This chapter presents a question closely related to the problem of vagueness, because it looks like a paradigm of a philosophical question that is implicitly but not explicitly about thought and language. It is useful to look at some proposals and arguments from the vagueness debate, for two reasons. First, they show why the original question is hard, when taken at face value. Second, they show how semantic considerations play a central role in the attempt to (...) answer it, even though it is not itself a semantic question. Some philosophers deny the relevance of formal semantic theories to vague natural languages. Some contemporary metaphysicians appear to believe that they can safely ignore formal semantics and the philosophy of language because their interest is in a largely extra‐mental reality. Conceptions of logic and mathematics as somehow trivial or non‐substantial have not been vindicated by any clear explanation of the relevant sense of “trivial” or “non‐substantial.”. (shrink)

Big philosophical questions—about the mind, the idea of the good, justice, beauty, knowledge—have been the prime interest of philosophers ever since Plato first raised them in his dialogues. However, regardless of how hard philosophers have been trying to find answers to them, it seems that all they have ever managed to do was to find reasons for disagreements, and, on the whole, to have failed to reach a consensus on pretty much anything. Some philosophers now claim that there hasn’t (...) been much progress in philosophy, especially when compared to the sciences. I take up this verdict and try to refute it, first by offering an alternative view on what counts as progress, and then by analyzing big philosophical questions and their relevance for our intellectual and practical pursuits. I argue that, due to the distinctive nature of philosophical curiosity, coming up with answers to the big philosophical questions is an ideal that can hardly be met, but that philosophy nevertheless delivers various benefits, intellectual and practical, which the proponents of the No-Progress View tend to ignore. (shrink)

In Philosophical Questions: Readings and Interactive Guides, James Fieser and Norman Lillegard make classic and contemporary philosophical writings genuinely accessible to students by incorporating numerous pedagogical aids throughout the book. Presenting the readings in manageable segments, they provide commentaries that elucidate difficult passages, explain archaic or technical terminology, and expand upon allusions to unfamiliar literature and arguments. In addition, opening "First Reactions" discussion questions, study questions, logic boxes, and chapter summaries require students to delve more deeply into important (...) issues and to reconstruct arguments in their own words. Some study questions test for minimal comprehension, while others are designed to provoke analysis and independent philosophical reflection. This extensive pedagogical support enables students to more easily comprehend and engage with challenging material by establishing an interactive dialogue with the philosophers. This topically organized anthology and textbook includes numerous excerpts from contemporary philosophers, as well as from Western classics and major Eastern texts, encouraging students to explore connections between works from the Western and Eastern traditions and from different time periods. Topics covered include the philosophy of religion; human nature and the self; souls, minds, bodies, and machines; epistemology; ethics; and political philosophy. A glossary, portraits of philosophers, title pages of famous works, and thirteen specially commissioned cartoons are also included. Philosophical Questions: Readings and Interactive Guides is a rich and flexible volume ideal for introduction to philosophy courses. An Instructor's Manual with Test Questions will be available to adopters of the book. In addition, a Companion Website accompanies the book. (shrink)

The article deals with philosophical questions on the “art of living” in philosophy in recent decades. It provides an overview of the conceptions that continue to resonate in philosophy, covering the basic approach to conceptions of the “art of living” found in the work of theorists such as P. Hadot, J. Kekes, A. Nehamas, Z. Bauman, A. MacIntyre, R. Veenhoven, W. Schmid, and J. Dohmen.The basic framework of the “art of living” can, we believe, be imagined as a square, (...) where each side represents an essential component : 1. value system; 2. integrity of life; 3. meaning of life; 4. authenticity of life. The art of living therefore presupposes that there is a value system the individual can use as a navigational guide and to make decisions in the world. It also presupposes an ability to integrate one’s life within a meaningful whole and to seek out and find the meaning of one’s life. Finally the art of living depends on the ability to lead an authentic life. (shrink)

This book outlines the scale and scope of ableist bias, as it manifests both institutionally and intergenerationally. Ranging across disability studies, continental philosophy, and bioethics, the philosophical questions addressed in this work confront and resist ableism as it frames our world in uninhabitable and unsustainable ways.

Philosophical Questions: East and West is an anthology of source material for use in comparative courses in philosophy, religion, and the humanities. The readings—derived from the great works of the Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Islamic, and Western intellectual traditions—are presented as answers to some of the most enduring questions in philosophy.

This first part of a two‐part article illustrates how research in evolutionary biology and psychology illuminates questions arising in philosophy—specifically questions about the origins of severe, systemic aggression that arise in the mimetic theory of René Girard. Part I looks at: (i) how old the systemic practice of severe aggression is, (ii) how much results from humanity's mimetic/social and competitive nature and how much from ecological, resource, and cultural conditions, and (iii) if ecological and cultural conditions are important, might we (...) adapt them toward greater cooperativity today? After briefly reviewing mimetic theory, the article looks at evolutionary psychology and biology, including fossil and archeological evidence. Findings suggest that severe, systemic aggression might be relatively recent and that its occurrence depends on ecological/resource/socioeconomic conditions additional to our mimetic/social nature. Thus, distinguishing the conditions that prod aggression from those that support pro‐social behavior might aid us in structuring society today. (shrink)

In this article, I survey four key questions about willpower: How is willpower possible? Why does willpower fail? How does willpower relate to other self-regulatory processes? and What are the connections between willpower and weakness of will? Empirical research into willpower is growing rapidly and yielding some fascinating new findings. This survey emphasizes areas in which empirical progress in understanding willpower helps to advance traditional philosophical debates.

In Philosophy for Children (P4C) theory there is a long‐standing commitment to democratizing the classroom. It is widely believed that to properly democratize the classroom question‐asking and question selection should be undertaken by the students rather than the adult facilitator. In practice, this commitment to democratization generates a tension. Asking and identifying philosophical questions is an acquired skill. For P4C practitioners, it is difficult to find a balance between the desire to democratize the classroom through a student‐centered (...) P4C practice and the need to help students build philosophical skills. This paper examines theoretical approaches to question‐asking and question selection in P4C and, using examples from the classroom, considers possible solutions to the tension. The aim is a method that respects students’ epistemic authority and agency in the community of philosophical inquiry while enabling P4C practitioners to aid the students in developing the skills necessary for philosophical engagement. (shrink)

A proven classic, this anthology stimulates readers' interest in philosophy through an innovative ldquo;sides of the argumentrdquo; presentation, representing positions on each of the fundamental philosophical principles. Each reading contains a biographical sketch of the author, with a group of further readings for those wishing to pursue issues in further depth. Using debate and argument as a vehicle, the eleventh edition ofClassic Philosophical Questionssimultaneously gives readers the fundamentals of philosophy while demonstrating that philosophy is a discourse that has (...) spanned centuries. Topics covered include knowledge, metaphysics, religion, ethics, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and the meaning of life. This anthology offers both classic and contemporary selections that challenge readers with the basic inquiries that philosophers have discussed throughout the ages. (shrink)

I propose the next steps in the neuropragmatic approach to philosophy that has been advocated by Solymosi and Shook (2013). My focus is the initial process of inquiry implicit in addressing philosophical questions of cognition and mind by utilizing the tools of neuroscientific research. I combine John Dewey’s pattern of inquiry with Charles Peirce’s three forms of inference in order to outline a methodological schema for neuropragmatic inquiry. My goal is to establish ignorance and guessing as well-defined pillars of (...) methodology upon which to build a neuropragmatic approach to inquiry. First, I outline Dewey’s pattern of inquiry, highlighting the initial problematic phase in which recognized ignorance provides the basis upon which to frame a philosophical problem and initiate the trajectory by which philosophical questions may be addressed with the assistance of neuroscientific evidence. Second, I provide an outline of Peirce’s three forms of inference, focusing upon the first phase of abduction: guessing. Third, I explain the transition between ignorance and guessing, urging the benefit of attending to these two aspects of inquiry. Finally, I provide an initial sketch indicating the next steps concerning a pragmatic reconstruction of neurophilosophy, pointing towards the need for a more thorough examination of scientific methodology within and following analyses of philosophical problems and neuroscientific evidence. (shrink)

This Part II of a two‐part article illustrates how research in evolutionary biology, anthropology, archeology, and psychology illuminates questions arising in philosophy—specifically questions about René Girard's theory of aggression. Part I looked at: (i) how old the systemic practice of severe aggression is; (ii) how much of it results from humanity's mimetic/social and competitive nature and how much from ecological, resource, and cultural conditions; and (iii) if ecological, resource, and cultural conditions are important, might we adapt this information toward greater (...) cooperativity today? Part II investigates Girard's theory of ritual sacrifice—especially human sacrifice—as a societal steam valve for the systemic aggression explored in Part I. It draws on theories of play, theater, and art to examine the role and function of such ritual sacrifice. (shrink)

The founder of Psychical Research, though he has not yet received the honour due to him, seems to have been King Croesus of Lydia, who reigned from 560 to 546 B.C. He carried out an interesting experiment, recorded in detail by Herodotus,2 to test the clairvoyant powers of a number of oracles. He sent embassies to seven oracles, six Greek and one Egyptian. They all started on the same day. On the hundredth day each embassy was instructed to ask its (...) oracle, “What is King Croesus, the son of Alyattes, now doing?” The answer was to be written down and brought back. The oracle of Delphi replied as follows, in hexameters, as its custom was: “I know the number of the sands and the measures of the sea. I understand the dumb, and I hear him who does not speak.” Then it went on: “There comes to my mind the smell of a strong-shelled tortoise, which is being cooked along with lamb's flesh in a brazen vessel; brass is spread beneath it, and with brass it is covered.” As a matter of fact, this answer was perfectly correct. Herodotus tells us that “having considered what would be the most difficult thing to discover and to imagine,” Croesus “cut up a tortoise and a lamb, and himself boiled them together in a brazen pot.” What happened afterwards illustrates the difficulties of this sort of investigation, difficulties which still perplex us to this day. Croesus argued, reasonably enough, that if the Delphic priestess had clairvoyant powers, she probably also had the precognitive powers, she probably also had the precognitive powers which she claimed to have. But when he consulted the oracle later about his forthcoming expedition against the Persians, he received two answers, one of which was ambiguous—“When Croesus crosses the Halys he shall destroy a great empire”—and the other correct, but too obscure to be easily interpreted. (shrink)

If Bob and Joe switched minds, but kept the same bodies, who would be Bob and who would be Joe? If time has no beginnning, how could it have reached now? Conundrums provides a basic, quick introduction to some key problems of philosophy by asking concise questions that evoke classical philosophical problems in a striking manner. It is written in a lively, engaging style and promotes critical thinking skills. This pocketbook is intended for introductory philosophy courses and may be (...) used to generate class discussion or for essay assignments. Topics covered include mind and reality, self and others, God, space and time, and life and death. (shrink)

To most laypersons and scientists, science and progress appear to go hand in hand, yet philosophers and historians of science have long questioned the inevitability of this pairing. As we take leave of a century acclaimed for scientific advances and progress, Science at Century's End, the eighth volume of the Pittsburgh-Konstanz Series in the Philosophy and History of Science, takes the reader to the heart of this important matter. Subtitled Philosophical Questions on the Progress and Limits of Science, this (...) timely volume contains twenty penetrating essays by prominent philosophers and historians who explore and debate the limits of scientific inquiry and their presumed consequences for science in the 21st century. (shrink)

Isaac Newton wrote the manuscript Questiones quaedam philosophicae at the very beginning of his scientific career. This small notebook thus affords rare insight into the beginnings of Newton's thought and the foundations of his subsequent intellectual development. The Questiones contains a series of entries in Newton's hand that range over many topics in science, philosophy, psychology, theology, and the foundations of mathematics. These notes, written in English, provide a very detailed picture of Newton's early interests, and record his critical appraisal (...) of contemporary issues in natural philosophy. Written predominantly in 1664-5, they give a significant perspective on Newton's thought just prior to his annus mirabilis, 1666. This volume provides a complete transcription of the Questiones, together with an 'expansion' into modern English, and a full editorial commentary on the content and significance of the notebook in the development of Newton's thought. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Newton and the intellectual foundations of science. (shrink)

Phase transitions are an important instance of putatively emergent behavior. Unlike many things claimed emergent by philosophers (e.g., tables and chairs), the alleged emergence of phase transitions stems from both philosophical and scientific arguments. Here we focus on the case for emergence built from physics, in particular, arguments based upon the infinite idealization invoked in the statistical mechanical treatment of phase transitions. After teasing apart several challenges, we defend the idea that phase transitions are best thought of as conceptually (...) novel, but not ontologically or explanatorily irreducible to finite physics; indeed, by looking at ongoing work on “smooth phase transitions” we even suggest that they’re not even conceptually novel. In the case of renormalization group theory, consideration of infinite systems and their singular behavior provides a central theoretical tool, but this is compatible with an explanatory reduction. Phase transitions may be “emergent” in some sense of this protean term, but not in a sense that is incompatible with the reductionist project broadly construed. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: “Human” Versus “Person” Human, Person and Ethics Philosophical Ethics Ethics and Nonhumans “Alien Intelligence” Two Questions.

What is at stake in high school philosophy education, and why? Why is it a good idea to teach philosophy at this level? This essay seeks to address some issues that arose in revising the Ontario grade 12 philosophy curriculum documents, significant insights from philosophy teacher education, and some early results of recent research funded by the federal Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in Canada. These three topics include curricular disputes, stories of transformation from philosophy student to philosophy teacher, (...) and preliminary research findings. All underscore the importance and complexity of philosophy education, as well as its challenges and benefits, including the cross-curricular benefits philosophy education imparts to the study of other subject areas. Collectively, these serve as a springboard for asking some larger and broader philosophical questions about the teaching and learning of philosophy, and they demonstrate that this is a promising new area of study and of teaching for philosophers of education. I will raise some questions about philosophy that will help frame the next stage in the SSHRC research into the teaching and learning of philosophy in Ontario, and which I contend are new and fundamental questions to ask about philosophy itself. (shrink)

The author emphasize the fact, that the world of really existing compound and distinct things leads to the first questions in our spontaneous cognition of the world, such as: "What is it?", "What for?" Spontaneous cognition thus means the primary, direct experience of the real world, which is the basis of common sense. From common sense arise the first fundamental principles of thought and knowledge, such as "For that, what is, it is impossible not to be", expressed in natural language. (...) Although the designations and functions of the natural language are manifold, the rules of its real meanings are determined by the reality itself. All this pre-scientific, spontaneous cognition enters philosophy, being a necessary and sufficient starting point for the epistemological realism, which offers the way leading to the know_ledge of the real world. The common sense knowledge, based on natural language, prevents the philosophical knowledge from apriori formulations in interpretation of reality. The realistic philosophy thus must meet the natural needs of human know_ledge. This can be achieved through developing the common sense knowledge in the frame of realistic knowledge. (shrink)

There are many ways of understanding the nature of philosophical questions. One may consider their morphology, semantics, relevance, or scope. This article introduces a different approach, based on the kind of informational resources required to answer them. The result is a definition of philosophical questions as questions whose answers are in principle open to informed, rational, and honest disagreement, ultimate but not absolute, closed under further questioning, possibly constrained by empirical and logico-mathematical resources, but requiring noetic resources to (...) be answered. The article concludes with a discussion of some of the consequences of this definition for a conception of philosophy as the study (or “science”) of open questions, which uses conceptual design to analyse and answer them. (shrink)

This is the Techer's Handbook CD-Rom to accompany James Fieser and Norman Lillegard's Philosophical Questions: Readings and INteractive Guides. It contains chapter summaries and goals, discussion text, topical links and activities, suggestions for further readings, exam questions and answers, and Powerpoint slides.

On some metaphysical problems in the context of occidental philosophy.

Can God’s existence be proven by logic? Are computers smart enough to follow rules—or to cheat? What is an out-of-body experience? How can tables be solid when physicists say they’re made of subatomic particles that are only probability functions? Does science depend on trust? What is conscience? Does it come from God? From religious teaching? Social training? Is it rational to pursue your own self-interest? Can we all survive if we do this? In this collection of stories and dialogues Trudy (...) Govier shows how these old and new philosophical questions arise, and offers imaginative and striking depictions of some of the theories and arguments they have inspired. (shrink)

This collection of essays explores the conflictual history and future implications of two important traditions of twentieth-century European thought: the ...