Maverick Philosopher

The Religion of Archeological Preservation

If Islam is the religion of peace, then it is also the religion of archeological preservation.  Modus tollens or modus ponens?

Images here.

Do You Drive Your Car to Fill Your Tank?

No? Then why do you live to eat?

Knowledge and Belief

If there are truths that we cannot know but only believe, should we deny ourselves those truths because they cannot be known but only believed?

Morally Culpable Political Ignorance

Is there such a thing?

Is Sanders the Socialist morally culpable for being wrong? Or is he merely wrong? Perhaps he is neither. Perhaps he is mad. The mad do the same thing over and over again in the hope that next time it will be different.

Is it Evil to Hate?

If it is evil to hate, then it is evil to hate evil. Modus ponens or modus tollens?

Suicide

I cannot erase a truth by erasing the sentence that expresses it; can I erase my self by erasing the body that is its worldly vehicle and expression?

Filed under: Questions

Only One Race, the Human Race?

Will you also say that there is only one sex, the human sex? 

Do Our Ideals Make Hypocrites of Us?

Perhaps only unrealizable ideals do. But such 'ideals' are not ideals in the first place. Only that which is realizable by us counts as an ideal for us. Or so say I. This is a quick and dirty formulation of my Generalized Ought-Implies-Can principle.

Take celibacy. Can any healthy man in the full flood of his manhood adhere to it? St. Augustine in his Confessions somewhere remarks (I paraphrase from memory) that no man can get a grip on his concupiscence without divine assistance. 

So I note an ambiguity. 'Realizable by us' is ambiguous as between 'realizable by us without outside help' and 'realizable by us with or without outside help.'

Literal and Figurative

Suppose I am giving an argument while leading a hike. The guy directly behind me says, "I'm not following you." The sentence is ambiguous. In one sense -- call it the first -- it is plainly false; in the other sense -- call it the second -- it could be true. If the hiker behind me is not joking or lying, he is stating that he doesn't understand my argument, or see how the premises support the conclusion.

Obviously, we have here two different uses of 'follow.'

My question is: Is the second use literal or figurative?

Cast your vote for one of the four candidates below:

A. Both uses are literal.
B. Both uses are figurative.
C. The first is literal, the second is figurative.
D. The first is figurative, the second is literal.

(The same problem arises with respect to my use of 'see' above. Literal or figurative? If I see or don't see how a conclusion follows from premises, is that a literal or a figurative use of 'see'?)

See my Facebook page for the votes.

Is it Wrong to Doubt When the Evidence is Sufficient?

Some say it is wrong to believe on insufficient evidence.  Is it also wrong to doubt or even disbelieve when the evidence is sufficient?

Of 'Shit' and 'S**t,' Type and Token

How many words immediately below, two or one?

cat

cat.

Both answers are plausible, and indeed equally plausible; but they can't both be right. There can't be both two words and one word. The obvious way to solve the problem is by distinguishing between token and type. We say: there are two tokens of the same type. One type, two tokens. That's a good proximate solution but not, if I am right, a good ultimate one. But that's a long story for another time.

Some write 's**t' to avoid writing 'shit.' Aren't they two tokens of the same word type? How then can one token be offensive and the other not? Or one more offensive than the other?

Here is a dilemma for your delectation:

Either we have two tokens of the same type or we don't. If the former, then both are offensive, and nothing is gained in point of politeness by writing 's**t' instead of 'shit.'

If, on the other hand, the inscriptions are not two tokens of the same type, then 's**t' cannot substitute for 'shit' in a manner that conveys the same meaning that 'shit' conveys to the English speaker.

We seem to have sunk into some really deep shit/s**t!

(Crossposted at my FB page where I expect some discussion to erupt.)

More Grist for the Moral Mill

If you tell one lie, are you a liar? I should think not. A liar is one who habitually lies. Otherwise, we would all be liars and the term 'liar' would perish from lack of contrast.

If you have been seriously drunk a time or two, are you a drunkard? I should think not. A drunkard is one who habitually gets drunk. Otherwise we would damn near all be drunkards, and the term 'drunkard' would perish from lack of contrast.

This rumination is iterable across thief, lecher, glutton and other terms of moral disapprobation.

But if a man commits murder just one time, we call him a murderer and we feel justified in so doing. We would find it ridiculous were he to complain, "I shot man in Reno just to watch him die, but I am no murderer; a murderer is  one who regularly and habitually does the deed."

How about rape? Does one rape a rapist make?  I think we would say yes.

So what is the difference between murder and rape and the other cases? The gravity of the crimes would seem to be one factor and the relative rarity another.

More grist for the mill.

It is not easy to think clearly and deeply about moral questions. Few even try.

Does a woman have a right to do whatever she wants with her own body?

If I grant you that, will you grant me that the fetus growing within her is not her own body, but a separate body, a separate biological individual, a separate life?

Related: The Woman's Body Argument

Pretense and Aspiration

How much of pretense is in aspiration, and aspiration in pretense?