Philosophy Stack Exchange
Philosophy Stack Exchange

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1500 questions
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votes
14 answers

If I said I had $100 when asked, but I actually had $200, would I be lying by omission?

If you had $200 cash on you right now, and I asked you if you had $100 on you, would the correct answer be yes (always/no matter what other conditions there are), no (always/no matter what other conditions there are), or it depends on the…
Yukang Jiang
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5 answers

What is the difference between "not true" and "false"?

What is the difference, if any, between "not true" and "false"?
Heynow
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4 answers

What are the philosophical implications of Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem?

Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem states Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that…
Joseph Weissman
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5 answers

Does humanism's rejection of God necesitate relativism?

I had the following discussion on Programmers.SE: @Peter Turner, Which is a good example of how religion warps morality, leading people to imagine their concerns are moral when they are profoundly immoral. – TRiG @TRiG, Which is a good example of…
Peter Turner
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17 answers

How does mathematics work?

If I am given a parking lot with ten thousand cars and I want to determine whether one of the cars is orange, the only way I can do this is go through the parking lot examining each car until I find one that is orange or I examine each car and…
Craig Feinstein
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7 answers

Are Methodological Assumptions of StackExchange Fundamentally Flawed?

I looked here for an answer while writing a paper on evidence and scientific inference. I then saw the bold claims made by the website that the process goes as follows: Anybody can ask a question Anybody can answer The best answers are voted up and…
KKell
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16 answers

Is mathematics politically and culturally neutral?

Lately, there have been many people who say that mathematics itself is racist, that it is simply a creation of dead white Greek men. As a mathematician, I strongly disagree, and believe that mathematics transcends any particular culture or political…
user107952
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10 answers

What is the difference between Fact and Truth?

I'm curious about the difference between Fact and Truth. I was searching on the internet if I could find it. But still I'm confused about the exact meaning. I first read the forum discussion here Fact and Truth where an author has given two examples…
NullPointer
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10 answers

Isn't the notion that everything will occur in an infinite timeline an example of the gambler's fallacy?

I've seen a few different formulations of this, but the most famous is "monkeys on a typewriter" - that if you put a team of monkeys on a typewriter, given infinite time, they will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare, and indeed every text…
Lou
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16 answers

Was Robin Hood's point of view ethically sound?

The story of Robin Hood was a favourite of mine as a child. But as an adult, I am beginning to change my mind for a couple of reasons. The first being that if we assume a free market exists, regardless of how he redistributes wealth, a disparity…
Adam Ledger
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Is "I cannot imagine a mechanism for X to happen, so X can never happen" a named logical fallacy?

I have encountered this reasoning quite frequently: Somebody posits the hypothesis that an event X can happpen. A recent example I encountered was "vinegar and salt in the boiling water make eggs easier to peel afterwards", but I have seen many…
rumtscho
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15 answers

Why do some people care so much about "empirical truth"?

Whenever you discuss philosophy, inevitably you will come across a type of person who holds empirical truth above all else, and will blatantly ridicule any discussion which has its onset in a paradigm that emphasizes other aspects than just…
geowo
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19 answers

Is atheism just another form of dogma?

I was raised Catholic, and part of my motivation for leaving Catholicism was my dislike of any kind of enforced structure. However, to my surprise, it seems like Atheism is also dogmatic. Is this intentional? Is atheism supposed to be only…
user189728
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Why is scientism philosophically wrong?

I think a combination of science and philosophy alone leads to closer to truth. Why is it that it is wrong to think that science alone leads to truth? Isn't empirical truth the only one we can be sure about? If there is any absolute truth at all,…
BlowMaMind
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Where and how can I get started in contemporary philosophy?

We are living in an unprecedented era of philosophical research and development where "big thought" is once again everywhere. And yet I feel like I hear this question so often: Where to begin studying contemporary philosophy, where are the most…
Joseph Weissman
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