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Can Socrates Make You a Better Person?

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Can I become a better person by being subjected to the Socratic Elenchus? Becoming a better person has been an important subject for millennia in religion, philosophy, and the modern self-help industry. Techniques range from being beaten for doing bad things, to debates, to listening to hypnotic tapes while you sleep. Elenchus, commonly referred to as Socratic dialogue, is widely known as helping in the learning process. Does this technique also lead to improvements as a person? The context that Socratic dialogue is applied in is important. For instance, you can involuntarily be subjected to questions by police in an interrogation room, or by lawyers in a courtroom. It’s unlikely that such an involuntary dialogue will lead to personal insights or revelations that will help you to improve as a person. However, there are other contexts where the opposite may be true. In an environment where the other person truly has goodwill toward you and where there are no goals other than that of tru

Hume's Theory of the Self

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Did Hume succeed in explaining how it is that we come to believe in the existence of a self of which we have no idea? David Hume’s generally perceived conception of the self is disturbing to many people, in that it is thought that he proposed that there is no self. And, this does seem to be true for part of his career, that he proposed the self as being a collection of separate and not necessarily related impressions and ideas that is only held together by imagination. However, it’s an idea that he struggled with, and we can see why when we look at how he arrived at that temporary conclusion. Hume noted that the only things that we have direct awareness of are our own mental notions of the world. But, it is only natural and true to think that these mental notions are of something external to the mind in existence. Ideas are mental conceptions that we hold purely internally, impressions have a stronger quality and are generated from perceptions of this external world and are what allow

Berkeley's Argument for the Existence of God

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Explain and assess the arguments that Berkeley used to demonstrate the existence of God. The existence or non-existence of God or gods is a topic that has generated an immense amount of debate over millennia. George Berkeley’s arguments are unique and quite different than the scholastics such as Thomas Aquinas who worked from an Aristotelian base. Berkeley takes a much different approach. His entire work seems to be building to the proof of the necessity of God. To arrange this overall argument he begins with conceptions about the nature of existence.  When we interact with something in the world we assume it to be in the world. But, the only way that we can know this is through our perception of the thing. For instance, if someone asks me if a shnuck exists, I don’t know. If they ask me if I like it, I have no idea. If they ask me what kind of shnuck I like, I have no idea. If they ask me if shnucks should or should not be eaten, I have no idea. I have never heard of such a thing and

Internal Moral Sanction

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Explain and assess Mill’s account of conscience as the ultimate internal sanction of all morality. John Stuart Mill was an intellectual prodigy that grew in the shadow of James Mill and Jeremy Bentham. He took their ideas about Utilitarianism and made them more accessible to the public, as well as strengthening the arguments to support the philosophy by addressing difficulties and subtleties that their concepts encountered. One objection is what ultimate sanction the morality of utility rests upon. Mill points out that this is an inquiry that is applicable to all accounts of morality. The conclusions that Mill draws from the Utilitarianism maxim of the greatest happiness for the greatest number are things people usually agree with, such as to not steal even when you can get away with it, but he points out that people both do not know what the foundation of such moral imperatives is, nor are they often open to the idea put forth by utility, but they are unsure as to why. The layperson o

Justice and Social Harmony

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Explain and assess Socrates’ claim in Plato’s Republic that justice is a kind of social harmony. Justice and morality have been discussed, debated, and contemplated by the greatest philosophers in history. Three generations of Greek thinkers are often considered the foundation of philosophical thinking: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Each confronted the problem of explaining, justifying, and understanding justice. I will examine the fount of much of the debate around this topic over the past couple thousand years by seeking to understand Socrates' account of justice as social harmony. In Plato's work "The Republic" Socrates begins the discussion with others in his normal way, a dialogue where he asks questions seeking to understand what people mean by what they say. In that way he draws out clearer definitions, and often finds contradictions and other difficulties in the thinker's process leading to their conclusions. This can be frustrating not only for the peop

The Driving and Guiding Forces of Morality

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'According to Hume, reason alone does not move us to act, though our moral opinions do, and he rightly infers from this that reason cannot be the source of our moral opinions.' Discuss. Hume rightly points out that the human capacity for reason is a powerful faculty. We can compare and contrast ideas from things that are similar, to things that do not seem so at first glance. The term relational frame theory wouldn't come about in psychology until hundreds of years after Hume, but it points out the power of this human ability. For instance, how are a pig and a chair related? Most people's first reaction is that they aren't, but then if they think about it for two seconds they come up with something. Such as, both of them have four legs. As the mind starts to turn the possibilities become immense and you begin to realize that the chair manufacturer probably eats pork, the pork company's accountant sits in a chair, a wooden chair had a life as a tree that ended an

Kantian Notions

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'Critically discuss the connection that Kant makes between morality and freedom.' Kant's views on morality and freedom are complex and difficult to understand. One of the primary distinctions that he makes in morality is between hypothetical imperatives and categorical imperatives. A hypothetical imperative has an end connected with a causal means. Essentially it's an if/then statement. For instance, if you want to get stronger then exercise. A categorical imperative is a moral law with no end. For instance, exercise. Given such a moral command you may ask, "Why?" Kant says that there is no answer to that. All rational beings in the universe have universal intuitions about a grand moral law. True freedom is making decisions according to this moral law. If you choose to go against this law then it's neither moral nor is it a free decision. This law is made by rational moral agents freely choosing moral actions that write the law that you must intuitively fo

Defining Truth

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Is there any more to the concept of truth than what is captured by Tarski’s TSchema: ‘s’ is true if and only if p, where ‘“s’” is a name of the sentence in the object language that is translated by ‘p’ in the metalanguage? The concept of truth can appear to be simple at first glance. The normal idea of truth is that which actually exists as it does in reality. That what is said is also the way things are. This intuitive idea of truth is called correspondence, in that the proposition corresponds with actual reality. One of the best versions of this idea is the T-schema from Alfred Tarski. I'll offer a few objections to this theory of truth, along with responses. An often used way to express the T-schema is: "Snow is white" is true if and only if snow is white. The same principle can be written as: "s" is true iff p. The simple structure of this formulation is deceptively complex in addressing the issue of truth. The most noticeable thing about the T-schema is tha

Does Sherlock Holmes Exist?

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Can John admire Sherlock Holmes, even though Sherlock Holmes does not exist? To ask the question "Can John admire Sherlock Holmes, even though Sherlock Holmes does not exist?" is to ask a question that requires answers at two interrelated levels. One is the nature and definition of "exist", the other is interaction and reaction to different types of existents. Starting from the position of everyday experience it's easy to see that people do have emotional reactions to fictional characters. All people do this by reading or listening to stories, watching movies, playing video games, seeing plays, etc. We therefore know that there is both a phenomenological experience and reaction to fictional characters. The deeper question pertains to the nature of an object that does not "exist". If we ask "Does Sherlock Holmes exist?" we get two answers, both yes and no. If we want to obtain the birth record or the government ID of Sherlock Holmes we will no

Jack and Jill Search for a Referent

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P. F. Strawson criticises Russell's theory of descriptions both in cases of too few and too many referents. What are his reasons, and is he right? Russell's theory of descriptions is part of his effort to take mathematical principles and apply them to language. Strawson makes the case that math is a limited language, and therefore cannot contain something greater than itself, such as ordinary language. Let's play a game with chairs. Jack and Jill are standing in a room. Jack says to Jill, "The chair has a book on it." Jill looks around, scrunches up her face, and replies "Umm, what are you talking about?" For when she looks around she sees no chair. Russell would say that Jack's statement "The chair has a book on it." is false, because there is no chair. Strawson would say that the statement is neither true nor false, because there is no chair. There are two things happening in this statement. There is a subject that is being identified, th

The Ordinary World of the Sorites Paradox

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What is the sorites paradox? Is there any satisfying way to resolve it? There is a difference between things being general, ambiguous, and vague. If I say "Cats are cute." I'm talking about all cats, or more reasonably most cats. It's a general statement. The class of objects known as cats usually has the quality of being cute from my perspective. If I say "Your cat is cute." and you have five cats, then you're probably not sure which one I'm talking about. My statement is ambiguous. The concept of vagueness is different than either of these. Where is the dividing line between tall and short? When does the spectrum running from red to pink change from red to pink? When you're crossing a threshold, when are you in? The original sorites paradox is about a heap of sand. You have a heap of sand. You remove one grain. You still have a heap of sand. You remove another grain, you still have a heap of sand. Eventually you have only one grain of sand left

Five Aspects of Knowledge

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Critically assess the claim that one knows that it is raining if and only if one has a true and justified belief that it is raining. Let's say that a claim is made: one knows that it is raining if and only if one has a true and justified belief that it is raining. The obvious thing to analyze in this claim is the tripartite definition of truth. There are two relevant additions to this. Thus, we will look at five aspects of this specific claim: belief, truth, justification, memory, and communication. First, belief. This can be treated in a fairly simple way. If a person thinks, for any reason, that it is raining, then that is their belief. Notice that the claim is in the present tense, excluding both the past tense that it did rain and the future tense that it will rain. The belief could have been arrived at through a variety of methods. Maybe they are currently standing in the rain, maybe they just walked in from the rain, a co-worker told them it's raining, the weather is repo

True Enough to Act Upon

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Since the expression ‘know’ is context-sensitive, someone’s claim to know something can be true in the context of ordinary talk and false in the context of a discussion of scepticism. Discuss. The ability to be skeptical is a powerful potentiality of the human mind. Throughout history there has been an ongoing struggle between the presentation of proof, evidence, and justification for beliefs, and the denial of the foundations of those beliefs. In an academic setting these are important things to study and investigate. Outside of the academic setting we see the resulting effects upon people's perspectives and behaviors with real consequences. Doubt and skepticism offer learning potential, in that we may further inspect the supports of our ideas. For instance, if we take a simple notion like "grass is green" there are a series of levels of which we may be skeptical. There's the definition of grass. Where's the dividing line between a grass, or a grain, or another t

Knowledge is Belief that Works

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If knowledge is not justified true belief, is it justified true belief that meets also some further condition? Justified true belief is a claim about what knowledge is. The idea is that knowledge is an intersection of three things: a person with a belief, a belief that is true, and a justifiable reason for the belief. For instance, I can say that my cat Jack is in the living room. I believe that Jack is in the living room, he is actually in the living room, and I believe that because I just saw him there a moment ago. There are various problems with this definition. A person could have a belief, that belief could be true, and they could have a reason for believing it, and yet the reason may be false, even if it may appear to justify it. Do they then not have knowledge? Many people would say that they do not. Others claim that they do. There are two common approaches to trying to solve this problem. One is to add a fourth thing to the three parts that knowledge has been reduced down to.

Proposition of Belief

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Is saying "I believe that p" just an alternative way of saying "p"? Let's say that two people are having a conversation. Jack points at a painting on the wall and says, "That painting is twelve inches tall." Jill looks at the painting and squints, looks at Jack with a smile, and says, "It's eleven inches." with a small twang of superiority in her voice. In both of these propositions a belief is implied. Jack believes that the painting is twelve inches tall. Jill believes that the painting is eleven inches tall. Neither needed to say that they were expressing their belief, they made declarative statements about the external world. And both of their statements were purely that, declarative statements about the external world. Here's another way that conversation could go. Jack points at a painting on the wall and says, "I believe that painting is twelve inches tall." Jill looks at the painting and squints, looks at Jack with a

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