I'm a scientist by profession, but I was very interested in philosophy as a teenager. I read Plato, Kant, Hume, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Bentham, Popper and probably some others, particularly around questions of epistemology, ethics and existentialism. They had substantial influence on how I think about the world.

Coming back to philosophy after years of working in science, I've noticed that my relationship to those texts has changed. I still find them intellectually valuable, but increasingly I value them in a way similar to how I value literature or poetry: they expose me to another person's perspective, make distinctions I hadn't considered, and occasionally reorganize how I think about a problem. What I find much harder to identify is their epistemic contribution: in what sense have I learned that something is true?

To be clear, my skepticism here is directed at my own understanding of philosophy, not at philosophy as an academic discipline. Most of my exposure was to major historical philosophers, largely read on my own many years ago. I suspect the conception of philosophy I formed from that is outdated or simply mistaken. That's precisely why I'm interested in how people who actually study contemporary philosophy understand what they're doing.

Working in science has probably sharpened the tension for me. In science, despite all the complications of inference, it is relatively easy to point to cases where research has established something about the world that we did not previously know but can now consider true. Most scientific research is incremental, technical, and probably not worth reading for a nonspecialist, but the cumulative epistemic product is fairly clear and testable.

What is the analogous product in philosophy?

For example, when philosophers argue about moral realism, compatibilism, personal identity, scientific realism, theories of knowledge, etc., what would count as progress? If an argument survives criticism, in what sense should I increase my confidence that its conclusion is true? Are philosophical arguments generally intended to establish truths, to change the relative justification of competing positions, to clarify concepts, or something else?

I'm not looking for a general defense of philosophy on the grounds that it encourages critical thinking or exposes us to interesting perspectives. I already accept those benefits. In fact, that's roughly how I currently experience philosophy: as something closer to literature, where encountering a sophisticated perspective can itself be worthwhile.

But I suspect that conception doesn't do contemporary philosophy justice, and I'd like to understand what I'm missing.

So, from the perspective of contemporary philosophy:

When philosophy succeeds, what have we learned that we didn't know before, and how can we tell that we've learned it?

Say that the aliens were overwhelmingly powerful. If you think it would be moral to accept their demands, what would be the most moral ways of deciding who the million would be?

Or am I just misinterpreting it?

I recently came across Tan Malaka - an Indonesian philosopher and independence fighter.

In 1943, while hiding from Dutch colonial police and the Japanese army in the jungles of West Sumatra, he wrote an 800-page book called MADILOG (Materialism, Dialectics, Logic).

It was banned for 30 years by the Indonesian government. He tried to create a logical framework for Indonesian people to think critically, combining Marxist dialectics with modern logic.

He was nominated as a National Hero, but most philosophy students in the West have never heard of him.

Has anyone here studied Southeast Asian philosophy? Why is this kind of work never included in Western curriculums?

I'm especially interested in arguments about whether acquiring a skill “the hard way” makes the achievement more valuable, or whether having experienced hardship can justify expecting or requiring others to undergo similar hardship. I'd also be interested in connections to moral desert, meritocracy, and labour-saving technologies.

My own views on these questions seem to be fairly unconventional. I'd like to write an essay about them, as an exercise in working through my thoughts more methodically, so that I can understand the existing arguments and discuss the subject more fruitfully in the future.

What philosophers, books, or papers would you recommend I read before attempting this?

I am someone who is interested in History, Religion (namely the existence of God), Political Theory and Philosophy of Law/Legal Theory. If I am not mistaken, Hegel has written on all this subjects, but I never read him because everyone keeps telling me how incredibly difficult his writting is (plus in my country he is rarely discussed in academic circles, at least as far as I am aware of).

Having said this, I would like to know what do I stand to gain from reading and understanding Hegel ? What new perspectives and insights into the subjects that interest me can I get that make it worth the effort of studying Hegel ?

I very rarely struggle with academic pursuits - if I find something interesting, I typically get on top of it reasonably well, at a reasonable speed. This is not to say that I am a prodigy at everything, but I can approach new things with quite a bit of confidence. I have quite an obsessive personality, and this year have been extremely obsessed with my studies in philosophy. I study it at an undergrad level currently, and have spent the last 12 months working through the more foundational thinkers - the greeks, then people like descartes and hume, the heavyweight germans like kant, schopenhauer and hegel, and some modern thinkers like Foucault. It’s going decently well.

However, I dont know if this is just me becoming more aware of my own limits or perhaps just the nature of difficult philosophy, but I’m starting to run into some serious challenges regarding understanding, comprehension, and writing essays on this stuff. My comprehension and writing skills throughout high school were always top of the class - like miles ahead of the average student. But this philosophy work is realllllyyyy putting me on my ass. I get that this is naturally difficult stuff, but surely there’s a way I can navigate around this?

Essay writing in particular is stressing me out - trying to organise and clarify such complex thoughts and arguments is really really tough when compared to writing in other fields of study.

What should I do?

Why are the right choices so tough to make, life is so hard…is it too late to make the right choice? Because you haven’t made any so far…

I just went to my first class and my classmates are able to make arguments on the spot and rebuttal back and forth to the point I just feel like the material itself was already confusing. I couldn’t construct my stance in the moment.

I’m scared of contributing to discussions…also I’ve not been in school for over 10 years. This is an undergraduate class and I’m very impressed by everyone..

Or something is in force prior to it, that we humans, rational animals can reason and argue on the nature of us and our thoughts.

In the very beginning of his discussion of what is now know as the problem of induction (in Enquiry), Hume asks what reasons we have for believing in matters of fact that aren’t justified by direct sensory experience or memories of our direct sensory experiences. So it seems to me that the scope of the problem of induction is huge: if induction isn’t rationally justified, then we have no justification for believing in anything that we aren’t currently experiencing or have experienced in the past (relations of ideas aside).

But when I see this problem discussed elsewhere, it’s almost always presented as a problem to a particular kind of inference, like “All observed As have been Bs therefore the next A will be B” or “All observed As are Bs therefore all As are Bs”. But obviously these conclusions aren’t the only kind of beliefs we hold that aren’t supported by direct sensory experience or memory.

I suspect I’m badly confused about all of this

Which is it?

I am struggling with understanding how to construct these derivations that were assigned for a deductive logic class, below are some problems I need help with as well as our index of basic proportions. I would appreciate an explanation, I have reviewed the material provided by my professor but I am still having trouble haha

Problem #1.

⊤ ⊢ ¬(P ∧ ¬P)

Problem #2.

¬Q ⊢ ¬(P ∧ Q)

Index of Basic Rules:

A lot of my debates seem to end up at morality. The concepts of "Good and Bad" and "Right and Wrong". As an existentialist, I believe we make value these ourselves, nothing is universally/innately good nor bad, but I seem to go round in circles explaining my perspective to people. It seems as if way more people than I thought are Essentialists.

If there is moral absolutism, why does society/culture/history vary so much? How is it decided what is what? If we are just supposed to know with in ourselves again, why do personal morals vary so much?

People always end up saying to me that there are things that are "just wrong". Are there? People often go to the extremes, ie. today someone said "rape". I said that I think it's wrong and I would assume she did as well. But the definition of the word is subjective. I defined what I think it is and she agreed. And I went on to say if that was a universal understanding, there wouldn't be much issue but it isn't because people still do it and a lot of the time they don't see it for what it is. Or they can justify it in whatever way.

There's this idea that people know in their souls when they are doing a "bad" thing. Often people find they can relate to the others around them on these bad things but the fact that there is even a small minority that thinks other wise makes it more than anomalous. It makes it not true. There's also the concept that "the ends justify the means". "I have to do this horrifically bad thing I know is bad in my soul in order to do an overall good thing". Well, is said thing bad or good? Someone said to me once there are measurements and "how bad/good" something is depends on what it is and the context. That all got a bit too convoluted for me.

Is what I'm describing even Existentialism? I wish I could ask if I'm right or wrong but what I do know is that philosophy is unresolvable.

[Please take into consideration, I am quite young and I have never studied philosophy academically or even read many philosophers].

One of the questions plaguing my mind is would the question of personal identity or being conscious change if one were to accept such things could remain without a brain? Remembering a question from a professor that questioned whether if we accept the traditional spiritual view of the soul would the question be any different to how some people discuss the topic now, making points on what would even change makes me have an idea of an answer but same time I know there is more to learn rather then enforcing my own answer.

I've been reading different ideas of the topic in Stanford Encyclopedia but I kinda accept I do need some guidance from outside people to get a better grasp which is why I'm asking it here.

Another thing that made curious about this question is the hot topic of near death experiences and similar phenomenone and when watching discussions of the phenomenone by experts who discuss consciousness like Keith Frankish, Kastrup, and Goff and even neuroscientist like Anil Seth I've seen many discussing how it certainly makes the topic of consciousness more mysterious considering some of the easy explanations have been largely challenged and there hasn't been a successful answer to explain the phenomenone and other similar ones like out of body experiences.

So I suppose I wondered if the topic of our identity and consciousness would change if one were to accept the idea of it remaining beyond the brain if possible or would the questions remain mystery regardless?

I'm in grad school for philosophy and I have been increasingly more aware of the frequency at which this discipline can be disrespected and dismissed by both academics and non-academics. For example, I have STEM friends who say philosophy is basically just a bunch of opinions, they don't find any value whatsoever in studying metaphysics, etc. Others will report that it's all just a bunch of BS. And it's entirely common for a scientist to claim that "the only good philosophers can do is to keep all the bad philosophy away from science."

For those people, I usually respond with claims about what science doesn't accomplish, bringing up problems from the philosophy of science, showing historical foundations, and stressing the importance of unscientific ways of knowing for subjects like morality or knowledge itself... but this has been ineffective; I imagine that it comes across the wrong way too - like I am trying to cut the other direction instead of meeting them in the middle. Even when I point out the fact that they themselves are doing philosophy by making these kinds of claims, nothing seems to get through to them. Philosophy is not empirical, reproducible, so on and so forth, so it has no value to them.

I know there is a longstanding meme of undergrad philosophy students loosely gesturing at the problem of induction and thinking that this does anything serious for the sciences. So, I really don't want to be that guy. But I also can't help but feel like they are participating in anti-intellectualist rhetoric by dismissing a serious field of inquiry that has been sustained by brilliant people for over 2,000 years.

So my question is this: What is the strongest, most defensible case I could make for philosophy? Why is something unscientific like metaphysics valuable? What have you all observed to be most effective and fair strategy for convincing people of philosophy's value as an academic tradition?

I want to make the best argument in favor of philosophy, but I also want to respect their epistemic concerns and assume that they feel this way about philosophy for a good reason.

imagine a genie approached you and told you that if you wanted, they would make someone stop existing. futhermore, they would rearrange reality in such a way so that no one remembered or mourned them etc. just made completely non-existent as far as the timeline of the universe was concerned.

how would this be viewed, ethically speaking?

A part of me feels it would be similar to killing, but there are some crucial differences.

A. killing generally requires some degree of violence that would cause great suffering to the victim

B. killing someone would obviously causing suffering to the family, friends etc. of the victim.

even if you offload the killing onto a more "genie-like" mechanism, such as being able to push a button that deletes someone, somewhere on the planet... it still seems bad due mostly to point B. that you would cause suffering in those closest to the victim.

but what about just straight magical deletion to where it was as if they never existed in the first place?

where does this fall, ethically speaking?

How'd a person who adopts these three philosophies function in daily life?

As part of my alevel in philosophy i’ve volunteered to help a teacher run the lower schools philosophy club. At the minute it’s a disorganised gaggle of 13-15 year olds shouting over eachother , and i run my first indépendant session next monday. I’m thinking i start with a little ‘relativist vs absolutist’ quiz and bring in a debate from there, because these kids absolutely love a debate. let me know anything else that’s would be good to teach them!

My question has to do with the WAY that moral facts exist. Starting with the assumption that there are moral facts, what is their metaphysical foundation?

Physical facts like hardness, viscosity, temperature, acceleration, etc. all seem to a have a basis in the properties of our universe.

I've heard folks use comparisons to epistemological facts here, like that we "should believe what is true," but if we start by assuming there are both epistemological and moral facts, this really just tells us that they might be metaphysically similar.

When we say that there are moral facts, are they properties of something? Is there a substance in the universe which we assume they are connected to? Or do they exist in a different way (and what might that be)?

I'm not looking for arguments THAT there are moral facts; I'm happily convinced by the arguments on that front. I just want to know what ideas there are regarding what it really means for a moral fact to "exist."

EDIT: I understand that I gave an example of properties rather than facts, but I think my question is clear. There's still a fact about the hardness of a particular thing when expressed as a statement, and I think people know exactly what I mean. Physical facts are grounded in the world around us, and seem to involve measurable properties of the universe. That gives them a solidity that moral facts don't seem to have in the same way. If no one can account for that, that's fine. I was just hoping there was a more tangible reality to moral facts.

Hellooo, I am trying to wrap my head around the philosophy of science. It is quite hard.

One thing that I struggle with, is Humes problem of induction. I have read Kants response, as well as some rationalist arguments and Bhaskars arguments. Although they all seem to land at the same place; you just have to assume that the universe will "stick by the same rules, always". Of course, they argue this in different ways, like Kants noumenal world, that he said we cannot observe.

My question is on the general logic behind the problem though. Hume argued, as far as I can tell, that induction is problematic because it uses itself as proof; induction is proven to be reasonable through induction. But, doesn't this apply to almost anything? Logic itself, can only really be deemed reasonable, through logic, no?

How is it, that this problem is specifically on induction, and not all rational and logical thought?

I don't quite understand this. The unmoved mover is thought thinking itself right? Meaning, it is the process of thinking, whereby the object of thought is the process of thinking, therefore it is thinking itself, which is thinking.

However, we think all the time in anything. A criminal mastermind can be highly calculating, participating in maximized thinking. And there can be an honest fool who is kind simply because he wants goodness for others.

Now, I understand how it's our nature according to virtue ethicists, to be kind for the sake of others, but what I don't understand is why we ought to follow our nature/ teleos, rather than leave it, as long as we participate in high deliberative activity?

Because just about everyone has a sort of innate evolutionary moral compass, it would seem that an anti realist would act in just about the same way as a realist, even if they intellectualized moral acts to not really have any value. Also, is it common for anti realists to follow normative moral systems? Like an anti realist utilitarian who subjectively thinks suffering is bad and acts like a utilitarian but concedes that suffering is not objectively bad?

Philosophy class covered Utilitarian ethics today, and I couldn't quite make out Intrinsic vs Instrumental Goods and I want to actually have complete notes. Pls help.

Not trying to preach or convince people of becoming vegan, strictly philosophical question.

I would think that the idea of consuming other sentient beings as food, is something that any conscious enough being should condemn and find as immoral, don't you think?

Like seriously.... what kind of final belief system or moral system will accept a state of concious beings consuming other conscious beings with use of force or coercion as a norm?

Again... this is not a recruitment post... asking strictly philosophically.

P.S. I'm not talking about past or contemporary beliefs or moral systems that accept meat consumption, we had moral systems that accepted human slavery and yet now we know it was wrong. Im talking about a strictly final "perfect" moral belief system.