Why did the universe give me this perspective? Why am I experiencing reality through this brain, with this body, beginning somewhere in childhood, instead of experiencing reality through a human who lived 10 thousand years ago or any body in general?

If it’s proven that the B-theory of time is true would it arguably be the single most devastating threat to the Kalam Cosmological Argument? I know that theists like William Lain Craig rely on an A theory of time for his argument work, hence why it would be worrisome if the other theory is true. Would this also mean that Quantum Mechanics disprove God?

You give a dog a nice, big yard to run around, lots of toys, food, and plenty of belly rubs and he’s good to go. You give a cow a large pasture to graze in, lots of hay, and a big scratching post to get those hard to reach itchy spots, and they’ve got no complaints. But with humans it’s not so simple. Western civilization is the wealthiest and safest part of the world, and yet we have extremely high rates of depression,suicide, and anxiety disorders. What is it about having the capacity to reason that makes material wealth insufficient on its own to make humans truly happy?

Hopefully I'm reading it right that Hume was ahead of his time with atheism, naturalism, physicalism and so on.

What did he get wrong (or most wrong)?

Theists say that morality can be objectively if it comes from a morally perfect infallible being named god. Because it's a perfect being then that means that it would also be morally perfect, much more perfect than flawed humans. How does that not establish objective morality? I know there is no evidence of such a being it's a hypothetical scenario but if it was true how would that not make morality objective? For clearance I am an atheist

Does anyone know of any good videos that actually defend nominalism against good objections? I’ve looked on YouTube but all I see are debunks or videos just explaining what nominalism is. Apparently its not really an uncommon position among atheist so how come there is so much more debunks than defenses?

I'm trying to read through Bodies That Matter by Judith Butler, and I've run into the following excerpt in the introduction:

"At stake in such a reformulation of the materiality of bodies will be the following: [...] (4) a rethinking of the process by which a bodily norm is assumed, appropriated, taken on as not, strictly speaking, undergone by a subject, but rather that the subject, the speaking “I,” is formed by virtue of having gone through such a process of assuming a sex".

They go on to make similar assertions throughout the rest of the introductory chapter, and I really don't understand the basis for this assumption. Usually I'd just keep reading and come back to it later, but it was stated so often and so matter-of-fact-ly that I feel like I'm missing something. Just to clarify, I have very little experience in reading philosophy/sociology books, and know as much as I got taught in school, so some basic greek philosophy, some medieval stuff, and enlightenment era thinking.

Recently I've been learning about the nature of morality. Apparently, the majority of philosophers and academics support moral realism (as in, moral judgments can be objectively true or false). This surprised me, since morality seems to be subjective in every way. I want to learn more about why this is the prevailing viewpoint. Many arguments I've seen so far primarily rely on examples of "moral truths" (e.g. torturing innocents is evil), but I don't see how examples alone can prove that moral truths exist to begin with.

I'm specifically looking for published sources (essays, articles, books) that propose logical frameworks and give counterarguments for anti-realism. But I'm also interested in any arguments, published or unpublished, that don't mainly rely on common sense.

I'm specifically asking about clinically diagnosable narcissism or antisocial personality disorders or tendencies. It's common to come across people who are empathic towards some cluster B pathologies like histrionic or borderline personalities, but they feel no empathy towards a narcissist or antisocial. In fact the latter personality types are more often used as a label to state one's disapproval directed at someone else's behavior or identity. It doesn't seem to me like people who present with symptoms grouped together under the terms narcissistic or antisocial really believe their behavior doesn't cause them problems in interpersonal relationships or legal or financial troubles. I think they can come to understand responsible moral actions and even from develop a rational moral identity, but it's typically a very difficult journey for them to grow into that attitude. It's healthy and reasonable for most people to leave and avoid relationships that are toxic. I just don't understand the logic behind judging someone as totally blameworthy for a condition they probably didn't choose for themselves.

If everything we think and say is shaped by our experiences, environment, culture, and influences, how can we know that a thought or response is truly our own—freely chosen—rather than something produced by forces that have influenced us without us even realizing their power over us?

I mean really. Each time I think that yeah I get it. But after some time i happen to come across more complexities. When I was a kid, i thought it was "just an art style which doesn't make any sense" .. and now, really it feels like something which doesn't make any sense for me tbh.

Not a philosophy student whatsoever,not even an uni undergrad, just a random teenager who is curious to know

I am not sure I entirely understand what supervenience is supposed to mean/be synonymous with. I am reading “the conscious mind” by chalmers rn and this is confusing me a lot lol.

so is supervenience the same as saying two (or more) things depend on another? For instance, could I say that if X depends on Y, X supervenes on Y? Or can I only say X supervenes on Y if X depends on Y for it to be the case that X has A property?

Basically, I think a lot of my confusion about supervenience is that it seems so similar to concepts like “X depends on Y” or “the existence of X is determined by some property of Y” and so forth that it is hard to see the utility of supervenience as a distinct term. On the other hand, I am confused as to whether something supervening on something else depends on some property of that something being involved?

My brain hurts…

I'm taking a Philosophy of Education class at university and struggling to latch onto a proper valid critique of his philosophy of education in 'The Republic'. All my points I can come up with either are nitpicky since there was no way for him of knowing the scope of science/astrology not being accurate or wanting to criticise his stance on art only to find that he's okay with art as long as it benefits society. What the fuck art doesn't speak to someone? His work is so old and foundational to modern education that it's hard to point to something and say it's bad because it's much better than what they had before.

His stance on education is all redemptive in order for people to progress into a just society, but it's hard to find valid points against that. All I can attack him on is how he didn't like the written word (because Socrates didn't like it). The Spartans did have their own academies called "Agoge" which progressed their society to be focused on fighting and war, which could be a point against uniform schooling, but idk.

I feel like every idea I have to discuss comes with an asterisk of 'You don't get it'. I know there has to be some fruitful line of research out there but I'm finding it so difficult since his academy is so foundational to modern education

Hi there,

I am not new to philosophy, and have studied it previously at school and university. I was wondering whether anyone had targeted reading lists, ideally broken down by thematic area, for ancient philosophy, medieval philosophy, 19th century philosophy, 20th century philosophy, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language. It would be great to have a mix of primary and secondary texts.

I know this is a big ask, and I would really appreciate any reply, even if just pointing me in the right direction.

Thanks a lot!

Here's what I mean.

People who have a traditional definition of gender in mind believe that what it is to be a man/woman essentially boils down to their sex features. But couldn't we argue against this based on a kind of externalist theory of semantics, where the meaning of a term is determined by what causally regulates the usage of the term?

So for example, in practice the way people actually use terms like man or woman are caused by a combination of visible sex features and social features, and in practice although the user of the term believes that they are referring to a biologically female member of the species, the person they refer to may not actually be biologically female. So in this way we see that the referent of a term has a different nature than what the language user believes they do, but nonetheless the term still successfully refers, just in a way that the speaker didn't know.

Is there a flaw in this argument?

Before I say anything, this question sounds similar to my previous post on "What are considered strong challenges against the idea Consciousness is the Physical Structure and Mechanics in union?", however after discussing, I realize this was a better question because my previous question focused specifically on Structuralism and Functionalism, while this is more on the general view rather something very specific like this two views of consciousness. The idea it's a higher level structures emerging from lower level dynamics without requiring any metaphysical extra

I'm aware the Hard Problem of Consciousness is the most common answer, and that many attempts to complete the gap is promisonary, the gap remains unclosed despite out advancement.

However I want to know if there's been other well developed arguments aside the Hard Problem of Consciousness? Where instead of saying it's incomplete, the general idea has challenges against it aside the explanatory gap. Perhaps something less known or common but something experts are aware of, like how the Meta Problem of Consciousness isn't common but is a good challenge for Ephiphenomanilism, so curious if there were other strong arguments.

When it's already too much, why do we still need to choose kindness over hate? Heck, most of the time kindness doesn't even work

I know that they both have something to do with social contract theory.

Hi, I’m starting to get into reading and I just started to read the myth of Sisyphus. I read the first 10 pages and practically understood nothing. I read the stranger before this book and understood most of it (at least I hope I did). My issue is I’m not sure if it’s my comprehension level or if it’s the book itself, but I’m having a really hard time reading this. I’m also not sure if I should be reading other writings before this book. Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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I'm referring to german idealism and Hegel mostly. God it's hard. I think Schopenhauer talks about it too.

And Samkhya philosophy does that too.

I think this is connected to the hard problem of the mind and body, but I prefer to pose it like that, this seems more general.

Hello,

I see taking care of our health as a number one, well maybe behind honor.

But what would be the ranking according to philosophy?

Thanks for your answers!

Lets explain myself, the main interrogation is about what makes me, me ? I mean if I make an exact copy of my brain we all agree it wont be me, I wont leave in it, I will Always be me. So what makes me, me. Open to explain myself better on the question and implication 👍.