philosophy category
Is folk psychology just a ‘stagnant or degenerating research programme’?
29 July 2009The term ‘folk psychology’ refers to the habit human beings have of employing terms such as ‘belief’, ‘desire’, ‘want’, and similar, to explain action. For example, I may say of myself that I am undertaking a masters in philosophy as I believe it will bring me greater understanding or (perhaps foolishly) improve my career prospects, [...]
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“Once one distinguishes between different kinds of property rights, all theoretically significant incompatibility between self-ownership and equality vanishes.” Is this right?
17 June 2009The idea that I own myself is central to my conception of me as an autonomous actor in the world; I can make choices and decisions about my actions that nobody else is, or should be, allowed to make. However, some argue that a lack of restriction on my right to do what I will [...]
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When, if ever, is my concern for the interests of a future person self-interest?
8 May 2009The essence of the question at hand is, can I be said to exist over time? This question can be approached in two ways: the metaphysical approach concerns the truth of the statement ‘the me that exists now is the same me that existed in the past’, and the epistemological approach concerns how I can [...]
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Personhood: the mitigation of solipsistic anxiety
27 April 2009Kant said, and it still holds true today, that “it always remains a scandal of philosophy and universal human reason that the existence of things outside us… should have to be assumed merely on faith, and that if it occurs to anyone to doubt it, we should be unable to answer him with a satisfactory [...]
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Like invokes like?
19 March 2009When I’m in parts of the physical world that have been worked on little by human beings, I feel closer to the world in a metaphysical sense. That is, my detachment from the physical world seems somewhat reduced.
That is, the less subjects there are around, the greater clarity I have, and in these times I [...]
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