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What is Nietzsche saying about Physics in Beyond Good and Evil?
There is some confusion in my philosophy class about Nietzsche's statements on physics in section 14 of Beyond Good and Evil. The specific portion in question is below, although as with all of Nietzsche, context matters:
It is perhaps just dawning…
commando
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Shouldn't statements be considered equivalent based on their meaning rather than truth tables?
Consider the following truth table, which serves to define the logical connective ⇔,
P | Q || P⇔Q
T | T || T
T | F || F
F | T || F
F | F || T
According to the above truth table, the logical connective ⇔ is defined as the binary operation which…
EthanAlvaree
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Who were Borges's main philosophical influences?
Having read a bit of Borges's poetry, I know that Borges read and admired Spinoza. Having listened to his Harvard lectures about poetry, I know that he had sort of passing acquaintance with some elements of Chinese philosophy. But something tells me…
magnetar
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Is it meaningful to distinguish between two possibilities which are observationally equivalent?
There are many questions in philosophy of the following kind:
Does my friend have a soul, or is my friend a zombie?
Is the mind separate from the body, or is it the same?
Where does the universe come from?
These questions have the property that,…
Ron Maimon
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Moral Duty and Happiness: Are Both Achievable?
I have studied a little Philosophy and done a lot of thinking about moral duty, individualism and communities. I have come to the belief that it is one person's duty to assist the community event at risk to himself. This doesn't include dying or…
IAE
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Is reductio ad absurdum a valid logical proof?
It strikes me that atheists often in the religion debate will try to characterize religion in a funny or silly way, often comparing religion to belief in fairies or unicorns or flying spaghetti monsters.
Is this a valid debating technique? Does…
Neil Meyer
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What are some good books on the philosophy of economics?
I'm a college student of physics, and I'm looking to expand my horizon in the field of philosophy of economics, so, what books would you recommend for newbies like me?
I was thinking in history of economics but related to philosophy and also include…
Albert o
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What are the "essential/core" texts any student of philosophy should have read?
I'm really interested in Philosophy and want to learn more, so I'd like to read the main bodies of work that have built up the discipline of Philosophy. The reason being that if I read a modern text that is discussing well established ideas and…
ianfuture
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What is nothing?
In Lawrence Krauss' book A Universe From Nothing he portrays "nothing" as a physical state. He says that nothing is found by removing all of what we know to be things (particles, electrons etc). I've found that in watching his debates a common…
William Perkins
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Has Hofstadter's concept of strange loop been given a more formal treatment (by him or anyone else) than "GEB" and "I am a strange loop"?
I find Hofstadter's concept of strange loop and how it explains consciousness to be very compelling.
However I find the writing style in "Goedel Escher and Bach" to be too distracting and "I am a strange loop" to be too gee-whiz pop-sciency. I'm…
Alexander S King
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How well did Aristotle feel his belief in the eternity of the universe was established?
In the Middle Ages, Aristotle's belief that the world was eternal posed a major theological challenge for the many people who held a religious belief in Creation. Moses Maimonides, in his Guide for the Perplexed, argued that Aristotle knew his…
Yirmeyahu
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Syllogism from Lewis Carroll
I was reading Code by Charles Petzold, and on page 86 he references a syllogism from Lewis Carroll:
All philosophers are logical;
An illogical man is always obstinate;
Therefore, some obstinate persons are not philosophers.
I formalized this…
russell11
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What are some good books on the relationship between animals and human beings?
So, there are a number of things I am actually after with this, but to try to encapsulate the concern briefly: which thinkers or writers might comment on the relationship between animals and human beings?
In particular, I am concerned about the…
Joseph Weissman
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How to approach or consider racist philosophers?
I encountered the Wikipedia article on scientific racism, which attests to some famous philosophers' racism (eg Kant, Voltaire), whose works I`ll read about while self-learning philosophy. Their turpitude appalls and repels me, but does this affect…
user8572
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What is Kant's argument about the relationship between logic and reason?
At Wikipedia, I read:
Logic arose (see below) from a concern with correctness of argumentation. Modern logicians usually wish to ensure that logic studies just those arguments that arise from appropriately general forms of inference. For example,…
Jon Ericson
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