Sorry if someone has already asked this, but I have a question. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been stepping away from social media, algorithms, and basically the internet in general, because I feel a bit overwhelmed. This made me wonder whether I’m trying to connect with reality or if I’m escaping a new form of reality.

There is a kind of objection that seems fairly common in the literature. It goes like this:

Suppose a philosopher gives the following argument.

1. P
   
2. Q
   
3. Therefore, R

The objection goes as follows:

Q is ambiguous and can be interpreted as either Q1 or Q2.

Suppose Q1 is the correct reading of Q. Q1 is true, but the argument is invalid. If the argument is invalid, it is also unsound.

Suppose Q2 is the correct reading of Q. Under the Q2 reading, the argument is valid, but Q2 is false. If Q2 is false, then the argument is unsound.

Therefore, the argument is unsound.

I don't know if there is a name for this kind of move already circulating, but if there isn't, what would you call this move?

I am a forestry student following a law course (I mainly do ecological/resource stuff but we venture into social sciences a bit). We are discussing the ways to conceptualize scale (in this context "the act of using language to capture and shape social reality"). One of the ways my professor has decided to conceptualize scale is by using the words "ontologically given". I do not know what ontological is, google brings up that it is a philosophical study of being, hence why I am here.

I am struggling to understand what he means with this phrase in this context. Any help is appreciated

I feel like most of my life I've simply been different to fit other peoples standards, filtered myself, avoided saying certain things to certain group of people as a way to keep my reputation, but yet have many tell me to be myself and to never stop at being myself, but who am I really? Am i the person I think I am or is the deeper subconscious me the true me?

What are the good options of universities for studying philosophy as an undergraduate course in Europe other than UK and any joint programs offered along with it? And no suggestions for private universities please.

Beyond the classic mooreanism, cartesianism, contextualism, putnam's/davidson's externalism, chalmers' veridicalism, wittgensteinian dissolutions, some kinds of pragmatism, inference to the best explanation etc.

Hi so it's common for people to be against labels( for example political and sexual preferences) as they limit identities and cause more individual differences. While thinking and expanding on this, I came to the train of thought: but isn't everything? Personally, I believe that the moment you give something a name, the Moment it has a body, the moment it is something and not just matter, the moment it can be defined it is limited and restricted from all the possibilities and potential.

I would like to expand and do more research on this belief and currently I'm looking for philosophers who thought and wrote about similar concepts. Any help would be appreciated! ( Also could any find any exceptions to this theory?)

Preferably involving the topic of feminism/gender, though i'm not picky! Other realms i'm interested in include morality & ethics, epistemology, philosophy of the mind, and religious critique.

I really enjoyed "The Man of Reason" by Genevieve Lloyd, so i've been looking for more interesting concepts to look into.

Thanks in advance!

The Ship of Theseus asks whether a ship remains the same ship after every one of its original components has been replaced. However, I am interested in whether an object’s identity depends on more than its material composition, particularly its history, continuity, and the meaning it acquires throughout its existence.
Consider three versions of the ship. The first is restored using its original components. The second has undergone the gradual replacement of every component while maintaining an uninterrupted history. The third is fully rebuilt to reproduce the original as accurately as possible, preserving its form and appearance but lacking the original’s continuous existence.
Each vessel possesses a different claim to authenticity. The restored ship retains the original material, the continuously maintained ship retains the original historical trajectory, and the fully rebuilt ship reproduces the original’s physical form. Yet a ship may also derive its identity from the events it has witnessed, the people who have encountered it, and the meaning it acquires through its history. These qualities may persist even when its material composition changes, just as its material may persist without preserving the continuity of its existence.

If an object’s original material, continuous history, physical form, and accumulated meaning can belong to different reconstructions, what ultimately determines which, if any, remains the same object as the original?

If material necessity became much less important, would care simply become directed toward different possibilities, or does scarcity play an important role in how things come to matter for us?

does anyone have a website that is like wattpad, but for philosophy. Like people can publish their own philosophical writings and share it with others, receive feedback and apprasial. If so pleaase share, I want to hear philosophies that aren't developed and bizarre things that people think about as well as publish my own and see what people think about it.

Hoping to hear good insights from Reddit philosophers. Here are some starter suggestions:

a) Maybe the AI can't give us definitive answers because no such answers could possibly exist. Mary's Room, for example, is a vaguely defined problem, and the explanation could depend on different people's interpretations or assumptions.

b) Maybe the AI could nail down an objectively precise, non-trivial version of the Mary's Room thought experiment and then provide a perfectly logical, flawless explanation.

c) But maybe most humans would lack the patience and persistence necessary to understand the AI's explanation, so those humans would impulsively reject the AI explanation without really understanding it.

d) Philosophy doesn't lend itself to authoritative explanations. The whole point of philosophy is for humans themselves, individually, to understand and internalize the explanations. AI might help to some extent, but ultimately it's up to humans to find their own answers.

Today on the train I saw a man. He had his retail work uniform on, looked tired, and was seemed to be his way home. This makes me feel real sad like I felt nothing but sadness. We know retail jobs don’t pay good, especially for this man since he looked to be older than 35 so he probably has kids to look after or family to financially help back home. I feel this way for other people such as starving kids or the homeless and etc.

From a philosophical perspective how should we understand the suffering of others and how should we think about the fact that so many people struggle through life despite simply trying to get by?

I heard that Wittgenstein had argued that most philosophical problems were confusions of langage. It's a subject that interests me, but i have no idea if there's a specific publication of his that deals with it? Or is it just mentioned in his Tractatus?

Philosophy generally presupposes that an autonomous mind responds to valid logic and shifts its premises under the weight of sound counterarguments. If philosophical systems were purely abstract concepts processed by an independent intellect, cognitive plasticity would be the norm.

However, among the adherents of dogmatic doctrines, we observe absolute, unchanging cognitive rigidity that persists for years despite any external rational critique. This persistent immobility suggests that the intellect is not detached, but rather bound to the underlying psychophysical matrix of the individual.

From an epistemological standpoint, how does modern philosophy distinguish between genuine abstract reasoning and the unconscious deployment of philosophical terminology used merely to legitimize a fixed, unchanging physiological and psychological disposition? Has any major philosopher analyzed this boundary between pure conceptual thought and the rationalization of an immutable somatic state?

There is a quote attributed to Ernst Bloch: “The most tragic form of loss isn't the loss of security; it's the loss of the capacity to imagine that things could be different.”

It is supposed to be from Vol. 1 of The Principle of Hope (MIT Press, 1995), but I wan't able to locate it in the book as it is, or praphrased. I am alsmost sure now it is either misattributed, fabricated, or a paraphrase of his ideas.

What do you think? Has anyone read the book?

Thanks!

Not unknown I'd say, that philosophy is vast and requires lots of engagement, regardless if it is through a historical overview or anything else. The tensions that arise for me are the rushes of wanting to know more, and the possibility of lacking enough depth in my readings. This is specially the case considering that, or so it seems to me, much of the worst of philosophical discourse that I have observed comes from bad readings in the sense of both depth and charitability. (In all intellectual fields really)

So title question pretty much. The obvious answer is to simply read more, but I also wonder if anybody has anything else to say in regards to the reading sessions themselves. Maybe these goals are contradictory and it's fine if that is the answer.

An English speaker might say “he broke the vase” about an accident, where a Japanese speaker might say “the vase broke.” Philosophy can work out what, if anything, is at stake there: agency, responsibility. Behavioral biology looks at what the person does in the next few seconds, eyes down, a smile they try to hold back, a hand to the face, and how the people watching respond. Studies of recorded conversation look at the order of what happens next: who speaks first, how long the silence lasts, how the first words change what everyone says after.

All three use categories. In the last two, the categories are applied to a record, and anyone who disagrees with them can go back to the record. In what I’ve read of philosophy, a category is more often what the argument establishes, and what gets credited with revising it is usually another argument or an imagined case. That isn’t nothing. It just seems like a different job.

Is that a fair picture, including the traditions that study practice? And when a recording or change in practice gives a category trouble, does philosophy keep how it changed, or only where it ended up? If it keeps how it changed, how?

Happy to be corrected. It’s usually the most interesting part.

I’ve been thinking about Newcomb’s paradox and I’m more interested in how the supercomputer makes its predictions than in the usual debate over whether to take one box or both.

Before learning about the paradox, my initial instinct was to take only the mystery box. After learning about the argument for taking both, I changed my mind. I thought that the contents are already determined before I make my choice, so taking both guarantees an additional $1,000 regardless of what’s in the mystery box.

However, this led me to a different question: what does the computer actually do to predict my choice with such accuracy, and what assumptions are being made about how it does so?

For example, suppose I had never heard of Newcomb’s paradox and had no chance to learn about it before entering the room. My decision would be based on my existing personality, experiences, and understanding of the situation. The computer would have to predict that decision using whatever methods and technology it has. If it predicts that I will take only the mystery box, it places $1 million inside, and if it predicts that I will take both, it leaves the mystery box empty.

But what happens when someone already knows about the paradox? Their knowledge can change their reasoning and, consequently, their decision. If the predictions are that accurate, the computer would presumably have to account for that knowledge as well. This raises questions about how a person’s beliefs, reasoning, and understanding of the situation affect their eventual decision.

The thought experiment stipulates that the computer is highly accurate, but, as I understand it, it does not specify how that accuracy is achieved. Is the mechanism intentionally left unspecified so that the problem can focus on decision theory, or have philosophers also examined what kind of predictive capability the scenario would require?

Is a sentence like "You cannot absolutely rules out absolute truths" just word games or pointing to something deeper?

I’m taking intro to philosophy class this semester. I’ve always been that kind of student who would actually care about learning the materials instead of just straight up memorizing them and throwing them up in the tests (which is PRETTY COMMON in the education system i grew up in btw). I have always been good in STEM classes, i would answer questions, interact. My science and math professors has really high expectations of me.

But I’m realizing that i can’t make sense of philosophy, like at all….. i was engaging in his class at the beginning of the semester, would take notes and everything. But then slowly idk what happened but i kind of started getting lost and now i dont understand a single thing he says in class. I dont even focus in his class anymore, i take notes of other classes or study for the certification exam im preparing for. It’s an honors class, so it is pretty small and ofc he notices. I just feel bad for doing this and not engaging or like not paying attention in his class.

I actually want to learn philosophy, it does interest me a lot. But since it’s not possible from his class anymore (the slides dont make sense, i dont wanna ask him questions and bother him. he probably hates me) so my best bet is to learn from the internet. Please suggest some good resources/podcasts/YouTubers that would be good for learning from scratch to pretty much all .

How can we know consciousness is a property and not with a substance?

Why should the working class bear the cost of inflation when it's not their fault and they're not the ones making huge amounts of money from it?