thank you in advance!","c_root_id_A":"h1rbwvl","c_root_id_B":"h1rh4sh","created_at_utc_A":1623695505,"created_at_utc_B":1623697893,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Philosophy of Science, History, etc. are interesting in their own right, and you can involve other faculty as \"guest lecturers\" on their subject areas.","human_ref_B":"Do you live anywhere near a local university? From my experience, philosophy profs LOVE talking to high schoolers about philosophy, especially if they get to talk about essays they are working on. Also, the usual intro texts like Sophie's World are good, but you could also incorporate primary texts. Plato's Euthyphro is short and fun to learn about. A few opening chapters of Descartes's Meditations is another go-to.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2388.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"4v9dqq","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I'm having trouble understanding the \"pitfalls\" of positivism. In a lot of my lecture I've came accross some sort of concensus that positivism is inherently false. Even strong advocates of positivism retracted from their original position, but most of the critics of positivism use an analytic language that most often than not means nothing to me and I'm having a really hard time understanding what is inherently logicaly wrong with positivism. Can anyone explain them to me in a clear non self-referencial terms?","c_root_id_A":"d5wmjid","c_root_id_B":"d5wlqt6","created_at_utc_A":1469838670,"created_at_utc_B":1469837274,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"You may also be interested in this thread: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/2kvcjp\/whatever_happened_to_logical_positivism\/ IMO, the main reason that positivism is viewed as \"inherently false\" today is the prevalence of a variety of myths about the role of the \"verification criterion\" in positivist thinking. The more realistic reason for logical positivism not being a worthwhile position to pursue currently is that logical positivist descriptions of science failed--both in the details and in the big picture--to capture the actual conduct of science (see also \/u\/Noumenology's comment). In particular, the development of history of science with Kuhn demonstrated that a lot of scientific practice didn't look much like positivistic accounts of science (though Kuhn himself should not be taken as a more reliable source). Similarly, Putnam's though experiments (\"It Ain't Necessarily So\") are usually taken to indicate that the positivists' account of language was also wanting. In general, despite what you may hear, the works of the logical positivists are by and large insightful and interesting. There are serious problems with them, but they don't deserve the boogeyman treatment that they are often given.","human_ref_B":"Logical positivism\/empiricism was, loosely speaking, a movement to make philosophy more \"scientific\" through verificationism. Basically, an positivist would say that a synthetic proposition was meaningful iff it was verifiable (i.e. it could be empirically verified, at least in principle). In this way, positivists threw out most of metaphysics and ethics as concerning meaningless propositions. However, an analytic proposition (i.e. those of mathematics) was considered automatically meaningful (after all, you can't empirically verify something like 1+1=2, it was just true by definition). So, the positivism required there to be a distinction between analytic and synthetic statements (since the verification principle applied to one but not the other). This distinction, however, has been shown quite persuasively to be false. Quine, in his \"Two Dogmas of Empiricism,\" argued that the analytic-synthetic divide didn't actually exist. There are some philosophers who don't buy his argument, but it is my understanding that most do. And without the analytic-synthetic divide, logical positivism falls apart, which is why most people consider it debunked in some sense. If you want to read more about the analytic-synthetic distinction, I'd suggest starting here.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1396.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"dpczob","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"I want to study Nietzsche. Where to start? I was in kind of an impasse about what is this life about. I turned my head to Aristotle, but I wasn't really satisfied. Then, I tried some Kant, but meh... I didn't feel satisfied either. Now, I stumbled upon Nietzsche(I actually knew about him before) and I find his ideas refreshing and, I don't know, true? I feel like the weight that I felt in the last week disappeared. Now, I am really interested in actually understanding his ideas clearly. I am not a scholar. I'm doing it purely for my own benefit. Thank you for taking the time to read this!","c_root_id_A":"f5uuyr9","c_root_id_B":"f5ujg06","created_at_utc_A":1572479753,"created_at_utc_B":1572474603,"score_A":11,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"If there's a single work to get a good sampling of Nietzsche in a digestible way (I don't think *Zarathustra* is particularly digestible), I'd recommend *The Gay Science*. It covers just about all of the themes he touches in other works. For dipping your toes in, I'd definitely recommend *On Truth and Lie* since it's short and gets you a feel for Nietzsche's epistemology; perhaps the most clear and cogent one, albeit its quite early in his writing.","human_ref_B":"You could try Coppleston for just about any philosopher. I remember listening to something called \"Giants of philosophy\" years ago that was pretty good if you like audiobooks.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5150.0,"score_ratio":5.5} +{"post_id":"mrf8bw","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Should we interfere with nature in order to prevent suffering? Nature is brutal. Male tigers will kill cubs that aren\u2019t their own. Cats hunt for sport. In some species of hares only 1\/10 are expected to reach adulthood. Some animals like house cats will kill for sport and chimps come up with some pretty gruesome ways of killing lesser primates (like ripping out their hearts while they\u2019re still alive). So, if we take a utilitarian view that we ought to maximize happiness, should we not interfere with nature? Sure, you could make the argument that nature itself brings happiness to humans, so therefore we should preserve it (if we also take the view that human happiness is more important than animal happiness). But at the same time, although I love nature myself, I still find the case for interfering to be compelling. Lots of animals are born just to suffer. Is it not selfish, in a way, to allow these creatures to exist simply because we see some sort of intrinsic value in them? In a way, you could say that we preserve nature to make *us* happy, not the creatures living in i, sort of like a zoo. We only allow nature to exist because we attach value to it, not because we care for the wellbeing of its inhabitants (yes, I\u2019m aware that polluting the planet causes a lot more suffering short-term as we destroy animals natural habitats, but even if we didn\u2019t the animals would still kill and devour each other, leading to suffering). If we really wanted to minimize suffering, we would exterminate rabbits or ensure that if they do live they live a good life. Rabbits have no concept of wanting to preserve their species or whatever, so you can\u2019t say that we\u2019re doing them a disfavor. If you wanna go to extreme lengths, you could say that we actually ought to exterminate all beings which we cannot guarantee prosperity for (exterminating a bunch of species has other implications obviously, like screwing things up for ourselves as well, but let\u2019s put that aside). In summary, 1. Should we interfere with nature to prevent suffering? 2. A rabbit is born into this world with a 1\/10 chance of survival and does not hold any beliefs about preserving its specie, etc. Is it not selfish to allow suffering in nature simply because we as humans attach intrinsic value to it? 3. If we had the sci-fi tech to survive without any need for nature, would the right thing to do not to simply exterminate (or sterilize) all creatures that we cannot guarantee happiness for?","c_root_id_A":"gum4il8","c_root_id_B":"gumtt3h","created_at_utc_A":1618500497,"created_at_utc_B":1618511441,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Point of note: >Lots of animals are born just to suffer. You can't apply a _telos_ in hindsight by looking at statistics.","human_ref_B":"There's a significant amount of newish literature on this subject. One place to get an overview and one take on it is in Korsgaard's *Fellow Creatures* -- there are two chapters at the end of the book on this issue.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10944.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"v2d5de","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Philosophy of science book recommendations? Hello, I am beginning a PhD in physics, and decided I should have a deeper knowledge on the workings of the scientific method and how knowledge is produced in science. Things\/people like popper, Kuhn, positivism, inductivism, etc. Something more on the accessible side would also be nice, since I normally find philosophy texts pretty tough to digest. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"ias1ruw","c_root_id_B":"iasezgb","created_at_utc_A":1654086501,"created_at_utc_B":1654093126,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"A textbook is your best bet for a start. If you love the topic then you can delve deeper. Chalmers' What is this thing called science? is still the best. The only thing it misses out on is the recent trend to include moral education as part of what is means to be a good scientist.","human_ref_B":"Helen Longino is great, I'm a big fan of *Science as Social Knowledge*.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6625.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"v2d5de","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Philosophy of science book recommendations? Hello, I am beginning a PhD in physics, and decided I should have a deeper knowledge on the workings of the scientific method and how knowledge is produced in science. Things\/people like popper, Kuhn, positivism, inductivism, etc. Something more on the accessible side would also be nice, since I normally find philosophy texts pretty tough to digest. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"ias1ruw","c_root_id_B":"iasfunu","created_at_utc_A":1654086501,"created_at_utc_B":1654093516,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"A textbook is your best bet for a start. If you love the topic then you can delve deeper. Chalmers' What is this thing called science? is still the best. The only thing it misses out on is the recent trend to include moral education as part of what is means to be a good scientist.","human_ref_B":"One of the critical texts in contemporary philosophy of science that hasn't been mentioned yet is Quine's Epistemology Naturalized. Also, I would read some pragmatic philosophy. Dewey's How We Think is quite foundational.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7015.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"v2d5de","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Philosophy of science book recommendations? Hello, I am beginning a PhD in physics, and decided I should have a deeper knowledge on the workings of the scientific method and how knowledge is produced in science. Things\/people like popper, Kuhn, positivism, inductivism, etc. Something more on the accessible side would also be nice, since I normally find philosophy texts pretty tough to digest. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"ias1ruw","c_root_id_B":"iatc2k9","created_at_utc_A":1654086501,"created_at_utc_B":1654107178,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"A textbook is your best bet for a start. If you love the topic then you can delve deeper. Chalmers' What is this thing called science? is still the best. The only thing it misses out on is the recent trend to include moral education as part of what is means to be a good scientist.","human_ref_B":"What is this thing called science? - Charmers","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20677.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"v2d5de","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Philosophy of science book recommendations? Hello, I am beginning a PhD in physics, and decided I should have a deeper knowledge on the workings of the scientific method and how knowledge is produced in science. Things\/people like popper, Kuhn, positivism, inductivism, etc. Something more on the accessible side would also be nice, since I normally find philosophy texts pretty tough to digest. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"iatc2k9","c_root_id_B":"iat6cej","created_at_utc_A":1654107178,"created_at_utc_B":1654104802,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"What is this thing called science? - Charmers","human_ref_B":"*Science in Action* by Bruno Latour","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2376.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"1ixmy2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"If Nietzsche had lived today how would he publish? Where would a modern-day Nietzsche publish? Would he be a philosophy professor writing for academic journals? Would he write for magazines? Would he send his books to traditional large presses or would he seek out obscure small presses, or would he self-publish? Would he be a superstar, a competitor to Zizek perhaps? Or would he just scrawl manifestos on an obscure blog and call it a day?","c_root_id_A":"cb95996","c_root_id_B":"cb99dns","created_at_utc_A":1374653492,"created_at_utc_B":1374675611,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"On his tumblr.","human_ref_B":"Honestly? Nietzsche, like everyone, was a product of his time. Were he alive today, he would have been born and raised in... where? A welfare-state late-20th century, guilt-ridden-for-WWII Germany? How could he possibly be recognizable as him? Maybe he'd be a hip hop superstar? http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PsO6ZnUZI0g (probably not)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22119.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"e9crmj","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"I just picked up Thomas Moynihan's Spinal Catastrophism and have no idea what I'm reading. Am I in way over my head? Where to begin? I have an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, and did pretty well in school. I've never found any of the \"big\" philosophers (or their work) to be to confusing (with an exception of maybe some Derrida, after a lot of banging my head against a wall). I enjoy a lot of stuff from urbanomic as it's at a kind of fun intersection between pop culture, \"pop\" philosophy, and continental thought, but holy hell I'm not understanding this book and I'm only a few pages in. I was just wondering if anyone is familiar with the work or author, or could recommend some background or \"required reading\" for the text. Otherwise, I'll just make do with a lot of googling.","c_root_id_A":"fajmkn6","c_root_id_B":"faizfd0","created_at_utc_A":1576145565,"created_at_utc_B":1576120350,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"So, I er, read about 150 pages of this after being prompted by your post (I\u2019ve had this on my reading list since it came out), and it\u2019s awesome! Having read the intro (\u2018Cervical Prospectus\u2019) and the first section (\u2018Thoracic Retrospect\u2019), so far, it seems that this book is something of an intellectual history of a notion coined by the author, that of \u2018spinal catastrophism\u2019. Strictly speaking, it is, as the author himself notes, a genealogy, but for ease of discussion it's best to just call it a history (a \u2018secret\u2019 one), as the book is titled. If you\u2019re having trouble with the book, my suggestion (on the basis of just having read the first two parts!) is to skip the intro (\u2018Cervical P\u2026\u2019) and move straight to the first section (\u2018Thoracic\u2026 R\u2019). This first section is far more straightforwardly historical, and explores the theme of spinal catastrophism through various authors (Ballad, Bataille, Freud, Straus, Lehroi-Gourhan), with each subsection focusing on a different author. The Intro is tough because it\u2019s somewhat preemptive - it\u2019s making its case \\*before\\* delving into the history that backs it up. It\u2019s also quite methodological, so without the \u2018content\u2019 to fill it out, it can be tough to see what it\u2019s trying to do (a farmiliarity with Kant helps too). As for what that \u2018case\u2019 is, the rough idea - I think - is a question like: what is the status of mental life - and perhaps life more generally - when approached from the point of view of the evolution of the spine? The inspiration here is that rich tradition of thought which argues that life is in some manner discontinuous from the word around it, with this discontinuity giving rise to a rich \u2018inner life\u2019 - thought and rationalory in particular - that can only be sustained by means of such a discontinuity. For Moynihan though, this discontinuity is literally embodied in the spine: the spine is a marker of this discontinuity, if not perhaps the most emblematic marker (a kind of temporal artefact, if you will). As he puts it: \u201cNature attempts to escape itself by creating a nervous system. Indeed, when the patient of this phyletic reality escape becomes, in some small degree, capable of reflecting upon itself as such, it first attains the ability to model itself modelling and, by conjointly becoming capable of directed intervention, exhibits minimal self-consciousness\u201d. As far as I can glean so far, it's a question then of something like: if we take seriously the idea that this discontinuity ('escape') is the condition of life and thought, what does this tell us about the status and standing of both? Anyway, I don\u2019t want to say too much more without reading further, but there\u2019s definitely some good stuff here! Edit: the only thing I'll add is that philosophical reflection prompted by reflection upon and from the spine is not altogether unusual. Apart from the many authors Moyinhan cites, Adriana Cavarero has done something similar in her recent *Inclinations*, as has David Wills' *Dorsality*. It's a pretty interesting POV of study. Also, the best background reading for this is, I reckon, Andre Lehroi-Gourhan's *Gesture and Speech*, which is cited here a couple of times. Incidentally probs one of my top 10 phil. books ever, that one. Edit2: Finished it, thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it was kind of bonkers. Skip the intro, stay for the other sections. Such a cool book.","human_ref_B":"Is this article helpful? I have no idea myself. It\u2019s at least an article by the author that seems to be on similar themes but looks a bit more readable. And here is a review written about Spinal Carastrophism that might also be helpful. I\u2019m also hoping to get my hands on that book, hopefully you have some luck in making heads or tails of it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25215.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"z3jjvz","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Beginner question about Kant 'Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality'. If space and time are human constructs how can we be having the present conscious experience that we have? How could our senses and brains exist without space? (did Kant not believe in brains?) Or does Kant believe that the real workings of the noumena are incomprehensible to humans?","c_root_id_A":"ixmm97a","c_root_id_B":"ixmc712","created_at_utc_A":1669307359,"created_at_utc_B":1669302940,"score_A":16,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"> 'Space and time are the framework **within which the mind is constrained to construct** its experience of reality'. > If space and time are **human constructs** how can we be having the present conscious experience that we have? There a difference between what he's saying and what you're saying. He is not saying space and time are human constructs, he's saying space and time constrains (limits) what possible experiences the mind can produce. I cannot experience a two dimensional object without space providing the grounds for extension, nor a series of events without time providing the grounds for sequence. Without space and time providing the basic structure of extension and sequence, there would be no unity of a plurality of sensations such that different objects can be presented as distinct and unified, admit of both change and persistence in different respects, come one after another, in one experience. If space and time are the constraint on what can be experienced, they can't be produced within experience, as then you'd have an incoherent story where the mind constructs its necessary preconditions for construction - resources it by definition cannot have at the outset of constructing. Insofar as spatial and temporal objects are in experience, experience has to include the unity and limitation of both space and time necessary for such objects to be presented, and thus experience also cannot be reducible to a spatial object or temporal sequence itself. This has many further implications, and will have bearing on prior misguided conceptions of space and time that would by contrast making the possibility of experience itself impossible.","human_ref_B":"What Kant means here is that Space and Time are faculties of our mind with which we construct reality. Everything you see and experience is in space and time. In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant wants to find out what the mind looks like on the most fundamental level, in other words Kant wants to find out what makes experience possible. Kant believes that there are certain a priori concepts, which by their nature are of pure reason and these concepts are what make experience possible, and space and time is among those concepts, because as mentioned, we experience everything in space and time.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4419.0,"score_ratio":8.0} +{"post_id":"z3jjvz","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Beginner question about Kant 'Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality'. If space and time are human constructs how can we be having the present conscious experience that we have? How could our senses and brains exist without space? (did Kant not believe in brains?) Or does Kant believe that the real workings of the noumena are incomprehensible to humans?","c_root_id_A":"ixnla51","c_root_id_B":"ixmc712","created_at_utc_A":1669322559,"created_at_utc_B":1669302940,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"> How could our senses and brains exist without space? (did Kant not believe in brains?) No, he believes in brains for the same reason and in the same way the rest of us do. There's nothing in Kant about the phenomenal world that implies that anything in it is unreal or shouldn't be believed in. All he's saying here is that the human perceptual capacities organize information about the world into a spatiotemporal field, so that part of how we experience things is determined by the nature of our perceptual capacities. Does this include brains, i.e. are brains perceived by us, and therefore is part of how we perceive brains determined by the nature of our perceptual capacities? Sure. But there's nothing about this proposal that makes brains unreal or stop working, any more than it makes apples or wheelbarrows or anything else unreal or stop working.","human_ref_B":"What Kant means here is that Space and Time are faculties of our mind with which we construct reality. Everything you see and experience is in space and time. In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant wants to find out what the mind looks like on the most fundamental level, in other words Kant wants to find out what makes experience possible. Kant believes that there are certain a priori concepts, which by their nature are of pure reason and these concepts are what make experience possible, and space and time is among those concepts, because as mentioned, we experience everything in space and time.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19619.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"8czjam","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Where should I start to study Philosophy of Language? I'm super interested in studying philosophy of language, but I don't know which thinkers\/books to turn to in order to start. Any suggestions?","c_root_id_A":"dxjlgm2","c_root_id_B":"dxj8jwn","created_at_utc_A":1524014779,"created_at_utc_B":1524001861,"score_A":9,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Frege, Sense and Reference.","human_ref_B":"Philosophy of Language : A Contemporary Introduction by William Lycan","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12918.0,"score_ratio":2.25} +{"post_id":"8czjam","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Where should I start to study Philosophy of Language? I'm super interested in studying philosophy of language, but I don't know which thinkers\/books to turn to in order to start. Any suggestions?","c_root_id_A":"dxj7vyr","c_root_id_B":"dxjlgm2","created_at_utc_A":1524001219,"created_at_utc_B":1524014779,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin and Habermas are a good shout","human_ref_B":"Frege, Sense and Reference.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13560.0,"score_ratio":4.5} +{"post_id":"8czjam","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Where should I start to study Philosophy of Language? I'm super interested in studying philosophy of language, but I don't know which thinkers\/books to turn to in order to start. Any suggestions?","c_root_id_A":"dxja6w4","c_root_id_B":"dxjlgm2","created_at_utc_A":1524003486,"created_at_utc_B":1524014779,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"A few links you might be interested in: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sense_and_reference https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/On_Denoting https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Naming_and_Necessity I would recommend reading them in the order I listed them.","human_ref_B":"Frege, Sense and Reference.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11293.0,"score_ratio":4.5} +{"post_id":"8czjam","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Where should I start to study Philosophy of Language? I'm super interested in studying philosophy of language, but I don't know which thinkers\/books to turn to in order to start. Any suggestions?","c_root_id_A":"dxjlgm2","c_root_id_B":"dxjk4ir","created_at_utc_A":1524014779,"created_at_utc_B":1524013462,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Frege, Sense and Reference.","human_ref_B":"Surprised that this was not mentioned, but Al Martinich's book seems to be the academic standard of teaching phil of lang. The book is an anthology of famous\/influential works that survey the filed of phil of language. To supplement, if you want a historical\/textbook on the subject then i suggest Scott soames's phil of lang book. **most of the works referenced here are included or reflected in the texts I listed** Additionally, if you pm me I can hand you a few syllabi as to give direction for the usual progression for an introduction to phil of lang.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1317.0,"score_ratio":4.5} +{"post_id":"8czjam","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Where should I start to study Philosophy of Language? I'm super interested in studying philosophy of language, but I don't know which thinkers\/books to turn to in order to start. Any suggestions?","c_root_id_A":"dxj8jwn","c_root_id_B":"dxj7vyr","created_at_utc_A":1524001861,"created_at_utc_B":1524001219,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Philosophy of Language : A Contemporary Introduction by William Lycan","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin and Habermas are a good shout","labels":1,"seconds_difference":642.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"4jry51","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did anyone here double major with a STEM subject? What was your experience like?","c_root_id_A":"d394ck1","c_root_id_B":"d39b3gm","created_at_utc_A":1463509749,"created_at_utc_B":1463518281,"score_A":14,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"I doubled math\/philosophy. I found that they complemented each other nicely, but I reckon that has more to do with the nature of study in each subject. Sometimes it gets a little difficult, for example, transitioning from a philosophical understanding of probability to a mathematical one. However, I didn't find one easier or harder than the other, but the nature of the produced work was very different. In philosophy I wrote lots of papers, in math I did lots of proofs and exams.","human_ref_B":"Like many here, I did maths\/philosophy. Maths demanded more time, since you could do okay in philosophy by only really researching the stuff you had to write papers on. But I think it was harder to get a really good mark in philosophy. So my STEM subject was much harder to pass than philosophy, but it was easier to get a 90% or above in a maths subject.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8532.0,"score_ratio":1.0714285714} +{"post_id":"4jry51","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did anyone here double major with a STEM subject? What was your experience like?","c_root_id_A":"d399a0i","c_root_id_B":"d39b3gm","created_at_utc_A":1463515955,"created_at_utc_B":1463518281,"score_A":6,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"I did a second major in math. I think it really enriched my perspective on philosophy. It's good to see philosophical issues from a complementary point of view. It was also a good mental break from philosophy, so that I wasn't always studying the same subject all the time. I'd highly recommend it!","human_ref_B":"Like many here, I did maths\/philosophy. Maths demanded more time, since you could do okay in philosophy by only really researching the stuff you had to write papers on. But I think it was harder to get a really good mark in philosophy. So my STEM subject was much harder to pass than philosophy, but it was easier to get a 90% or above in a maths subject.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2326.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"4jry51","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did anyone here double major with a STEM subject? What was your experience like?","c_root_id_A":"d39u8xm","c_root_id_B":"d39lshv","created_at_utc_A":1463545784,"created_at_utc_B":1463533190,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Physics\/Philosophy double major checking in (kinda surprised there aren't more of us). I thought the two disciplines, while not always of one mind on certain issues, complimented each other beautifully. As far as the work? I found that the philosophy coursework required more cognitive resources where the physics coursework demanded more time. Solving physics problems felt like using brute force when compared to crafting an argumentative essay.","human_ref_B":"I majored in logic, so I had lots of classes in math, philosophy, and linguistics. I never interacted with other philosophy majors, really. Math majors were pretty rude, because they had a superiority complex. (Undergrads. Grad students and profs were much nicer!) There was a lot of... Not belonging? In both departments. I would say the philosophy classes and math classes were equal in difficulty, but in philosophy I never had to worry about my grade. There were a lot of profs who would tear my arguments to shreds and then give me an A because I showed dedication and improvement.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12594.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"4jry51","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did anyone here double major with a STEM subject? What was your experience like?","c_root_id_A":"d39u8xm","c_root_id_B":"d39n1y6","created_at_utc_A":1463545784,"created_at_utc_B":1463534833,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Physics\/Philosophy double major checking in (kinda surprised there aren't more of us). I thought the two disciplines, while not always of one mind on certain issues, complimented each other beautifully. As far as the work? I found that the philosophy coursework required more cognitive resources where the physics coursework demanded more time. Solving physics problems felt like using brute force when compared to crafting an argumentative essay.","human_ref_B":"Currently doubling in neuroscience and philosophy. Like others have said STEM courses are very memory intensive and tedious, and while philosophy courses can be 'harder' conceptually, they are graded very gently. Balancing my schedule consistently with philosophy courses has provided enough reading\/writing to not let sanity slide from STEM courses.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10951.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"k21ujq","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Introduction to Speculative Realism & Object-Oriented Ontology Hey hey, I am a third year student of philosophy & theology, so I have a basic understanding of many things but I am not very deep into everything. I am curious about SR and OOO (abbreviations?) and wanted to know where you would recommend me to start reading? A book would be good, not so much just essays and articles. Regards","c_root_id_A":"gds5ef2","c_root_id_B":"gdsdtyh","created_at_utc_A":1606497610,"created_at_utc_B":1606501380,"score_A":4,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Graham Harman, Didier Debaise, and Manuel Dalanda are the three I would start with. They all come at this way of thinking from slightly different but intersecting ways. They all have shorter books that are pretty accessible and will give you a taste more Deluzean and more Whiteheadian approaches.","human_ref_B":"I would recommend starting not with OOO or SR directly, but rather with the first part of Graham Harman's *Prince of Networks*. This is about Bruno Latour, but Latour is the ur-figure from whom all of this entire thing started from. To a considerable extent, SR, OOO, New Materialism and so on are variants of or inspired by Actor Network Theory (i.e. Latour). It is also really well written and very accessible. Since you are asking for a book, here's a free pdf of *The Speculative Turn*. It is a collection of chapters by different authors, so you can go with whatever strikes your interest. SR specifically started off with Quentin Meillassoux's *After Finitude*, so if you want to jump in at the deep end, that's the place to go. But that one is pretty heavy going.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3770.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"2qub6i","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Are there any problems that used to be philosophic but were solved and recategorized (e.g. as science)? Can we use those recategorizations to assume something about current philosophical problems? Usually I would do the research myself but I'm coming up short on thinking of old philosophy problems that were subsequently solved by advances in scientific fields. The only examples I can think of are from ancient metaphysics where the premises turned out to be invalid. I don't think that type of 'solved' problems will help for the question in question. I need a problem that had valid premises but due to lack of knowledge we could not conclude the correct answer. Are those types of problems perhaps not even philosophic - and that's why I'm having troubles thinking of one?","c_root_id_A":"cna1ah0","c_root_id_B":"cna235g","created_at_utc_A":1419999553,"created_at_utc_B":1420001292,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I mean, there's always zeno's paradox and also just about everything Plato\/Aristotle talked about outside of ethics and metaphysics","human_ref_B":"Well, almost everything you know of in science, was considered part of natural philosophy a century ago. Anything philosophical about the human mind and how it works. We have better ways of thinking about logic, that can avoid existential import.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1739.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"75tp8u","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Carl Schmidt, once a favorite of the far right, haso become increasingly popular with the far left. Can anyone with a grasp on The Concept of the Political in particular explain the transition and what the relationship is?","c_root_id_A":"do9wruz","c_root_id_B":"do93mly","created_at_utc_A":1507830474,"created_at_utc_B":1507782670,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"So people above are giving half-answers, which is fine. Basically, among other things, the Left (and the Right) is increasingly skeptical of liberalism. Schmitt was able to identify the core of the political in that work, as well as why liberalism's response was inadequate. (Or so the argument goes.) Liberalism, according to Schmitt, does not have a politics, only a critique of politics. This is because liberalism is essentially unresponsive to the uniquely political distinction between friend and enemy: politics us inherently conflictual, and liberalism seeks to neutralize conflict (thus, neutralize the political itself), but this is impossible (for various reasons). Liberalism is therefore a response to the political, but it can never realize its own project Despite the fact Schmitt's critique here was itself an ironically liberal critique (read Strauss' notes for this), the Left is valorizing the political as a response to what they believe is the inadequacy of liberal politics. Liberalism cannot generate the conversation consensus it requires to function. So either we have to fix liberalism, or do away with it altogether Hope that helps shed some light :)","human_ref_B":"Apart from what others have said, it needs to be stated he's a brilliant political theorist and The Concept Of The Political is a beautiful work, very concept-dense but to the point.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":47804.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"rtyv1b","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is there a problem with the idea of trickle-down philosophy? I have seen a common idea raised by some philosophers, as well as on askphilosophy, that society benefits from the obscure writings of philosophy by way of a trickle down effect, similar to the idea of trickle down economics. I was just reading Hume's Enquiry, for instance, where he writes: *\"though a philosopher may live remote from business, the genius of philosophy, if carefully cultivated by several, must gradually diffuse itself throughout the whole society, and bestow a similar correctness on every art and calling.\"* The first question I have is is this statement correct? Does philosophically obscure writing genuinely diffuse itself into broader culture? How can we know that largescale cultural shifts are influenced by philosophers, and not say, popular novels or television shows? It seems questionable to me that a book or essay read only by a tiny minority of academics can have a significant impact upon the thoughts of billions. Might it not be true that it is the other way around? That the common sense of the masses dictates current trends in philosophy? My second question is, if trickle down philosophy is a real thing, is its influence beneficial? To my mind, the philosopher that had the largest impact on popular culture was probably Marx, but given that people's misunderstanding of Marx lead to all sorts of atrocities in the 20th century I'm not sure that the diffusion of Marx in this case was good for society. I'm not saying here that Marx was a bad thinker (to be honest I haven't even read him) but that the popularisation of his ideas was perhaps disastrous.","c_root_id_A":"hqwvlj8","c_root_id_B":"hqww092","created_at_utc_A":1641110842,"created_at_utc_B":1641111162,"score_A":4,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Most major social philosophies influence the whole population in some way, though they do tend to be simplified or exaggerated. Nietzsche and Marx are some obvious examples. Judith Butler and Ayn Rand are some currently relevant examples. Both fairly well known philosophers, though their philosophies have been simplified by the left and right wing respectively.","human_ref_B":"To quote Hegel, the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk, which is to say that philosophy (or wisdom) only takes place at the end of events which have taken place. On the contrary to 'trickle-down,' philosophers, insofar as they are concerned with society, are at the very end of the course of human affairs, but capable of distilling it down to an essence, giving it a name and articulating what everyone already knows but cannot put so precisely into words, which itself becomes an entity in history. The Age of Enlightenment, for example, didn't spring up from pure thought but was, in part, a response to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, as described in Voltaire's *Candide*. And Marx, too, was a student of history, who noted the social transformation of feudal Europe to capitalism which informed his materialist conception of history, and, I believe, informed his skepticism that a socialist revolution could be successful in Russia due to its lack of an advanced capitalist phase. This is all to say that philosophy is a part of history, it is both a product of prior affairs and contributor to broader culture and its self-understanding.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":320.0,"score_ratio":3.75} +{"post_id":"9sp4f8","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How to exit \"The Cave\" in platos allegory of the cave I've been thinking about the Allegory of the cave recently and Something that bothers me is that the prisoners had no idea they were living in a lesser form of reality. In addition, they were very resistant when they were told. How does one go about leaving the cave or figuring out they aren't in a lesser form of reality.","c_root_id_A":"e8qd4hk","c_root_id_B":"e8qexp6","created_at_utc_A":1540915433,"created_at_utc_B":1540916865,"score_A":19,"score_B":48,"human_ref_A":"Socrates suggests that force is going to be required. That is, one does not simply walk out of the cave.","human_ref_B":"From Socrates' lesson to Alcibiades, the first step is to remove our \"double ignorance\", that is, not just being ignorant but being ignorant of our ignorance (thus believing we know that which we don't know). Shedding that is the first step of philosophy and loosens the attachment to the shadows on the cave wall. I suppose we could say another step is the cultivation of the cardinal virtues, further loosening our attachments to those shadows and gaining the ability and strength to tread the philosopher's path. One must become capable of \"looking away\" instead of remaining transfixed, which means identifying and shedding all the things that keep us staring at the wall. Once we've become able to look away we could probably identify the further steps of actually standing up and walking out of the cave by the old Delphic saying \"know thyself\". And perhaps the dramas of the Mysteries (Elusinian etc.) are where we'd find hints of how how one actually exits the cave. So leaving the cave is twofold: 1) lose our double ignorance (accept that we don't know anything) and our attachments (or summed up as: loosen whatever keeps us transfixed by the shadows), and 2) coming to replace our ignorance with real knowledge (which is the path of Philosophy).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1432.0,"score_ratio":2.5263157895} +{"post_id":"9sp4f8","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How to exit \"The Cave\" in platos allegory of the cave I've been thinking about the Allegory of the cave recently and Something that bothers me is that the prisoners had no idea they were living in a lesser form of reality. In addition, they were very resistant when they were told. How does one go about leaving the cave or figuring out they aren't in a lesser form of reality.","c_root_id_A":"e8qd4hk","c_root_id_B":"e8qqwqj","created_at_utc_A":1540915433,"created_at_utc_B":1540926362,"score_A":19,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"Socrates suggests that force is going to be required. That is, one does not simply walk out of the cave.","human_ref_B":"The allegory of the cave is part of a long discussion of the ideal state's education system. That education system is designed to help the educated \"leave the cave.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10929.0,"score_ratio":1.3684210526} +{"post_id":"9sp4f8","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How to exit \"The Cave\" in platos allegory of the cave I've been thinking about the Allegory of the cave recently and Something that bothers me is that the prisoners had no idea they were living in a lesser form of reality. In addition, they were very resistant when they were told. How does one go about leaving the cave or figuring out they aren't in a lesser form of reality.","c_root_id_A":"e8quipm","c_root_id_B":"e8qrjw9","created_at_utc_A":1540929177,"created_at_utc_B":1540926863,"score_A":14,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Another often neglected part of the allergory is the bit when Plato indicates that those who have exited the cave (ie, philosophers) ought to make the journey back into the cave and live with the \"unenlightened\", so to speak, who dwell there (cf 519a-521e). The philosopher, then, aims to enlighten the cave dwellers, helping them to ascend to the surface by entering into philosophical dialectic with them. Socrates' midwifery analogy in Theaetetus is also crucial to this discussion. An interesting question given this is, how does the first person come to exit the cave? The short answer is probably luck\/fortune. I can demonstrate this at greater length, but I'd need to dig into some of my dialogues to do so, and I don't have them on hand at the moment.","human_ref_B":"For Plato, the elevation of the soul, i.e. Plato's Symposium. The analogy of the divided line is further made symbolic in the analogy of the cave; the shadowy interior of the cave is like the lower part of the line (i.e. the perceptual) while the lighted exterior is likened to the higher part of the line (i.e. the conceptual). Moving up the divided line: the first level of the line is *Eikasia* (\u03b5\u1f30\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03b1) , or images\/conjectures, which is the recognition of likeness of visible objects and characterized primarily by sensory perception guesses relating to visible objects. I understand this to be recognition of visible patterns such as \"this looks like a dog.\" Since it could be a painting of a dog, a fever-dream of a dog, or a hallucination of a dog, it is the lowest perception of \"dog-ness.\" The second level is *Pistis* (\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2), or belief concerning visible objects, which I understand to be the making of predictions based upon perception. I understand this to be a dog and dogs will bark and sniff things. I still don't know if it is actually a dog or not, but I have some predictions based upon previously learned dog-like behavior which leads me to believe that it is a dog. Importantly, this is observation only and not infused with scientific belief or experimental belief or anything of that sort. Just plain old empirical observations of the past. The third level is *Dianoia* (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1) , or understanding\/hypothesis, or thought, especially mathematical diagrammatic knowledge. This is the first level above the line and represents understanding that something like structure underlies the visible exterior of things and this structure need not be directly perceived to be understood. By making use of likeness and concepts such as geometry, we are able to make stronger hypothesis that go beyond mere perceptual repetition but to a deeper fundamental understanding of why this thing operates the way it does. The highest divide on the line is *Noesis* (\u03bd\u03cc\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2), or knowledge. Hypothesis are understood and rejected by reason and subjected to logic (preferably the Method of elenchus) prior to be elevated to the highest form of mind, that of the ideas (\u03b5\u1f36\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 - theory of Forms). ​ By forming ideas through the elenchus and maintaining only justified true beliefs, Plato believes we exit the cave of perception. http:\/\/www.informationphilosopher.com\/knowledge\/divided\\_line.html","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2314.0,"score_ratio":1.5555555556} +{"post_id":"ocwx4d","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What is essential reading for Plato and Aristotle in regards to Metaphysics? I'm trying to read metaphysics up to Hegel, as I want to get a good understanding of Marx and then modern and post-modern writers. I've never had a formal philosophy education before, and I was told by a friend to familiarise myself with Plato\/Aristotle before Kant etc. So for metaphysics what is required reading for them? And is there anything I should read beforehand to make sure I grasp them?","c_root_id_A":"h3wydtp","c_root_id_B":"h3x9r2z","created_at_utc_A":1625316246,"created_at_utc_B":1625323014,"score_A":5,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"I recommend you focus on some good secondary literature instead of just trying to dive in on your own. Jumping into famously difficult 2500-year-old texts without a guide is not a recipe for understanding. I would not say that Plato is a necessary prerequisite for Kant. And even though Plato was Aristotle\u2019s teacher, a good intro to Aristotle will cover all the Plato you need for a basic understanding. I\u2019d say the most direct route for you is to read the SEP entry on Plato followed by Jonathan Lear\u2019s *Aristotle: The Desire to Understand*, by far the best comprehensive introduction to Aristotle. That book will be useful for you in part because it\u2019s not only focused on metaphysics. If you\u2019re interested in metaphysical issues in Marx and Hegel, you need a grasp of Aristotelian ethics and logic in addition to strictly metaphysical topics. From there you should be good to jump into Kant \u2014 not that there are no important philosophers between the Greeks and Kant, but you\u2019ll have enough background to tackle Kant more or less on his own terms. Again I\u2019d recommend secondary literature; Sebastian Gardner\u2019s guide to the Critique of Pure Reason is the best IMO.","human_ref_B":"I think your friend is giving you very bad advice. If you want to read Marx, I'd suggest reading Marx. Reading \"metaphysics up to Hegel\" is easily going to take you several years, assuming you read regularly and stick with it -- which almost certainly you won't, if this isn't the thing you're interested in. But if you want to read Plato's works on metaphysics, certainly *Parmenides*, *Phaedo*, *Sophist*, and *Timaeus*; I would think the *Philebus* and *Symposium* would also be particularly important. For Aristotle, *On Generation and Corruption*, *On the Heavens*, *On the Soul*, *Physics*, *Meteorology* (at least the first book), and *Metaphysics*. If you finish all that you can come back for recommendations on Hellenistic and Roman philosophy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6768.0,"score_ratio":4.0} +{"post_id":"4i0zhl","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to approach Phenomenology? I've been interested in Phenomenology since I briefly discussed with with my professor last semester, and I want to try getting into it this summer. How should I approach the field? My issue is that I am not very well read yet. I've read Plato, Aristotle in depth, with a little Augustine, some Camus and De Beauvoir. Where should I begin? I would appreciate some recommendations for a reading list \/ order or any secondary sources that would help me.","c_root_id_A":"d2u426d","c_root_id_B":"d2u7kym","created_at_utc_A":1462472639,"created_at_utc_B":1462477260,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"The Crisis of the Sciences by Husserl is claimed to be an introduction to transcendental phenomenology. It's fairly accessible if you know the basics of the early modern thinkers up to Kant. Take a look and see what you think. I can send you the PDF if you'd like.","human_ref_B":"Read Descartes' Meditations first. When Husserl starts referring back to it you'll better understand why Phenomenology is a thing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4621.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"4i0zhl","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to approach Phenomenology? I've been interested in Phenomenology since I briefly discussed with with my professor last semester, and I want to try getting into it this summer. How should I approach the field? My issue is that I am not very well read yet. I've read Plato, Aristotle in depth, with a little Augustine, some Camus and De Beauvoir. Where should I begin? I would appreciate some recommendations for a reading list \/ order or any secondary sources that would help me.","c_root_id_A":"d2u426d","c_root_id_B":"d2uvyut","created_at_utc_A":1462472639,"created_at_utc_B":1462520162,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The Crisis of the Sciences by Husserl is claimed to be an introduction to transcendental phenomenology. It's fairly accessible if you know the basics of the early modern thinkers up to Kant. Take a look and see what you think. I can send you the PDF if you'd like.","human_ref_B":"As far as primary texts go, I think that you can get a well-rounded introduction to the history and themes of the tradition by reading in this order: 1. (Descartes \u2013 *Meditations on First Philosophy*) 2. Husserl \u2013 *Logical Investigations* (and *Cartesian Meditations*) 3. Heidegger \u2013 *Being and Time* 4. Sartre \u2013 *Being and Nothingness* 5. Merleau-Ponty \u2013 *Phenomenology of Perception* From there, it really depends on your interests. You can explore the traditional \"factions\" of phenomenology (realist, transcendental, existential), explore a certain figure (*e.g.* Fanon, Levinas, Ricoeur), and\/or delve into a special topic (phenomenology of race, religion, pretty much anything else). Oh, and some people might tell you that you need to read Hegel's *Phenomenology of Spirit.* I would personally postpone that project for a while.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":47523.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"vest7q","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"why is punishment necessary for justice? actually, IS it? you know how some folks want to do away with prison? it got me wondering...aside from profit, the reason prison exists is to make criminals pay. they fucked up, so we make them miserable. but if prison doesn't exist, if we focus on reformation instead of punishment, is that fair? is that good? is punishment inherently needed for justice, or is there truly another way?","c_root_id_A":"ics3neb","c_root_id_B":"icshikv","created_at_utc_A":1655512891,"created_at_utc_B":1655520454,"score_A":3,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"This is a *huge* can of worms, but I'll attempt to unpack some stuff. Perhaps the most compelling justifications for punishment come out of the Kantian deontological tradition, where punishment as retribution is seen as affirming the agency of the criminal; they *freely chose* to commit a crime, and therefore *deserve* the judicial consequences. You can of course also find justifications of punishment amongst consequentialists; but among utilitarians at least, punishment can never be an end in itself (since it by definition reduces the utility for those being punished)\u2013for a utilitarian, it can only be for purposes of deterrence and\/or incapacitation. That being said, you might want to look into the literature on restorative justice. Thinkers and activists in this tradition focus on repairing communities damaged by violence, oppression, etc. and seek to hold wrongdoers accountable without simply resorting to punitive methods. Perhaps the most famous and large-scale example of this is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission established in South Africa after the fall of Apartheid. As I understand it, restorative justice takes seriously the idea that crimes need to be acknowledged and processed by the community that is affected by them, and that involves the perpetrators taking responsibility for what they've done and doing what they can to make things right. It's like rehabilitation, but even more ambitious, since it sees the project as a *communal* one rather than a merely *individual* one. I hope that helps answer your question.","human_ref_B":"Justifying punishment is a difficult problem in philosophy of law because it involves both moral condemnation and infliction of harm. In liberal societies (liberal here is used in the philosophical sense, not in the everyday politics sense that describes people on the left), governments are traditionally expected to remain morally neutral most of the time and to promote the public good. It seems hard to justify harm and condemnation as consistent with neutrality and the public good. The two primary categories of justification philosophers have used are forward-looking and backward-looking theories. Forward-looking theories attempt to justify punishment by appealing to some positive effect it will have, such as deterrence. Backward-looking theories attempt to right a previous wrong or respond to a wrong that was committed, such as be seeking retribution. The most straightforward forward-looking theory is a bare-bones consequentialist theory. Consequentialism only cares about the consequences of a decision, so punishment would only be justified if it had some good effect. There are problems with consequentialist theories, primarily their lack of consistency and lack of respect for individual rights. Murphy lays out these problems and justifies his own retributive theory of punishment in chapter 4 of this book. That chapter will give you a good idea of this whole problem if you want to read it. Murphy\u2019s retributive theory of punishment is backward-looking and seeks to right a wrong and restore justice to the community. He is explicitly against merely seeking retribution for retribution\u2019s own sake. That would be the lex talionis or \u201ceye for an eye\u201d view, which is unpopular. Rather, Murphy\u2019s view is that when a crime has been committed, a wrong has been done to the community\u2019s shared sense of what is right. An injustice has occurred. In order to restore justice to the community, the criminal must be punished. In Murphy\u2019s view, the criminal is being punished not simply as revenge, but in order to restore justice. Kelly criticizes Murphy\u2019s view in this paper. Kelly believes Murphy\u2019s approach does not avoid retributivism\u2019s problems. She puts forward her own forward-looking view based primarily on deterrence, but she also seeks to avoid consequentialism\u2019s pitfalls. Kelly\u2019s theory relies on treating all criminals equally and giving them all fair warning. In Kelly\u2019s view, this equality and fairness is sufficient to retain a respect for individual dignity and justice even as criminals are punished. Kelly realizes the we cannot simply blame criminals for their actions, but she thinks that punishment can still be just if it is done in the right way. So Kelly recognizes objections about a criminal\u2019s circumstances, and thinks her theory gets around it. Meanwhile, there are those who believe that punishment is unjustified, and are unconvinced by both forward- and backward-looking theories. These philosophers typically endorse restorative justice as an alternative, which seeks to rehabilitate criminals and right any wrongs without punishment. I am less familiar with these theories, but you can read more about them here. I linked the section of an encyclopedia article about restorative justice, but I\u2019d bet that whole article would be illuminating. Hope this helps","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7563.0,"score_ratio":5.3333333333} +{"post_id":"nkmxdd","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Is continuing to eat meat enough to make someone a bad person? I've been seeing a few posts about veganism recently and I've been suprised that apparently there's really just barely any decent arguments for eating meat. So my question is, if someone doesn't have a good reason to not eat meat and simply does it because they enjoy it: does that make them a bad person if they can be otherwise considered good? Good being someone who's...I dunno what makes someone ethically\/morally good in the first place? Good towards people overall, doesn't do anything morally or ethically bad as much as they can I suppose.","c_root_id_A":"gzh8q5j","c_root_id_B":"gzfvm8b","created_at_utc_A":1622004412,"created_at_utc_B":1621978795,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Not all ethical theories consider 'bad person' a useful category. For virtue ethicists, whether one is of good character is of central importance, so your question is meaningful to a virtue ethicist. Personally, both due to my consequentialism and due to general life experience, I find 'good person\/bad person' to be a deeply unhelpful lens. Most people are complex and do good and bad things, I think that drawing a line at a certain weight of good or bad things and saying 'past here you are bad' is inevitably going to be arbitrary. Further, I don't see the utility of telling someone that they are a good or bad person; it doesn't seem to have any real impact on behaviour. However, saying 'this behaviour is bad and hurts people\/is wrong' does seem to have an impact as it is inherently action oriented (whereas thinking 'im a bad person' tends to immobilise people in my experience). Eating meat\/animal products is indisputably morally wrong. The focus should be on getting people to recognise that eating meat is bad and stop doing it, rather than telling people that they're bad people for doing it.","human_ref_B":"I don\u2019t think there\u2019s much value in characterising people as entirely good or bad. People do good and bad things. What\u2019s important and useful is recognising what is good and what is bad. Killing animals is one of those bad things","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25617.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"4bumto","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Explain like I'm five years old: Existentialism vs Nihilism vs Absurdism Just read a bit of The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus and it has led me down a rabbit hole. I would like a bit of clarification between the three theories and for someone to explain to me how possible it is that we are living in a meaningless life. I'm beginning to believe we sort of are and that we should ignore that feeling and just do what makes us happy","c_root_id_A":"d1crznd","c_root_id_B":"d1cq16w","created_at_utc_A":1458885701,"created_at_utc_B":1458880791,"score_A":35,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Existentialism and absurdism can be understood as two different but very similar responses to nihilism. Nihilism, more specifically existential nihilism, argues that life has no intrinsic meaning, purpose, or value. Both existentialism and absurdism accept this but respond in different ways. Existentialism in its broadest sense refers to a tradition of European philosophers who begin with individual human existence and authenticity. In the narrow sense, which is to say from Sartre, existentialism's response to nihilism is that we as radically free subjects thrown into a meaningless universe are solely responsible for the meaning we give it. Absurdism, a philosophy most attributed to Albert Camus, takes as central the absurd desire for humans to seek inherent value despite the meaninglessness of the world (nihilism). Absurdism further argues that all attempts to find meaning, either inherent or from one's self (existentialism), will ultimately fail but we should embrace the Absurd (the contradictory co-existence of the value-seeking human mind and the valueless world) and defiantly seek meaning anyway. The search itself is meaningful.","human_ref_B":"Existentialism: You're free to create your own meaning (it is also considered a general movement or period, like modernism in art). Absurdism: (Only relates to the meaning of life, existence) It is impossible, therefore irrelevant, for man to know or understand the meaning of life. Nihilism: (Can relate to multiple areas in philosophy; ethics, metaphysics, epistemology) There is no (nihil) inherent meaning in the world.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4910.0,"score_ratio":1.8421052632} +{"post_id":"4bumto","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Explain like I'm five years old: Existentialism vs Nihilism vs Absurdism Just read a bit of The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus and it has led me down a rabbit hole. I would like a bit of clarification between the three theories and for someone to explain to me how possible it is that we are living in a meaningless life. I'm beginning to believe we sort of are and that we should ignore that feeling and just do what makes us happy","c_root_id_A":"d1ckhr6","c_root_id_B":"d1crznd","created_at_utc_A":1458870548,"created_at_utc_B":1458885701,"score_A":9,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/3cqhmx\/existentialism_vs_absurdism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/2h5bx0\/isnt_absurdism_still_technically_nihilism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/3v5rr4\/what_is_nihilism_what_is_absurdism_existentialism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/19kz1a\/what_are_the_key_differences_between_secular\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/322aqr\/eli5_the_differences_between_existentialism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/2ajr5y\/absurdism_vs_existentialism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/394q1n\/im_stuck_between_atheistic_existentialism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/q0441\/what_are_the_primary_differences_between\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/400cpm\/differences_between_nihilism_existentialism_and\/","human_ref_B":"Existentialism and absurdism can be understood as two different but very similar responses to nihilism. Nihilism, more specifically existential nihilism, argues that life has no intrinsic meaning, purpose, or value. Both existentialism and absurdism accept this but respond in different ways. Existentialism in its broadest sense refers to a tradition of European philosophers who begin with individual human existence and authenticity. In the narrow sense, which is to say from Sartre, existentialism's response to nihilism is that we as radically free subjects thrown into a meaningless universe are solely responsible for the meaning we give it. Absurdism, a philosophy most attributed to Albert Camus, takes as central the absurd desire for humans to seek inherent value despite the meaninglessness of the world (nihilism). Absurdism further argues that all attempts to find meaning, either inherent or from one's self (existentialism), will ultimately fail but we should embrace the Absurd (the contradictory co-existence of the value-seeking human mind and the valueless world) and defiantly seek meaning anyway. The search itself is meaningful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15153.0,"score_ratio":3.8888888889} +{"post_id":"4bumto","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Explain like I'm five years old: Existentialism vs Nihilism vs Absurdism Just read a bit of The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus and it has led me down a rabbit hole. I would like a bit of clarification between the three theories and for someone to explain to me how possible it is that we are living in a meaningless life. I'm beginning to believe we sort of are and that we should ignore that feeling and just do what makes us happy","c_root_id_A":"d1ckhr6","c_root_id_B":"d1cq16w","created_at_utc_A":1458870548,"created_at_utc_B":1458880791,"score_A":9,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/3cqhmx\/existentialism_vs_absurdism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/2h5bx0\/isnt_absurdism_still_technically_nihilism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/3v5rr4\/what_is_nihilism_what_is_absurdism_existentialism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/19kz1a\/what_are_the_key_differences_between_secular\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/322aqr\/eli5_the_differences_between_existentialism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/2ajr5y\/absurdism_vs_existentialism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/394q1n\/im_stuck_between_atheistic_existentialism\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/q0441\/what_are_the_primary_differences_between\/ https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/400cpm\/differences_between_nihilism_existentialism_and\/","human_ref_B":"Existentialism: You're free to create your own meaning (it is also considered a general movement or period, like modernism in art). Absurdism: (Only relates to the meaning of life, existence) It is impossible, therefore irrelevant, for man to know or understand the meaning of life. Nihilism: (Can relate to multiple areas in philosophy; ethics, metaphysics, epistemology) There is no (nihil) inherent meaning in the world.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10243.0,"score_ratio":2.1111111111} +{"post_id":"4bumto","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Explain like I'm five years old: Existentialism vs Nihilism vs Absurdism Just read a bit of The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus and it has led me down a rabbit hole. I would like a bit of clarification between the three theories and for someone to explain to me how possible it is that we are living in a meaningless life. I'm beginning to believe we sort of are and that we should ignore that feeling and just do what makes us happy","c_root_id_A":"d1cw7zl","c_root_id_B":"d1cvorx","created_at_utc_A":1458905447,"created_at_utc_B":1458903480,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I wrote a piece about all of these issues several years ago. Perhaps it will be of help.","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/askphilosophy\/comments\/400cpm\/differences_between_nihilism_existentialism_and\/cyqg9q0","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1967.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"2729lf","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Writers like Emil Cioran? A couple of months back I discovered Emil Cioran and became addicted. He's like Nietzsche on crack, a misanthropist with mystical qualities, pretty over the top a lot of the time. Unfortunately I'll be running out of material soon. I've read most of his major works except for The Transfiguration of Romania and the notebooks, which might not even have been translated to English yet. I'm told that The Transfiguration is rubbish because it's his most openly fascist work back from his early days. It seems he changed after the war, though. My question is - do you happen to know any other writers that are similar Cioran I should probably check out?","c_root_id_A":"chwp6z8","c_root_id_B":"chwp7ty","created_at_utc_A":1401662974,"created_at_utc_B":1401663035,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Apart from Nietzsche who you've already mentioned you could try Peter Wessel Zapffe and Miguel Unamuno.","human_ref_B":"I think he's best categorized as a philosophical pessimist. Here are a few others in that vein that I enjoy: Zapffe, Ligotti, John Gray, Eugene Thacker","labels":0,"seconds_difference":61.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpb612x","c_root_id_B":"hpavxhs","created_at_utc_A":1640017573,"created_at_utc_B":1640013207,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"So last week, as the year is coming to an end, I asked what book most changed how you think about something, and why. This week: **what book are you most excited to read in the coming year, and why?** I\u2019m looking forward to rereading *Capital*, vol. 1 for my dissertation, and working out how Marx\u2019s notion of \u201cform\u201d operates throughout the test.","human_ref_B":"If I\u2019m applying for a philosophy MA, should my personal statement still talk about professors I want to work with? Bit of a na\u00efve question, this is my first application cycle.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4366.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpbixgr","c_root_id_B":"hpavxhs","created_at_utc_A":1640022860,"created_at_utc_B":1640013207,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"What are people reading? I am working on *Logical Structure of the World* by Carnap and *Time and the Other* by Levinas.","human_ref_B":"If I\u2019m applying for a philosophy MA, should my personal statement still talk about professors I want to work with? Bit of a na\u00efve question, this is my first application cycle.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9653.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpf3esy","c_root_id_B":"hpdfomj","created_at_utc_A":1640091153,"created_at_utc_B":1640052491,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Instead of best translation, which version of Kant's *Critique of Pure Reason* has the most aesthetically pleasing cover? More generally, what philosophy books just look straight up good sitting in your bookshelf or sitting out on a table? Myself, I have a hardback copy of St. Augustine's Confessions that I picked up at a thrift store with a nice, old-style spine. Beside that, my dad gifted me his copy of Walter Lowrie's translation of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death (this mint green thing) that I'm fond of. I also have the Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading paperback of Feuerbach's *The Essence of Christianity* that looks way better than other versions I've seen.","human_ref_B":"I want to get an idea of Aquinas's philosophical beliefs from a non-theological POV. What should I read of his that leans more towards the philosophy and less towards theology? I know he talks about Aristotle and virtue ethics in summa, but man that text looks so dry ;---;","labels":1,"seconds_difference":38662.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpsjokr","c_root_id_B":"hpdfomj","created_at_utc_A":1640339152,"created_at_utc_B":1640052491,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"2 things (i) I am looking for a good edition of Poetics by Aristotle Ideally, something similar to what W. M. A. Grimald did for rhetorics (i) I am looking for a partner reader for Nietzsche and Philosophy by Deleuze. We will essentially read the book and discuss it together. Thank you in advance!","human_ref_B":"I want to get an idea of Aquinas's philosophical beliefs from a non-theological POV. What should I read of his that leans more towards the philosophy and less towards theology? I know he talks about Aristotle and virtue ethics in summa, but man that text looks so dry ;---;","labels":1,"seconds_difference":286661.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpsjokr","c_root_id_B":"hpl0wsv","created_at_utc_A":1640339152,"created_at_utc_B":1640196600,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"2 things (i) I am looking for a good edition of Poetics by Aristotle Ideally, something similar to what W. M. A. Grimald did for rhetorics (i) I am looking for a partner reader for Nietzsche and Philosophy by Deleuze. We will essentially read the book and discuss it together. Thank you in advance!","human_ref_B":"Recommend me some philosophy Twitter accounts.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":142552.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpm1max","c_root_id_B":"hpsjokr","created_at_utc_A":1640211558,"created_at_utc_B":1640339152,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Would it be an enormous mistake to rewrite a writing sample for an MA program with 22 days to spare? I originally was going to just edit my term paper, because I obviously already have feedback on it, but I feel inspired these past few days after rereading and taking notes on my primary sources. I have two peers and a professor who are willing to review whatever I do, and I still have to do my personal statement which I know a lot hinges on as well.","human_ref_B":"2 things (i) I am looking for a good edition of Poetics by Aristotle Ideally, something similar to what W. M. A. Grimald did for rhetorics (i) I am looking for a partner reader for Nietzsche and Philosophy by Deleuze. We will essentially read the book and discuss it together. Thank you in advance!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":127594.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpsjokr","c_root_id_B":"hpsbtt2","created_at_utc_A":1640339152,"created_at_utc_B":1640332636,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"2 things (i) I am looking for a good edition of Poetics by Aristotle Ideally, something similar to what W. M. A. Grimald did for rhetorics (i) I am looking for a partner reader for Nietzsche and Philosophy by Deleuze. We will essentially read the book and discuss it together. Thank you in advance!","human_ref_B":"How does moral anti realism apply to the justice system? Do people who subscribe to this believe that there should not be punishment for crimes?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6516.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpsjokr","c_root_id_B":"hpj93je","created_at_utc_A":1640339152,"created_at_utc_B":1640161025,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"2 things (i) I am looking for a good edition of Poetics by Aristotle Ideally, something similar to what W. M. A. Grimald did for rhetorics (i) I am looking for a partner reader for Nietzsche and Philosophy by Deleuze. We will essentially read the book and discuss it together. Thank you in advance!","human_ref_B":"Your favourite video game that has philosophical themes?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":178127.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpm1max","c_root_id_B":"hpl0wsv","created_at_utc_A":1640211558,"created_at_utc_B":1640196600,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Would it be an enormous mistake to rewrite a writing sample for an MA program with 22 days to spare? I originally was going to just edit my term paper, because I obviously already have feedback on it, but I feel inspired these past few days after rereading and taking notes on my primary sources. I have two peers and a professor who are willing to review whatever I do, and I still have to do my personal statement which I know a lot hinges on as well.","human_ref_B":"Recommend me some philosophy Twitter accounts.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14958.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpl0wsv","c_root_id_B":"hpsbtt2","created_at_utc_A":1640196600,"created_at_utc_B":1640332636,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Recommend me some philosophy Twitter accounts.","human_ref_B":"How does moral anti realism apply to the justice system? Do people who subscribe to this believe that there should not be punishment for crimes?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":136036.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpj93je","c_root_id_B":"hpm1max","created_at_utc_A":1640161025,"created_at_utc_B":1640211558,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Your favourite video game that has philosophical themes?","human_ref_B":"Would it be an enormous mistake to rewrite a writing sample for an MA program with 22 days to spare? I originally was going to just edit my term paper, because I obviously already have feedback on it, but I feel inspired these past few days after rereading and taking notes on my primary sources. I have two peers and a professor who are willing to review whatever I do, and I still have to do my personal statement which I know a lot hinges on as well.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":50533.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"rknx83","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 20, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hpsbtt2","c_root_id_B":"hpj93je","created_at_utc_A":1640332636,"created_at_utc_B":1640161025,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"How does moral anti realism apply to the justice system? Do people who subscribe to this believe that there should not be punishment for crimes?","human_ref_B":"Your favourite video game that has philosophical themes?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":171611.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"r5z2i2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Other than Freud, what philosophers explored the topic of incest? To be a bit more specific: I am interested in reading some philosophers that offered a defense of incestuous behavior in humans.","c_root_id_A":"hmq0ap3","c_root_id_B":"hmq0efd","created_at_utc_A":1638312280,"created_at_utc_B":1638312324,"score_A":13,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"There's apparently a whole subsection of incest on philpapers: https:\/\/philpapers.org\/browse\/incest\/","human_ref_B":"Well, if Freud is a philosopher I suppose Levi-Strauss is. So... Levi-Strauss?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":44.0,"score_ratio":2.7692307692} +{"post_id":"r5z2i2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Other than Freud, what philosophers explored the topic of incest? To be a bit more specific: I am interested in reading some philosophers that offered a defense of incestuous behavior in humans.","c_root_id_A":"hmqsbp7","c_root_id_B":"hmswhx2","created_at_utc_A":1638324720,"created_at_utc_B":1638371041,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Jeff Sebo, The Ethics of Incest: https:\/\/jeffsebodotnet.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/10\/the-ethics-of-incest1.pdf","human_ref_B":"Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus","labels":0,"seconds_difference":46321.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"r5z2i2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Other than Freud, what philosophers explored the topic of incest? To be a bit more specific: I am interested in reading some philosophers that offered a defense of incestuous behavior in humans.","c_root_id_A":"hmqsbp7","c_root_id_B":"hmtzf7w","created_at_utc_A":1638324720,"created_at_utc_B":1638386474,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Jeff Sebo, The Ethics of Incest: https:\/\/jeffsebodotnet.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/10\/the-ethics-of-incest1.pdf","human_ref_B":"Peter Singer","labels":0,"seconds_difference":61754.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"dg58lk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Where to start with Marx? Edit: After asking this I realized that my question might have been better worded as, \"Where to start with socialism\/anti-capitalist theory\", but I can't change it now. I am interested in learning about critiques of capitalism and theories of alternatives to capitalism that are still relevant today, not necessarily learning about Marx\/Marxism from a historical perspective. In general I feel like reading source material directly is better than reading commentaries\/summaries, so I was thinking of diving straight into Capital. But I'm pretty intimated by the length (3000 pages it looks like), and discouraged because I've heard a lot of the content of that book has been discredited. Should I just bite the bullet and read the whole thing? Or focus on later neo-Marxist thinkers?","c_root_id_A":"f39qzy1","c_root_id_B":"f39jrvy","created_at_utc_A":1570754059,"created_at_utc_B":1570749325,"score_A":8,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I would start with the first chapter of the German Ideology. Or I would also start with a contribution to the critique of political economy. Additionally, the communist manifesto although not my favorite of Marx\u2019s texts is good foundational Marx text. Lastly once you have read these 3 texts I would try to read some of capital volume 1. It\u2019s size can be intimidating for some but it is truly his best and most comprehensive work. David Harvey and others have good guides for reading capital. If read you capital I would recommend you start with the end section on primitive accumulation and then go back to the beginning and read the rest chronologically. Also all of Marx\u2019s works are free online Edit: capital is not discredited that is just some shit that people say who either haven\u2019t read it or didn\u2019t get it. Although it is old capital still has a lot of value","human_ref_B":"Four Marxist Classics is a good primer. It will get you very familiar with the Marxist and Marxist-Leninist school of thought, which you can springboard towards a lot of different schools of anti-capitalism. It contains The Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, State and Revolution, and The Transitional Program. The pacing between these flows well, there are lots of annotations for longer explanations, and it builds up the theory like a pyramid","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4734.0,"score_ratio":4.0} +{"post_id":"dg58lk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Where to start with Marx? Edit: After asking this I realized that my question might have been better worded as, \"Where to start with socialism\/anti-capitalist theory\", but I can't change it now. I am interested in learning about critiques of capitalism and theories of alternatives to capitalism that are still relevant today, not necessarily learning about Marx\/Marxism from a historical perspective. In general I feel like reading source material directly is better than reading commentaries\/summaries, so I was thinking of diving straight into Capital. But I'm pretty intimated by the length (3000 pages it looks like), and discouraged because I've heard a lot of the content of that book has been discredited. Should I just bite the bullet and read the whole thing? Or focus on later neo-Marxist thinkers?","c_root_id_A":"f39jrvy","c_root_id_B":"f3a3ohg","created_at_utc_A":1570749325,"created_at_utc_B":1570760992,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Four Marxist Classics is a good primer. It will get you very familiar with the Marxist and Marxist-Leninist school of thought, which you can springboard towards a lot of different schools of anti-capitalism. It contains The Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, State and Revolution, and The Transitional Program. The pacing between these flows well, there are lots of annotations for longer explanations, and it builds up the theory like a pyramid","human_ref_B":"The German Ideology, then the Communist Manifesto Capital and \"where to start\" shouldn't be in the same sentence lol","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11667.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"dg58lk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Where to start with Marx? Edit: After asking this I realized that my question might have been better worded as, \"Where to start with socialism\/anti-capitalist theory\", but I can't change it now. I am interested in learning about critiques of capitalism and theories of alternatives to capitalism that are still relevant today, not necessarily learning about Marx\/Marxism from a historical perspective. In general I feel like reading source material directly is better than reading commentaries\/summaries, so I was thinking of diving straight into Capital. But I'm pretty intimated by the length (3000 pages it looks like), and discouraged because I've heard a lot of the content of that book has been discredited. Should I just bite the bullet and read the whole thing? Or focus on later neo-Marxist thinkers?","c_root_id_A":"f39r74m","c_root_id_B":"f3a3ohg","created_at_utc_A":1570754182,"created_at_utc_B":1570760992,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Marxs Conception of Man by Erich Fromm","human_ref_B":"The German Ideology, then the Communist Manifesto Capital and \"where to start\" shouldn't be in the same sentence lol","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6810.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"dg58lk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Where to start with Marx? Edit: After asking this I realized that my question might have been better worded as, \"Where to start with socialism\/anti-capitalist theory\", but I can't change it now. I am interested in learning about critiques of capitalism and theories of alternatives to capitalism that are still relevant today, not necessarily learning about Marx\/Marxism from a historical perspective. In general I feel like reading source material directly is better than reading commentaries\/summaries, so I was thinking of diving straight into Capital. But I'm pretty intimated by the length (3000 pages it looks like), and discouraged because I've heard a lot of the content of that book has been discredited. Should I just bite the bullet and read the whole thing? Or focus on later neo-Marxist thinkers?","c_root_id_A":"f39jrvy","c_root_id_B":"f3aiv7h","created_at_utc_A":1570749325,"created_at_utc_B":1570775173,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Four Marxist Classics is a good primer. It will get you very familiar with the Marxist and Marxist-Leninist school of thought, which you can springboard towards a lot of different schools of anti-capitalism. It contains The Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, State and Revolution, and The Transitional Program. The pacing between these flows well, there are lots of annotations for longer explanations, and it builds up the theory like a pyramid","human_ref_B":"I'm surprised people have recommended starting with Capital but no one has brought up Critique of the Gotha Programme - I think that's a good introductory text that helps clear up a number of common misconceptions about Socialism as Marx understood it - things like equal distribution in particular.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25848.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"dg58lk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Where to start with Marx? Edit: After asking this I realized that my question might have been better worded as, \"Where to start with socialism\/anti-capitalist theory\", but I can't change it now. I am interested in learning about critiques of capitalism and theories of alternatives to capitalism that are still relevant today, not necessarily learning about Marx\/Marxism from a historical perspective. In general I feel like reading source material directly is better than reading commentaries\/summaries, so I was thinking of diving straight into Capital. But I'm pretty intimated by the length (3000 pages it looks like), and discouraged because I've heard a lot of the content of that book has been discredited. Should I just bite the bullet and read the whole thing? Or focus on later neo-Marxist thinkers?","c_root_id_A":"f3aiv7h","c_root_id_B":"f39r74m","created_at_utc_A":1570775173,"created_at_utc_B":1570754182,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm surprised people have recommended starting with Capital but no one has brought up Critique of the Gotha Programme - I think that's a good introductory text that helps clear up a number of common misconceptions about Socialism as Marx understood it - things like equal distribution in particular.","human_ref_B":"Marxs Conception of Man by Erich Fromm","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20991.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"dg58lk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Where to start with Marx? Edit: After asking this I realized that my question might have been better worded as, \"Where to start with socialism\/anti-capitalist theory\", but I can't change it now. I am interested in learning about critiques of capitalism and theories of alternatives to capitalism that are still relevant today, not necessarily learning about Marx\/Marxism from a historical perspective. In general I feel like reading source material directly is better than reading commentaries\/summaries, so I was thinking of diving straight into Capital. But I'm pretty intimated by the length (3000 pages it looks like), and discouraged because I've heard a lot of the content of that book has been discredited. Should I just bite the bullet and read the whole thing? Or focus on later neo-Marxist thinkers?","c_root_id_A":"f3aiv7h","c_root_id_B":"f3a6kzn","created_at_utc_A":1570775173,"created_at_utc_B":1570763026,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm surprised people have recommended starting with Capital but no one has brought up Critique of the Gotha Programme - I think that's a good introductory text that helps clear up a number of common misconceptions about Socialism as Marx understood it - things like equal distribution in particular.","human_ref_B":"I would go with *Capital*, vol. 1, starting from the beginning and going as far as you can. David Harvey's lectures or books are helpful here. >Or focus on later neo-Marxist thinkers? One could possibly start with Lenin, rather than Marx. \"Left Wing Communism\" is a good introduction to his thought. Also, whatever you have heard about *Capital* being discredited has been discredited.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12147.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcoro4","c_root_id_B":"cmcnl94","created_at_utc_A":1416933493,"created_at_utc_B":1416931335,"score_A":28,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Philosophy of mind edition: Searle can speak any language, but understands nothing. Chalmers is a necromancer. Nagel can transform into a bat, but he always just acts really confused. Clark is Inspector Gadget.","human_ref_B":"Giambattista Vico - Anything he says becomes true. Some Green Lantern-esque shit. Wittgenstein - Can talk to animals. Derrida - Laser eyes. Zizek - *Invisibility*.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2158.0,"score_ratio":1.4736842105} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcnwv9","c_root_id_B":"cmcoro4","created_at_utc_A":1416931953,"created_at_utc_B":1416933493,"score_A":16,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Foucault would be like a super-villain: a boogeyman who grew in power the more you talked about him. And Kant would be like a hive-mind telepath who could channel the entirety of his race's mental powers in his actions. His *Super*-actions.","human_ref_B":"Philosophy of mind edition: Searle can speak any language, but understands nothing. Chalmers is a necromancer. Nagel can transform into a bat, but he always just acts really confused. Clark is Inspector Gadget.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1540.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcoro4","c_root_id_B":"cmco9um","created_at_utc_A":1416933493,"created_at_utc_B":1416932611,"score_A":28,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Philosophy of mind edition: Searle can speak any language, but understands nothing. Chalmers is a necromancer. Nagel can transform into a bat, but he always just acts really confused. Clark is Inspector Gadget.","human_ref_B":"Rene Descartes has the power to teleport to any location.... all he needs is the coordinates for this ability to work. He can also summon a demon as a pet. Plato can cure blindness. Diogenes roams around with a pack of dogs who do his bidding. His secret lair is the sewers. He bewilders his enemy's when he exposes his penis and begins to masturbate, then he knocks them over the head with his lantern. Crime would be eradicated... if he were not so lazy :( His catch phrase... \"Did I hurt your feelings\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":882.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcoro4","c_root_id_B":"cmcn5mn","created_at_utc_A":1416933493,"created_at_utc_B":1416930506,"score_A":28,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Philosophy of mind edition: Searle can speak any language, but understands nothing. Chalmers is a necromancer. Nagel can transform into a bat, but he always just acts really confused. Clark is Inspector Gadget.","human_ref_B":"Peter van Inwagen and Kit Fine as a duo have the ability to infuse any being with an unmeasurable and causally ineffective essence while granting a special status of ontological reality to any moment or object that they so wish.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2987.0,"score_ratio":4.6666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcwdzm","c_root_id_B":"cmcnl94","created_at_utc_A":1416946649,"created_at_utc_B":1416931335,"score_A":23,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","human_ref_B":"Giambattista Vico - Anything he says becomes true. Some Green Lantern-esque shit. Wittgenstein - Can talk to animals. Derrida - Laser eyes. Zizek - *Invisibility*.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15314.0,"score_ratio":1.2105263158} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmctq5w","c_root_id_B":"cmcwdzm","created_at_utc_A":1416942164,"created_at_utc_B":1416946649,"score_A":16,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Dan Dennett has the power to turn zombies into people.","human_ref_B":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4485.0,"score_ratio":1.4375} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcnwv9","c_root_id_B":"cmcwdzm","created_at_utc_A":1416931953,"created_at_utc_B":1416946649,"score_A":16,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Foucault would be like a super-villain: a boogeyman who grew in power the more you talked about him. And Kant would be like a hive-mind telepath who could channel the entirety of his race's mental powers in his actions. His *Super*-actions.","human_ref_B":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14696.0,"score_ratio":1.4375} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmco9um","c_root_id_B":"cmcwdzm","created_at_utc_A":1416932611,"created_at_utc_B":1416946649,"score_A":12,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Rene Descartes has the power to teleport to any location.... all he needs is the coordinates for this ability to work. He can also summon a demon as a pet. Plato can cure blindness. Diogenes roams around with a pack of dogs who do his bidding. His secret lair is the sewers. He bewilders his enemy's when he exposes his penis and begins to masturbate, then he knocks them over the head with his lantern. Crime would be eradicated... if he were not so lazy :( His catch phrase... \"Did I hurt your feelings\"","human_ref_B":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14038.0,"score_ratio":1.9166666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcwdzm","c_root_id_B":"cmctok4","created_at_utc_A":1416946649,"created_at_utc_B":1416942090,"score_A":23,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","human_ref_B":"Kant would have the power to create moral laws that all present must follow by the generalization of his actions. Nagarjuna would have the power to summon and command nagas. Kuhn would have the power to force people to see things from another perspective and to make it such that two people's speech are incommensurable with each other. Leibniz would have the power to destroy the harmony between monads thus making things have no causal effects on each other. Spinoza would have the power to briefly see things from God's perspective, experiencing all of reality at once. Doing so for too long drives him insane. Camus would have the power to force people to choose between death and rebellion in the face of the Absurd. Berkeley would have the power to make things disappear by closing his eyes. Finally, with my favorite philosopher, Stirner would have the power to reduce himself and others to nothing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4559.0,"score_ratio":3.2857142857} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcn5mn","c_root_id_B":"cmcwdzm","created_at_utc_A":1416930506,"created_at_utc_B":1416946649,"score_A":6,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Peter van Inwagen and Kit Fine as a duo have the ability to infuse any being with an unmeasurable and causally ineffective essence while granting a special status of ontological reality to any moment or object that they so wish.","human_ref_B":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16143.0,"score_ratio":3.8333333333} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcwdzm","c_root_id_B":"cmcruiy","created_at_utc_A":1416946649,"created_at_utc_B":1416938917,"score_A":23,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","human_ref_B":"Not a philosopher but: Freud would bring every villain to the realization that all their problems with society were caused by a repressed traumatic childhood experience.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7732.0,"score_ratio":3.2857142857} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcwdzm","c_root_id_B":"cmcuc5x","created_at_utc_A":1416946649,"created_at_utc_B":1416943182,"score_A":23,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","human_ref_B":"r\/badphilosophy is leaking.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3467.0,"score_ratio":3.8333333333} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcwdzm","c_root_id_B":"cmcueo7","created_at_utc_A":1416946649,"created_at_utc_B":1416943299,"score_A":23,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","human_ref_B":"Diogenes of Sinope - His special powers are.... well he doesn't give a fuck.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3350.0,"score_ratio":4.6} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcpc2f","c_root_id_B":"cmcwdzm","created_at_utc_A":1416934467,"created_at_utc_B":1416946649,"score_A":5,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Wittgenstein makes problems reduce themselves until they fly away like drunken flies. \"Buzz off!\" *snap crackle*","human_ref_B":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12182.0,"score_ratio":4.6} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcwdzm","c_root_id_B":"cmcqgfl","created_at_utc_A":1416946649,"created_at_utc_B":1416936412,"score_A":23,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","human_ref_B":"Feyerabend can do anything.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10237.0,"score_ratio":5.75} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcud7o","c_root_id_B":"cmcwdzm","created_at_utc_A":1416943230,"created_at_utc_B":1416946649,"score_A":5,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Deleuze and Guattari are a deadly tag team who destratify anyone who dares engage in conceptual blockage. When things get really hairy, they break out a giant mechanical Lobster claw.","human_ref_B":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3419.0,"score_ratio":4.6} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcumgj","c_root_id_B":"cmcwdzm","created_at_utc_A":1416943660,"created_at_utc_B":1416946649,"score_A":3,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Hume: the power to suspend the laws of physics, making it so one never knows how the world will work.","human_ref_B":"Nietzsche: suddenly he can talk to women.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2989.0,"score_ratio":7.6666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcnl94","c_root_id_B":"cmcn5mn","created_at_utc_A":1416931335,"created_at_utc_B":1416930506,"score_A":19,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Giambattista Vico - Anything he says becomes true. Some Green Lantern-esque shit. Wittgenstein - Can talk to animals. Derrida - Laser eyes. Zizek - *Invisibility*.","human_ref_B":"Peter van Inwagen and Kit Fine as a duo have the ability to infuse any being with an unmeasurable and causally ineffective essence while granting a special status of ontological reality to any moment or object that they so wish.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":829.0,"score_ratio":3.1666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmctq5w","c_root_id_B":"cmco9um","created_at_utc_A":1416942164,"created_at_utc_B":1416932611,"score_A":16,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Dan Dennett has the power to turn zombies into people.","human_ref_B":"Rene Descartes has the power to teleport to any location.... all he needs is the coordinates for this ability to work. He can also summon a demon as a pet. Plato can cure blindness. Diogenes roams around with a pack of dogs who do his bidding. His secret lair is the sewers. He bewilders his enemy's when he exposes his penis and begins to masturbate, then he knocks them over the head with his lantern. Crime would be eradicated... if he were not so lazy :( His catch phrase... \"Did I hurt your feelings\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9553.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmctok4","c_root_id_B":"cmctq5w","created_at_utc_A":1416942090,"created_at_utc_B":1416942164,"score_A":7,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Kant would have the power to create moral laws that all present must follow by the generalization of his actions. Nagarjuna would have the power to summon and command nagas. Kuhn would have the power to force people to see things from another perspective and to make it such that two people's speech are incommensurable with each other. Leibniz would have the power to destroy the harmony between monads thus making things have no causal effects on each other. Spinoza would have the power to briefly see things from God's perspective, experiencing all of reality at once. Doing so for too long drives him insane. Camus would have the power to force people to choose between death and rebellion in the face of the Absurd. Berkeley would have the power to make things disappear by closing his eyes. Finally, with my favorite philosopher, Stirner would have the power to reduce himself and others to nothing.","human_ref_B":"Dan Dennett has the power to turn zombies into people.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":74.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmctq5w","c_root_id_B":"cmcn5mn","created_at_utc_A":1416942164,"created_at_utc_B":1416930506,"score_A":16,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Dan Dennett has the power to turn zombies into people.","human_ref_B":"Peter van Inwagen and Kit Fine as a duo have the ability to infuse any being with an unmeasurable and causally ineffective essence while granting a special status of ontological reality to any moment or object that they so wish.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11658.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcruiy","c_root_id_B":"cmctq5w","created_at_utc_A":1416938917,"created_at_utc_B":1416942164,"score_A":7,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Not a philosopher but: Freud would bring every villain to the realization that all their problems with society were caused by a repressed traumatic childhood experience.","human_ref_B":"Dan Dennett has the power to turn zombies into people.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3247.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcpc2f","c_root_id_B":"cmctq5w","created_at_utc_A":1416934467,"created_at_utc_B":1416942164,"score_A":5,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Wittgenstein makes problems reduce themselves until they fly away like drunken flies. \"Buzz off!\" *snap crackle*","human_ref_B":"Dan Dennett has the power to turn zombies into people.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7697.0,"score_ratio":3.2} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmctq5w","c_root_id_B":"cmcqgfl","created_at_utc_A":1416942164,"created_at_utc_B":1416936412,"score_A":16,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Dan Dennett has the power to turn zombies into people.","human_ref_B":"Feyerabend can do anything.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5752.0,"score_ratio":4.0} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcnwv9","c_root_id_B":"cmcn5mn","created_at_utc_A":1416931953,"created_at_utc_B":1416930506,"score_A":16,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Foucault would be like a super-villain: a boogeyman who grew in power the more you talked about him. And Kant would be like a hive-mind telepath who could channel the entirety of his race's mental powers in his actions. His *Super*-actions.","human_ref_B":"Peter van Inwagen and Kit Fine as a duo have the ability to infuse any being with an unmeasurable and causally ineffective essence while granting a special status of ontological reality to any moment or object that they so wish.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1447.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? 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This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcruiy","c_root_id_B":"cmcwwgt","created_at_utc_A":1416938917,"created_at_utc_B":1416947493,"score_A":7,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Not a philosopher but: Freud would bring every villain to the realization that all their problems with society were caused by a repressed traumatic childhood experience.","human_ref_B":"Nietzsche wouldn't have a superpower except to summon a new kind of being with *all* the superpowers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8576.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? 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This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcwwgt","c_root_id_B":"cmcueo7","created_at_utc_A":1416947493,"created_at_utc_B":1416943299,"score_A":15,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche wouldn't have a superpower except to summon a new kind of being with *all* the superpowers.","human_ref_B":"Diogenes of Sinope - His special powers are.... well he doesn't give a fuck.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4194.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcwwgt","c_root_id_B":"cmcpc2f","created_at_utc_A":1416947493,"created_at_utc_B":1416934467,"score_A":15,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche wouldn't have a superpower except to summon a new kind of being with *all* the superpowers.","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein makes problems reduce themselves until they fly away like drunken flies. \"Buzz off!\" *snap crackle*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13026.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcqgfl","c_root_id_B":"cmcwwgt","created_at_utc_A":1416936412,"created_at_utc_B":1416947493,"score_A":4,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Feyerabend can do anything.","human_ref_B":"Nietzsche wouldn't have a superpower except to summon a new kind of being with *all* the superpowers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11081.0,"score_ratio":3.75} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcud7o","c_root_id_B":"cmcwwgt","created_at_utc_A":1416943230,"created_at_utc_B":1416947493,"score_A":5,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Deleuze and Guattari are a deadly tag team who destratify anyone who dares engage in conceptual blockage. 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This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcumgj","c_root_id_B":"cmcwwgt","created_at_utc_A":1416943660,"created_at_utc_B":1416947493,"score_A":3,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Hume: the power to suspend the laws of physics, making it so one never knows how the world will work.","human_ref_B":"Nietzsche wouldn't have a superpower except to summon a new kind of being with *all* the superpowers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3833.0,"score_ratio":5.0} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcn5mn","c_root_id_B":"cmco9um","created_at_utc_A":1416930506,"created_at_utc_B":1416932611,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Peter van Inwagen and Kit Fine as a duo have the ability to infuse any being with an unmeasurable and causally ineffective essence while granting a special status of ontological reality to any moment or object that they so wish.","human_ref_B":"Rene Descartes has the power to teleport to any location.... all he needs is the coordinates for this ability to work. He can also summon a demon as a pet. Plato can cure blindness. Diogenes roams around with a pack of dogs who do his bidding. His secret lair is the sewers. He bewilders his enemy's when he exposes his penis and begins to masturbate, then he knocks them over the head with his lantern. 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This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcycvp","c_root_id_B":"cmd09zc","created_at_utc_A":1416949932,"created_at_utc_B":1416953168,"score_A":6,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"John Rawls, with the power of *Unwieldiness*. For example, if he's being chased, and he closes a door on his foe, then he can touch the lock and make it needlessly complex, thus frustrating his opponent. Or, if someone's trying to shoot him in a subway station, he can touch the subway wall, and make it so that the subway trains rotate 360 degrees a bunch of times before taking passengers onboard, entirely needlessly, which knocks the gun out of his would-be assassin's hand. Or, if his nemesis has thrown his dame off Carew Tower in Cincinatti (Cincinatti is Rawls' Gotham), he can fire a controlled burst of *Unwield* at her, making the zipper on her jacket far more complex, involving various pistons and springs and such, entirely needlessly. Then, her jacket-zipper, now a burgeoning monstrosity, catches on an errant flagpole, and she is saved. His powers don't make for good philosophy, but he's saved countless lives.","human_ref_B":"Pop Culture Nietzsche wields his +6 Sword of Godslaying, which deals an extra 4d6 edge damage to the divine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3236.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd09zc","c_root_id_B":"cmcn5mn","created_at_utc_A":1416953168,"created_at_utc_B":1416930506,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Pop Culture Nietzsche wields his +6 Sword of Godslaying, which deals an extra 4d6 edge damage to the divine.","human_ref_B":"Peter van Inwagen and Kit Fine as a duo have the ability to infuse any being with an unmeasurable and causally ineffective essence while granting a special status of ontological reality to any moment or object that they so wish.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22662.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcruiy","c_root_id_B":"cmd09zc","created_at_utc_A":1416938917,"created_at_utc_B":1416953168,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Not a philosopher but: Freud would bring every villain to the realization that all their problems with society were caused by a repressed traumatic childhood experience.","human_ref_B":"Pop Culture Nietzsche wields his +6 Sword of Godslaying, which deals an extra 4d6 edge damage to the divine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14251.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? 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This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcpc2f","c_root_id_B":"cmd09zc","created_at_utc_A":1416934467,"created_at_utc_B":1416953168,"score_A":5,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Wittgenstein makes problems reduce themselves until they fly away like drunken flies. \"Buzz off!\" *snap crackle*","human_ref_B":"Pop Culture Nietzsche wields his +6 Sword of Godslaying, which deals an extra 4d6 edge damage to the divine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18701.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? 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Or, if his nemesis has thrown his dame off Carew Tower in Cincinatti (Cincinatti is Rawls' Gotham), he can fire a controlled burst of *Unwield* at her, making the zipper on her jacket far more complex, involving various pistons and springs and such, entirely needlessly. Then, her jacket-zipper, now a burgeoning monstrosity, catches on an errant flagpole, and she is saved. His powers don't make for good philosophy, but he's saved countless lives.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6633.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? 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Or, if his nemesis has thrown his dame off Carew Tower in Cincinatti (Cincinatti is Rawls' Gotham), he can fire a controlled burst of *Unwield* at her, making the zipper on her jacket far more complex, involving various pistons and springs and such, entirely needlessly. Then, her jacket-zipper, now a burgeoning monstrosity, catches on an errant flagpole, and she is saved. His powers don't make for good philosophy, but he's saved countless lives.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8512.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcycvp","c_root_id_B":"cmcpc2f","created_at_utc_A":1416949932,"created_at_utc_B":1416934467,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"John Rawls, with the power of *Unwieldiness*. For example, if he's being chased, and he closes a door on his foe, then he can touch the lock and make it needlessly complex, thus frustrating his opponent. Or, if someone's trying to shoot him in a subway station, he can touch the subway wall, and make it so that the subway trains rotate 360 degrees a bunch of times before taking passengers onboard, entirely needlessly, which knocks the gun out of his would-be assassin's hand. Or, if his nemesis has thrown his dame off Carew Tower in Cincinatti (Cincinatti is Rawls' Gotham), he can fire a controlled burst of *Unwield* at her, making the zipper on her jacket far more complex, involving various pistons and springs and such, entirely needlessly. Then, her jacket-zipper, now a burgeoning monstrosity, catches on an errant flagpole, and she is saved. His powers don't make for good philosophy, but he's saved countless lives.","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein makes problems reduce themselves until they fly away like drunken flies. \"Buzz off!\" *snap crackle*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15465.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcqgfl","c_root_id_B":"cmcycvp","created_at_utc_A":1416936412,"created_at_utc_B":1416949932,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Feyerabend can do anything.","human_ref_B":"John Rawls, with the power of *Unwieldiness*. For example, if he's being chased, and he closes a door on his foe, then he can touch the lock and make it needlessly complex, thus frustrating his opponent. Or, if someone's trying to shoot him in a subway station, he can touch the subway wall, and make it so that the subway trains rotate 360 degrees a bunch of times before taking passengers onboard, entirely needlessly, which knocks the gun out of his would-be assassin's hand. Or, if his nemesis has thrown his dame off Carew Tower in Cincinatti (Cincinatti is Rawls' Gotham), he can fire a controlled burst of *Unwield* at her, making the zipper on her jacket far more complex, involving various pistons and springs and such, entirely needlessly. Then, her jacket-zipper, now a burgeoning monstrosity, catches on an errant flagpole, and she is saved. His powers don't make for good philosophy, but he's saved countless lives.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13520.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcycvp","c_root_id_B":"cmcud7o","created_at_utc_A":1416949932,"created_at_utc_B":1416943230,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"John Rawls, with the power of *Unwieldiness*. For example, if he's being chased, and he closes a door on his foe, then he can touch the lock and make it needlessly complex, thus frustrating his opponent. Or, if someone's trying to shoot him in a subway station, he can touch the subway wall, and make it so that the subway trains rotate 360 degrees a bunch of times before taking passengers onboard, entirely needlessly, which knocks the gun out of his would-be assassin's hand. Or, if his nemesis has thrown his dame off Carew Tower in Cincinatti (Cincinatti is Rawls' Gotham), he can fire a controlled burst of *Unwield* at her, making the zipper on her jacket far more complex, involving various pistons and springs and such, entirely needlessly. Then, her jacket-zipper, now a burgeoning monstrosity, catches on an errant flagpole, and she is saved. His powers don't make for good philosophy, but he's saved countless lives.","human_ref_B":"Deleuze and Guattari are a deadly tag team who destratify anyone who dares engage in conceptual blockage. When things get really hairy, they break out a giant mechanical Lobster claw.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6702.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcumgj","c_root_id_B":"cmcycvp","created_at_utc_A":1416943660,"created_at_utc_B":1416949932,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Hume: the power to suspend the laws of physics, making it so one never knows how the world will work.","human_ref_B":"John Rawls, with the power of *Unwieldiness*. For example, if he's being chased, and he closes a door on his foe, then he can touch the lock and make it needlessly complex, thus frustrating his opponent. Or, if someone's trying to shoot him in a subway station, he can touch the subway wall, and make it so that the subway trains rotate 360 degrees a bunch of times before taking passengers onboard, entirely needlessly, which knocks the gun out of his would-be assassin's hand. Or, if his nemesis has thrown his dame off Carew Tower in Cincinatti (Cincinatti is Rawls' Gotham), he can fire a controlled burst of *Unwield* at her, making the zipper on her jacket far more complex, involving various pistons and springs and such, entirely needlessly. Then, her jacket-zipper, now a burgeoning monstrosity, catches on an errant flagpole, and she is saved. His powers don't make for good philosophy, but he's saved countless lives.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6272.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcycvp","c_root_id_B":"cmcxc12","created_at_utc_A":1416949932,"created_at_utc_B":1416948199,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"John Rawls, with the power of *Unwieldiness*. For example, if he's being chased, and he closes a door on his foe, then he can touch the lock and make it needlessly complex, thus frustrating his opponent. Or, if someone's trying to shoot him in a subway station, he can touch the subway wall, and make it so that the subway trains rotate 360 degrees a bunch of times before taking passengers onboard, entirely needlessly, which knocks the gun out of his would-be assassin's hand. Or, if his nemesis has thrown his dame off Carew Tower in Cincinatti (Cincinatti is Rawls' Gotham), he can fire a controlled burst of *Unwield* at her, making the zipper on her jacket far more complex, involving various pistons and springs and such, entirely needlessly. Then, her jacket-zipper, now a burgeoning monstrosity, catches on an errant flagpole, and she is saved. His powers don't make for good philosophy, but he's saved countless lives.","human_ref_B":"Marx creating his ideal version of communist society into reality.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1733.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcn5mn","c_root_id_B":"cmcruiy","created_at_utc_A":1416930506,"created_at_utc_B":1416938917,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Peter van Inwagen and Kit Fine as a duo have the ability to infuse any being with an unmeasurable and causally ineffective essence while granting a special status of ontological reality to any moment or object that they so wish.","human_ref_B":"Not a philosopher but: Freud would bring every villain to the realization that all their problems with society were caused by a repressed traumatic childhood experience.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8411.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcn5mn","c_root_id_B":"cmd30s7","created_at_utc_A":1416930506,"created_at_utc_B":1416958444,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Peter van Inwagen and Kit Fine as a duo have the ability to infuse any being with an unmeasurable and causally ineffective essence while granting a special status of ontological reality to any moment or object that they so wish.","human_ref_B":"George Edward Moore can project knowledge of the external world from his hands.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27938.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcpc2f","c_root_id_B":"cmcruiy","created_at_utc_A":1416934467,"created_at_utc_B":1416938917,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Wittgenstein makes problems reduce themselves until they fly away like drunken flies. \"Buzz off!\" *snap crackle*","human_ref_B":"Not a philosopher but: Freud would bring every villain to the realization that all their problems with society were caused by a repressed traumatic childhood experience.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4450.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcqgfl","c_root_id_B":"cmcruiy","created_at_utc_A":1416936412,"created_at_utc_B":1416938917,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Feyerabend can do anything.","human_ref_B":"Not a philosopher but: Freud would bring every villain to the realization that all their problems with society were caused by a repressed traumatic childhood experience.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2505.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcuc5x","c_root_id_B":"cmd30s7","created_at_utc_A":1416943182,"created_at_utc_B":1416958444,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"r\/badphilosophy is leaking.","human_ref_B":"George Edward Moore can project knowledge of the external world from his hands.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15262.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcuc5x","c_root_id_B":"cmcpc2f","created_at_utc_A":1416943182,"created_at_utc_B":1416934467,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"r\/badphilosophy is leaking.","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein makes problems reduce themselves until they fly away like drunken flies. \"Buzz off!\" *snap crackle*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8715.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcqgfl","c_root_id_B":"cmcuc5x","created_at_utc_A":1416936412,"created_at_utc_B":1416943182,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Feyerabend can do anything.","human_ref_B":"r\/badphilosophy is leaking.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6770.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcueo7","c_root_id_B":"cmd30s7","created_at_utc_A":1416943299,"created_at_utc_B":1416958444,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Diogenes of Sinope - His special powers are.... well he doesn't give a fuck.","human_ref_B":"George Edward Moore can project knowledge of the external world from his hands.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15145.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcueo7","c_root_id_B":"cmcqgfl","created_at_utc_A":1416943299,"created_at_utc_B":1416936412,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Diogenes of Sinope - His special powers are.... well he doesn't give a fuck.","human_ref_B":"Feyerabend can do anything.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6887.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd30s7","c_root_id_B":"cmcpc2f","created_at_utc_A":1416958444,"created_at_utc_B":1416934467,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"George Edward Moore can project knowledge of the external world from his hands.","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein makes problems reduce themselves until they fly away like drunken flies. \"Buzz off!\" *snap crackle*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23977.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd30s7","c_root_id_B":"cmcqgfl","created_at_utc_A":1416958444,"created_at_utc_B":1416936412,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"George Edward Moore can project knowledge of the external world from his hands.","human_ref_B":"Feyerabend can do anything.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22032.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd30s7","c_root_id_B":"cmcud7o","created_at_utc_A":1416958444,"created_at_utc_B":1416943230,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"George Edward Moore can project knowledge of the external world from his hands.","human_ref_B":"Deleuze and Guattari are a deadly tag team who destratify anyone who dares engage in conceptual blockage. When things get really hairy, they break out a giant mechanical Lobster claw.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15214.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd30s7","c_root_id_B":"cmcumgj","created_at_utc_A":1416958444,"created_at_utc_B":1416943660,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"George Edward Moore can project knowledge of the external world from his hands.","human_ref_B":"Hume: the power to suspend the laws of physics, making it so one never knows how the world will work.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14784.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd0cpr","c_root_id_B":"cmd30s7","created_at_utc_A":1416953301,"created_at_utc_B":1416958444,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Derek Parfit: he controlls all the trolleys in the world and can have two identities iff the teleporter malfunctions","human_ref_B":"George Edward Moore can project knowledge of the external world from his hands.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5143.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd0ze2","c_root_id_B":"cmd30s7","created_at_utc_A":1416954467,"created_at_utc_B":1416958444,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Aquinas, with the power to turn his enemies into random unrelated items with his powerful catch phrase: *reductio ad absurdum*","human_ref_B":"George Edward Moore can project knowledge of the external world from his hands.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3977.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd30s7","c_root_id_B":"cmcxc12","created_at_utc_A":1416958444,"created_at_utc_B":1416948199,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"George Edward Moore can project knowledge of the external world from his hands.","human_ref_B":"Marx creating his ideal version of communist society into reality.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10245.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcqgfl","c_root_id_B":"cmd797w","created_at_utc_A":1416936412,"created_at_utc_B":1416967673,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Feyerabend can do anything.","human_ref_B":"So that I'm not doing the same as some others, I'll do some authors with philosophical content: Albert Camus can blind people with sunlight. Tom Stoppard is a zombie. Ayn Rand can literally pull herself up by her bootstraps and levitate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":31261.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd797w","c_root_id_B":"cmcumgj","created_at_utc_A":1416967673,"created_at_utc_B":1416943660,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"So that I'm not doing the same as some others, I'll do some authors with philosophical content: Albert Camus can blind people with sunlight. Tom Stoppard is a zombie. Ayn Rand can literally pull herself up by her bootstraps and levitate.","human_ref_B":"Hume: the power to suspend the laws of physics, making it so one never knows how the world will work.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24013.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd0cpr","c_root_id_B":"cmd797w","created_at_utc_A":1416953301,"created_at_utc_B":1416967673,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Derek Parfit: he controlls all the trolleys in the world and can have two identities iff the teleporter malfunctions","human_ref_B":"So that I'm not doing the same as some others, I'll do some authors with philosophical content: Albert Camus can blind people with sunlight. Tom Stoppard is a zombie. Ayn Rand can literally pull herself up by her bootstraps and levitate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14372.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd0ze2","c_root_id_B":"cmd797w","created_at_utc_A":1416954467,"created_at_utc_B":1416967673,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Aquinas, with the power to turn his enemies into random unrelated items with his powerful catch phrase: *reductio ad absurdum*","human_ref_B":"So that I'm not doing the same as some others, I'll do some authors with philosophical content: Albert Camus can blind people with sunlight. Tom Stoppard is a zombie. Ayn Rand can literally pull herself up by her bootstraps and levitate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13206.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd797w","c_root_id_B":"cmd4yr5","created_at_utc_A":1416967673,"created_at_utc_B":1416962548,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"So that I'm not doing the same as some others, I'll do some authors with philosophical content: Albert Camus can blind people with sunlight. Tom Stoppard is a zombie. Ayn Rand can literally pull herself up by her bootstraps and levitate.","human_ref_B":"Ludwig Wittgenstein can make lions talk, but no one can understand them. :D","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5125.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcxc12","c_root_id_B":"cmd797w","created_at_utc_A":1416948199,"created_at_utc_B":1416967673,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Marx creating his ideal version of communist society into reality.","human_ref_B":"So that I'm not doing the same as some others, I'll do some authors with philosophical content: Albert Camus can blind people with sunlight. Tom Stoppard is a zombie. Ayn Rand can literally pull herself up by her bootstraps and levitate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19474.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd5pou","c_root_id_B":"cmd797w","created_at_utc_A":1416964224,"created_at_utc_B":1416967673,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Derek Parfit gains the ability to transmute his Cartesian self into the body of Napoleon and back without anyone noticing. Oh wait, he can do that already.","human_ref_B":"So that I'm not doing the same as some others, I'll do some authors with philosophical content: Albert Camus can blind people with sunlight. Tom Stoppard is a zombie. Ayn Rand can literally pull herself up by her bootstraps and levitate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3449.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcud7o","c_root_id_B":"cmcqgfl","created_at_utc_A":1416943230,"created_at_utc_B":1416936412,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Deleuze and Guattari are a deadly tag team who destratify anyone who dares engage in conceptual blockage. When things get really hairy, they break out a giant mechanical Lobster claw.","human_ref_B":"Feyerabend can do anything.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6818.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcumgj","c_root_id_B":"cmd0ze2","created_at_utc_A":1416943660,"created_at_utc_B":1416954467,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Hume: the power to suspend the laws of physics, making it so one never knows how the world will work.","human_ref_B":"Aquinas, with the power to turn his enemies into random unrelated items with his powerful catch phrase: *reductio ad absurdum*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10807.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcumgj","c_root_id_B":"cmd4yr5","created_at_utc_A":1416943660,"created_at_utc_B":1416962548,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Hume: the power to suspend the laws of physics, making it so one never knows how the world will work.","human_ref_B":"Ludwig Wittgenstein can make lions talk, but no one can understand them. :D","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18888.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd0ze2","c_root_id_B":"cmd0cpr","created_at_utc_A":1416954467,"created_at_utc_B":1416953301,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Aquinas, with the power to turn his enemies into random unrelated items with his powerful catch phrase: *reductio ad absurdum*","human_ref_B":"Derek Parfit: he controlls all the trolleys in the world and can have two identities iff the teleporter malfunctions","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1166.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd0cpr","c_root_id_B":"cmd4yr5","created_at_utc_A":1416953301,"created_at_utc_B":1416962548,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Derek Parfit: he controlls all the trolleys in the world and can have two identities iff the teleporter malfunctions","human_ref_B":"Ludwig Wittgenstein can make lions talk, but no one can understand them. :D","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9247.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd0cpr","c_root_id_B":"cmcxc12","created_at_utc_A":1416953301,"created_at_utc_B":1416948199,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Derek Parfit: he controlls all the trolleys in the world and can have two identities iff the teleporter malfunctions","human_ref_B":"Marx creating his ideal version of communist society into reality.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5102.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmcxc12","c_root_id_B":"cmd0ze2","created_at_utc_A":1416948199,"created_at_utc_B":1416954467,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Marx creating his ideal version of communist society into reality.","human_ref_B":"Aquinas, with the power to turn his enemies into random unrelated items with his powerful catch phrase: *reductio ad absurdum*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6268.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"2ndlhk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Your favourite Philosopher is now a super hero, what are their super powers? This may be against the rules, but, I'm really curious about what people would come up with.","c_root_id_A":"cmd4yr5","c_root_id_B":"cmcxc12","created_at_utc_A":1416962548,"created_at_utc_B":1416948199,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Ludwig Wittgenstein can make lions talk, but no one can understand them. :D","human_ref_B":"Marx creating his ideal version of communist society into reality.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14349.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"e8142j","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What would Nietzsche think if we pitied him or had compassion for his life (or any life for that matter) It's well known that Nietzsche despises pity--much from Spinoza's proposition that pity is a denial of power and a limitation rather than a strength. Furthermore, at the end of Zarathustra, Nietzsche considers his final temptation and cries out \"Pity, pity for the higher man!\" Pity for the higher man, his suffering, his project--this is worthless according to Nietzsche, for man does not aspire after happiness, but after his work. ​ But still, Zarathustra struggles with pity throughout the work so what can we make of this? If I feel pity for Nietzsche, what would he respond with? Is it due to the limitation of perspectives that I could never understand someone else's suffering, or is it because its a denial of power and fails to see the necessity of suffering for the higher man?","c_root_id_A":"fa988mc","c_root_id_B":"fa91ry2","created_at_utc_A":1575865061,"created_at_utc_B":1575860212,"score_A":22,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"For Nietzsche, what makes pity especially detestable is that it robs the sufferer of their individuality. In Book 4 of The Gay Science, Nietzsche makes this especially clear: \u201cWhat we most deeply and personally suffer from is incomprehensible and inaccessible to nearly everyone else; here we are hidden from our nearest, even if we eat at the same pot. But whenever we are noticed to be suffering, our suffering is superficially construed; it is the essence of compassion that it strips the suffering of what is truly personal: our \u2018benefactors\u2019 diminish our worth and our will more than our enemies do.\u201d (The Gay Science, Bk. 4: Section 338) Nietzsche is arguing that our suffering and personal issues are so personal that they, necessarily, can not be fully understood by most others. Any attempt by the vast majority of people to comment on our issues results in shallow words. Even in his discussion of compassion, Nietzsche\u2019s radical individualism can\u2019t help but leak out. However, Nietzsche is not altogether dismissive of the suffering of others. Rather, Nietzsche extols us to lend a hand to those whose suffering is closest to our own. He continues: \u201cYou will also want to help, but only those whose distress you entirely understand, because they have one sorrow and one hope in common with you\u2014your friends: and only in the way that you help yourself:\u2014I want to make them more courageous, more enduring, more simple, more joyful! I want to teach them that which at present so few understand, and the preachers of fellowship in sorrow least of all:\u2014namely, fellowship in joy!\u201d (The Gay Science, Bk. 4: Section 338) Again, Nietzsche believes compassion is virtuous only when it is shown to those whose suffering is most similar to yours. In cases like this, the compassion shown won\u2019t be like the empty words of pity that serve only to diminish the individuality of the suffer. The purpose of compassion is to uplift those who suffer like you, and you should aim to uplift them in the way you uplift yourself. In this way, compassion is more likely to reach the individual and become beneficial.","human_ref_B":"I think his position is that pity doesn't help the person and in fact it can hurt you and the other person you pity because what you are doing when you feel pity is bringing yourself down on account of another person and the other person does not need your sorrow but strength. I think it's important to note the difference between empathy and pity. Empathy can help you see what the other person sees and feels and if digested properly it can give you a clearer sense of the persons situation *without* the self hurt and sorrow that accompanies pity. Thus you can still empathize with people without feeling pity and hurting yourself emotionally over other peoples problems.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4849.0,"score_ratio":1.1578947368} +{"post_id":"1gbiqi","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Can someone help me understand the point of this \"Quantum Physics vs. Philosophy\" dialogue? http:\/\/lesswrong.com\/lw\/ph\/can_you_prove_two_particles_are_identical\/ I really don't understand what he's saying in his explication of particles, or how it invalidates the philosopher's epistemological qualm. At most, it would seem like the philosopher didn't have all the necessary information to answer the question, which doesn't prove that he *couldn't have* potentially. I don't want to dismiss this claim out of hand since I don't fully understand it, could I get some help?","c_root_id_A":"caipnxs","c_root_id_B":"caioeoe","created_at_utc_A":1371205293,"created_at_utc_B":1371195878,"score_A":14,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"This is just a silly issue of the inadequacy of descriptive language. If the physicist describes the situation as \"two particles\" rather than \"excitations in the electron field\" he is employing useful but ultimately misleading language. The best model for what electrons are is a quantum field which has the only slightly peculiar property that when you view excitations thereof they appear to be indistinguishable particles. It isn't very mysterious when described correctly: it is a completely natural consequence of the nature of the field, to the extent that the model reflects that nature.","human_ref_B":"I believe he's saying that the philosopher is looking at the problem the wrong way to begin with. He's thinking that electrons are two separate objects in space, but they're really amplitude flows between particles. Now, I don't know enough about physics to explain that to you, but I can tell you the error the philosopher is making. Since the philosopher is looking at matter and the universe from an incorrect paradigm, he's not able to make a correct claim about the world. The philosopher's paradigm shows that the result cannot be proven true, but the physicist's paradigm shows that the result must be true.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9415.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"1gbiqi","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Can someone help me understand the point of this \"Quantum Physics vs. Philosophy\" dialogue? http:\/\/lesswrong.com\/lw\/ph\/can_you_prove_two_particles_are_identical\/ I really don't understand what he's saying in his explication of particles, or how it invalidates the philosopher's epistemological qualm. At most, it would seem like the philosopher didn't have all the necessary information to answer the question, which doesn't prove that he *couldn't have* potentially. I don't want to dismiss this claim out of hand since I don't fully understand it, could I get some help?","c_root_id_A":"caioma4","c_root_id_B":"caipnxs","created_at_utc_A":1371197201,"created_at_utc_B":1371205293,"score_A":3,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I'll take a crack at the what I understand the article is saying, along with a tiny bit of my own knowledge - anyone with a physics background feel free to correct me: There are two particles P1 and P2 that end up at locations L1 and L2. The way quantum mechanics works is that you combine the probabilities of all possible outcomes to end up with a final probability of a particular outcome. The article says that the probability calculated when you assume that it matters which particle ends up at L1 and which ends up at L2 is *different* than it is when you calculate that a *particular* particle ends up at L1 and the other ends up at L2. The experimental results have shown the probability calculated when it doesn't matter which particle ends up at which location to be the correct probability. Therefore, since experimentally it can be shown that if the particles were in any way different the probability of their being in a particular location would be different than that observed, they must be identical.","human_ref_B":"This is just a silly issue of the inadequacy of descriptive language. If the physicist describes the situation as \"two particles\" rather than \"excitations in the electron field\" he is employing useful but ultimately misleading language. The best model for what electrons are is a quantum field which has the only slightly peculiar property that when you view excitations thereof they appear to be indistinguishable particles. It isn't very mysterious when described correctly: it is a completely natural consequence of the nature of the field, to the extent that the model reflects that nature.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8092.0,"score_ratio":4.6666666667} +{"post_id":"1gbiqi","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Can someone help me understand the point of this \"Quantum Physics vs. Philosophy\" dialogue? http:\/\/lesswrong.com\/lw\/ph\/can_you_prove_two_particles_are_identical\/ I really don't understand what he's saying in his explication of particles, or how it invalidates the philosopher's epistemological qualm. At most, it would seem like the philosopher didn't have all the necessary information to answer the question, which doesn't prove that he *couldn't have* potentially. I don't want to dismiss this claim out of hand since I don't fully understand it, could I get some help?","c_root_id_A":"caiow2i","c_root_id_B":"caipnxs","created_at_utc_A":1371199093,"created_at_utc_B":1371205293,"score_A":2,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"A = Philosopher, B = Physicist B; \"these two particles are identical\" A; \"you cannot know for sure\" B; \"so you're saying; it is not possible to imagine an experiment that proves two particles are perfectly identical\" A; \"no, that is quite possible, but you're saying; it is not possible to imagine an experiment that proves that the two you have actually aren't\" B; \"but they are, my experiment proves it\" A; \"how do you know if your experiment is extensive enough?\" B; \"you just don't understand physics\"","human_ref_B":"This is just a silly issue of the inadequacy of descriptive language. If the physicist describes the situation as \"two particles\" rather than \"excitations in the electron field\" he is employing useful but ultimately misleading language. The best model for what electrons are is a quantum field which has the only slightly peculiar property that when you view excitations thereof they appear to be indistinguishable particles. It isn't very mysterious when described correctly: it is a completely natural consequence of the nature of the field, to the extent that the model reflects that nature.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6200.0,"score_ratio":7.0} +{"post_id":"1gbiqi","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Can someone help me understand the point of this \"Quantum Physics vs. Philosophy\" dialogue? http:\/\/lesswrong.com\/lw\/ph\/can_you_prove_two_particles_are_identical\/ I really don't understand what he's saying in his explication of particles, or how it invalidates the philosopher's epistemological qualm. At most, it would seem like the philosopher didn't have all the necessary information to answer the question, which doesn't prove that he *couldn't have* potentially. I don't want to dismiss this claim out of hand since I don't fully understand it, could I get some help?","c_root_id_A":"caiow2i","c_root_id_B":"cairncx","created_at_utc_A":1371199093,"created_at_utc_B":1371216760,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"A = Philosopher, B = Physicist B; \"these two particles are identical\" A; \"you cannot know for sure\" B; \"so you're saying; it is not possible to imagine an experiment that proves two particles are perfectly identical\" A; \"no, that is quite possible, but you're saying; it is not possible to imagine an experiment that proves that the two you have actually aren't\" B; \"but they are, my experiment proves it\" A; \"how do you know if your experiment is extensive enough?\" B; \"you just don't understand physics\"","human_ref_B":"This article is put in an overly antagonistic way. The actual point has little to do with the distinction between physics and philosophy. I take it that the central message is that often our evidence (say, regarding the identity of particles) is not directly inductive, but works by confirming a general model. In this case, the general model predicts that the two particles will be indistinguishable, and there is no easy way to modify the model to make the particles distinguishable. So our evidence can very strongly support their indistinguishability. More generally, the point is that we should be cautious about our epistemic judgments until we have surveyed how available models fit with the evidence.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17667.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"4d5p55","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How do other political ideologies respond to Rawls' veil of ignorance? [newb] Rawls' thought experiment seems really convincing. However, I'd like to hear the opposition's response to what he's saying. Also, critiques of social liberalism are welcome. Thanks for your help!","c_root_id_A":"d1o4w75","c_root_id_B":"d1nz91k","created_at_utc_A":1459697309,"created_at_utc_B":1459683761,"score_A":14,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"There's a lot that's been said about the implausibility of the original position. Here are two criticisms. First, Rawls fiats that parties behind the veil of ignorance know the \"basic truths\" of human psychology, sociology, political science, economics, and so on. Critics point out that there are hardly established truths in these fields, and so Rawls is caught in a dilemma: either enumerate exactly what these truths are (and thus open himself to criticism on this front) or don't, rendering his theory too formal to be of use. The idea here is that Rawls has really punted the difficult questions of social organization down the line while giving the impression that he's come to substantive conclusions. For example, he himself thinks his theory supports both socialist and capitalist modes of organization. If a theory of political organization doesn't decide between something so fundamental to the structure of a society, then what good can it be? (says the critic). Second, Rawls thinks that there's going to be *deliberation* behind the veil of ignorance which leads to conclusions about the structure of society. But, given that parties behind the original position are formally identical (e.g. minimally rational, with no contingent features influencing their decisionmaking, etc.), it's hard to imagine what this deliberation would look like. It'd be like one person deliberating with themselves. But what does that even mean? Surely they would just agree with themselves, on pain of self-contradiction. I believe Robert Paul Wolff's *Understanding Rawls* makes these critiques.","human_ref_B":"Just Rawls' Veil of Ignorance or his theory in general? One criticism was that his veil of ignorance was very dismissive of historical and cultural context which plays a great role in the formation of contemporary societies, and thus it's inconceivable (inconceivability and the theory being very exclusive of other core factors here is the criticism) to even imagine what it means to start from the veil. Other criticisms includes: 1) Not egalitarian enough, and 2) too egalitarian (discourages competition). Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia is a direct criticism of The Theory of Justice arguing from a Libertarian framework.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13548.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"4d5p55","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How do other political ideologies respond to Rawls' veil of ignorance? [newb] Rawls' thought experiment seems really convincing. However, I'd like to hear the opposition's response to what he's saying. Also, critiques of social liberalism are welcome. Thanks for your help!","c_root_id_A":"d1o4w75","c_root_id_B":"d1o3fqj","created_at_utc_A":1459697309,"created_at_utc_B":1459694696,"score_A":14,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There's a lot that's been said about the implausibility of the original position. Here are two criticisms. First, Rawls fiats that parties behind the veil of ignorance know the \"basic truths\" of human psychology, sociology, political science, economics, and so on. Critics point out that there are hardly established truths in these fields, and so Rawls is caught in a dilemma: either enumerate exactly what these truths are (and thus open himself to criticism on this front) or don't, rendering his theory too formal to be of use. The idea here is that Rawls has really punted the difficult questions of social organization down the line while giving the impression that he's come to substantive conclusions. For example, he himself thinks his theory supports both socialist and capitalist modes of organization. If a theory of political organization doesn't decide between something so fundamental to the structure of a society, then what good can it be? (says the critic). Second, Rawls thinks that there's going to be *deliberation* behind the veil of ignorance which leads to conclusions about the structure of society. But, given that parties behind the original position are formally identical (e.g. minimally rational, with no contingent features influencing their decisionmaking, etc.), it's hard to imagine what this deliberation would look like. It'd be like one person deliberating with themselves. But what does that even mean? Surely they would just agree with themselves, on pain of self-contradiction. I believe Robert Paul Wolff's *Understanding Rawls* makes these critiques.","human_ref_B":"Roemer has an article \"Egalitarianism against the Veil of Ignorance\" in *The Journal of Philosophy* Vol. 99, No. 4 (Apr., 2002), pp. 167-184 that you might be interested in. Cohen has lots of criticism of the Rawlsian project in *Rescuing Justice & Equality*.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2613.0,"score_ratio":2.8} +{"post_id":"4lurrc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"How is Stanley Cavell regarded in the world of philosophy?","c_root_id_A":"d3qejra","c_root_id_B":"d3qbudb","created_at_utc_A":1464705018,"created_at_utc_B":1464700371,"score_A":9,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"He's one of a very, very small number of serious philosophers who have managed to also do meaningful work in literary criticism, which is a testament to the breadth of his learning.","human_ref_B":"His work on Wittgenstein is very good. So much so, that 3 of my colleagues heavily borrow from it for their PhD dissertations.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4647.0,"score_ratio":1.125} +{"post_id":"4lurrc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"How is Stanley Cavell regarded in the world of philosophy?","c_root_id_A":"d3qdbss","c_root_id_B":"d3qejra","created_at_utc_A":1464703062,"created_at_utc_B":1464705018,"score_A":7,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Well regarded. Did you have something more specific in mind?","human_ref_B":"He's one of a very, very small number of serious philosophers who have managed to also do meaningful work in literary criticism, which is a testament to the breadth of his learning.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1956.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} +{"post_id":"4lurrc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"How is Stanley Cavell regarded in the world of philosophy?","c_root_id_A":"d3qerxy","c_root_id_B":"d3qn2rd","created_at_utc_A":1464705361,"created_at_utc_B":1464716828,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Highly.","human_ref_B":"Love him! Wish he wrote more.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11467.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"4lurrc","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"How is Stanley Cavell regarded in the world of philosophy?","c_root_id_A":"d3qerxy","c_root_id_B":"d3qvzbb","created_at_utc_A":1464705361,"created_at_utc_B":1464728524,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Highly.","human_ref_B":"Cool guy, would definitely drink some beer with him!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23163.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"hg5e49","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Secondary Literature on Wittgenstein's Tractatus I'm planning to read Wittgenstein's *Tractatus*. I'm looking for some secondary material (particularly guidebooks) to read in parallel. I would probably pick one and read cover to cover, and use the others on demand. What are the recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"fw2d9p7","c_root_id_B":"fw2ozks","created_at_utc_A":1593181814,"created_at_utc_B":1593187703,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"There are actually many competing interpretations out there these days. This is a good resource by Oskari Kuusela, The Dialectic of Interpetations","human_ref_B":"I like Fogelin's book on the Tractatus \\[https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Wittgenstein-Arguments-Philosophers-Robert-Fogelin\/dp\/0415119448\\], and Koethe's book on it's significance for Wittgenstein's later thought \\[https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Continuity-Wittgensteins-Thought-John-Koethe\/dp\/080143307X\/ref=sr\\_1\\_1?dchild=1&keywords=koethe+continuity&qid=1593187090&s=books&sr=1-1\\] The Fogelin book is super detailed, but he's a big picture thinking so he puts the Tractatus into multiple perspectives on early analytic philosophy. Just to flag up an interpretive issue: one active topic is on whether to read the Tractatus as meaningful or not. That sounds weird, and it is weird. Basically, at the end, the book says that if you understand, then you also see that the whole book is nonsense. This claim is the basis for two whole schools of thought on how to read the book as a whole. One school, the received view, is that he doesn't really mean 'nonesense' like blahblahblah. He means that the language is unclear in a certain way. The other school, the resolute view, is that he really means nonsense. So you come to the book at first thinking that it is meaningful, but in reading the what you think are meaningful sentences according to your mistaken belief in their meaning, you change. You end up realizing that you were wrong, this sort of language seems meaningful but is total nonsense. Somehow W was able to arrange the nonsense to short circuit your mistaken belief and let you see the mistake. Anyway, the received view started when the book was published and almost everyone is part of this school. Cora Diamond started the resolute view (I think that's right, I'm not going to go look it all up). Jim Conant jumped on in a big way. You'll want to look at The Realistic Spirit by Diamond and Jim's webpage for his string of papers on this. I'm sure there's more new stuff on it too, but I haven't looked at this debate in a very long time.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5889.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"bs7i09","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Who are some underrated Eastern Philosophers? Thanks! :)","c_root_id_A":"eokfsx1","c_root_id_B":"eolkqjc","created_at_utc_A":1558653634,"created_at_utc_B":1558672333,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Mo tsu.","human_ref_B":"Adi Sankara, Gaudapacharya.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18699.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"bs7i09","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Who are some underrated Eastern Philosophers? Thanks! :)","c_root_id_A":"eolkqjc","c_root_id_B":"eokrg1r","created_at_utc_A":1558672333,"created_at_utc_B":1558660765,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Adi Sankara, Gaudapacharya.","human_ref_B":"I guess not underrated but seems less well known in the West compared to Lao Tzu https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zhuang_Zhou","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11568.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"bs7i09","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Who are some underrated Eastern Philosophers? Thanks! :)","c_root_id_A":"eokjr7l","c_root_id_B":"eolkqjc","created_at_utc_A":1558656257,"created_at_utc_B":1558672333,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Indian Philosophy (outside Buddhism - which is gaining some popularity), those that went to a more academic direction, seems to be relatively unrecognized. Very few seem to engage with Early Modern Indian Philosophy - philosophers like Sri Harsha and all. Prof. Jonardon Ganeri is a good source to look more into. Other Indian Philosophers from the 1900s are relatively unknown too (relatively unknown even among relatively unknowns). Examples are, AC Mukherjee, KC Bhattacharya, Dyaya Krishna, Satchitananda. That said I don't know how well regarded they are on Indian Universities, or how well known are they, but at least I can barely find them to be talked about anywhere in the Internet. I don't even find many philosophers specializing on Indian philosophy to be talking much about them. I mostly discovered them through Jay Garfield. And these guys were actually trying to engage internationally - with texts from Western philosophers like Kant, Hegel, and talking about them in terms of Advaita Vedanta. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/philosophy\/comments\/b26076\/ramchandra_gandhi_and_contemporary_indian\/eirmn3h\/?context=3 That said, I haven't really read all them. I have read a paper on KC Bhattacharya's work; it was interesting. But nothing much else. So I can't pick out one and say if one of them is a hidden gem and which one it is. I am also interested in Vaddera Chandidas: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Desire-Liberation-Biography-Vaddera-Chandidas-ebook\/dp\/B07FYBSWHM\/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Who is quite hyped up by Raghurajmaru and also in the free sample. But I am finding the description quite vague - it kind of sound Buddhist but I am not sure what unique arguments do he make. There isn't enough details to make me confident about purchasing it, and I didn't find any reviews and such either (may be if someone here knows more about it, that would be nice). Now, if the praises by Raghurajmaru and others for Chandidas are justified, then he could be another hidden gem, or may be not. Ultimately, almost all of Eastern philosophy is underrated by Western standard as others said.","human_ref_B":"Adi Sankara, Gaudapacharya.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16076.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"bs7i09","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Who are some underrated Eastern Philosophers? Thanks! :)","c_root_id_A":"eol5vvn","c_root_id_B":"eokfsx1","created_at_utc_A":1558666112,"created_at_utc_B":1558653634,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Umaswati, author of the founding text of Jainism. Nobody else mentioned him so I guess it counts as underrated.","human_ref_B":"Mo tsu.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12478.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"bs7i09","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Who are some underrated Eastern Philosophers? Thanks! :)","c_root_id_A":"eokrg1r","c_root_id_B":"eol5vvn","created_at_utc_A":1558660765,"created_at_utc_B":1558666112,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I guess not underrated but seems less well known in the West compared to Lao Tzu https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zhuang_Zhou","human_ref_B":"Umaswati, author of the founding text of Jainism. Nobody else mentioned him so I guess it counts as underrated.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5347.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"bs7i09","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Who are some underrated Eastern Philosophers? Thanks! :)","c_root_id_A":"eol5vvn","c_root_id_B":"eokjr7l","created_at_utc_A":1558666112,"created_at_utc_B":1558656257,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Umaswati, author of the founding text of Jainism. Nobody else mentioned him so I guess it counts as underrated.","human_ref_B":"Indian Philosophy (outside Buddhism - which is gaining some popularity), those that went to a more academic direction, seems to be relatively unrecognized. Very few seem to engage with Early Modern Indian Philosophy - philosophers like Sri Harsha and all. Prof. Jonardon Ganeri is a good source to look more into. Other Indian Philosophers from the 1900s are relatively unknown too (relatively unknown even among relatively unknowns). Examples are, AC Mukherjee, KC Bhattacharya, Dyaya Krishna, Satchitananda. That said I don't know how well regarded they are on Indian Universities, or how well known are they, but at least I can barely find them to be talked about anywhere in the Internet. I don't even find many philosophers specializing on Indian philosophy to be talking much about them. I mostly discovered them through Jay Garfield. And these guys were actually trying to engage internationally - with texts from Western philosophers like Kant, Hegel, and talking about them in terms of Advaita Vedanta. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/philosophy\/comments\/b26076\/ramchandra_gandhi_and_contemporary_indian\/eirmn3h\/?context=3 That said, I haven't really read all them. I have read a paper on KC Bhattacharya's work; it was interesting. But nothing much else. So I can't pick out one and say if one of them is a hidden gem and which one it is. I am also interested in Vaddera Chandidas: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Desire-Liberation-Biography-Vaddera-Chandidas-ebook\/dp\/B07FYBSWHM\/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Who is quite hyped up by Raghurajmaru and also in the free sample. But I am finding the description quite vague - it kind of sound Buddhist but I am not sure what unique arguments do he make. There isn't enough details to make me confident about purchasing it, and I didn't find any reviews and such either (may be if someone here knows more about it, that would be nice). Now, if the praises by Raghurajmaru and others for Chandidas are justified, then he could be another hidden gem, or may be not. Ultimately, almost all of Eastern philosophy is underrated by Western standard as others said.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9855.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"p1panr","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What is a Social Construct? What does it mean to say something is a \"social construct?\" It seems like a term used in many different ways","c_root_id_A":"h8esvqf","c_root_id_B":"h8esrmh","created_at_utc_A":1628604027,"created_at_utc_B":1628603973,"score_A":15,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I'd recommend Hacking's book *The Social Construction of What?* if you'd like a monograph length treatment of the different manners in which the term gets play.","human_ref_B":"> It seems like a term used in many different ways Yeah that seems right. One thing to be clear on is that social constructs exist (Or if we are talking about historical social constructs like say, Exoleti, at some point existed) rather than being something which does not exist. When an academic says something is a social construct, what they are often trying to indicate is that the thing could have been otherwise. >If there is any core idea of social constructionism, it is that some object or objects are caused or controlled by social or cultural factors rather than natural factors, and if there is any core motivation of such research, it is the aim of showing that such objects are or were under our control: they could be, or might have been, otherwise. https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/social-construction-naturalistic\/ https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/social-ontology\/ https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/epistemology-social\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":54.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"glrmy4","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Where can I read more about the aesthetics of horror? It occured to me today how much Lovecraft's \"cosmic horror\" draws from the earlier aesthetic notions of the sublime, especially in Burke and Kant's conception; something that overwhelms the senses with some degree of dimension and danger. The jest, of course, is that cosmic horror is not at all pleasurable to the observer, unlike something sublime. Maybe it approximates the Lacanian Real? In any case, it also seems to me that horror (in literature, cinema, plastic arts) rarely receives a critical treatment like other genres. While there maybe be horror masterpieces which are undoubtedly art, it seems that very few people would list those as the best of a certain medium. The exception, of course, being Kubrick's *The Shining* as one of the best films of all time, not merely one of the best horrors. Still, philosophically, I'd like to become acquainted with the aesthetics of horror. What should I head first?","c_root_id_A":"fqzgvcw","c_root_id_B":"fqzfo8r","created_at_utc_A":1589767107,"created_at_utc_B":1589766387,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"It might be good to get into some Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles to start. Here is on philosophy of film, where it discusses emotional engagement and how horror films are a good example of simulation of fear * https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/film\/#EmoEng This includes a couple references you might wanna check up on: * Carroll, No\u00ebl, 1990, *The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart*, London: Routledge. * Freeland, Cynthia A., 2000. *The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror*, Boulder: Westview Press. Another article cites the same two works, but also gets into other authors as well: * https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/fiction\/#ParaFict Here is also a pile of articles on PhilPapers that directs you to publications you might find of interest, under the Aesthetics, *Horror Film* sub-category: * https:\/\/philpapers.org\/browse\/horror-film","human_ref_B":"\/r\/filmtheory or \/r\/criticaltheory may also be worth posting to. In terms of the film theory of horror a lot of the more theoretical work I'm familiar with is in the feminist and psychoanalytic schools. Linda Williams Body Genre essay is classic, locating the viewers pleasure of horror films in the female scream. But looking for film theory on horror or horror film readers will give you a bunch of essays typically in the realm of continental philosophy. Zizek, McGowan, and other Lacanians often use film as a primary concern with Lacanian and Freudian concepts used to read them or vice versa. Zizek and Fiennes' Pervert's Guide to Cinema, and Pervert's Guide to Ideology to a lesser extent, \"documentaries\" deals a lot with Hitcock, horror, and suspense in a Lacanian framework. While highly aesthetically oriented filmmakers do get this kind of treatment, I wouldn't put most of the material mentioned in a category of aesthetics as much as I would analysis of film form.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":720.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"glrmy4","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Where can I read more about the aesthetics of horror? It occured to me today how much Lovecraft's \"cosmic horror\" draws from the earlier aesthetic notions of the sublime, especially in Burke and Kant's conception; something that overwhelms the senses with some degree of dimension and danger. The jest, of course, is that cosmic horror is not at all pleasurable to the observer, unlike something sublime. Maybe it approximates the Lacanian Real? In any case, it also seems to me that horror (in literature, cinema, plastic arts) rarely receives a critical treatment like other genres. While there maybe be horror masterpieces which are undoubtedly art, it seems that very few people would list those as the best of a certain medium. The exception, of course, being Kubrick's *The Shining* as one of the best films of all time, not merely one of the best horrors. Still, philosophically, I'd like to become acquainted with the aesthetics of horror. What should I head first?","c_root_id_A":"fqzgvcw","c_root_id_B":"fqzcyne","created_at_utc_A":1589767107,"created_at_utc_B":1589764764,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"It might be good to get into some Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles to start. Here is on philosophy of film, where it discusses emotional engagement and how horror films are a good example of simulation of fear * https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/film\/#EmoEng This includes a couple references you might wanna check up on: * Carroll, No\u00ebl, 1990, *The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart*, London: Routledge. * Freeland, Cynthia A., 2000. *The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror*, Boulder: Westview Press. Another article cites the same two works, but also gets into other authors as well: * https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/fiction\/#ParaFict Here is also a pile of articles on PhilPapers that directs you to publications you might find of interest, under the Aesthetics, *Horror Film* sub-category: * https:\/\/philpapers.org\/browse\/horror-film","human_ref_B":"I don't know anything about the aesthetics of horror, but it seems to me that there is probably some overlap with the aesthetics of tragedy, e.g. Hume and Schopenhauer.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2343.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"glrmy4","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Where can I read more about the aesthetics of horror? It occured to me today how much Lovecraft's \"cosmic horror\" draws from the earlier aesthetic notions of the sublime, especially in Burke and Kant's conception; something that overwhelms the senses with some degree of dimension and danger. The jest, of course, is that cosmic horror is not at all pleasurable to the observer, unlike something sublime. Maybe it approximates the Lacanian Real? In any case, it also seems to me that horror (in literature, cinema, plastic arts) rarely receives a critical treatment like other genres. While there maybe be horror masterpieces which are undoubtedly art, it seems that very few people would list those as the best of a certain medium. The exception, of course, being Kubrick's *The Shining* as one of the best films of all time, not merely one of the best horrors. Still, philosophically, I'd like to become acquainted with the aesthetics of horror. What should I head first?","c_root_id_A":"fqzykk9","c_root_id_B":"fqzfo8r","created_at_utc_A":1589778704,"created_at_utc_B":1589766387,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Mark Fisher\u2019s *The Weird and the Eerie*","human_ref_B":"\/r\/filmtheory or \/r\/criticaltheory may also be worth posting to. In terms of the film theory of horror a lot of the more theoretical work I'm familiar with is in the feminist and psychoanalytic schools. Linda Williams Body Genre essay is classic, locating the viewers pleasure of horror films in the female scream. But looking for film theory on horror or horror film readers will give you a bunch of essays typically in the realm of continental philosophy. Zizek, McGowan, and other Lacanians often use film as a primary concern with Lacanian and Freudian concepts used to read them or vice versa. Zizek and Fiennes' Pervert's Guide to Cinema, and Pervert's Guide to Ideology to a lesser extent, \"documentaries\" deals a lot with Hitcock, horror, and suspense in a Lacanian framework. While highly aesthetically oriented filmmakers do get this kind of treatment, I wouldn't put most of the material mentioned in a category of aesthetics as much as I would analysis of film form.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12317.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"glrmy4","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Where can I read more about the aesthetics of horror? It occured to me today how much Lovecraft's \"cosmic horror\" draws from the earlier aesthetic notions of the sublime, especially in Burke and Kant's conception; something that overwhelms the senses with some degree of dimension and danger. The jest, of course, is that cosmic horror is not at all pleasurable to the observer, unlike something sublime. Maybe it approximates the Lacanian Real? In any case, it also seems to me that horror (in literature, cinema, plastic arts) rarely receives a critical treatment like other genres. While there maybe be horror masterpieces which are undoubtedly art, it seems that very few people would list those as the best of a certain medium. The exception, of course, being Kubrick's *The Shining* as one of the best films of all time, not merely one of the best horrors. Still, philosophically, I'd like to become acquainted with the aesthetics of horror. What should I head first?","c_root_id_A":"fqzykk9","c_root_id_B":"fqzcyne","created_at_utc_A":1589778704,"created_at_utc_B":1589764764,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Mark Fisher\u2019s *The Weird and the Eerie*","human_ref_B":"I don't know anything about the aesthetics of horror, but it seems to me that there is probably some overlap with the aesthetics of tragedy, e.g. Hume and Schopenhauer.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13940.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"glrmy4","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Where can I read more about the aesthetics of horror? It occured to me today how much Lovecraft's \"cosmic horror\" draws from the earlier aesthetic notions of the sublime, especially in Burke and Kant's conception; something that overwhelms the senses with some degree of dimension and danger. The jest, of course, is that cosmic horror is not at all pleasurable to the observer, unlike something sublime. Maybe it approximates the Lacanian Real? In any case, it also seems to me that horror (in literature, cinema, plastic arts) rarely receives a critical treatment like other genres. While there maybe be horror masterpieces which are undoubtedly art, it seems that very few people would list those as the best of a certain medium. The exception, of course, being Kubrick's *The Shining* as one of the best films of all time, not merely one of the best horrors. Still, philosophically, I'd like to become acquainted with the aesthetics of horror. What should I head first?","c_root_id_A":"fqzcyne","c_root_id_B":"fqzfo8r","created_at_utc_A":1589764764,"created_at_utc_B":1589766387,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I don't know anything about the aesthetics of horror, but it seems to me that there is probably some overlap with the aesthetics of tragedy, e.g. Hume and Schopenhauer.","human_ref_B":"\/r\/filmtheory or \/r\/criticaltheory may also be worth posting to. In terms of the film theory of horror a lot of the more theoretical work I'm familiar with is in the feminist and psychoanalytic schools. Linda Williams Body Genre essay is classic, locating the viewers pleasure of horror films in the female scream. But looking for film theory on horror or horror film readers will give you a bunch of essays typically in the realm of continental philosophy. Zizek, McGowan, and other Lacanians often use film as a primary concern with Lacanian and Freudian concepts used to read them or vice versa. Zizek and Fiennes' Pervert's Guide to Cinema, and Pervert's Guide to Ideology to a lesser extent, \"documentaries\" deals a lot with Hitcock, horror, and suspense in a Lacanian framework. While highly aesthetically oriented filmmakers do get this kind of treatment, I wouldn't put most of the material mentioned in a category of aesthetics as much as I would analysis of film form.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1623.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"4ul7z2","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"The Trolley Problem, applied to elections: should refusing to vote for one candidate be considered as support for the other?","c_root_id_A":"d5qlq3h","c_root_id_B":"d5qm8qc","created_at_utc_A":1469484815,"created_at_utc_B":1469485488,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"It's not a perfectly valid comparison. There are countless other variables in politics, and the variables in the trolley thought experiment are very limited. For example, not voting for Clinton might be assumed to be tacit support for Trump, but the abstainer might argue it's to help build some other 3rd way in politics which would pay off in the long run.","human_ref_B":"No, because if I refuse to vote for both candidates, I am not supporting both candidates.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":673.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"inlj3e","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"How do I get started with learning Philosophy? I really like Crash Course Philosophy, but I've read on this subreddit that it's not a great source. Does there exist a book or video\/lecture series that covers various aspects of philosophy broadly (without going into too much debpth) so that I can figure out which bits of this vast subject I'm interesting in learning about further?","c_root_id_A":"g489hh2","c_root_id_B":"g486k3z","created_at_utc_A":1599399144,"created_at_utc_B":1599396996,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Same place for me, I am working my way through these https:\/\/podcasts.ox.ac.uk\/series\/romp-through-philosophy-complete-beginners","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskPhilosophyFAQ\/comments\/4ifqi3\/im_interested_in_philosophy_where_should_i_start\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2148.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} +{"post_id":"jbtjrx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How exactly does spinoza bridge the is-ought gap? I'm having a hard time seeing how he goes from all things having a conatus to this conatus implying certain virtues we need to follow.","c_root_id_A":"g8y8y7t","c_root_id_B":"g8xy8gr","created_at_utc_A":1602805353,"created_at_utc_B":1602799323,"score_A":21,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"It depends a lot on what you mean, which is why you have received so many different correct answers. Strictly speaking, the is-ought problem as articulated by Hume in book III, part I, section I of A Treatise of Human Nature is > In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; **when of a sudden I am surprized to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not.** This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, **for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.** But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason. The is-ought problem, as articulated by Hume, is when a philosophical treatise moves from making \"is\" claims to making \"ought\" claims, without explaining how the shift is made. Spinoza solves that problem by not making the shift from \"is\" to \"ought\". Spinoza's ethical claims are based on statements of what things *are*. 3P6: Everything, in so far as it is in itself, endeavours to persist in its own being. 3P7 The endeavour, wherewith everything endeavours to persist in its own being, is nothing else but the actual essence of the thing in question. Spinoza does not make prescriptive claims that a thing *ought* to strive to endeavor to persist in being. He just says that is what things do. Another good example is 4P14: Every man, by the laws of his nature, necessarily desires or shrinks from that which he deems to be good or bad. > The knowledge of good and evil is (IV. viii.) the emotion of pleasure or pain, in so far as we are conscious thereof; therefore, every man necessarily desires what he thinks good, and shrinks from what he thinks bad. Now this appetite is nothing else but man's nature or essence (cf. the Definition of Appetite, III. ix. note, and Def. of the Emotions, i.). Therefore, every man, solely by the laws of his nature, desires the one, and shrinks from the other, &c. Q.E.D. In Spinoza's system, it is not that one *ought to* desire what one thinks good, or *ought to* shrink from the bad. But rather \"every man, solely by the laws of his nature, desires the one, and shrinks from the other.\" That's just what man is, and that's just what man does. Hume's articulation of the is-ought gap would only apply to Spinoza if, say, Books 1 through 2 contained is claims about how God works and how Humans, work, and then suddenly in Books 3 through 5 Spinoza shifted to how Humans ought to live given the claims in the first two books. Spinoza never makes that shift, so far as I recall. Spinoza is is claims all the way down, so to speak. Which either means that * Spinoza bridges the is-ought gap by making reconfiguring prescriptive ethical claims as \"is\" claims. * Spinoza does not bridge the gap because he never hops from \"is\" speak to \"ought\" speak. I think it's more the first than the second, but both are probably right.","human_ref_B":"I don't think he does, Spinoza criticizes the ideas of good and evil (see the appendice to the first part of *Ethics*, for instance) and replace them with the idea of the 'useful'. It is most useful to you to be virtuous, but it's not an obligation. In chapter XVI of the *TTP*, he defines the right of nature as the power of individuals. The extent of what you're allowed to do is just the extent of what you can do. It's in a beautiful passage : >By the right and order of nature I merely mean the rules determining the nature of each individual thing by which we conceive it is determined naturally to exist and to behave in a certain way. For example fish are determined by nature to swim and big fish to eat little ones, and therefore it is by sovereign natural right that fish have possession of the water and that big fish eat small fish. For it is certain that nature, considered wholly in itself, has a sovereign right to do everything that it can do, i.e., the right of nature extends as far as its power extends\u2026since the universal power of the whole of nature is nothing but the power of all individual things together, it follows that each individual thing has the sovereign right to do everything that it can do, or the right of each thing extends so far as its determined power extends.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6030.0,"score_ratio":2.625} +{"post_id":"jbtjrx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How exactly does spinoza bridge the is-ought gap? I'm having a hard time seeing how he goes from all things having a conatus to this conatus implying certain virtues we need to follow.","c_root_id_A":"g8y8y7t","c_root_id_B":"g8y781w","created_at_utc_A":1602805353,"created_at_utc_B":1602804357,"score_A":21,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"It depends a lot on what you mean, which is why you have received so many different correct answers. Strictly speaking, the is-ought problem as articulated by Hume in book III, part I, section I of A Treatise of Human Nature is > In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; **when of a sudden I am surprized to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not.** This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, **for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.** But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason. The is-ought problem, as articulated by Hume, is when a philosophical treatise moves from making \"is\" claims to making \"ought\" claims, without explaining how the shift is made. Spinoza solves that problem by not making the shift from \"is\" to \"ought\". Spinoza's ethical claims are based on statements of what things *are*. 3P6: Everything, in so far as it is in itself, endeavours to persist in its own being. 3P7 The endeavour, wherewith everything endeavours to persist in its own being, is nothing else but the actual essence of the thing in question. Spinoza does not make prescriptive claims that a thing *ought* to strive to endeavor to persist in being. He just says that is what things do. Another good example is 4P14: Every man, by the laws of his nature, necessarily desires or shrinks from that which he deems to be good or bad. > The knowledge of good and evil is (IV. viii.) the emotion of pleasure or pain, in so far as we are conscious thereof; therefore, every man necessarily desires what he thinks good, and shrinks from what he thinks bad. Now this appetite is nothing else but man's nature or essence (cf. the Definition of Appetite, III. ix. note, and Def. of the Emotions, i.). Therefore, every man, solely by the laws of his nature, desires the one, and shrinks from the other, &c. Q.E.D. In Spinoza's system, it is not that one *ought to* desire what one thinks good, or *ought to* shrink from the bad. But rather \"every man, solely by the laws of his nature, desires the one, and shrinks from the other.\" That's just what man is, and that's just what man does. Hume's articulation of the is-ought gap would only apply to Spinoza if, say, Books 1 through 2 contained is claims about how God works and how Humans, work, and then suddenly in Books 3 through 5 Spinoza shifted to how Humans ought to live given the claims in the first two books. Spinoza never makes that shift, so far as I recall. Spinoza is is claims all the way down, so to speak. Which either means that * Spinoza bridges the is-ought gap by making reconfiguring prescriptive ethical claims as \"is\" claims. * Spinoza does not bridge the gap because he never hops from \"is\" speak to \"ought\" speak. I think it's more the first than the second, but both are probably right.","human_ref_B":"Just noting that Spinoza didn't know about the is-ought gap, because it was David Hume that \"invented\" it about 70 years after Spinoza died. Not sure it was noted before Hume that there would be a problem going pretty much straight from X is natural for Y to X ought to do Y.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":996.0,"score_ratio":4.2} +{"post_id":"69o9qk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"What might be good starting points for Kierkegaard? Should what just jump straight into his books? If so, With which do I start? Should I just accept my existential angst and make a leap of faith?","c_root_id_A":"dh86kx2","c_root_id_B":"dh862e0","created_at_utc_A":1494119037,"created_at_utc_B":1494118248,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I strongly disagree with the other post. Do not start with Hegel, and do not start with Kierkegaard's dissertation. Kierkegaard's dissertation is on irony and is itself mostly ironic, so unless you know exactly what he's responding to, it'll all be nonsense. And while Kierkegaard is often working against Hegel, what he's really working against were some of his contemporaries who were Hegelians. So, in my opinion, a wikipedia level knowledge of Hegel should be enough to get you started on Kierkegaard. I would start where Kierkegaard wanted most of his readers to start: Either\/Or. I'd move from Either\/Or > Fear and Trembling> Philosophical Fragments> Concluding Unscientific Postscript > Practice in Christianity > whatever you want. I know some people who suggest starting with Works of Love, and that's a fair suggestion, but I still think Either\/Or is a better starting place.","human_ref_B":"Short answer: yes. Long answer: One of the primary 'problems' with reading Kierkegaard is that he often writes from behind a mask. His texts are published under pseudonyms, and while this may be seen as a simple way of protecting his own identity, and thereby thwarting any negative reaction that his books may have incurred against him, it seems more in line with 'Kierkegaard's' writings that the matter is not so simple. His different pseudonyms seem to speak from different directions and do not necessarily cohere as if they represented one, systematic philosophical perspective. There is no particular entry point into Kierkegaard's ouevre which will (reliably) serve as a solid foundation for the rest of his works. However, given the nature of Kierkegaard's thought (or the thought spoken by his personas), this seems perfectly appropriate. Some might argue that Kierkegaard is speaking more plainly in his Edifying Discourses (or Upbuilding Discourses), as he signed these with his own name. Or, one would take the chronological path and simply begin where Kierkegaard does - with his dissertation, *On the Concept of Irony*. Personally, I would recommend a slightly different path. It is important to consider the historical-social climate in which Kierkegaard wrote. This climate was, without a better term, broadly Hegelian. More than in most cases, a working knowledge of Hegel's project and texts is important here, as Kierkegaard's various faces all seem to be deeply preoccupied with engaging the Hegelian philosophical scene in which they emerged. As such, it is advisable to start with Hegel's *Phenomenology*, followed by the *Science of Logic* (or, at the very least, the preface and first couple moments). Once one feels that they have developed a decent grasp on the basics of these texts, one will find Kierkegaard's *Concluding Unscientific Postscript,* often regarded as his magnum opus, to be much more comprehensible. Hope that helps!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":789.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} +{"post_id":"69o9qk","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"What might be good starting points for Kierkegaard? Should what just jump straight into his books? If so, With which do I start? Should I just accept my existential angst and make a leap of faith?","c_root_id_A":"dh8f61f","c_root_id_B":"dh862e0","created_at_utc_A":1494133153,"created_at_utc_B":1494118248,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"It largely depends on your own background and interests. Kierkegaard\u2019s work covers a diversity of themes and topics: irony, aesthetics, ethics, religion, time, history, modernity, society, politics, groupthink, self-deception, love, death, anxiety, despair, the phenomenology of selfhood, and much else besides. If you want to ease your way into Kierkegaard, I would start with one or more of his shorter works: *Fear and Trembling*, *Repetition*, *The Concept of Anxiety*, *Prefaces*, *Two Ages*, *Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions*, and *The Sickness Unto Death*. If you would prefer a taste of (nearly) the full gamut of his writings, try *The Essential Kierkegaard*, which has a good selection of excerpts from nearly every one of his works (even some of the more obscure ones). If instead you prefer the chronological-developmental route, Kierkegaard considers *Either\/Or* to be the official beginning of his \u201cauthorship\u201d proper. *Either\/Or* is a longer book\u2014two volumes in the Princeton editions\u2014but well worth the read. Here is a list of the Princeton editions of his writings; they tend to follow chronological order. And this list divides his writings into signed and pseudonymous, if you are curious which writings are which. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Kierkegaard is helpful, and C. Stephen Evans\u2019 *Kierkegaard: An Introduction* and M. Jamie Ferreira\u2019s *Kierkegaard* are both good introductions to his thought. You might eventually wish to browse *The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard* and *The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard*, or D. Anthony Storm\u2019s commentary on Kierkegaard\u2019s writings. For further resources, see here.","human_ref_B":"Short answer: yes. Long answer: One of the primary 'problems' with reading Kierkegaard is that he often writes from behind a mask. His texts are published under pseudonyms, and while this may be seen as a simple way of protecting his own identity, and thereby thwarting any negative reaction that his books may have incurred against him, it seems more in line with 'Kierkegaard's' writings that the matter is not so simple. His different pseudonyms seem to speak from different directions and do not necessarily cohere as if they represented one, systematic philosophical perspective. There is no particular entry point into Kierkegaard's ouevre which will (reliably) serve as a solid foundation for the rest of his works. However, given the nature of Kierkegaard's thought (or the thought spoken by his personas), this seems perfectly appropriate. Some might argue that Kierkegaard is speaking more plainly in his Edifying Discourses (or Upbuilding Discourses), as he signed these with his own name. Or, one would take the chronological path and simply begin where Kierkegaard does - with his dissertation, *On the Concept of Irony*. Personally, I would recommend a slightly different path. It is important to consider the historical-social climate in which Kierkegaard wrote. This climate was, without a better term, broadly Hegelian. More than in most cases, a working knowledge of Hegel's project and texts is important here, as Kierkegaard's various faces all seem to be deeply preoccupied with engaging the Hegelian philosophical scene in which they emerged. As such, it is advisable to start with Hegel's *Phenomenology*, followed by the *Science of Logic* (or, at the very least, the preface and first couple moments). Once one feels that they have developed a decent grasp on the basics of these texts, one will find Kierkegaard's *Concluding Unscientific Postscript,* often regarded as his magnum opus, to be much more comprehensible. Hope that helps!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14905.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"t3g9xq","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 28, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hzaer5e","c_root_id_B":"hyvu8ok","created_at_utc_A":1646377075,"created_at_utc_B":1646117573,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"This is a response to u\/MusicSpot1's question in the last weekly thread on how philosopher's choose research topics. \r This story is (academically) pretty wild, some people find it entertaining. sorry the writing here is rough, I am just writing it up for fun. \r I think there are people here who want to know more about what modern philosophers (and related fields) do.\r Before I get into the story of how I found my topic, I have some housekeeping to do.\r \r **First and foremost:** Calling out\/making beef with strangers I have never met is not the purpose of this post. Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not go harassing some of the scholars I talk about, despite their terrible takes. These are issues to be dealt with in journal articles and NOT random internet strangers harassing people. As far as I am concerned the matters discussed have been addressed.\r \r **Second, I want to provide some context on my academic background:** \r I have a master's degree in music composition, and strong subject-matter experience in Musicology. My main area of interest is in American composer Lou Harrison, parts of whose life and works I am considered an expert on. I also have dabbled in discussing the relationship between late 19th\/early 20th century French music and Orientalism, which happens to have a fair amount of crossover with Harrison criticism. \r Philosophically, I am interested in action, ethics, pedagogy, and emotions. I am a huge Martha Nussbaum fan. out of every scholar\/author I have read she has probably had the largest impact on my writing and approach to academics.\r \r Anyways, on to the story of how I fell into a research topic, and how the crazy stuff I found changed my thesis.\r \r The topic I am currently involved in is discussing the ethics of cultural appropriation in the context of music scholarship. Most recently I wrote and presented at a conference, a very brief version of a 75 page paper on the subject matter (this was in 2021).\r In Lou Harrison scholarship there are two extreme camps (I'm exaggerating their positions here for the sake of clarity, I don't have time for lit review), with some people being a little more subtle than others: \r 1) Lou Harrison could do nothing wrong, his music is not cultural appropriation. How do you even suggest this? \r 2) Lou Harrison is a hardcore Orientalist and a Musical Colonist. \r To make matters worse, most of the scholars on the subject had some sort of personal relationship with Harrison, or are white gamelan musicians\/composers with serious stakes as they pertain to the question: \"Was Lou Harrison an appropriator?\" It is really REALLY difficult to find any scholarship on the topic that is not serving some sort of personal agenda.\r Generally speaking, the people in camp #2 don't really address any of the concerns of the people in camp #1, since the folks in camp #1 knew Harrison to be a very nice guy with strong moral convictions. Camp #1 believes camp #2 is very unfair to Harrison. Camp #2 tends to found its critiques of Harrison on post-colonial scholarship, which camp #1 believes denies the historical fact that Harrison was a good person with good intentions who studied gamelan directly.\r \r The people in camp #1 tend to have been friends with Harrison in life, or have personal stakes in writing for Javanese Gamelan ensemble, so are obviously going to take issue with camp #2. Camp #1 also has some pretty bad arguments as to explain what Harrison did was not appropriation\/isn't problematic in some way.\r \r The first line that really drove me batty is from a popular and recent (and actually quite good) Harrison biography: >\r \"to paint Harrison as a cultural colonialist and \u201cappropriator\u201d of artistic resources is a naive moral judgement...As a gay man, \\[sic\\] sympathized with victims of bigotry, including those subjected to colonialism\" \r \rThis line bothered me when I first encountered it, but I was still trying to explain away Harrison's cultural appropriation. Tackling the problem from an ethics perspective hadn't quite occurred to me yet. It goes without saying that the argument is a weak ethical argument, and a frustrating blemish on a really good book.\r \r It was not until I encountered an article entitled \u201cIssues of Pastiche and Illusions of Authenticity in Gamelan-Inspired Composition\u201d by an English(?) gamelan scholar that I ended up with my paper topic. \r \r **Short Summary of the article**\r \r The author of this article is interested in what may constitute \u201cauthentic\u201d Javanese music, and an authentic expression of \u201cbi-musicality.\u201d Bi-musicality means a way of operating in and between two distinct musical traditions as to create a hybrid sort of music. I\u2019ll get back to what reasons Sorrell had for arguing this when I talk about why I LOATHE this article in a bit.\r \r Sorrell argues for the existence of a sort of \u201cbi-musicality\u201d and critiques Harrison\u2019s music as appropriative, with his main issue being \u201ccultural projection.\u201d Harrison\u2019s use of just-intonation in his writing for gamelan ensemble is an example of projecting the composer\u2019s western ideology onto gamelan, which is compounded by, \u201cHarrison\u2019s appropriation of Javanese terminology, as it carries specific expectations and suggests a more genuinely Javanese product than in fact exists.\u201d (Sorrell, 41) \r \r Up to this point, Sorrell\u2019s article isn\u2019t problematic. I think he actually had some very good points, but then he goes on and admits to lying about his name and race in a public concert to prove a point about perceived authenticity and why his own music is bi-musical (and therefore not appropriative).\r \r >\u201cIn order to deflect unwelcome focus on myself as the composer \\[of Missa Gongso\\], but even more to convey an illusion of authenticity to enhance the reception of the work, I adopted a pseudonym. In fact I invented a totally fictitious 20th-century Italian-Javanese composer (even more bi-musical than I could hope to be) by the fanciful name of Napoleon Sutono (abbreviated to \u2018Napotono\u2019), whose musical loves were gamelan, European polyphony and, above all, J.S. Bach.\u201d (Sorrell, 44)\r \r This passage made me so angry, and it was upon reading I knew I absolutely needed to crush this man (academically, of course. From what I hear he is actually quite nice). It was also in this passage where I realized that the main avenue of inquiry I should be exploring was NOT whether or not the music was appropriative, but rather the ethics of writing appropriative music. What makes appropriation unethical?\r \r The strategy of many of the articles I had read was to make ontological claims about what was\/wasn\u2019t appropriation, and then to show that something was\/wasn\u2019t ethical based on whether or not it was appropriation (Sorrell the biggest offender). \r \r This methodology is flawed, so I went diving for writings on the ethics of knowledge and appropriation and wound up finding Miranda Fricker\u2019s *Epistemic Injustice*.\r \r Eventually I revised my thesis. I moved away from defending Harrison on ethical grounds, and instead argued that his defenders need to be more reflective of the epistemic harms of their practices. My issue was not with musical content, but with the social context in which appropriative works are performed.","human_ref_B":"Anyone else loving how active weekly discussion has been as of late?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":259502.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"t3g9xq","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 28, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hzaer5e","c_root_id_B":"hz74nnd","created_at_utc_A":1646377075,"created_at_utc_B":1646323972,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"This is a response to u\/MusicSpot1's question in the last weekly thread on how philosopher's choose research topics. \r This story is (academically) pretty wild, some people find it entertaining. sorry the writing here is rough, I am just writing it up for fun. \r I think there are people here who want to know more about what modern philosophers (and related fields) do.\r Before I get into the story of how I found my topic, I have some housekeeping to do.\r \r **First and foremost:** Calling out\/making beef with strangers I have never met is not the purpose of this post. Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not go harassing some of the scholars I talk about, despite their terrible takes. These are issues to be dealt with in journal articles and NOT random internet strangers harassing people. As far as I am concerned the matters discussed have been addressed.\r \r **Second, I want to provide some context on my academic background:** \r I have a master's degree in music composition, and strong subject-matter experience in Musicology. My main area of interest is in American composer Lou Harrison, parts of whose life and works I am considered an expert on. I also have dabbled in discussing the relationship between late 19th\/early 20th century French music and Orientalism, which happens to have a fair amount of crossover with Harrison criticism. \r Philosophically, I am interested in action, ethics, pedagogy, and emotions. I am a huge Martha Nussbaum fan. out of every scholar\/author I have read she has probably had the largest impact on my writing and approach to academics.\r \r Anyways, on to the story of how I fell into a research topic, and how the crazy stuff I found changed my thesis.\r \r The topic I am currently involved in is discussing the ethics of cultural appropriation in the context of music scholarship. Most recently I wrote and presented at a conference, a very brief version of a 75 page paper on the subject matter (this was in 2021).\r In Lou Harrison scholarship there are two extreme camps (I'm exaggerating their positions here for the sake of clarity, I don't have time for lit review), with some people being a little more subtle than others: \r 1) Lou Harrison could do nothing wrong, his music is not cultural appropriation. How do you even suggest this? \r 2) Lou Harrison is a hardcore Orientalist and a Musical Colonist. \r To make matters worse, most of the scholars on the subject had some sort of personal relationship with Harrison, or are white gamelan musicians\/composers with serious stakes as they pertain to the question: \"Was Lou Harrison an appropriator?\" It is really REALLY difficult to find any scholarship on the topic that is not serving some sort of personal agenda.\r Generally speaking, the people in camp #2 don't really address any of the concerns of the people in camp #1, since the folks in camp #1 knew Harrison to be a very nice guy with strong moral convictions. Camp #1 believes camp #2 is very unfair to Harrison. Camp #2 tends to found its critiques of Harrison on post-colonial scholarship, which camp #1 believes denies the historical fact that Harrison was a good person with good intentions who studied gamelan directly.\r \r The people in camp #1 tend to have been friends with Harrison in life, or have personal stakes in writing for Javanese Gamelan ensemble, so are obviously going to take issue with camp #2. Camp #1 also has some pretty bad arguments as to explain what Harrison did was not appropriation\/isn't problematic in some way.\r \r The first line that really drove me batty is from a popular and recent (and actually quite good) Harrison biography: >\r \"to paint Harrison as a cultural colonialist and \u201cappropriator\u201d of artistic resources is a naive moral judgement...As a gay man, \\[sic\\] sympathized with victims of bigotry, including those subjected to colonialism\" \r \rThis line bothered me when I first encountered it, but I was still trying to explain away Harrison's cultural appropriation. Tackling the problem from an ethics perspective hadn't quite occurred to me yet. It goes without saying that the argument is a weak ethical argument, and a frustrating blemish on a really good book.\r \r It was not until I encountered an article entitled \u201cIssues of Pastiche and Illusions of Authenticity in Gamelan-Inspired Composition\u201d by an English(?) gamelan scholar that I ended up with my paper topic. \r \r **Short Summary of the article**\r \r The author of this article is interested in what may constitute \u201cauthentic\u201d Javanese music, and an authentic expression of \u201cbi-musicality.\u201d Bi-musicality means a way of operating in and between two distinct musical traditions as to create a hybrid sort of music. I\u2019ll get back to what reasons Sorrell had for arguing this when I talk about why I LOATHE this article in a bit.\r \r Sorrell argues for the existence of a sort of \u201cbi-musicality\u201d and critiques Harrison\u2019s music as appropriative, with his main issue being \u201ccultural projection.\u201d Harrison\u2019s use of just-intonation in his writing for gamelan ensemble is an example of projecting the composer\u2019s western ideology onto gamelan, which is compounded by, \u201cHarrison\u2019s appropriation of Javanese terminology, as it carries specific expectations and suggests a more genuinely Javanese product than in fact exists.\u201d (Sorrell, 41) \r \r Up to this point, Sorrell\u2019s article isn\u2019t problematic. I think he actually had some very good points, but then he goes on and admits to lying about his name and race in a public concert to prove a point about perceived authenticity and why his own music is bi-musical (and therefore not appropriative).\r \r >\u201cIn order to deflect unwelcome focus on myself as the composer \\[of Missa Gongso\\], but even more to convey an illusion of authenticity to enhance the reception of the work, I adopted a pseudonym. In fact I invented a totally fictitious 20th-century Italian-Javanese composer (even more bi-musical than I could hope to be) by the fanciful name of Napoleon Sutono (abbreviated to \u2018Napotono\u2019), whose musical loves were gamelan, European polyphony and, above all, J.S. Bach.\u201d (Sorrell, 44)\r \r This passage made me so angry, and it was upon reading I knew I absolutely needed to crush this man (academically, of course. From what I hear he is actually quite nice). It was also in this passage where I realized that the main avenue of inquiry I should be exploring was NOT whether or not the music was appropriative, but rather the ethics of writing appropriative music. What makes appropriation unethical?\r \r The strategy of many of the articles I had read was to make ontological claims about what was\/wasn\u2019t appropriation, and then to show that something was\/wasn\u2019t ethical based on whether or not it was appropriation (Sorrell the biggest offender). \r \r This methodology is flawed, so I went diving for writings on the ethics of knowledge and appropriation and wound up finding Miranda Fricker\u2019s *Epistemic Injustice*.\r \r Eventually I revised my thesis. I moved away from defending Harrison on ethical grounds, and instead argued that his defenders need to be more reflective of the epistemic harms of their practices. My issue was not with musical content, but with the social context in which appropriative works are performed.","human_ref_B":"Anyone read any interesting contemporary papers on the relationship between or conflicts between moral values and religious values? Like, given stuff like epistemic humility in relation to moral knowledge, how ought a believer do reflective equilibrium (or whatever) when intuition, doctrine, and theory conflict?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":53103.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"t3g9xq","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 28, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hzaer5e","c_root_id_B":"hyvztrk","created_at_utc_A":1646377075,"created_at_utc_B":1646121738,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This is a response to u\/MusicSpot1's question in the last weekly thread on how philosopher's choose research topics. \r This story is (academically) pretty wild, some people find it entertaining. sorry the writing here is rough, I am just writing it up for fun. \r I think there are people here who want to know more about what modern philosophers (and related fields) do.\r Before I get into the story of how I found my topic, I have some housekeeping to do.\r \r **First and foremost:** Calling out\/making beef with strangers I have never met is not the purpose of this post. Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not go harassing some of the scholars I talk about, despite their terrible takes. These are issues to be dealt with in journal articles and NOT random internet strangers harassing people. As far as I am concerned the matters discussed have been addressed.\r \r **Second, I want to provide some context on my academic background:** \r I have a master's degree in music composition, and strong subject-matter experience in Musicology. My main area of interest is in American composer Lou Harrison, parts of whose life and works I am considered an expert on. I also have dabbled in discussing the relationship between late 19th\/early 20th century French music and Orientalism, which happens to have a fair amount of crossover with Harrison criticism. \r Philosophically, I am interested in action, ethics, pedagogy, and emotions. I am a huge Martha Nussbaum fan. out of every scholar\/author I have read she has probably had the largest impact on my writing and approach to academics.\r \r Anyways, on to the story of how I fell into a research topic, and how the crazy stuff I found changed my thesis.\r \r The topic I am currently involved in is discussing the ethics of cultural appropriation in the context of music scholarship. Most recently I wrote and presented at a conference, a very brief version of a 75 page paper on the subject matter (this was in 2021).\r In Lou Harrison scholarship there are two extreme camps (I'm exaggerating their positions here for the sake of clarity, I don't have time for lit review), with some people being a little more subtle than others: \r 1) Lou Harrison could do nothing wrong, his music is not cultural appropriation. How do you even suggest this? \r 2) Lou Harrison is a hardcore Orientalist and a Musical Colonist. \r To make matters worse, most of the scholars on the subject had some sort of personal relationship with Harrison, or are white gamelan musicians\/composers with serious stakes as they pertain to the question: \"Was Lou Harrison an appropriator?\" It is really REALLY difficult to find any scholarship on the topic that is not serving some sort of personal agenda.\r Generally speaking, the people in camp #2 don't really address any of the concerns of the people in camp #1, since the folks in camp #1 knew Harrison to be a very nice guy with strong moral convictions. Camp #1 believes camp #2 is very unfair to Harrison. Camp #2 tends to found its critiques of Harrison on post-colonial scholarship, which camp #1 believes denies the historical fact that Harrison was a good person with good intentions who studied gamelan directly.\r \r The people in camp #1 tend to have been friends with Harrison in life, or have personal stakes in writing for Javanese Gamelan ensemble, so are obviously going to take issue with camp #2. Camp #1 also has some pretty bad arguments as to explain what Harrison did was not appropriation\/isn't problematic in some way.\r \r The first line that really drove me batty is from a popular and recent (and actually quite good) Harrison biography: >\r \"to paint Harrison as a cultural colonialist and \u201cappropriator\u201d of artistic resources is a naive moral judgement...As a gay man, \\[sic\\] sympathized with victims of bigotry, including those subjected to colonialism\" \r \rThis line bothered me when I first encountered it, but I was still trying to explain away Harrison's cultural appropriation. Tackling the problem from an ethics perspective hadn't quite occurred to me yet. It goes without saying that the argument is a weak ethical argument, and a frustrating blemish on a really good book.\r \r It was not until I encountered an article entitled \u201cIssues of Pastiche and Illusions of Authenticity in Gamelan-Inspired Composition\u201d by an English(?) gamelan scholar that I ended up with my paper topic. \r \r **Short Summary of the article**\r \r The author of this article is interested in what may constitute \u201cauthentic\u201d Javanese music, and an authentic expression of \u201cbi-musicality.\u201d Bi-musicality means a way of operating in and between two distinct musical traditions as to create a hybrid sort of music. I\u2019ll get back to what reasons Sorrell had for arguing this when I talk about why I LOATHE this article in a bit.\r \r Sorrell argues for the existence of a sort of \u201cbi-musicality\u201d and critiques Harrison\u2019s music as appropriative, with his main issue being \u201ccultural projection.\u201d Harrison\u2019s use of just-intonation in his writing for gamelan ensemble is an example of projecting the composer\u2019s western ideology onto gamelan, which is compounded by, \u201cHarrison\u2019s appropriation of Javanese terminology, as it carries specific expectations and suggests a more genuinely Javanese product than in fact exists.\u201d (Sorrell, 41) \r \r Up to this point, Sorrell\u2019s article isn\u2019t problematic. I think he actually had some very good points, but then he goes on and admits to lying about his name and race in a public concert to prove a point about perceived authenticity and why his own music is bi-musical (and therefore not appropriative).\r \r >\u201cIn order to deflect unwelcome focus on myself as the composer \\[of Missa Gongso\\], but even more to convey an illusion of authenticity to enhance the reception of the work, I adopted a pseudonym. In fact I invented a totally fictitious 20th-century Italian-Javanese composer (even more bi-musical than I could hope to be) by the fanciful name of Napoleon Sutono (abbreviated to \u2018Napotono\u2019), whose musical loves were gamelan, European polyphony and, above all, J.S. Bach.\u201d (Sorrell, 44)\r \r This passage made me so angry, and it was upon reading I knew I absolutely needed to crush this man (academically, of course. From what I hear he is actually quite nice). It was also in this passage where I realized that the main avenue of inquiry I should be exploring was NOT whether or not the music was appropriative, but rather the ethics of writing appropriative music. What makes appropriation unethical?\r \r The strategy of many of the articles I had read was to make ontological claims about what was\/wasn\u2019t appropriation, and then to show that something was\/wasn\u2019t ethical based on whether or not it was appropriation (Sorrell the biggest offender). \r \r This methodology is flawed, so I went diving for writings on the ethics of knowledge and appropriation and wound up finding Miranda Fricker\u2019s *Epistemic Injustice*.\r \r Eventually I revised my thesis. I moved away from defending Harrison on ethical grounds, and instead argued that his defenders need to be more reflective of the epistemic harms of their practices. My issue was not with musical content, but with the social context in which appropriative works are performed.","human_ref_B":"The Ethical Problems\/Questions Posed by Werewolves I'm going to propose a series of similar thought experiments and then explore why I think what I think about them. Let's say a werewolf exists. And let's also assume that different animals\/types of beings could be considered to have different ethical weights. That is to say a human's right to life is more valuable than mosquito's. If we make this assumption let's examine the implications of being a werewolf and whether there would be a meaningful and important distinction between the value of a werewolf's life and the value of a normal human's life, how, why, and for what reasons? When a werewolf transforms into a wolf he's definitely not what most people would perceive of as human or maybe even being similar to a human in any way. But if that wolf perceived the world in the same way as it did as a human would it have equal ethical weight to a human? To me it would be reasonable to interpret this as just a very particular and weird deformity in some way that doesn't inherently change the moral value of his life. Like assuming the wolf acts as much like a human as possible with the body of the wolf, I'd say fundamentally how he ethically interacts with the world hasn't changed. He's just in a different body shape that only enables him to act in certain ways. We want to feel like someone without legs isn't responsible for running to catch a criminal and thus similarly that the human in wolf form isn't fundamentally of a less moral value because his body interacts with the world in a way that we traditionally perceive as less meaningful\/ethical. But I feel it's reasonable to make such a distinction. How about this case? Say there was a human that was kind of like a werewolf in some way but the change was incredibly slow, but permanent. Like each approaching day he becomes a bit and bit more wolf-like. At some point we might consider him of equal moral to a wolf, or at least of a less moral value than a regular human. Although one could also argue that because at one point he was human, just because he's not similar enough to be considered a human now and never could be in the future the fact that he at one point had the ethical value of a human life that fundamental fact about him cannot change no matter how his shape or behavior change Another problem inherent in werewolves is the fact that they're dangerous to humans. They are traditionally quite aggressive in a similar way to the aggression of a traditional wolf. To the point that it fundamentally acts more like a wolf than a human in it's aggression. Would I have a duty to flee from the werewolf to some degree in that it is foreseeable that after the full moon is over that werewolf will go back to being human and thus have equal moral weight to a human at all times even when it's almost functionally identical to a wolf. And this is another similar question. Say a woman has two regular children. But during the third pregnancy the mother gives birth to a bouncing baby wolf. Would that wolf's life be of equal moral value to the regular childrens' because it is the experience of being birthed by a human mother than give one's life it's value. Perhaps insofar as mother's and children's just inherently have a bond\/love even if they happened to be of different species. Feel free to engage with this as you feel like. I doubt a specific philosopher wrote about this. I'd encourage you to point out or create similar thought experiments that further explore the potential ethics of being a werewolf. It was suggested to me to post this as a prompt in this thread. Does that mean I need to delete my post to follow the rules of the sub? I'm still a bit unclear what makes a post worthy of being it's own post or not.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":255337.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"t3g9xq","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 28, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hzf55tr","c_root_id_B":"hz74nnd","created_at_utc_A":1646459638,"created_at_utc_B":1646323972,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Okay so I am here with a bit of an unusual question. If you could pick one philosophical underpinning and write a basic children's book about it, which would you pick?\r \r For context: I am studying primary education in Australia and it is compulsory at my university to study a Philosophy class for this degree. We have been asked to create a children's book accompanied by a 1000 word exposition explaining the books philosophical underpinning. We are not graded on the quality of the book itself but purely on the 1000 word exposition.\r \r This is the outline:\r \r Accompanying the book will be a 1,000 word exposition (+\/- 10%) explaining the book\u2019s philosophical underpinning. You need to explain what philosophical system, tradition or approach has inspired your story and how you could use your story in your classroom to teach philosophical ideas or principles.\r \r \r \r What philosophical belief do you believe would best fit this task and be the easiest and also most effective for the assignment.","human_ref_B":"Anyone read any interesting contemporary papers on the relationship between or conflicts between moral values and religious values? Like, given stuff like epistemic humility in relation to moral knowledge, how ought a believer do reflective equilibrium (or whatever) when intuition, doctrine, and theory conflict?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":135666.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"t3g9xq","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 28, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hyvztrk","c_root_id_B":"hzf55tr","created_at_utc_A":1646121738,"created_at_utc_B":1646459638,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The Ethical Problems\/Questions Posed by Werewolves I'm going to propose a series of similar thought experiments and then explore why I think what I think about them. Let's say a werewolf exists. And let's also assume that different animals\/types of beings could be considered to have different ethical weights. That is to say a human's right to life is more valuable than mosquito's. If we make this assumption let's examine the implications of being a werewolf and whether there would be a meaningful and important distinction between the value of a werewolf's life and the value of a normal human's life, how, why, and for what reasons? When a werewolf transforms into a wolf he's definitely not what most people would perceive of as human or maybe even being similar to a human in any way. But if that wolf perceived the world in the same way as it did as a human would it have equal ethical weight to a human? To me it would be reasonable to interpret this as just a very particular and weird deformity in some way that doesn't inherently change the moral value of his life. Like assuming the wolf acts as much like a human as possible with the body of the wolf, I'd say fundamentally how he ethically interacts with the world hasn't changed. He's just in a different body shape that only enables him to act in certain ways. We want to feel like someone without legs isn't responsible for running to catch a criminal and thus similarly that the human in wolf form isn't fundamentally of a less moral value because his body interacts with the world in a way that we traditionally perceive as less meaningful\/ethical. But I feel it's reasonable to make such a distinction. How about this case? Say there was a human that was kind of like a werewolf in some way but the change was incredibly slow, but permanent. Like each approaching day he becomes a bit and bit more wolf-like. At some point we might consider him of equal moral to a wolf, or at least of a less moral value than a regular human. Although one could also argue that because at one point he was human, just because he's not similar enough to be considered a human now and never could be in the future the fact that he at one point had the ethical value of a human life that fundamental fact about him cannot change no matter how his shape or behavior change Another problem inherent in werewolves is the fact that they're dangerous to humans. They are traditionally quite aggressive in a similar way to the aggression of a traditional wolf. To the point that it fundamentally acts more like a wolf than a human in it's aggression. Would I have a duty to flee from the werewolf to some degree in that it is foreseeable that after the full moon is over that werewolf will go back to being human and thus have equal moral weight to a human at all times even when it's almost functionally identical to a wolf. And this is another similar question. Say a woman has two regular children. But during the third pregnancy the mother gives birth to a bouncing baby wolf. Would that wolf's life be of equal moral value to the regular childrens' because it is the experience of being birthed by a human mother than give one's life it's value. Perhaps insofar as mother's and children's just inherently have a bond\/love even if they happened to be of different species. Feel free to engage with this as you feel like. I doubt a specific philosopher wrote about this. I'd encourage you to point out or create similar thought experiments that further explore the potential ethics of being a werewolf. It was suggested to me to post this as a prompt in this thread. Does that mean I need to delete my post to follow the rules of the sub? I'm still a bit unclear what makes a post worthy of being it's own post or not.","human_ref_B":"Okay so I am here with a bit of an unusual question. If you could pick one philosophical underpinning and write a basic children's book about it, which would you pick?\r \r For context: I am studying primary education in Australia and it is compulsory at my university to study a Philosophy class for this degree. We have been asked to create a children's book accompanied by a 1000 word exposition explaining the books philosophical underpinning. We are not graded on the quality of the book itself but purely on the 1000 word exposition.\r \r This is the outline:\r \r Accompanying the book will be a 1,000 word exposition (+\/- 10%) explaining the book\u2019s philosophical underpinning. You need to explain what philosophical system, tradition or approach has inspired your story and how you could use your story in your classroom to teach philosophical ideas or principles.\r \r \r \r What philosophical belief do you believe would best fit this task and be the easiest and also most effective for the assignment.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":337900.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"t3g9xq","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 28, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"hyvztrk","c_root_id_B":"hz74nnd","created_at_utc_A":1646121738,"created_at_utc_B":1646323972,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Ethical Problems\/Questions Posed by Werewolves I'm going to propose a series of similar thought experiments and then explore why I think what I think about them. Let's say a werewolf exists. And let's also assume that different animals\/types of beings could be considered to have different ethical weights. That is to say a human's right to life is more valuable than mosquito's. If we make this assumption let's examine the implications of being a werewolf and whether there would be a meaningful and important distinction between the value of a werewolf's life and the value of a normal human's life, how, why, and for what reasons? When a werewolf transforms into a wolf he's definitely not what most people would perceive of as human or maybe even being similar to a human in any way. But if that wolf perceived the world in the same way as it did as a human would it have equal ethical weight to a human? To me it would be reasonable to interpret this as just a very particular and weird deformity in some way that doesn't inherently change the moral value of his life. Like assuming the wolf acts as much like a human as possible with the body of the wolf, I'd say fundamentally how he ethically interacts with the world hasn't changed. He's just in a different body shape that only enables him to act in certain ways. We want to feel like someone without legs isn't responsible for running to catch a criminal and thus similarly that the human in wolf form isn't fundamentally of a less moral value because his body interacts with the world in a way that we traditionally perceive as less meaningful\/ethical. But I feel it's reasonable to make such a distinction. How about this case? Say there was a human that was kind of like a werewolf in some way but the change was incredibly slow, but permanent. Like each approaching day he becomes a bit and bit more wolf-like. At some point we might consider him of equal moral to a wolf, or at least of a less moral value than a regular human. Although one could also argue that because at one point he was human, just because he's not similar enough to be considered a human now and never could be in the future the fact that he at one point had the ethical value of a human life that fundamental fact about him cannot change no matter how his shape or behavior change Another problem inherent in werewolves is the fact that they're dangerous to humans. They are traditionally quite aggressive in a similar way to the aggression of a traditional wolf. To the point that it fundamentally acts more like a wolf than a human in it's aggression. Would I have a duty to flee from the werewolf to some degree in that it is foreseeable that after the full moon is over that werewolf will go back to being human and thus have equal moral weight to a human at all times even when it's almost functionally identical to a wolf. And this is another similar question. Say a woman has two regular children. But during the third pregnancy the mother gives birth to a bouncing baby wolf. Would that wolf's life be of equal moral value to the regular childrens' because it is the experience of being birthed by a human mother than give one's life it's value. Perhaps insofar as mother's and children's just inherently have a bond\/love even if they happened to be of different species. Feel free to engage with this as you feel like. I doubt a specific philosopher wrote about this. I'd encourage you to point out or create similar thought experiments that further explore the potential ethics of being a werewolf. It was suggested to me to post this as a prompt in this thread. Does that mean I need to delete my post to follow the rules of the sub? I'm still a bit unclear what makes a post worthy of being it's own post or not.","human_ref_B":"Anyone read any interesting contemporary papers on the relationship between or conflicts between moral values and religious values? Like, given stuff like epistemic humility in relation to moral knowledge, how ought a believer do reflective equilibrium (or whatever) when intuition, doctrine, and theory conflict?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":202234.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"o519f1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 21, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"h2nkj9l","c_root_id_B":"h2lgo1v","created_at_utc_A":1624371787,"created_at_utc_B":1624319589,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Supervisor emailed me ''It's important to say before you read this that none of this is essential to change prior to your submission for review -'', which I take to be permission to go on holiday. Bless up.","human_ref_B":"What are people reading?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":52198.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"o519f1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 21, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"h2l17jx","c_root_id_B":"h2nkj9l","created_at_utc_A":1624311634,"created_at_utc_B":1624371787,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Who and what are some of the core thinkers and bodies of work that are supposed to be representative of Critical Race Theory? I've seen a lot of discourse about it, and its alleged tenets, but I haven't seen a single reference to a particular thinker or text that is supposed to be paradigmatic of the theory. So I'm wondering who are the paradigmatic CRT scholars, or CRT texts? Or is it like a postmodernism thing, where its so vague as to be useless and doesn't actually pick out a school of thought?","human_ref_B":"Supervisor emailed me ''It's important to say before you read this that none of this is essential to change prior to your submission for review -'', which I take to be permission to go on holiday. Bless up.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":60153.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"o519f1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 21, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"h2nkj9l","c_root_id_B":"h2ljku7","created_at_utc_A":1624371787,"created_at_utc_B":1624321174,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Supervisor emailed me ''It's important to say before you read this that none of this is essential to change prior to your submission for review -'', which I take to be permission to go on holiday. Bless up.","human_ref_B":"What are some \u201ctrendy\u201d topics in philosophy of language right now? Just being curious.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":50613.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"o519f1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 21, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"h2l17jx","c_root_id_B":"h2lgo1v","created_at_utc_A":1624311634,"created_at_utc_B":1624319589,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Who and what are some of the core thinkers and bodies of work that are supposed to be representative of Critical Race Theory? I've seen a lot of discourse about it, and its alleged tenets, but I haven't seen a single reference to a particular thinker or text that is supposed to be paradigmatic of the theory. So I'm wondering who are the paradigmatic CRT scholars, or CRT texts? Or is it like a postmodernism thing, where its so vague as to be useless and doesn't actually pick out a school of thought?","human_ref_B":"What are people reading?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7955.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"o519f1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 21, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"h2wiz9h","c_root_id_B":"h2ljku7","created_at_utc_A":1624553455,"created_at_utc_B":1624321174,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Where can I read\/learn about ideas\/theses about democratization of systems?\r I hope I am asking the question the right way. It occured me today, how confused I am about democratization of systems affecting my life.\r \r I'll give you an example, say, democratization of ecommerce. Instead of couple of big companies like Amazon, Ebay, etc, we have Shopify, so anybody can start their ecommerce sites. This makes people have more say about the industry, but it comes with a caveat, higher prices and inefficiency. So, if we fight enough for demoratization, we'll lose efficiency.\r \r Same for democratization of finance. Cryptocurrencies bring a lot of demoracy. But, still it will kill progress in the future because there will be indecision because it will require consensus from more and more people to move on\/update current systems.\r \r So I guess it all goes as cycles. Less democratization, people consolidating against it, demoratization, need for new systems, start again.\r \r So where can I learn about ideas on these topics? What is this whole thing called?","human_ref_B":"What are some \u201ctrendy\u201d topics in philosophy of language right now? Just being curious.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":232281.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"o519f1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 21, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"h2pf4m5","c_root_id_B":"h2wiz9h","created_at_utc_A":1624402507,"created_at_utc_B":1624553455,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello lovely people! I am pretty new to the philosophy world, I have read a few of the main books for college courses. I was recommended Sophie\u2019s World, currently I am on page 28. However, I am bawling my eyes out (for me it\u2019s actually quite funny that I am crying). I just wanted to know if anyone had the same experience or reaction to the book. Thank you \ud83d\ude0a","human_ref_B":"Where can I read\/learn about ideas\/theses about democratization of systems?\r I hope I am asking the question the right way. It occured me today, how confused I am about democratization of systems affecting my life.\r \r I'll give you an example, say, democratization of ecommerce. Instead of couple of big companies like Amazon, Ebay, etc, we have Shopify, so anybody can start their ecommerce sites. This makes people have more say about the industry, but it comes with a caveat, higher prices and inefficiency. So, if we fight enough for demoratization, we'll lose efficiency.\r \r Same for democratization of finance. Cryptocurrencies bring a lot of demoracy. But, still it will kill progress in the future because there will be indecision because it will require consensus from more and more people to move on\/update current systems.\r \r So I guess it all goes as cycles. Less democratization, people consolidating against it, demoratization, need for new systems, start again.\r \r So where can I learn about ideas on these topics? What is this whole thing called?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":150948.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"o519f1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 21, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"h2wiz9h","c_root_id_B":"h2rvctr","created_at_utc_A":1624553455,"created_at_utc_B":1624460158,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Where can I read\/learn about ideas\/theses about democratization of systems?\r I hope I am asking the question the right way. It occured me today, how confused I am about democratization of systems affecting my life.\r \r I'll give you an example, say, democratization of ecommerce. Instead of couple of big companies like Amazon, Ebay, etc, we have Shopify, so anybody can start their ecommerce sites. This makes people have more say about the industry, but it comes with a caveat, higher prices and inefficiency. So, if we fight enough for demoratization, we'll lose efficiency.\r \r Same for democratization of finance. Cryptocurrencies bring a lot of demoracy. But, still it will kill progress in the future because there will be indecision because it will require consensus from more and more people to move on\/update current systems.\r \r So I guess it all goes as cycles. Less democratization, people consolidating against it, demoratization, need for new systems, start again.\r \r So where can I learn about ideas on these topics? What is this whole thing called?","human_ref_B":"Is there a name or a guiding theory behind the current hierarchy of oppression? By \u201chierarchy of oppression\u201d I mean how one can essentially rank a person\u2019s oppression based on things like race, gender identity, and disability. So a disabled Black trans person has more of a societal disadvantage than a disabled Black cis person. I know that a lot of it is based in intersectionality, but does intersectionality specifically promote hierarchical thinking in this way? Is what I\u2019m describing literally just the theory of intersectionality? I should clarify that I\u2019m not trying to be critical of this way of thinking, I\u2019m just trying to formally understand it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":93297.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"o519f1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 21, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"h2sbs1k","c_root_id_B":"h2wiz9h","created_at_utc_A":1624467298,"created_at_utc_B":1624553455,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Any good intro to logic open source textbooks? I'm teaching intro to logic next semester and would like to use a free textbook.","human_ref_B":"Where can I read\/learn about ideas\/theses about democratization of systems?\r I hope I am asking the question the right way. It occured me today, how confused I am about democratization of systems affecting my life.\r \r I'll give you an example, say, democratization of ecommerce. Instead of couple of big companies like Amazon, Ebay, etc, we have Shopify, so anybody can start their ecommerce sites. This makes people have more say about the industry, but it comes with a caveat, higher prices and inefficiency. So, if we fight enough for demoratization, we'll lose efficiency.\r \r Same for democratization of finance. Cryptocurrencies bring a lot of demoracy. But, still it will kill progress in the future because there will be indecision because it will require consensus from more and more people to move on\/update current systems.\r \r So I guess it all goes as cycles. Less democratization, people consolidating against it, demoratization, need for new systems, start again.\r \r So where can I learn about ideas on these topics? What is this whole thing called?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":86157.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"o519f1","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 21, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"h2wiz9h","c_root_id_B":"h2vkktf","created_at_utc_A":1624553455,"created_at_utc_B":1624536719,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Where can I read\/learn about ideas\/theses about democratization of systems?\r I hope I am asking the question the right way. It occured me today, how confused I am about democratization of systems affecting my life.\r \r I'll give you an example, say, democratization of ecommerce. Instead of couple of big companies like Amazon, Ebay, etc, we have Shopify, so anybody can start their ecommerce sites. This makes people have more say about the industry, but it comes with a caveat, higher prices and inefficiency. So, if we fight enough for demoratization, we'll lose efficiency.\r \r Same for democratization of finance. Cryptocurrencies bring a lot of demoracy. But, still it will kill progress in the future because there will be indecision because it will require consensus from more and more people to move on\/update current systems.\r \r So I guess it all goes as cycles. Less democratization, people consolidating against it, demoratization, need for new systems, start again.\r \r So where can I learn about ideas on these topics? What is this whole thing called?","human_ref_B":"The asking if something is 'just semantics' really gives semantics a bad rep. Was looking at the question about the importance of indexicals, and was like, well depends if you think semantics are important.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16736.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"pa583y","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 23, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ha5zc33","c_root_id_B":"ha2uobg","created_at_utc_A":1629815612,"created_at_utc_B":1629751862,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Jean-Luc Nancy died :(","human_ref_B":"Two questions, A. Why are people doing homework in August? B. Where are all these antivaxxers coming from?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":63750.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"pa583y","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 23, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ha5zc33","c_root_id_B":"ha57vpg","created_at_utc_A":1629815612,"created_at_utc_B":1629800239,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Jean-Luc Nancy died :(","human_ref_B":"Anyone know about this series? It's supposed to contain 5 books but only 2 have been published, and the most recent one was published 4 years ago. Has it been discontinued?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15373.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsbr8n","c_root_id_B":"cfsbv5y","created_at_utc_A":1393748849,"created_at_utc_B":1393749429,"score_A":22,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Zizek: and so on and so forth...","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein: Words don't refer to objects, speakers refer to objects using words (or other behaviors).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":580.0,"score_ratio":1.7272727273} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsbkir","c_root_id_B":"cfsbv5y","created_at_utc_A":1393747919,"created_at_utc_B":1393749429,"score_A":16,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"I generally frown on these sorts of projects because there is really no way to summarize any of the serious issues in philosophy in just one sentence. That is the view of my favorite philosopher: me.","human_ref_B":"Wittgenstein: Words don't refer to objects, speakers refer to objects using words (or other behaviors).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1510.0,"score_ratio":2.375} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsgd7z","c_root_id_B":"cfsbr8n","created_at_utc_A":1393774362,"created_at_utc_B":1393748849,"score_A":24,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Aristotle: Hahaha, *women*, am I right?","human_ref_B":"Zizek: and so on and so forth...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25513.0,"score_ratio":1.0909090909} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsbr8n","c_root_id_B":"cfsbkir","created_at_utc_A":1393748849,"created_at_utc_B":1393747919,"score_A":22,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Zizek: and so on and so forth...","human_ref_B":"I generally frown on these sorts of projects because there is really no way to summarize any of the serious issues in philosophy in just one sentence. That is the view of my favorite philosopher: me.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":930.0,"score_ratio":1.375} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfse9w4","c_root_id_B":"cfsgd7z","created_at_utc_A":1393765060,"created_at_utc_B":1393774362,"score_A":20,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Nope, Kant be described in a sentence.","human_ref_B":"Aristotle: Hahaha, *women*, am I right?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9302.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsbkir","c_root_id_B":"cfsgd7z","created_at_utc_A":1393747919,"created_at_utc_B":1393774362,"score_A":16,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"I generally frown on these sorts of projects because there is really no way to summarize any of the serious issues in philosophy in just one sentence. That is the view of my favorite philosopher: me.","human_ref_B":"Aristotle: Hahaha, *women*, am I right?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26443.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsgd7z","c_root_id_B":"cfsbwpg","created_at_utc_A":1393774362,"created_at_utc_B":1393749662,"score_A":24,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Aristotle: Hahaha, *women*, am I right?","human_ref_B":"I would do Nietzsche but that's way too hard. Schopenhauer: So Kant, Plato, and the Upanishads walk into a club and all claim that the music the place is playing is the best shit.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24700.0,"score_ratio":2.1818181818} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfscun2","c_root_id_B":"cfsgd7z","created_at_utc_A":1393755450,"created_at_utc_B":1393774362,"score_A":11,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Daniel Dennett: I'm a tool and so are you.","human_ref_B":"Aristotle: Hahaha, *women*, am I right?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18912.0,"score_ratio":2.1818181818} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsdqcz","c_root_id_B":"cfsgd7z","created_at_utc_A":1393761690,"created_at_utc_B":1393774362,"score_A":5,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Francis Bacon: These are the steps and procedures to do science, and if you do it right, it will one day become a religion onto itself capable of reordering nature.","human_ref_B":"Aristotle: Hahaha, *women*, am I right?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12672.0,"score_ratio":4.8} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsgd7z","c_root_id_B":"cfscvsn","created_at_utc_A":1393774362,"created_at_utc_B":1393755660,"score_A":24,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Aristotle: Hahaha, *women*, am I right?","human_ref_B":"Deleuze: *Rhizomes*, man. P.S. Find your body-without-organs (hint: it's the difference between whole = sum-of-parts and whole > sum-of-parts).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18702.0,"score_ratio":4.8} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsgd7z","c_root_id_B":"cfscu3t","created_at_utc_A":1393774362,"created_at_utc_B":1393755350,"score_A":24,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Aristotle: Hahaha, *women*, am I right?","human_ref_B":"Martin Buber: There are two modes of subjective relation: I-You and I-It\u2014which do you think is more humanizing?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19012.0,"score_ratio":8.0} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfse9w4","c_root_id_B":"cfsbkir","created_at_utc_A":1393765060,"created_at_utc_B":1393747919,"score_A":20,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Nope, Kant be described in a sentence.","human_ref_B":"I generally frown on these sorts of projects because there is really no way to summarize any of the serious issues in philosophy in just one sentence. That is the view of my favorite philosopher: me.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17141.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfse9w4","c_root_id_B":"cfsbwpg","created_at_utc_A":1393765060,"created_at_utc_B":1393749662,"score_A":20,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Nope, Kant be described in a sentence.","human_ref_B":"I would do Nietzsche but that's way too hard. Schopenhauer: So Kant, Plato, and the Upanishads walk into a club and all claim that the music the place is playing is the best shit.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15398.0,"score_ratio":1.8181818182} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfscun2","c_root_id_B":"cfse9w4","created_at_utc_A":1393755450,"created_at_utc_B":1393765060,"score_A":11,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Daniel Dennett: I'm a tool and so are you.","human_ref_B":"Nope, Kant be described in a sentence.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9610.0,"score_ratio":1.8181818182} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsdqcz","c_root_id_B":"cfse9w4","created_at_utc_A":1393761690,"created_at_utc_B":1393765060,"score_A":5,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Francis Bacon: These are the steps and procedures to do science, and if you do it right, it will one day become a religion onto itself capable of reordering nature.","human_ref_B":"Nope, Kant be described in a sentence.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3370.0,"score_ratio":4.0} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfse9w4","c_root_id_B":"cfscvsn","created_at_utc_A":1393765060,"created_at_utc_B":1393755660,"score_A":20,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Nope, Kant be described in a sentence.","human_ref_B":"Deleuze: *Rhizomes*, man. P.S. Find your body-without-organs (hint: it's the difference between whole = sum-of-parts and whole > sum-of-parts).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9400.0,"score_ratio":4.0} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfse9w4","c_root_id_B":"cfscu3t","created_at_utc_A":1393765060,"created_at_utc_B":1393755350,"score_A":20,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Nope, Kant be described in a sentence.","human_ref_B":"Martin Buber: There are two modes of subjective relation: I-You and I-It\u2014which do you think is more humanizing?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9710.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfshb9f","c_root_id_B":"cfsbwpg","created_at_utc_A":1393777281,"created_at_utc_B":1393749662,"score_A":14,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Descartes: You should figure out how to think without making huge errors before you act like you know shit. Spinoza: If realizing you are a determined part-of-nature makes you sad, then you're an idiot. Leibniz: Monads! Like houses with no windows! Scratched mirrors and there's like so many of them! Wow! Monads.","human_ref_B":"I would do Nietzsche but that's way too hard. Schopenhauer: So Kant, Plato, and the Upanishads walk into a club and all claim that the music the place is playing is the best shit.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27619.0,"score_ratio":1.2727272727} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfscun2","c_root_id_B":"cfshb9f","created_at_utc_A":1393755450,"created_at_utc_B":1393777281,"score_A":11,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Daniel Dennett: I'm a tool and so are you.","human_ref_B":"Descartes: You should figure out how to think without making huge errors before you act like you know shit. Spinoza: If realizing you are a determined part-of-nature makes you sad, then you're an idiot. Leibniz: Monads! Like houses with no windows! Scratched mirrors and there's like so many of them! Wow! Monads.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21831.0,"score_ratio":1.2727272727} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfshb9f","c_root_id_B":"cfsdqcz","created_at_utc_A":1393777281,"created_at_utc_B":1393761690,"score_A":14,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Descartes: You should figure out how to think without making huge errors before you act like you know shit. Spinoza: If realizing you are a determined part-of-nature makes you sad, then you're an idiot. Leibniz: Monads! Like houses with no windows! Scratched mirrors and there's like so many of them! Wow! Monads.","human_ref_B":"Francis Bacon: These are the steps and procedures to do science, and if you do it right, it will one day become a religion onto itself capable of reordering nature.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15591.0,"score_ratio":2.8} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfscvsn","c_root_id_B":"cfshb9f","created_at_utc_A":1393755660,"created_at_utc_B":1393777281,"score_A":5,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Deleuze: *Rhizomes*, man. P.S. Find your body-without-organs (hint: it's the difference between whole = sum-of-parts and whole > sum-of-parts).","human_ref_B":"Descartes: You should figure out how to think without making huge errors before you act like you know shit. Spinoza: If realizing you are a determined part-of-nature makes you sad, then you're an idiot. Leibniz: Monads! Like houses with no windows! Scratched mirrors and there's like so many of them! Wow! Monads.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21621.0,"score_ratio":2.8} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfshb9f","c_root_id_B":"cfscu3t","created_at_utc_A":1393777281,"created_at_utc_B":1393755350,"score_A":14,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Descartes: You should figure out how to think without making huge errors before you act like you know shit. Spinoza: If realizing you are a determined part-of-nature makes you sad, then you're an idiot. Leibniz: Monads! Like houses with no windows! Scratched mirrors and there's like so many of them! Wow! Monads.","human_ref_B":"Martin Buber: There are two modes of subjective relation: I-You and I-It\u2014which do you think is more humanizing?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21931.0,"score_ratio":4.6666666667} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfscun2","c_root_id_B":"cfscu3t","created_at_utc_A":1393755450,"created_at_utc_B":1393755350,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Daniel Dennett: I'm a tool and so are you.","human_ref_B":"Martin Buber: There are two modes of subjective relation: I-You and I-It\u2014which do you think is more humanizing?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":100.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsn18p","c_root_id_B":"cfsdqcz","created_at_utc_A":1393791514,"created_at_utc_B":1393761690,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Epicurus: Pleasure is the good, but the common conception of pleasure-seeking is wrong - the greatest pleasure comes from being virtuous, having friends, and using your wisdom to get rid of sources of worry so you can lead a tranquil life.","human_ref_B":"Francis Bacon: These are the steps and procedures to do science, and if you do it right, it will one day become a religion onto itself capable of reordering nature.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":29824.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfscu3t","c_root_id_B":"cfsdqcz","created_at_utc_A":1393755350,"created_at_utc_B":1393761690,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Martin Buber: There are two modes of subjective relation: I-You and I-It\u2014which do you think is more humanizing?","human_ref_B":"Francis Bacon: These are the steps and procedures to do science, and if you do it right, it will one day become a religion onto itself capable of reordering nature.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6340.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfscvsn","c_root_id_B":"cfsn18p","created_at_utc_A":1393755660,"created_at_utc_B":1393791514,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Deleuze: *Rhizomes*, man. P.S. Find your body-without-organs (hint: it's the difference between whole = sum-of-parts and whole > sum-of-parts).","human_ref_B":"Epicurus: Pleasure is the good, but the common conception of pleasure-seeking is wrong - the greatest pleasure comes from being virtuous, having friends, and using your wisdom to get rid of sources of worry so you can lead a tranquil life.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":35854.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfscu3t","c_root_id_B":"cfsn18p","created_at_utc_A":1393755350,"created_at_utc_B":1393791514,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Martin Buber: There are two modes of subjective relation: I-You and I-It\u2014which do you think is more humanizing?","human_ref_B":"Epicurus: Pleasure is the good, but the common conception of pleasure-seeking is wrong - the greatest pleasure comes from being virtuous, having friends, and using your wisdom to get rid of sources of worry so you can lead a tranquil life.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":36164.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsjh4k","c_root_id_B":"cfsn18p","created_at_utc_A":1393783042,"created_at_utc_B":1393791514,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Heidegger: We have a primordial relationship to the earth and our fellow man that exists well before we explicitly thematize our experience.","human_ref_B":"Epicurus: Pleasure is the good, but the common conception of pleasure-seeking is wrong - the greatest pleasure comes from being virtuous, having friends, and using your wisdom to get rid of sources of worry so you can lead a tranquil life.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8472.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsn18p","c_root_id_B":"cfsjkhk","created_at_utc_A":1393791514,"created_at_utc_B":1393783273,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Epicurus: Pleasure is the good, but the common conception of pleasure-seeking is wrong - the greatest pleasure comes from being virtuous, having friends, and using your wisdom to get rid of sources of worry so you can lead a tranquil life.","human_ref_B":"Kant: \"I can derive the immorality of masturbation from the concept of a law as such.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8241.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfsn18p","c_root_id_B":"cfsjynq","created_at_utc_A":1393791514,"created_at_utc_B":1393784224,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Epicurus: Pleasure is the good, but the common conception of pleasure-seeking is wrong - the greatest pleasure comes from being virtuous, having friends, and using your wisdom to get rid of sources of worry so you can lead a tranquil life.","human_ref_B":"Derrida: Everything is always already interpretation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7290.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"1zbzpn","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Summarise your favourite philosopher in a sentence... Thought this might be a cool exercise to stoke people's interest and maybe get them acquainted with less 'mainstream' philosophers. Doesn't have to be your favourite. Perhaps try and describe one or some of their biggest contributions. I'll start. John Rawls: If society has agreed discrimination over arbitrary things like sex, gender, race, religion etc. shouldn't hold people back, and that there should be compensation awarded to the handicapped, why then shouldn't our other arbitrary natural endowments, for which we can claim no merit, be considered in this light?","c_root_id_A":"cfscvsn","c_root_id_B":"cfscu3t","created_at_utc_A":1393755660,"created_at_utc_B":1393755350,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Deleuze: *Rhizomes*, man. P.S. Find your body-without-organs (hint: it's the difference between whole = sum-of-parts and whole > sum-of-parts).","human_ref_B":"Martin Buber: There are two modes of subjective relation: I-You and I-It\u2014which do you think is more humanizing?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":310.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} +{"post_id":"6lihti","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Do I need to like Analytic\/Contemporary Philosophy? I'm not a Philosophy major (I'm majoring in Econ and History) but I study Philosophy in my spare time. Mainly I focus on the Ancients and Moderns, like the Pre-socratics, Kant, Nietzsche etc. However, do I need to like\/know extensively Contemporary or Analytic philosophy? I honestly despise Russell, Wittgenstein, and a majority of Analytic\/ Contemporary philosophers: they write quite poorly (in my opinion), use overly complex terminology, and lack in style in comparison to the ancients. Usually if I want an analysis of the mind-body problem I'll turn to Descartes or Spinoza, not Fodor or Putnam! Would this be considered unphilosophical to reject most contemporary\/analytic philosophy and would I be seen as being ignorant if I preferred and cited the pre-moderns as opposed to contemporary philosophers?","c_root_id_A":"djub4ql","c_root_id_B":"dju4yac","created_at_utc_A":1499316657,"created_at_utc_B":1499307380,"score_A":16,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"> I honestly despise Russell, Wittgenstein, and a majority of Analytic\/ Contemporary philosophers: they write quite poorly (in my opinion), use overly complex terminology, and lack in style in comparison to the ancients. I'll register some wariness about this particular motivation for avoiding analytic philosophy. Philosophy is generally thought to be a scientific pursuit in the broad sense: it is defined by an attempt to figure out how things actually are, rather than give expression to a certain sentiment or *Weltanschauung*. In light of this, disregarding a certain class of philosophers for stylistic reasons is suspect: it would be very strange to say that one prefers reading Newton to contemporary textbooks on the theory of relativity simply because they lack Newton's stylistic verve. The same goes for work in sociology, history, mathematics, or other broadly-scientifically-minded disciplines. Lord knows there are plenty of philosophers who do work outside of the analytic tradition (the poor souls), but make sure that your inclination in this direction is grounded more in substance than in prose style. If you're looking for good stylists, anyway, philosophy is probably the wrong place for you.","human_ref_B":">However, do I need to like\/know extensively Contemporary or Analytic philosophy? No, not really. There are plenty of respectable philosophers who think that post-Nietzschean philosophy isn't worth studying and prefer ancient approaches instead. It's a phenomenon very similar to the medieval revival in the early 20th century. Plenty of them are tenured professors at respectable universities. You say: >Would this be considered unphilosophical to reject most contemporary\/analytic philosophy and would I be seen as being ignorant if I preferred and cited the pre-moderns as opposed to contemporary philosophers? There is a professor at my university who goes to almost every conference or speaker event, raises his hand after they speak, and asks them questions only in terms of Plato's dialogues (typically to show that they haven't added any worthwhile contributions to the problem not already covered in Plato or Plotinus). Although I'm interested in contemporary (continental) philosophy, I agree with you about the appeal of ancient and modern philosophy. I would much prefer to be reading Plato over anything else; the only reason I'm not is because I'm not really interested in doing ancient scholarship (and dealing with ancient scholars). It also seems undeniable, as you rightly point out, that ancient and early modern philosophy is much more rigorous (*edit:* understanding \"rigor\" as being able to integrate all of the knowledge of its time) than most contemporary works. I would much rather hear what Plato has to say about something than anyone writing today.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9277.0,"score_ratio":1.7777777778} +{"post_id":"6lihti","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Do I need to like Analytic\/Contemporary Philosophy? I'm not a Philosophy major (I'm majoring in Econ and History) but I study Philosophy in my spare time. Mainly I focus on the Ancients and Moderns, like the Pre-socratics, Kant, Nietzsche etc. However, do I need to like\/know extensively Contemporary or Analytic philosophy? I honestly despise Russell, Wittgenstein, and a majority of Analytic\/ Contemporary philosophers: they write quite poorly (in my opinion), use overly complex terminology, and lack in style in comparison to the ancients. Usually if I want an analysis of the mind-body problem I'll turn to Descartes or Spinoza, not Fodor or Putnam! Would this be considered unphilosophical to reject most contemporary\/analytic philosophy and would I be seen as being ignorant if I preferred and cited the pre-moderns as opposed to contemporary philosophers?","c_root_id_A":"dju3hal","c_root_id_B":"djub4ql","created_at_utc_A":1499305339,"created_at_utc_B":1499316657,"score_A":2,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Well, this depends on what you are looking for: Either 1) you are interested in the development of something, say the mind\/body, in the moderns (and so you can look at the moderns and contemporary philosophers who work in that area, or 2) you are interested in how far philosophy has progressed with that problem (what philosophers currently think), and therefore you read the contemporaries working in that area. So, for example, if you are writing a paper for a phil of mind class, I would imagine that you would want to cite and read those who are currently working on that particular issue. And like I said, if you are taking an Ancient or modern phil class\/seminar that requires you to engage with what contemporary Ancient\/modern phil scholars , then, yeah, you should engage with them.","human_ref_B":"> I honestly despise Russell, Wittgenstein, and a majority of Analytic\/ Contemporary philosophers: they write quite poorly (in my opinion), use overly complex terminology, and lack in style in comparison to the ancients. I'll register some wariness about this particular motivation for avoiding analytic philosophy. Philosophy is generally thought to be a scientific pursuit in the broad sense: it is defined by an attempt to figure out how things actually are, rather than give expression to a certain sentiment or *Weltanschauung*. In light of this, disregarding a certain class of philosophers for stylistic reasons is suspect: it would be very strange to say that one prefers reading Newton to contemporary textbooks on the theory of relativity simply because they lack Newton's stylistic verve. The same goes for work in sociology, history, mathematics, or other broadly-scientifically-minded disciplines. Lord knows there are plenty of philosophers who do work outside of the analytic tradition (the poor souls), but make sure that your inclination in this direction is grounded more in substance than in prose style. If you're looking for good stylists, anyway, philosophy is probably the wrong place for you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11318.0,"score_ratio":8.0} +{"post_id":"6lihti","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Do I need to like Analytic\/Contemporary Philosophy? I'm not a Philosophy major (I'm majoring in Econ and History) but I study Philosophy in my spare time. Mainly I focus on the Ancients and Moderns, like the Pre-socratics, Kant, Nietzsche etc. However, do I need to like\/know extensively Contemporary or Analytic philosophy? I honestly despise Russell, Wittgenstein, and a majority of Analytic\/ Contemporary philosophers: they write quite poorly (in my opinion), use overly complex terminology, and lack in style in comparison to the ancients. Usually if I want an analysis of the mind-body problem I'll turn to Descartes or Spinoza, not Fodor or Putnam! Would this be considered unphilosophical to reject most contemporary\/analytic philosophy and would I be seen as being ignorant if I preferred and cited the pre-moderns as opposed to contemporary philosophers?","c_root_id_A":"dju4yac","c_root_id_B":"dju3hal","created_at_utc_A":1499307380,"created_at_utc_B":1499305339,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":">However, do I need to like\/know extensively Contemporary or Analytic philosophy? No, not really. There are plenty of respectable philosophers who think that post-Nietzschean philosophy isn't worth studying and prefer ancient approaches instead. It's a phenomenon very similar to the medieval revival in the early 20th century. Plenty of them are tenured professors at respectable universities. You say: >Would this be considered unphilosophical to reject most contemporary\/analytic philosophy and would I be seen as being ignorant if I preferred and cited the pre-moderns as opposed to contemporary philosophers? There is a professor at my university who goes to almost every conference or speaker event, raises his hand after they speak, and asks them questions only in terms of Plato's dialogues (typically to show that they haven't added any worthwhile contributions to the problem not already covered in Plato or Plotinus). Although I'm interested in contemporary (continental) philosophy, I agree with you about the appeal of ancient and modern philosophy. I would much prefer to be reading Plato over anything else; the only reason I'm not is because I'm not really interested in doing ancient scholarship (and dealing with ancient scholars). It also seems undeniable, as you rightly point out, that ancient and early modern philosophy is much more rigorous (*edit:* understanding \"rigor\" as being able to integrate all of the knowledge of its time) than most contemporary works. I would much rather hear what Plato has to say about something than anyone writing today.","human_ref_B":"Well, this depends on what you are looking for: Either 1) you are interested in the development of something, say the mind\/body, in the moderns (and so you can look at the moderns and contemporary philosophers who work in that area, or 2) you are interested in how far philosophy has progressed with that problem (what philosophers currently think), and therefore you read the contemporaries working in that area. So, for example, if you are writing a paper for a phil of mind class, I would imagine that you would want to cite and read those who are currently working on that particular issue. And like I said, if you are taking an Ancient or modern phil class\/seminar that requires you to engage with what contemporary Ancient\/modern phil scholars , then, yeah, you should engage with them.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2041.0,"score_ratio":4.5} +{"post_id":"az0gtf","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Which branches of Christianity are committed to a Neoplatonic eschatology? More specifically, I'd like to know which loosely Christian philosophers represent eternal bliss (\/heaven) as Unity in God and eternal damnation (\/hell) as multiplicity, duality, fragmentation of the self, etc.","c_root_id_A":"ei4y0c2","c_root_id_B":"ei4vwxh","created_at_utc_A":1552137430,"created_at_utc_B":1552134783,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"It's difficult to talk about a Western Christianity that is not either seriously indebted to Neoplatanism or directly and explicitly taking it up until about the 16th century. As such, the theme of self-fragmentation and unity in God is really a common language of Christianity until later in the Protestant Reformation. ​ Origen is a good place to start, and afterwards, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, both of whom are deeply indebted to the Neoplatonic tradition and to whom the Neoplatonic tradition is deeply indebted. I can't precisely speak to their views of eschatology, but as some of the founders of Neoplatanism, I'm sure there's something there. Though, it's probably worth mentioning, at least for Pseudo-Dionysius this unity is quite paradoxical and involves basically a complete negation of the names of God. ​ Augustine is perhaps the most notable Christian Neoplatanist, and I think one can read *The Confessions* precisely as transcending multiplicity toward the unity of the Trinity, emerging out of the lesser trinities. Augustine takes up Plotinus as perhaps his first influence, and references to the *Enneads* appear everywhere in his texts (if you look up the Chadwick translation, he is very good at drawing out the Neoplatonic influences). Though of course he has much to say about the afterlife, he has far more to say about the movement into God\/God's movement into the soul in *this* life. ​ Dante is another that immediately comes to mind. Though in no way do I think *The Divine Comedy* is actually about the afterlife, there is certainly something to be said for its movement between multiplicity and unity in an interesting way. ​ Meister Eckhart comes to mind, as someone who is almost deliciously heretical at times in the name of a kind of radical theology that feels out the absolute limits of being and of the human relationship to the divine. ​ In Contemporary terms, Catholicism certainly *should* be influenced by Neoplatanism, and at the best of times it certainly is. Anglicanism has a rich history of Neoplatonism from the Cambridge Platonists in the 17th century and again by the Oxford movement in the 19th, though of course this influence is falling away as Anglicanism increasingly embraces a more post-modern relation to scripture. The Neoplatannist tradition is certainly still alive in 'high Anglicanism' and often also in the so-called 'low Anglicanism' in smaller country parishes at least insofar as they still hold onto the BCP, which is fundamentally a Neoplatanist prayer book. I believe in the Eastern Church Neoplataism is also still alive, or at least early Neoplatonism, of Pseudo-Dionysius and the like.","human_ref_B":"Coincidentally I listened to Adamson's podcast about Albert the Great last night. It seem to me that your question is in the ballpark of his summary of how neoplatonic thought influenced the scholastics in the 13th c. as they grappled with the question of \"the one\" and plurality. here is Adamson's reading list for the episode and the podcast link: https:\/\/historyofphilosophy.net\/albert-metaphysics \u2022 T. Bonin, Creation as Emanation: The Origin of Diversity in Albert the Great\u2019s On the Causes and the Procession of the Universe (Notre Dame: 2001). \u2022 J. Hergan, St. Albert the Great\u2019s Theory of the Beatific Vision (New York: 2002) \u2022 K. Krause, \u201cAlbert and Aquinas on the Ultimate End of Humans: Philosophy, Theology, and Beatitude,\u201d Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 86 (2012), 213-29. \u2022 I.M Resnick (ed.), A Companion to Albert the Great (Leiden: 2013). \u2022 L. Sweeney, \u201cThe Meaning of Esse in Albert the Great\u2019s Texts on Creation in the Summa de Creaturis and Scripta Super Sententias,\u201d in F. Kovach and R. Shahan (eds), Albert the Great: Commemorative Essays (Norman: 1980), 65-95.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2647.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"az0gtf","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Which branches of Christianity are committed to a Neoplatonic eschatology? More specifically, I'd like to know which loosely Christian philosophers represent eternal bliss (\/heaven) as Unity in God and eternal damnation (\/hell) as multiplicity, duality, fragmentation of the self, etc.","c_root_id_A":"ei4y0c2","c_root_id_B":"ei4x8zs","created_at_utc_A":1552137430,"created_at_utc_B":1552136526,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"It's difficult to talk about a Western Christianity that is not either seriously indebted to Neoplatanism or directly and explicitly taking it up until about the 16th century. As such, the theme of self-fragmentation and unity in God is really a common language of Christianity until later in the Protestant Reformation. ​ Origen is a good place to start, and afterwards, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, both of whom are deeply indebted to the Neoplatonic tradition and to whom the Neoplatonic tradition is deeply indebted. I can't precisely speak to their views of eschatology, but as some of the founders of Neoplatanism, I'm sure there's something there. Though, it's probably worth mentioning, at least for Pseudo-Dionysius this unity is quite paradoxical and involves basically a complete negation of the names of God. ​ Augustine is perhaps the most notable Christian Neoplatanist, and I think one can read *The Confessions* precisely as transcending multiplicity toward the unity of the Trinity, emerging out of the lesser trinities. Augustine takes up Plotinus as perhaps his first influence, and references to the *Enneads* appear everywhere in his texts (if you look up the Chadwick translation, he is very good at drawing out the Neoplatonic influences). Though of course he has much to say about the afterlife, he has far more to say about the movement into God\/God's movement into the soul in *this* life. ​ Dante is another that immediately comes to mind. Though in no way do I think *The Divine Comedy* is actually about the afterlife, there is certainly something to be said for its movement between multiplicity and unity in an interesting way. ​ Meister Eckhart comes to mind, as someone who is almost deliciously heretical at times in the name of a kind of radical theology that feels out the absolute limits of being and of the human relationship to the divine. ​ In Contemporary terms, Catholicism certainly *should* be influenced by Neoplatanism, and at the best of times it certainly is. Anglicanism has a rich history of Neoplatonism from the Cambridge Platonists in the 17th century and again by the Oxford movement in the 19th, though of course this influence is falling away as Anglicanism increasingly embraces a more post-modern relation to scripture. The Neoplatannist tradition is certainly still alive in 'high Anglicanism' and often also in the so-called 'low Anglicanism' in smaller country parishes at least insofar as they still hold onto the BCP, which is fundamentally a Neoplatanist prayer book. I believe in the Eastern Church Neoplataism is also still alive, or at least early Neoplatonism, of Pseudo-Dionysius and the like.","human_ref_B":"I thought that this idea characterizes most of Christian philosophy. For example the Devil in latin is Diabolus whose linguistic origin is from the greek diaballein which means to fragment, divide. Viceversa the symbol originates from sunballein which means to unite, unify etc... Correct me if I'm wrong but I learned this when I was studying greek and latin in classic high school in Italy","labels":1,"seconds_difference":904.0,"score_ratio":1.25} +{"post_id":"4ok0z4","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"If we can't get an ought from an is, how else do we get an ought? For example, if an anti-realist says morals come from our emotions and empathy, and that we ought to follow these emotions and empathy, then isn't this also falling into the is-ought gap?","c_root_id_A":"d4d9828","c_root_id_B":"d4d94yj","created_at_utc_A":1466183582,"created_at_utc_B":1466183476,"score_A":12,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"The is-ought gap describes the logical problem of not being able to justify a particular conclusion based on given premises. So one way to approach this question would be to consider the possibility that at least some 'oughts' are basic or implicit rather than being conclusions that are produced _a posteriori_ after a due consideration of facts. For example, you couldn't have articulated this question without already having implicitly accepted that you ought to drink and eat in order to survive. But this isn't the sort of ought that you arrived at as a logical conclusion; it's an ought that we can recognize as being implicit in your behavior and in your ongoing survival.","human_ref_B":">For example, if an anti-realist says morals come from our emotions and empathy, and that we ought to follow these emotions and empathy, then isn't this also falling into the is-ought gap? No, it's bridging the is-ought gap. Running around with the idea of an \"is-ought gap\" as some kind of invincible battering ram is the wrong way to look at it. There's a gap between all sorts of things, but theories are the things we come up with to bridge these gaps. Some gaps perhaps can't be bridged, but most moral theories are ways of bridging this specific gap.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":106.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"3ud38k","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"If meat isn't needed for health, why is it morally okay? I have some lifting friends who say it's needed for health, especially when lifting. But in my research that's not what I've found. If it's not needed for being healthy, why is it morally okay?","c_root_id_A":"cxdzi1c","c_root_id_B":"cxdujq6","created_at_utc_A":1448567213,"created_at_utc_B":1448558387,"score_A":27,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"The main philosophical reason why people think eating meat is morally okay goes like this: animals aren't worthy of moral consideration because they lack some defining quality (rational capacity, language, ability to participate in human forms of life, etc). This argument will stand or fall depending on how plausible whatever the defining quality being posited is. For instance, rational capacity seems overly restrictive, since it cuts out infants and the very old from moral consideration (can we eat them?) A more plausible option, the ability to suffer, seems like it includes animals (unless we adopt some very weird Cartesian view on which animals are just automata). So picking a quality here is going to be tricky. Other possible reasons: nothing is morally impermissible since there are no moral facts, moral permissibility is determined by cultural convention which favours meat-eating, eating animals is somehow in their best interest (because we breed lots of them which we'd stop doing if we didn't eat them). I don't find these reasons very plausible, but then again I don't think eating meat is morally okay.","human_ref_B":"What type of research have you done?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8826.0,"score_ratio":3.375} +{"post_id":"54wkns","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"If non cognitivism is the rejection of truth value in moral statements, why not abandon morals altogether? I can't understand why non cognitivists would even talk about morals existing, and what constitutes morality if to them all morals lack truth value or not. As in, what's the point of talking about morals when there's no truth to be discovered in moral statements at all?","c_root_id_A":"d85mp2n","c_root_id_B":"d85j7wu","created_at_utc_A":1475078453,"created_at_utc_B":1475074124,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Compare etiquette: you might think that what's going on in evaluations of etiquette is something like expressions of approval\/disapproval of certain sorts of behavior. If that's right, then why talk about etiquette at all? Well, to help make our opinions about table manners and the like known, and to encourage others to use proper manners. You might think that ethics works something like that.","human_ref_B":"Usually non-cognitivists do reject morals because of that, Tycho gives one reasonable argument for why a non-cognitivist might not. Another would be that if they still do in fact express objective valuations, even if those valuations have no truth value, and so why wouldn't we?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4329.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"1qdz3r","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What is in your opinion the most interesting Philosophy lecture\/discussion\/talk on YouTube?","c_root_id_A":"cdbv6db","c_root_id_B":"cdbxlst","created_at_utc_A":1384193004,"created_at_utc_B":1384198375,"score_A":6,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"I like the 'Philosophy of Death' lecture\/class on AcademicEarth \/ Youtube.","human_ref_B":"The ones I've enjoyed the most are the Bryan Magee interviews, uploaded by some saintly figure called flame0430. They're a series of interviews with major philosophers of the time. Magee and his guests discuss another philosopher or a philosophical tradition or subject. Seemingly they were recorded for a TV show in the 70s (? early 80s maybe?). As such, they are aimed at a general audience, but they are certainly not dumbed down. Besides the quality of the interviews, which is very high, they're interesting because the interviewees are often philosophers you'll inevitably encounter by the end of an undergrad degree, and you'll probably have read at least a couple of them. These are Big Deal guys - Quine, Putnam, Searle, Singer, Ayer, Nussbaum, Derrida, etc. It's one of those weird little TV ideas that occasionally slips past everyone and actually gets made. It's the closest thing in philosophy to finding old concert footage of the Beatles or Hendrix. You might have heard the tunes before, but not like this, and didn't they dress funny?! There are a couple of other videos on the channel which aren't part of that series, in particular a couple of panels with Quine, one mostly biographical (very unusual) and another more philosophical in its focus. edit: I should clarify that it's not Quine's biography which is unusual. It's actually quite dull, and doubly so the way Quine tells it. I was talking about the biographical interview format. Thought I should point that out in case anyone gets excited.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5371.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"1qdz3r","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What is in your opinion the most interesting Philosophy lecture\/discussion\/talk on YouTube?","c_root_id_A":"cdbv6db","c_root_id_B":"cdbxmlw","created_at_utc_A":1384193004,"created_at_utc_B":1384198424,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I like the 'Philosophy of Death' lecture\/class on AcademicEarth \/ Youtube.","human_ref_B":"Michael Sandel's lectures on Justice are a good introduction to political\/moral philosophy. http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5420.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"1qdz3r","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What is in your opinion the most interesting Philosophy lecture\/discussion\/talk on YouTube?","c_root_id_A":"cdbv6db","c_root_id_B":"cdc4ce5","created_at_utc_A":1384193004,"created_at_utc_B":1384213553,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I like the 'Philosophy of Death' lecture\/class on AcademicEarth \/ Youtube.","human_ref_B":"this is pretty interesting - noam chomsky and michel foucault debating human nature","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20549.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"1qdz3r","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What is in your opinion the most interesting Philosophy lecture\/discussion\/talk on YouTube?","c_root_id_A":"cdc4ce5","c_root_id_B":"cdc03br","created_at_utc_A":1384213553,"created_at_utc_B":1384203813,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"this is pretty interesting - noam chomsky and michel foucault debating human nature","human_ref_B":"Deleuze's *A to Z* is pretty fantastic. You get to see a great philosopher at his prime just talking, which I think is pretty special. Here is a link to youtube. Maybe you'll like it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9740.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"1qdz3r","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What is in your opinion the most interesting Philosophy lecture\/discussion\/talk on YouTube?","c_root_id_A":"cdc4ce5","c_root_id_B":"cdc3u50","created_at_utc_A":1384213553,"created_at_utc_B":1384212313,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"this is pretty interesting - noam chomsky and michel foucault debating human nature","human_ref_B":"Patrice Maniglier: Metaphysics Today - The Methodological Controversy A fantastic talk on the nature and purpose of metaphysics in the 21st century, drawing heavily on Continental philosophy but moving beyond the Continental\/Analytic split. This lecture changed the way I do philosophy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1240.0,"score_ratio":3.5} +{"post_id":"1qdz3r","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What is in your opinion the most interesting Philosophy lecture\/discussion\/talk on YouTube?","c_root_id_A":"cdc64j7","c_root_id_B":"cdc03br","created_at_utc_A":1384218014,"created_at_utc_B":1384203813,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Anything by Rick Roderick. My favorite being Self Under Siege. Awesome speaker and scholar. Look it up on YouTube, you can get the full lecture series","human_ref_B":"Deleuze's *A to Z* is pretty fantastic. You get to see a great philosopher at his prime just talking, which I think is pretty special. Here is a link to youtube. Maybe you'll like it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14201.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"1qdz3r","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What is in your opinion the most interesting Philosophy lecture\/discussion\/talk on YouTube?","c_root_id_A":"cdc64j7","c_root_id_B":"cdc3u50","created_at_utc_A":1384218014,"created_at_utc_B":1384212313,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Anything by Rick Roderick. My favorite being Self Under Siege. Awesome speaker and scholar. Look it up on YouTube, you can get the full lecture series","human_ref_B":"Patrice Maniglier: Metaphysics Today - The Methodological Controversy A fantastic talk on the nature and purpose of metaphysics in the 21st century, drawing heavily on Continental philosophy but moving beyond the Continental\/Analytic split. This lecture changed the way I do philosophy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5701.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"wuug0l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 22, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ilce6fv","c_root_id_B":"ilbyf93","created_at_utc_A":1661187962,"created_at_utc_B":1661181879,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"What are people reading? I'm working on *Catch-22* by Heller.","human_ref_B":"What kind of advice can you give to someone who's going to defend their MA project soon? Also what advice would you give to someone who's about to start a PhD? :d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6083.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"wuug0l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 22, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ilce6fv","c_root_id_B":"ilc5x26","created_at_utc_A":1661187962,"created_at_utc_B":1661184802,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"What are people reading? I'm working on *Catch-22* by Heller.","human_ref_B":"Do you believe in the analytic-synthetic distinction? Why or why not? According to the 2009 PhilPapers survey, 65% of philosophers accept or lean toward the analytic-synthetic distinction.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3160.0,"score_ratio":2.5} +{"post_id":"wuug0l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 22, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ils8o1p","c_root_id_B":"ile2sup","created_at_utc_A":1661460843,"created_at_utc_B":1661212893,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Buried by the big student loan news is this piece of making federally funded research accessible: https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/ostp\/news-updates\/2022\/08\/25\/breakthroughs-for-alldelivering-equitable-access-to-americas-research\/ Looking forward to see how this rolls out. Journal prices are nauseating.","human_ref_B":"I don't know how appropriate the mods think this is - I think it's sufficiently relevant - but concerning the recent attack on Dugin, I am seeing many speculations about this being a possible plot by an anti-war faction in the russian deep state which is tired of the war and also worried that dissatisfaction with Putin's radicalism in this war might lead to a coup by more radical elements wishing for the establishment of a russian empire - elements which must thus be liquidated preemptively. On this occasion, I am reminded of a quote by Hannah Arendt for which I cannot for the life of me remember the source but the memory of which I am inclined to believe for its specificity (maybe someone knows what I'm referring to) The quote concerned either Alfred Rosenberg or another high-ranking Nazi ideologue who tried to establish and spread a systematic philosophical ideology in the nazi state, but fell out of favour with the regime for mundane political reasons. Arendt's point, if I do not totally misremember, was something to the effect that his ultimate failing consisted in the fact that he wished to be the philosopher of a regime the only philosophy of which was power, pure and simple.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":247950.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} +{"post_id":"wuug0l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 22, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ile2sup","c_root_id_B":"ilbyf93","created_at_utc_A":1661212893,"created_at_utc_B":1661181879,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I don't know how appropriate the mods think this is - I think it's sufficiently relevant - but concerning the recent attack on Dugin, I am seeing many speculations about this being a possible plot by an anti-war faction in the russian deep state which is tired of the war and also worried that dissatisfaction with Putin's radicalism in this war might lead to a coup by more radical elements wishing for the establishment of a russian empire - elements which must thus be liquidated preemptively. On this occasion, I am reminded of a quote by Hannah Arendt for which I cannot for the life of me remember the source but the memory of which I am inclined to believe for its specificity (maybe someone knows what I'm referring to) The quote concerned either Alfred Rosenberg or another high-ranking Nazi ideologue who tried to establish and spread a systematic philosophical ideology in the nazi state, but fell out of favour with the regime for mundane political reasons. Arendt's point, if I do not totally misremember, was something to the effect that his ultimate failing consisted in the fact that he wished to be the philosopher of a regime the only philosophy of which was power, pure and simple.","human_ref_B":"What kind of advice can you give to someone who's going to defend their MA project soon? Also what advice would you give to someone who's about to start a PhD? :d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31014.0,"score_ratio":1.2} +{"post_id":"wuug0l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 22, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ile2sup","c_root_id_B":"ilc5x26","created_at_utc_A":1661212893,"created_at_utc_B":1661184802,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I don't know how appropriate the mods think this is - I think it's sufficiently relevant - but concerning the recent attack on Dugin, I am seeing many speculations about this being a possible plot by an anti-war faction in the russian deep state which is tired of the war and also worried that dissatisfaction with Putin's radicalism in this war might lead to a coup by more radical elements wishing for the establishment of a russian empire - elements which must thus be liquidated preemptively. On this occasion, I am reminded of a quote by Hannah Arendt for which I cannot for the life of me remember the source but the memory of which I am inclined to believe for its specificity (maybe someone knows what I'm referring to) The quote concerned either Alfred Rosenberg or another high-ranking Nazi ideologue who tried to establish and spread a systematic philosophical ideology in the nazi state, but fell out of favour with the regime for mundane political reasons. Arendt's point, if I do not totally misremember, was something to the effect that his ultimate failing consisted in the fact that he wished to be the philosopher of a regime the only philosophy of which was power, pure and simple.","human_ref_B":"Do you believe in the analytic-synthetic distinction? Why or why not? According to the 2009 PhilPapers survey, 65% of philosophers accept or lean toward the analytic-synthetic distinction.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28091.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"wuug0l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 22, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ild1vih","c_root_id_B":"ile2sup","created_at_utc_A":1661197154,"created_at_utc_B":1661212893,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Can't able to focus on reading,loses interest in halfway through.any advise ?","human_ref_B":"I don't know how appropriate the mods think this is - I think it's sufficiently relevant - but concerning the recent attack on Dugin, I am seeing many speculations about this being a possible plot by an anti-war faction in the russian deep state which is tired of the war and also worried that dissatisfaction with Putin's radicalism in this war might lead to a coup by more radical elements wishing for the establishment of a russian empire - elements which must thus be liquidated preemptively. On this occasion, I am reminded of a quote by Hannah Arendt for which I cannot for the life of me remember the source but the memory of which I am inclined to believe for its specificity (maybe someone knows what I'm referring to) The quote concerned either Alfred Rosenberg or another high-ranking Nazi ideologue who tried to establish and spread a systematic philosophical ideology in the nazi state, but fell out of favour with the regime for mundane political reasons. Arendt's point, if I do not totally misremember, was something to the effect that his ultimate failing consisted in the fact that he wished to be the philosopher of a regime the only philosophy of which was power, pure and simple.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15739.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"wuug0l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 22, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ils8o1p","c_root_id_B":"ilbyf93","created_at_utc_A":1661460843,"created_at_utc_B":1661181879,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Buried by the big student loan news is this piece of making federally funded research accessible: https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/ostp\/news-updates\/2022\/08\/25\/breakthroughs-for-alldelivering-equitable-access-to-americas-research\/ Looking forward to see how this rolls out. Journal prices are nauseating.","human_ref_B":"What kind of advice can you give to someone who's going to defend their MA project soon? Also what advice would you give to someone who's about to start a PhD? :d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":278964.0,"score_ratio":1.4} +{"post_id":"wuug0l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 22, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ilc5x26","c_root_id_B":"ils8o1p","created_at_utc_A":1661184802,"created_at_utc_B":1661460843,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Do you believe in the analytic-synthetic distinction? Why or why not? According to the 2009 PhilPapers survey, 65% of philosophers accept or lean toward the analytic-synthetic distinction.","human_ref_B":"Buried by the big student loan news is this piece of making federally funded research accessible: https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/ostp\/news-updates\/2022\/08\/25\/breakthroughs-for-alldelivering-equitable-access-to-americas-research\/ Looking forward to see how this rolls out. Journal prices are nauseating.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":276041.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"wuug0l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 22, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ils8o1p","c_root_id_B":"ili6tnp","created_at_utc_A":1661460843,"created_at_utc_B":1661287228,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Buried by the big student loan news is this piece of making federally funded research accessible: https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/ostp\/news-updates\/2022\/08\/25\/breakthroughs-for-alldelivering-equitable-access-to-americas-research\/ Looking forward to see how this rolls out. Journal prices are nauseating.","human_ref_B":"So today was my first day of a class called \u201cSelf & Identity\u201d. The class is going to deal with topics such as what is consciousness, thought & reason, and agency. Along with things such as God and time. Today we discussed what we thought a person\/self was. To orient our discussion my professor showed us 4 pictures; one of a fetus, a woman in a vegetative state, a dog, and Siri. We split into small groups and the person that led our group said that essentially a person was someone who could react to their emotions. So she concluded that the dog was the only person in the pictures. Her argument was the one that lead most of the big discussion and nothing was really talked about too deeply (relatively lol), because it was the first day and we were just trying to gauge what everyone thought. Something about her reason just seemed off to me but I couldn\u2019t think of an example or reasoning to refute it. I talked to the GA after class shortly, and he mentioned something about a philosopher using a zombie example and showing how emotion couldn\u2019t be the reasoning for self; I was confused and didn\u2019t fully get the explanation. Anyways I just wanted to hear from you guys on here and if you guys had any reasons, thought experiments or examples, to show why her explanation that you have to be able to react to emotion to be a person is correct or not? Much appreciated. Also, I left the first day feeling far more confused than I had entering it, and I\u2019m sure this will be the norm for the semester lol. Maybe the least confused I\u2019ll be the whole semester. I love philosophy lol.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":173615.0,"score_ratio":1.75} +{"post_id":"wuug0l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 22, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ild1vih","c_root_id_B":"ils8o1p","created_at_utc_A":1661197154,"created_at_utc_B":1661460843,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Can't able to focus on reading,loses interest in halfway through.any advise ?","human_ref_B":"Buried by the big student loan news is this piece of making federally funded research accessible: https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/ostp\/news-updates\/2022\/08\/25\/breakthroughs-for-alldelivering-equitable-access-to-americas-research\/ Looking forward to see how this rolls out. Journal prices are nauseating.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":263689.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} +{"post_id":"wuug0l","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"\/r\/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 22, 2022 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts\/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. \"who is your favourite philosopher?\" * \"Test My Theory\" discussions and argument\/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here.","c_root_id_A":"ild1vih","c_root_id_B":"ili6tnp","created_at_utc_A":1661197154,"created_at_utc_B":1661287228,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Can't able to focus on reading,loses interest in halfway through.any advise ?","human_ref_B":"So today was my first day of a class called \u201cSelf & Identity\u201d. The class is going to deal with topics such as what is consciousness, thought & reason, and agency. Along with things such as God and time. Today we discussed what we thought a person\/self was. To orient our discussion my professor showed us 4 pictures; one of a fetus, a woman in a vegetative state, a dog, and Siri. We split into small groups and the person that led our group said that essentially a person was someone who could react to their emotions. So she concluded that the dog was the only person in the pictures. Her argument was the one that lead most of the big discussion and nothing was really talked about too deeply (relatively lol), because it was the first day and we were just trying to gauge what everyone thought. Something about her reason just seemed off to me but I couldn\u2019t think of an example or reasoning to refute it. I talked to the GA after class shortly, and he mentioned something about a philosopher using a zombie example and showing how emotion couldn\u2019t be the reasoning for self; I was confused and didn\u2019t fully get the explanation. Anyways I just wanted to hear from you guys on here and if you guys had any reasons, thought experiments or examples, to show why her explanation that you have to be able to react to emotion to be a person is correct or not? Much appreciated. Also, I left the first day feeling far more confused than I had entering it, and I\u2019m sure this will be the norm for the semester lol. Maybe the least confused I\u2019ll be the whole semester. I love philosophy lol.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":90074.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"nm0mpo","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Who are the best optimistic\/happy philosophers to read? A lot of philosophy I have read is pessimistic or reveals the cruel nature of the world. I\u2019m definitely not looking for theology but I am wondering who the best philosophers are who have a positive outlook on the world and whose books have changed your perspective on life in a positive way. For months I have assumed this would be one of the most common questions on the subreddit but I just checked for the first time and have not seen this question amongst the most popular posts on the subreddit. I really think it would be refreshing to read a philosophical text that I can finish and think with a positive attitude toward the world after finishing rather than spending hours reading books only to feel worse. The closest I\u2019ve come to this is the Dhammapada although maybe this is completely theology and not philosophical. Plato also makes the world seem enriching, at least in comparison with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. From my understanding it seems a lot of Eastern philosophy is more optimistic than Western philosophy but I have not dug much deeper than surface level philosophers. Any recommendations are much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"gzm4449","c_root_id_B":"gzmsqcu","created_at_utc_A":1622102882,"created_at_utc_B":1622121349,"score_A":4,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Albert Camus is pretty optimistic IMO","human_ref_B":"To further reinforce the eastern perspective, I am going to recommend the Zhuangzi. It is my favorite book and its far too little known in western circles. Zhuangzi presents an incredibly optimistic picture of humanity amidst a world of suffering and death. He shows us visions of the dregs of society - butchers and mutilated criminals - who seem to float through the world in an effortless state of bliss. Bodily decay and death are presented as merely another facet of the beautiful, cosmic cycles of nature. It's a difficult book because of how strange the vision of humanity is, but in my mind its one of the most optimistic pictures of humanity out there.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18467.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"nm0mpo","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Who are the best optimistic\/happy philosophers to read? A lot of philosophy I have read is pessimistic or reveals the cruel nature of the world. I\u2019m definitely not looking for theology but I am wondering who the best philosophers are who have a positive outlook on the world and whose books have changed your perspective on life in a positive way. For months I have assumed this would be one of the most common questions on the subreddit but I just checked for the first time and have not seen this question amongst the most popular posts on the subreddit. I really think it would be refreshing to read a philosophical text that I can finish and think with a positive attitude toward the world after finishing rather than spending hours reading books only to feel worse. The closest I\u2019ve come to this is the Dhammapada although maybe this is completely theology and not philosophical. Plato also makes the world seem enriching, at least in comparison with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. From my understanding it seems a lot of Eastern philosophy is more optimistic than Western philosophy but I have not dug much deeper than surface level philosophers. Any recommendations are much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"gzlxygs","c_root_id_B":"gzmsqcu","created_at_utc_A":1622097395,"created_at_utc_B":1622121349,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche's writings on passion. There's nothing more uplifting and motivating.","human_ref_B":"To further reinforce the eastern perspective, I am going to recommend the Zhuangzi. It is my favorite book and its far too little known in western circles. Zhuangzi presents an incredibly optimistic picture of humanity amidst a world of suffering and death. He shows us visions of the dregs of society - butchers and mutilated criminals - who seem to float through the world in an effortless state of bliss. Bodily decay and death are presented as merely another facet of the beautiful, cosmic cycles of nature. It's a difficult book because of how strange the vision of humanity is, but in my mind its one of the most optimistic pictures of humanity out there.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23954.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} +{"post_id":"nm0mpo","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Who are the best optimistic\/happy philosophers to read? A lot of philosophy I have read is pessimistic or reveals the cruel nature of the world. I\u2019m definitely not looking for theology but I am wondering who the best philosophers are who have a positive outlook on the world and whose books have changed your perspective on life in a positive way. For months I have assumed this would be one of the most common questions on the subreddit but I just checked for the first time and have not seen this question amongst the most popular posts on the subreddit. I really think it would be refreshing to read a philosophical text that I can finish and think with a positive attitude toward the world after finishing rather than spending hours reading books only to feel worse. The closest I\u2019ve come to this is the Dhammapada although maybe this is completely theology and not philosophical. Plato also makes the world seem enriching, at least in comparison with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. From my understanding it seems a lot of Eastern philosophy is more optimistic than Western philosophy but I have not dug much deeper than surface level philosophers. Any recommendations are much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"gzlxygs","c_root_id_B":"gzm4449","created_at_utc_A":1622097395,"created_at_utc_B":1622102882,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche's writings on passion. There's nothing more uplifting and motivating.","human_ref_B":"Albert Camus is pretty optimistic IMO","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5487.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"nm0mpo","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Who are the best optimistic\/happy philosophers to read? A lot of philosophy I have read is pessimistic or reveals the cruel nature of the world. I\u2019m definitely not looking for theology but I am wondering who the best philosophers are who have a positive outlook on the world and whose books have changed your perspective on life in a positive way. For months I have assumed this would be one of the most common questions on the subreddit but I just checked for the first time and have not seen this question amongst the most popular posts on the subreddit. I really think it would be refreshing to read a philosophical text that I can finish and think with a positive attitude toward the world after finishing rather than spending hours reading books only to feel worse. The closest I\u2019ve come to this is the Dhammapada although maybe this is completely theology and not philosophical. Plato also makes the world seem enriching, at least in comparison with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. From my understanding it seems a lot of Eastern philosophy is more optimistic than Western philosophy but I have not dug much deeper than surface level philosophers. Any recommendations are much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"gzlxygs","c_root_id_B":"gzopp8j","created_at_utc_A":1622097395,"created_at_utc_B":1622151298,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Nietzsche's writings on passion. There's nothing more uplifting and motivating.","human_ref_B":"Marcus Aurelius (stoic) is quite happy about having great education (private schools) and kind parents. Stoicism is about being happy despite difficulties. But it's not very optimistic about the things we can control. So it's up to you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":53903.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} +{"post_id":"nm0mpo","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Who are the best optimistic\/happy philosophers to read? A lot of philosophy I have read is pessimistic or reveals the cruel nature of the world. I\u2019m definitely not looking for theology but I am wondering who the best philosophers are who have a positive outlook on the world and whose books have changed your perspective on life in a positive way. For months I have assumed this would be one of the most common questions on the subreddit but I just checked for the first time and have not seen this question amongst the most popular posts on the subreddit. I really think it would be refreshing to read a philosophical text that I can finish and think with a positive attitude toward the world after finishing rather than spending hours reading books only to feel worse. The closest I\u2019ve come to this is the Dhammapada although maybe this is completely theology and not philosophical. Plato also makes the world seem enriching, at least in comparison with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. From my understanding it seems a lot of Eastern philosophy is more optimistic than Western philosophy but I have not dug much deeper than surface level philosophers. Any recommendations are much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"gzopp8j","c_root_id_B":"gznvrjk","created_at_utc_A":1622151298,"created_at_utc_B":1622138334,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Marcus Aurelius (stoic) is quite happy about having great education (private schools) and kind parents. Stoicism is about being happy despite difficulties. But it's not very optimistic about the things we can control. So it's up to you.","human_ref_B":"If you found the dhammapada inspiring, I\u2019d recommend checking out the Dhamma Cakkappavattana Sutta It\u2019s the first talk the Buddha gave and lays out the entire path. You may also enjoy the Udana and Itivuttaka, which are collections of short prose followed by poems.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12964.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"nm0mpo","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Who are the best optimistic\/happy philosophers to read? A lot of philosophy I have read is pessimistic or reveals the cruel nature of the world. I\u2019m definitely not looking for theology but I am wondering who the best philosophers are who have a positive outlook on the world and whose books have changed your perspective on life in a positive way. For months I have assumed this would be one of the most common questions on the subreddit but I just checked for the first time and have not seen this question amongst the most popular posts on the subreddit. I really think it would be refreshing to read a philosophical text that I can finish and think with a positive attitude toward the world after finishing rather than spending hours reading books only to feel worse. The closest I\u2019ve come to this is the Dhammapada although maybe this is completely theology and not philosophical. Plato also makes the world seem enriching, at least in comparison with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. From my understanding it seems a lot of Eastern philosophy is more optimistic than Western philosophy but I have not dug much deeper than surface level philosophers. Any recommendations are much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"gzopp8j","c_root_id_B":"gzo46db","created_at_utc_A":1622151298,"created_at_utc_B":1622141880,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Marcus Aurelius (stoic) is quite happy about having great education (private schools) and kind parents. Stoicism is about being happy despite difficulties. But it's not very optimistic about the things we can control. So it's up to you.","human_ref_B":"This answer is based on a bit of a loose definition of optimism, but I definitely recommend you look into Stoicism. It's definitely changed my life for the better and allowed me to live a much happier and more fulfilling life. This isn't necessarily because it takes an inherently positive view of life as an external thing, but because it creates a positive and incredibly effective mindstate through which to view and navigate life. The *Meditations* of Marcus Aurelius are a great place to start. The folks over at r\/Stoicism are also a cool bunch, in my experience.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9418.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"nm0mpo","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Who are the best optimistic\/happy philosophers to read? A lot of philosophy I have read is pessimistic or reveals the cruel nature of the world. I\u2019m definitely not looking for theology but I am wondering who the best philosophers are who have a positive outlook on the world and whose books have changed your perspective on life in a positive way. For months I have assumed this would be one of the most common questions on the subreddit but I just checked for the first time and have not seen this question amongst the most popular posts on the subreddit. I really think it would be refreshing to read a philosophical text that I can finish and think with a positive attitude toward the world after finishing rather than spending hours reading books only to feel worse. The closest I\u2019ve come to this is the Dhammapada although maybe this is completely theology and not philosophical. Plato also makes the world seem enriching, at least in comparison with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. From my understanding it seems a lot of Eastern philosophy is more optimistic than Western philosophy but I have not dug much deeper than surface level philosophers. Any recommendations are much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"gzo4b4u","c_root_id_B":"gzopp8j","created_at_utc_A":1622141935,"created_at_utc_B":1622151298,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"*The Spell of the Sensuous* while not exactly optimistic about the course of history, can make the world a more meaningful place to be. David Abram takes a phenomenological approach to show how non-alphabetic cultures live in perceptual world that is animated, imbued with meaning and frankly richer than the dead, mechanistic world we routinely experience. In a sense it is a pessimistic book because it charts how the development of writing systems effectively disenchanted our experience of the external world but it had the effect of jarring me, at least temporarily into a richer, more sensual perceptual experience. I guess a lot of ecological philosophy has a similar quality of being pessimistic while retaining the capacity to enrich our experience of the world in the here and now.","human_ref_B":"Marcus Aurelius (stoic) is quite happy about having great education (private schools) and kind parents. Stoicism is about being happy despite difficulties. But it's not very optimistic about the things we can control. So it's up to you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9363.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"39a0a0","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"I used to read a lot of the standard \"new\" atheist stuff a few years ago. I haven't really thought about it in a while but I see \/r\/badphilosophy mock that kind of stuff. What's wrong with \"new atheist\"-ish thinking? What should I know?","c_root_id_A":"cs1r768","c_root_id_B":"cs1nlvs","created_at_utc_A":1433944284,"created_at_utc_B":1433935142,"score_A":35,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Some of the main points I've found: * New atheist subculture is very insular and protects itself from self-correction or new information getting in. To take an example, I'll often present various versions of cosmological arguments in forums, and the utter ignorance about them is breathtaking. Even more breathtaking is the feeling that they generally *don't want* to learn about them, as they will instantly dive in trying to \"refute\" it before I'm even finished explaining, almost as if they've already decided the arguments don't work before even hearing them. In this way they are, IMO, very similar to religious fundamentalists. * They have a strange definition of atheism as meaning \"lack of belief,\" which generally isn't used anywhere outside their insular subculture. The best response to this behavior is here. * As reallynicole pointed out, they tend be what I would call \"naive positivists.\" The view that science is the only way to know anything. Nicole pointed to her own comment on this topic, but another viewpoint is that positivism died out in the mid-20th Century. To use the terminology of new atheism, I might say that it was *\"utterly destroyed!!1!!!\"*, even though the reality is more nuanced than that. * Related to the above, they generally have a disdain for \"philosophy,\" which, as someone once pointed out, is like saying you hate thinking. They'll say things like \"philosophy didn't give you the laptop you are using right now!!!\" The silliness of this can be exposed by avoiding use of the word \"philosophy\" and instead using words like \"epistemology\" and \"ethics\" and \"logic.\" \"Logic didn't give you your laptop!!1!!!\" * Also related to the above, they tend to be extremist empiricists. They'll sometimes insist that even math is empirically discovered by counting apples. Even the most extreme empiricists in history like Hume and Berkeley didn't go that far.","human_ref_B":"I'm often struck by how unscientific they are, for example I've heard them claim (or allude to the 'fact') that the world would be less violent without religion. How on Earth do they know? For bonus irony points, they sometimes then criticise theologians for wading in on debates about molecular biology without the requisite understanding...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9142.0,"score_ratio":1.4583333333} +{"post_id":"39a0a0","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"I used to read a lot of the standard \"new\" atheist stuff a few years ago. I haven't really thought about it in a while but I see \/r\/badphilosophy mock that kind of stuff. What's wrong with \"new atheist\"-ish thinking? What should I know?","c_root_id_A":"cs24ov8","c_root_id_B":"cs2auz2","created_at_utc_A":1433964907,"created_at_utc_B":1433973637,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"ReallyNicole's answer is pretty much the best you are going to get, but I would like to point out that scientism can be a respectable view (though, like ReallyNicole, i think its probably wrong) when it is treated as something that isn't just trivially justified. I would also like to point out that Dennet is generally considered \"better\" than the rest of them by quite a wide margin.","human_ref_B":"I just listened to this Partially Examined Life podcast episode wherein these dudes explore literature by Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett -- good listen","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8730.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"9bdmju","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What Is the Generally Accepted Definition of Free-Will in Contemporary Philosophy? Greetings - I come here wondering what the (generally) accepted definition of \"free-will\" is in the context of modern philosophy; perhaps someone can outline this for me? I understand that most present-day philosophers accept that free-will exists (at least to some notable capacity?). I'd find it especially helpful if I knew exactly how the concept of \"free-will\" is being taken into account when contemplating the topic. Cheers.","c_root_id_A":"e52f6zv","c_root_id_B":"e528iii","created_at_utc_A":1535586287,"created_at_utc_B":1535579966,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Most contemporary philosophers on the subject are compatibilists which means they believe that free will (or moral responsibility as derived from free will) and determinism are compatible. However, within that range there are still many different ways philosophers go about defining the conception of free will that fits into their system. Someone like Harry Frankfurt, for example, will have a conception of free will involving levels of desires, where second-order desires (wanting to want x) imply autonomy in some sense. Others might say that free will has to do with autonomy over the available choices one has open to them, etc. As with most contentious concepts in philosophy, there are definitely commonly accepted issues that need be addressed to give a definition, and a number of plausible ways to address said issues that have been put forth and gained some traction, but no commonly accepted answers insofar as philosophy as a whole can be said to have generally \u201csettled on\u201d them.","human_ref_B":"The kind of freedom necessary for moral (and\/or other sorts of) responsibility is probably the most neutral you can get. However that's only the concept of free will, in contrast to the conception (or the nominal definition as opposed to the real definition) of free will which will be something that intends to explain what allows a will to have this freedom. That will be something like 'the ability to do otherwise' or 'rational self-mastery'.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6321.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} +{"post_id":"91zkq5","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What have phenomenologists had to say about the mind-body problem? I know there is a sense in which metaphysical questions go beyond the domain of phenomenological investigation, but i'm curious to know if any phenomenologists have, in virtue of their insight gained through phenomenological analysis, made significant contributions to, or provided a new or altered conception of the mind-body problem\/the hard problem of consciousness. There is a lot of talk about whether or not phenomenology can be naturalised as well. I'm wondering, how does a negative response here, namely phenomenology cannot be naturalised, align with considerations of the mind-body problem\/the hard problem of consciousness? If phenomenology cannot be naturalised, is that equivalent to denying that we can ever have an answer to the hard problem of consciousness?","c_root_id_A":"e320vda","c_root_id_B":"e32albz","created_at_utc_A":1532587713,"created_at_utc_B":1532605853,"score_A":4,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Roughly, briefly - I think in virtue of the focus on the first person perspective, and an awareness of how the natural (scientific) attitude is employed, we don't need to arrive at a conclusion that \"mind\" and \"body\" is something that's problematically posited. It becomes instead a misunderstood way of framing the way we experience the world. As for naturalisation, in so far as it seeks to move away from a focus on the first person perspective, this obviously won't work. But I don't see that this necessarily means there's no answer to the hard problem. It might just be that the problem is not properly conceived. What have you read so far? I don't have any concrete references at hand, but the big names do touch on these subjects throughout their works.","human_ref_B":"If you take a look at Merleau-Ponty\u2019s short lecture \u201cMan viewed from outside\u201d you can see how the Cartesian M-B problem might dissolve when we understand the conceptual origin of the Cartesian mind in a certain way. The short story is that M-P argues that we should read the Mind (soul) in the *Meditations* as being the product of a reflective abstraction (here we mean the verb abstract in the most literal, etymological sense - to draw away from). So, \"the mind\" as such emerges only from this process by which we alienate ourselves from a more ontologically basic (from the point of view of phenomenology) thing - something like an embodied mind. Really, there is no mind as such, there is only this embodied mind. The Cartesian mind is an important practical and theoretical concept, but it is not really the thing we have. By way of a maybe lame analogy that maybe only works for me - there is a line in Aristotle wherein he describes the body of a dead person as \"a body in name only.\" That is, it's not *really* a body - a body is the up and moving around thing that we have. This pure mind that Descartes asks us to imagine through skeptical analysis ends up being something like this - a mind in name only. An actual mind is this embodied, sensual, intentional thing that phenomenology is concerned with.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18140.0,"score_ratio":5.5} +{"post_id":"r10awt","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Is Kant a compatibilist in terms of the problem of free will? I was reading Alenka Zupancic's \"Ethics of the real: Kant, Lacan\" in which she writes that Kant is adamant upon his stand that each and every action of ours is determined through causality but still the subject remains free since it is upon the subject to freely choose his categorical imperative, since there is no Cause of the causal chains other than subject itself, i.e. in Lacanian terms, there is no Other of the Other but the subject of freedom, since though the subject is the effect of the other but because the other is inconsistent the cause of the subject doesn't exist in the other, and the subject of freedom is the effect of the absence of this cause, i.e. a lack in the other. Do other philosophers agree with her interpretation of Kant as a compatibilist?","c_root_id_A":"hlwy0yu","c_root_id_B":"hlwfjwv","created_at_utc_A":1637770241,"created_at_utc_B":1637762244,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The way it's sometimes put -- I believe this paper by Allen Wood is responsible for this formulation -- is that Kant was a compatibilist about compatibilism and incompatibilism.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m not sure Zupabcic thinks Kant is a compatibilist, at least from what you\u2019ve said here! Whether you think Kant is a compatibilist, libertarian, or something else entirely is going to dependent on how you interpret Kant on this matter, and Kant is, well, difficult to interpret. I\u2019m not a Kant scholar, but the (very rough) interpretation that I accept is that according to Kant we necessary perceived and conceive of events, including our own actions as being a part of the causal series of events, and determined by their causes. But, we cannot know why events occur in themselves, independently of how we perceive and conceive them. So, with respect to the world as we experience it, Kant is a determinist. But, Kant thinks that it\u2019s possible that our actions in themselves, independent of how we perceive and conceive them, are not determined, and so, libertarian free will is at least possible \u2014 we can hope we have it, but we can\u2019t actually know. I said I think Kant is a determinist about the world insofar as we perceive and conceive it. But is he a compatibilist? Well, he calls the account of free will according to which you act freely when your action is the result of your choice as opposed to external coercion a \u201cwretched subterfuge\u201d. So he clearly rejects at least one version of compatibilism. Whether he might accept a more sophisticated version (at least for the world as we perceive and conceive it) is probably impossible to say before, since we don\u2019t know how Kant would have responded to developments in philosophy after he died.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7997.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c902lwf","c_root_id_B":"c900dsd","created_at_utc_A":1363906664,"created_at_utc_B":1363900366,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Important: What is the nature of morality? If such a question could be answered, it would give immense direction on how to operate and advance societies, as well as how to live out our individual, day to day affairs. Unimportant: Does God exist? This strikes me as a question that cannot be solved, and whose implications aren't actually all that important. If I woke up tomorrow with conclusive reasons to believe that God exists, I doubt it would significantly change my life, or my conception of The Good.","human_ref_B":"Most important: *The question concerning technology*. Why: The barbarians at the fall of our civilization will have nuclear weapons and use them, and therefore technology has destroyed the way back home. There will be no \"again\" on planet Earth. The world is being enmeshed by information systems that are also logistical and command and control systems. Technology bypasses the old knowledge-wisdom circuit and transforms information directly into power. We are at the first gate. Least important: \"What makes a person?\" Why: Because I don't find philosophy that begins with \"let's settle this metaphysical question before we apply the concept to questions of law and morality\" very interesting. It's the settling that bothers me. I used to like analytic philosophy, but found it boring in the end.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6298.0,"score_ratio":4.5} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c902lwf","c_root_id_B":"c902bss","created_at_utc_A":1363906664,"created_at_utc_B":1363905858,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Important: What is the nature of morality? If such a question could be answered, it would give immense direction on how to operate and advance societies, as well as how to live out our individual, day to day affairs. Unimportant: Does God exist? This strikes me as a question that cannot be solved, and whose implications aren't actually all that important. If I woke up tomorrow with conclusive reasons to believe that God exists, I doubt it would significantly change my life, or my conception of The Good.","human_ref_B":"For the latter question, (Rorty would argue) 'the definition of a heap' ought to be a contender. As for the former, everyone has their favourites, for me it's the business of trying to find a way to decide what constitutes 'good' psychotherapy. If we're trying to be objective, though, variations on 'how does a brain make a mind' (structure of consciousness, symbol grounding, the hard problem etc.) are probably the big hitters.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":806.0,"score_ratio":4.5} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c903pn6","c_root_id_B":"c903y1z","created_at_utc_A":1363909937,"created_at_utc_B":1363910634,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Hm, the most important questions that I have some interest in would be (1) the debate between moral naturalism and moral non-naturalism and (2) whether reductive or non-reductive physicalism about the mind is correct. I'd imagine there's a lot of useless questions I've never heard of because they don't get around much, but of all the things that are talked about at least some of the time, I think wondering whether or not modal realism is true is pretty pointless.","human_ref_B":"I think the most important question(s) concern(s) the breadth and limits of our moral duties. This unsurprisingly requires us to settle other questions, most importantly in my opinion the questions asked in philosophy of logic about what types of reasoning are correct. I think the least important question is that of consciousness. Lots of resources go into attempting to answer these questions and I'm not really sure why we care. I understand why people might think it's an *interesting* question, but I fail to see why it's important.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":697.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c900dsd","c_root_id_B":"c903y1z","created_at_utc_A":1363900366,"created_at_utc_B":1363910634,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Most important: *The question concerning technology*. Why: The barbarians at the fall of our civilization will have nuclear weapons and use them, and therefore technology has destroyed the way back home. There will be no \"again\" on planet Earth. The world is being enmeshed by information systems that are also logistical and command and control systems. Technology bypasses the old knowledge-wisdom circuit and transforms information directly into power. We are at the first gate. Least important: \"What makes a person?\" Why: Because I don't find philosophy that begins with \"let's settle this metaphysical question before we apply the concept to questions of law and morality\" very interesting. It's the settling that bothers me. I used to like analytic philosophy, but found it boring in the end.","human_ref_B":"I think the most important question(s) concern(s) the breadth and limits of our moral duties. This unsurprisingly requires us to settle other questions, most importantly in my opinion the questions asked in philosophy of logic about what types of reasoning are correct. I think the least important question is that of consciousness. Lots of resources go into attempting to answer these questions and I'm not really sure why we care. I understand why people might think it's an *interesting* question, but I fail to see why it's important.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10268.0,"score_ratio":4.5} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c902bss","c_root_id_B":"c903y1z","created_at_utc_A":1363905858,"created_at_utc_B":1363910634,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"For the latter question, (Rorty would argue) 'the definition of a heap' ought to be a contender. As for the former, everyone has their favourites, for me it's the business of trying to find a way to decide what constitutes 'good' psychotherapy. If we're trying to be objective, though, variations on 'how does a brain make a mind' (structure of consciousness, symbol grounding, the hard problem etc.) are probably the big hitters.","human_ref_B":"I think the most important question(s) concern(s) the breadth and limits of our moral duties. This unsurprisingly requires us to settle other questions, most importantly in my opinion the questions asked in philosophy of logic about what types of reasoning are correct. I think the least important question is that of consciousness. Lots of resources go into attempting to answer these questions and I'm not really sure why we care. I understand why people might think it's an *interesting* question, but I fail to see why it's important.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4776.0,"score_ratio":4.5} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c903y1z","c_root_id_B":"c902y0q","created_at_utc_A":1363910634,"created_at_utc_B":1363907665,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I think the most important question(s) concern(s) the breadth and limits of our moral duties. This unsurprisingly requires us to settle other questions, most importantly in my opinion the questions asked in philosophy of logic about what types of reasoning are correct. I think the least important question is that of consciousness. Lots of resources go into attempting to answer these questions and I'm not really sure why we care. I understand why people might think it's an *interesting* question, but I fail to see why it's important.","human_ref_B":"Is the Internet more important than real life? A repurposing of Francois Truffaut's question, in the 50's of: \"Is the cinema more important than real life?\" So, not a circlejerk question, but is the digital worth thinking through to its end?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2969.0,"score_ratio":4.5} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c903pn6","c_root_id_B":"c900dsd","created_at_utc_A":1363909937,"created_at_utc_B":1363900366,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hm, the most important questions that I have some interest in would be (1) the debate between moral naturalism and moral non-naturalism and (2) whether reductive or non-reductive physicalism about the mind is correct. I'd imagine there's a lot of useless questions I've never heard of because they don't get around much, but of all the things that are talked about at least some of the time, I think wondering whether or not modal realism is true is pretty pointless.","human_ref_B":"Most important: *The question concerning technology*. Why: The barbarians at the fall of our civilization will have nuclear weapons and use them, and therefore technology has destroyed the way back home. There will be no \"again\" on planet Earth. The world is being enmeshed by information systems that are also logistical and command and control systems. Technology bypasses the old knowledge-wisdom circuit and transforms information directly into power. We are at the first gate. Least important: \"What makes a person?\" Why: Because I don't find philosophy that begins with \"let's settle this metaphysical question before we apply the concept to questions of law and morality\" very interesting. It's the settling that bothers me. I used to like analytic philosophy, but found it boring in the end.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9571.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c902bss","c_root_id_B":"c903pn6","created_at_utc_A":1363905858,"created_at_utc_B":1363909937,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"For the latter question, (Rorty would argue) 'the definition of a heap' ought to be a contender. As for the former, everyone has their favourites, for me it's the business of trying to find a way to decide what constitutes 'good' psychotherapy. If we're trying to be objective, though, variations on 'how does a brain make a mind' (structure of consciousness, symbol grounding, the hard problem etc.) are probably the big hitters.","human_ref_B":"Hm, the most important questions that I have some interest in would be (1) the debate between moral naturalism and moral non-naturalism and (2) whether reductive or non-reductive physicalism about the mind is correct. I'd imagine there's a lot of useless questions I've never heard of because they don't get around much, but of all the things that are talked about at least some of the time, I think wondering whether or not modal realism is true is pretty pointless.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4079.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c903pn6","c_root_id_B":"c902y0q","created_at_utc_A":1363909937,"created_at_utc_B":1363907665,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hm, the most important questions that I have some interest in would be (1) the debate between moral naturalism and moral non-naturalism and (2) whether reductive or non-reductive physicalism about the mind is correct. I'd imagine there's a lot of useless questions I've never heard of because they don't get around much, but of all the things that are talked about at least some of the time, I think wondering whether or not modal realism is true is pretty pointless.","human_ref_B":"Is the Internet more important than real life? A repurposing of Francois Truffaut's question, in the 50's of: \"Is the cinema more important than real life?\" So, not a circlejerk question, but is the digital worth thinking through to its end?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2272.0,"score_ratio":3.0} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c90aucf","c_root_id_B":"c900dsd","created_at_utc_A":1363934782,"created_at_utc_B":1363900366,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Most important: What ought we to do? Most unimportant: Why is there something rather than nothing?","human_ref_B":"Most important: *The question concerning technology*. Why: The barbarians at the fall of our civilization will have nuclear weapons and use them, and therefore technology has destroyed the way back home. There will be no \"again\" on planet Earth. The world is being enmeshed by information systems that are also logistical and command and control systems. Technology bypasses the old knowledge-wisdom circuit and transforms information directly into power. We are at the first gate. Least important: \"What makes a person?\" Why: Because I don't find philosophy that begins with \"let's settle this metaphysical question before we apply the concept to questions of law and morality\" very interesting. It's the settling that bothers me. I used to like analytic philosophy, but found it boring in the end.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":34416.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c902bss","c_root_id_B":"c90aucf","created_at_utc_A":1363905858,"created_at_utc_B":1363934782,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"For the latter question, (Rorty would argue) 'the definition of a heap' ought to be a contender. As for the former, everyone has their favourites, for me it's the business of trying to find a way to decide what constitutes 'good' psychotherapy. If we're trying to be objective, though, variations on 'how does a brain make a mind' (structure of consciousness, symbol grounding, the hard problem etc.) are probably the big hitters.","human_ref_B":"Most important: What ought we to do? Most unimportant: Why is there something rather than nothing?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":28924.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c902y0q","c_root_id_B":"c90aucf","created_at_utc_A":1363907665,"created_at_utc_B":1363934782,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Is the Internet more important than real life? A repurposing of Francois Truffaut's question, in the 50's of: \"Is the cinema more important than real life?\" So, not a circlejerk question, but is the digital worth thinking through to its end?","human_ref_B":"Most important: What ought we to do? Most unimportant: Why is there something rather than nothing?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27117.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c904ix4","c_root_id_B":"c90aucf","created_at_utc_A":1363912441,"created_at_utc_B":1363934782,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"For Foucault, the most important philosophical problem lies in the possibility of \"no longer doing, saying, or thinking what we currently are, say, or think\" (from \"What is Enlightenment?\"). I have come to think more and more over the years that he is correct.","human_ref_B":"Most important: What ought we to do? Most unimportant: Why is there something rather than nothing?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22341.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c9072vr","c_root_id_B":"c90aucf","created_at_utc_A":1363920298,"created_at_utc_B":1363934782,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The fundamental philosophical question of our time is: what is freedom? Our whole (western) cultural narrative is built around the idea that our way of life is better, because we have freedom. But we all also agree that being able to choose from 50 different kinds of cereal isn't really 'freedom'. So what is it? What is this intangible value that we think is the foundation of our civilization? The list of contenders for least important problem is too long to even broach. See, e.g., any given issue of any mainstream philosophy journal. 95% of it will be utterly forgotten in 20 years. The trick is, only the slow sifting of history will tell us which problems were pointless. edit: I'd like to add a practical moral question to my suggestions for most important: the question of geoengineering. The necessity of intervening on the environment is becoming clearer and clearer, but the political implications of trying to do so are currently unimaginable. You can't do geoengineering locally, we all have to have a plan we're working on together. Further, the scientific challenges (e.g., building climate models reliable enough to make predictions about what would happen given various interventions) are staggering.","human_ref_B":"Most important: What ought we to do? Most unimportant: Why is there something rather than nothing?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14484.0,"score_ratio":2.0} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c90gyau","c_root_id_B":"c900dsd","created_at_utc_A":1363969400,"created_at_utc_B":1363900366,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I wouldn't call it 'important,' per se, but one that I find incredibly interesting is the ethical and aesthetic problems of street art. Specifically, what is the proper ethical response to street art? Street art is unique in that its legitimacy stems from its inherent *il*legitimacy; what implications does this have for A) other styles of art, and B) the problem of public space?","human_ref_B":"Most important: *The question concerning technology*. Why: The barbarians at the fall of our civilization will have nuclear weapons and use them, and therefore technology has destroyed the way back home. There will be no \"again\" on planet Earth. The world is being enmeshed by information systems that are also logistical and command and control systems. Technology bypasses the old knowledge-wisdom circuit and transforms information directly into power. We are at the first gate. Least important: \"What makes a person?\" Why: Because I don't find philosophy that begins with \"let's settle this metaphysical question before we apply the concept to questions of law and morality\" very interesting. It's the settling that bothers me. I used to like analytic philosophy, but found it boring in the end.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":69034.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c90gyau","c_root_id_B":"c902bss","created_at_utc_A":1363969400,"created_at_utc_B":1363905858,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I wouldn't call it 'important,' per se, but one that I find incredibly interesting is the ethical and aesthetic problems of street art. Specifically, what is the proper ethical response to street art? Street art is unique in that its legitimacy stems from its inherent *il*legitimacy; what implications does this have for A) other styles of art, and B) the problem of public space?","human_ref_B":"For the latter question, (Rorty would argue) 'the definition of a heap' ought to be a contender. As for the former, everyone has their favourites, for me it's the business of trying to find a way to decide what constitutes 'good' psychotherapy. If we're trying to be objective, though, variations on 'how does a brain make a mind' (structure of consciousness, symbol grounding, the hard problem etc.) are probably the big hitters.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":63542.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c90gyau","c_root_id_B":"c902y0q","created_at_utc_A":1363969400,"created_at_utc_B":1363907665,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I wouldn't call it 'important,' per se, but one that I find incredibly interesting is the ethical and aesthetic problems of street art. Specifically, what is the proper ethical response to street art? Street art is unique in that its legitimacy stems from its inherent *il*legitimacy; what implications does this have for A) other styles of art, and B) the problem of public space?","human_ref_B":"Is the Internet more important than real life? A repurposing of Francois Truffaut's question, in the 50's of: \"Is the cinema more important than real life?\" So, not a circlejerk question, but is the digital worth thinking through to its end?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":61735.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c904ix4","c_root_id_B":"c90gyau","created_at_utc_A":1363912441,"created_at_utc_B":1363969400,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"For Foucault, the most important philosophical problem lies in the possibility of \"no longer doing, saying, or thinking what we currently are, say, or think\" (from \"What is Enlightenment?\"). I have come to think more and more over the years that he is correct.","human_ref_B":"I wouldn't call it 'important,' per se, but one that I find incredibly interesting is the ethical and aesthetic problems of street art. Specifically, what is the proper ethical response to street art? Street art is unique in that its legitimacy stems from its inherent *il*legitimacy; what implications does this have for A) other styles of art, and B) the problem of public space?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":56959.0,"score_ratio":1.5} +{"post_id":"1ar4sx","domain":"askphilosophy_test","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"AskPhilosophy, which do you feel is the most important philosophical question of our time? On the flip side, which is the most useless or unimportant one?","c_root_id_A":"c90gyau","c_root_id_B":"c9072vr","created_at_utc_A":1363969400,"created_at_utc_B":1363920298,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I wouldn't call it 'important,' per se, but one that I find incredibly interesting is the ethical and aesthetic problems of street art. Specifically, what is the proper ethical response to street art? Street art is unique in that its legitimacy stems from its inherent *il*legitimacy; what implications does this have for A) other styles of art, and B) the problem of public space?","human_ref_B":"The fundamental philosophical question of our time is: what is freedom? Our whole (western) cultural narrative is built around the idea that our way of life is better, because we have freedom. But we all also agree that being able to choose from 50 different kinds of cereal isn't really 'freedom'. So what is it? What is this intangible value that we think is the foundation of our civilization? The list of contenders for least important problem is too long to even broach. See, e.g., any given issue of any mainstream philosophy journal. 95% of it will be utterly forgotten in 20 years. The trick is, only the slow sifting of history will tell us which problems were pointless. edit: I'd like to add a practical moral question to my suggestions for most important: the question of geoengineering. The necessity of intervening on the environment is becoming clearer and clearer, but the political implications of trying to do so are currently unimaginable. You can't do geoengineering locally, we all have to have a plan we're working on together. Further, the scientific challenges (e.g., building climate models reliable enough to make predictions about what would happen given various interventions) are staggering.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":49102.0,"score_ratio":1.5}