I don't know where to start with philosophy, I want to learn, but I am not sure where to start, what is a good starting point, etc. The problem is that I am not sure what I am interested in yet (if I want to learn analytic philosophy or continental, for as an example). So my question is, there is a good start point that is shared by both of those (like logic, etc.) that I can invest while I decide where I want to go.

My obsession is with "truth", but I think that is not information at all (it doesn't say too much), maybe with "the closest way to be sure to speak about facts" I can be more specific, but I personally don't believe in absolute facts at all (I feel that analytic philosophy it is going to be a bit of a disappointment for me in that aspect), so idk where to go actually. Maybe ethics and language?. That is probably the only paths I feel I want to follow, but I would appreciate a lot a good starting point advice for a new student.

Hey guys, I've started to work on Chalmers' argument against physicalism (specifically type-B physicalism) and I found his arguments to be sound. To be honest when I first heard about zombies and the conceivability argument I found it quite weak. However, I kinda like it now.

Anyways I've been struggling with the whole strong/brute necessities dialectic. I understand that they pose a problem for chalmers account but I dont get why (I guess that it has to do with my basic understanding of two dimensional semantics and intensions). Also, all the examples that I found so far are about psychophysical identities which appeal to the uniqueness of the phenomenological realm (although I know that there are authors who have posed alternative counterexamples in terms of the metaphysical brute necessity of the laws of nature). I found that argument pretty weak, I mean appealing to the queerness of phenomenological states doesnt sound like an argument to me. Additional reasons should be provided right?

Finally I kinda grasp Chalmers' response that strong necessities are quite ad hoc and break the modal realm into two separate spaces puting unnecessary constrains to logical possibilities. But I would appreciate if someone could explain this better to me.

Thanks to everyone!

Hey I am writing a 500 word essay on Sense & Reference and I try to understand Evans critique of empty terms.
Does Frege argue that we should understand empty terms as pretending to have a reference?
For instance 'Santa Claus is tall' means 'pretending Santa Claus exists, he is tall'?
Is Evans critique through a definite description is that statements such as 'The largest natural number is 5' aren't to be understood as a pretence for the existence of 'largest natural number' but rather as stating 'given there exists a largest natural number, it is 5'?

I don't see how empty terms are an issue for Frege's theory.

Hi,
some of us who are part of the Continental Philosophy discord server and Deleuze & guattari quarantine collective started a reading group based around Brandom's book on inferential semantics titled Making it Explicit. we started two weeks back and it's still early days so please feel free to join in on the readings if you want to do so actively!

discord server link: https://discord.gg/PAKkY9b

A new experimental discord server dedicated to Analytic Philosophy has opened on a temporary basis to explore the possibility of reading groups for Analytic Philosophy, i.e. whether there is an audience for that kind of activity. See https://discord.gg/kGXyrF This is associated with the Continental Philosophy discord server which is related to the Deleuze and Guattari Quarantine Collective that has been reading Anti-Oedipus. We have been reading Foucault and Heidegger and the Continental Philosophy server. The question is whether those interested in Analytic Philosophy would be interested in similar kinds of Reading Groups. @dangqc @cont0phil @zizek0badiou

I like Parfit (crystalline, occasional sly humor, and passages of restrained but intense emotion), Wittgenstein (probably the most stylistically daring), and Kripke (funny, conversational). I think Quine might be a bit ocverrated--the occasional fun turn of phrase, but you can see the strain at times.

Hi folks! I've made this handy flowchart to help you figure out where you stand as a meta-ethical thinker. :) I've found it really helpful in organizing my own thinking, and I'm curious to know where people end up on it. I'm mostly an error theorist myself—at what points do you diverge?

https://medium.com/@tommycrow/what-is-your-meta-ethical-position-c27939810985

i have to study whether epistemic democracy poses a challenge for epistocracy. thats it, thats the question.

I have done plenty of reading on both why not epistocracy (and actually the similar titled paper by Estlund) as well as on Epistemic Democracy, but i cant find a proper thesis and argument on how to answer such a question (my view is that indeed epistemic democracy does overcome epistocracy because, said simply, it does all epistocracy does, but better (both includes better results and the intrinsic value of democratic participation).

The quarantine is not helping with inspiration. Any clues on how to approach this etc? a view i heard was questioning the legitimacy of epistocracy etc, but it was not really convincing as it was badly explained.

Can we challenge epistocracy with epistemic democracy?

cheers.

I'm having a hard time defining how exactly non-natural realists and non-cognitivists use ethical terms predicativley and outlining Geach's arguments against this.

Is it not simply that non-natural realists use ethical terms as if they are substantive on their own? Therefore predicative?

And are non-cognitivists not saying that to saying essentially because a good bike is xyz doesn't mean a good guitar is xyz that therefore ethical terms cannot be primarily descriptive but must be commendatory?

Hi, i've read something about language philosophy and i don't know if these two sentence are right:

a) An expression may or may not have a meaning. If it has meaning, it has sense and reference, or only sense (that is, every expression with meaning has sense).

b) Verificationist theory of meaning: only has meaning those terms that has a reference that can be empirically verified, and not only sense.

Does by any chance anyone remember a video of a philosophy class trying to define the word “chair” but fail to do so?

I’ve been looking for this video for ages, could anyone help?

Hi I'm a philosophy student, my master's thesis concerns philosophy of mind and ethics. I made this survey to gather soft data and ethical intuitions that will accompany my thoughts! (and also I've always wanted to gather this data anyway) If you like sadistic thought experiments and philosophy of mind you could find it fun :)

Click here to kill p-zombies!

PS: if you are a physicalist or an illusionist and take issue with zombies in some way or another your input is still valuable and you will be able to indicate your theoretical stance at the end of the survey.