I'm just wondering if anyone here is interested in philosophy. I was actually a philosophy major in college and also was a divinity student in grad school. I'm very rusty now, but still enjoy reading in philosophy. I've been getting back into linguistic philosophy as well as brushing up on logic again.

Any other amature philosophers out there? In a sense, anime is all about philosophical thinking and is one of the reasons I enjoy it so.

Hmm... I guess I am into philosphy even though I have never picked up a book or got educated on it. Yeah, anime really is philosophical. Also, the Matrix series is very philosophical. I am interested in philosophy and like to think I can understand basics and try to come to some conclusions on the matter.

The matrix was a great example of philosophy. An example of the classic brain in a vat problem. It's still quite possible that we are in fact hooked up to a supercomputer somewhere and have no real physical world out there. Does it matter? Can it be proved that we are not in a Matrix style world?

I've always found those to be interesting questions.

well, i intended to take AP Literature this year in high school, but my schedule ended up shafting me into AP Language. which is pretty much a lot of writing and a lot of philosophy reading and a lot of philosophy discussion. a lot of it's over my head, but it's really interesting. so far we've read some aristotle, plato, socrates, spinoza, leibnitz, descartes, hume, berkeley, russel...actually, pretty much all of the guys on the "philosophical powers" page in your sig. i saw that and started cracking up (hume's pants are the missing shade of blue!) and i sent it to some people in my class, and one of them ended up e-mailing the link to my Lang teacher. too bad they don't actually make those.

My favorite action figure is Ferocious Frege with morning star and evening star accessory .

It's all about philosophy of reference in language. It's obvious the two statements are different:

1. '2+2=4'
2. '2+2=2+2'

There was a question as to how these statements are in fact different.

LOL, LMAO... Oh, Sorry. I just thought I was crazy before, but now someone besides me actually thinks that that movie is plausible or even probable. I dared not to ask anyone if they agreed with me for fear of ridicule. I think it does matter. I wanna be free damn it. How do you explain DeJa Vu? or How sometimes people dream and then it happens exactly as it happens(does that count as de je vu?) Unless we are being fed information from a higher power? I think it can be proved.

I wondered if the wachowskis are freed humans from the machine world we all live in. They hacked into the Matrix(or whatever we are hooked up to) to try and save us. But they couldn't wake us up by telling us straight foreword because they would draw too much attention from the machines. So they created a movie (the Matrix) as a message and hoped, that even if just a few, some people would realize the truth. If you read the Animatrix thread, a lot of people didn't understand it. Many of the episodes are about ways to free your mind. If we are linked to a network, those would be the first things I would do to try to free myself.

Well; as you said, I'm just an "amature philosopher". I have studied philosphy for two years in the high school. I like to undestand the meaning of the existence in terms of the philosophy; my favourite part of this studies are the metaphysics studies as those that were done by Heidegger.

In classical literature, you have some who would say that the entire physical world is in the mind of God. In other words, we are just minds that have no actual interaction with the world, but that God interacts with us "tricking" us to believe that we are in a physical world.

George Berkeley was one who believed this stating that to be is to be perceived. In other words, in order for something to exist in the physical world, someone must be 'experiencing' it. Since no one can experience everything at all times, you then have God perceive everything. So the cause of Berkeley's death was divine neglect

Everyone thinks hell is a physical state of fire and torture... Hmmm, I disagree. I think it is a mental state where your greatest fears and anxieties happen in your consciousness. I mean, if you are a soul and leave your physical state, how would be tortured in that same way? Same goes for heaven I think but vice versa. Your heavenly rewards will be great. I kinda think God is just a mental mass. To be his thoughts. When we die and go to heaven or hell, we are not going to be placed somewhere else, we will be in the recesses of his mind, his memories. God writes everything you do and stone and won;t forget them, so he knows what your fears and pleasures are.

I love Philosophy. I willing read stuff by classic philosophers and am dubbed "crazy" by my friends because of it. Questioning life and virtue and many other things . . . I find those subjects quite fascinating.

arche, you could help me with my Philosophy course work. I would love that. I'm planning on taking Logic this semester, and don't really know what to expect.

I'm also crazy in that I read it for fun .

Anyway, logic is essential to doing proper philosophy. People don't often realize how technical philosophy is. 20th century philosophy has taken a linguistic turn, which requires an understanding of logic and ability to think more technically (although philosophy has always been pretty technical anyway).

Logic is basically the study of reasoning. It's a formal study that analyzes what makes arguments valid or invalid. The heart of classical logic are the basic "rules" of logic. These are in a sense self evident and if denied, cause a lot of problems with reasoning. From these, you move into formal and informal structures of propositions.

1. Snow is white or not white

#1 has the form p v ~p (v=or). This statement is always true in all possible worlds. So, any statement of the form p v ~p must always be true.

2. Snow is white and not white

#2 has the form p & ~p. This one is false in all possible worlds. So anything that takes this form must be false.

That's just a small sample of logic. At it's more advanced levels, logic gets into set theory and even into mathmatical logic. But, knowing the structure of arguments and basic logic is enough to understand philosophy properly.

i am pretty confused...but it sounds interesting lol

How would it be both white and not white? yeah... I'm in the same boat as Cloud

Ive been thinking alot about this stuff being that my ap earth science and my ap theology are right after eachother. None of you have really mentioned all of the scientifical evidence of evolution or anything along those lines. I too am also very much into philosophy and the way of thinking but none if it addresses science, like its almost scared of it. Its just so hard to believe in something and at the same time be watching and learning about the contradiction of it. I believe that if we are just a state of mind or in a fake world being projected by god, that we would be able to do the impossible just like in the matrx.

"snow is white and not white" is a false statement. It can't be true can it?

As far as science, theology and philosophy, there is a lot there. I won't get into it all, but I will say that science is based on philosophical interpretive theory. In other words, to come up with an empirical method used by science, one must determine what can and cannot be known and also whether that which is known can be interpreted properly.

You have to deal with these issues before you get into the mechanics of a scientific law/theory and whether it contradicts/conflicts with theology/philosophical outcome. Philosophy of Science is a very interesting field as it helps to humble scientific thought as science is not technically as "hard" as we'd all like to think. There's a lot of assumptions in the methodology there . But, many are willing to accept those assumptions because they work - or are pragmatic.

I'd get more into it, but I'm not up to it right now. One thing to note, however, is that a PhD is an abbreviation of Doctor of Philosophy. Therefore, when someone earns a PhD, they have studied their subject to the highest extent, philosophically . It is why philosophy has historically been the queen of the sciences along with theology.

hmm I actually live by a philosophy. and tend to do a lot of thinking about this stuff. *everyone else laughs*

that is very true and you made many strong points on the philosophical point and i totally agree, but i was going more for the theological point. How could we not truly be here but in some alternate state of being or as you have said in a state of nothingness being tricked by god to think we are in a physical world. Thats almost the same as the matrix theory except were not being harvested for heat or being controled by machines. If that is true then what if our purpose for existence. As Solomn once concluded all toil in under the sun. Even though that being proven as ambiguous statement because it has been said that solomn never expierienced "true love" it still throws up the thought there is no purpose for us here on earth. My ap theology teacher tries to tell us that god created us to give him praise and glory. What kind of God would submit his creations to such pain and suffering just so he could get his ego inflated. And thus I arrive back to the question that i always return to. What is our purpose. Then i take a glimps into the science relm at evolution. Maybe we just evolved. There was a small planet in space that had the right amount of chemicals to create living organisms that evolved into more and more advanced species. Thus us having no purpose what so ever. That is what goes on in my head and pretty much drives me crazy everyday.

most scientist agree that the point of the universe is to create an intelligent being that can talk about itself and its evolution. An observer, you might say.

But theres no reason for that. Why would the observer want that? Theres no real good or anything actually that could come out of that.

No idea, sometimes very athiestic theories have holes in them.
btw, have you ever heard of a wave form generator?

but arche whats your take on my response?

On a theological point, the purpose of life is to glorify God - Conservative Christian Theology. You are stumbling into the problem of evil, why would God create the world knowing that there would be evil.

To be honest, I don't usually poke around philosophy of religion too much, but I will say that there are a lot of possibilities here. One major option is that it doesn't matter what we think is good or evil, but whatever God considers good/evil matters. As the supreme being, God has the right to create us and not worry about our feelings. Since God does care about our feelings (evident in theological contexts if you believe that stuff ), God is merciful.

That's the depressing answer . In other words, whatever God wants goes because He's God and we're not.

To be honest, most issues about God end up becoming issues of theology rather than philosophy. Theology is concerned about the nature of God based on validating and following religious texts, customs and beliefs. Philosophy is more concerned with the nature of God based on reason itself (logical argumentation & empiricism).

I'd love to talk more detailed about this stuff, I'm just weak today - my daughter's driving me nuts and I'm trying to find some refuge (I know that's not very Hughesian, but I only aspire to be like him, I can't be Hughes:(). I'll try to do it more justice some other time. If you have questions about it or how other interpretations have been, I'd love to be forced to crack a book .

No, i think you've quenched my thirst for it enough today. This was my first actually philosophical discussion and i must say i came out of it with alot more questions and answers than i had thought. Thanks.

More questions than answers? Good . that's the way it goes.

I'm just not up to par on Philosophy of Religion. I've actually tried to avoid it for a while because of my frustrations with it and theology. My background is conservative Christian, but I'm by no means all that conservative anymore. I wish I could be, but there are too many problems I see that aren't reconciled or even attempted to be reconciled. Much of it has to do with how flaky theology can be. Theology often deals with cultural criticism and methods of applying ancient texts/rituals to modern times. It doesn't always follow decent reasoning and can sometimes resemble a bunch of long winded analysis of nothing - kinda like phenomenology & post modernism .

Yeah, i know what you mean, a couple of months ago i would start thinking about it and then just stop and try to stear clear of it because ignorance is bliss you know. I also was a conservative a while back but to many events have occured in which things aren't going to change for the better. And i totally agree with what you said about theology reasoning because currently where analyzing the gospel writers and interpreting what they mean by looking at the writers themsleves, who their audience was and what relegious backround they were. My theo teacher is making a couple good points and arguments but in the end im not learning anything at all. Its like we keep taking different paths but always ending up exactly where we started.

What's happening is you have a hermeneutical style that's being taught to you that may or may not be fully known by the teacher. It all depends on whether you're taking a very exegetical view of the text, but of course there's the application issue in that how does a 2000 year old text still apply today?

Considering the Gospels were written in Greek to begin with, you first have to get over the translation issue. Some translations are better than others. On top of that, you've got textual criticism. Some translations use different text groups than others, which may color the overall meaning of passages. Then there's also the chunking methods you use. Do you use everything within a larger context or can a verse on its own have meaning? Does meaning change over time? Do applications of meaning actually fit the meaning to begin with?

Many questions to deal with in interpretation work and that's just the surface .

to answer you questions in order

Yes, every passage can have its own meaning

No, from what im being taught, or even what makes sense to me, the meaning does not change over time.

And we never really have an application of meaning, it just seems to be the lesson before the test, there never seems to be a big picture behind the teachings.

But my theology teacher handles the translations very well, because he follows the translation from greek and in some cases roman.

But i see what you mean about interpretations, and he has even told my class that he disagrees with the textbook we're using and will teach us something different. But i dont really care what he teaches me as long as i pass the class with high marks, because i can always do my own research and come up with my own interpretations onb the subject.

You should take a look at a Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament sometime. Half of the page is Greek New Testament, the other half is the textual apparatus for textual criticism. Looking at that taught me how hard it is to really translate things and maintain a texts authority.

wow, i'm very interested in such things and in mathematical questions generally.. it's sooo weird some things and i'm always curious about learning something new about mathematics and the most trivial things with which mathematicians cope with^^



hmm.. i would say that both statements are right(plus! you can put both statements equal), but no. 1 is a statement of higher quality(if you know what to do with it). It may be clear that numbers(like 2 or 6) and operators(like + or -) which are defined by somebody can be stated equal by the sign = which means that something is equal to something and something is always equal to itself..
But you can only say that if you post a statement before, a so called axiom, which says that 1+1 is 2, calculations are true. And in the case of statement no. 2 you have to say that a(which is 2+2) is equal a(2+2 itself). And this thinking of humanity is correct i think, because our experience says that something is something itself. You could also define it otherwise if you want, but it's the most appealing statement of us to say that something is something itself.^^
BUT! You can also say that this statement no. 2 also means a+a=a+a. If you wouldn't know what this + means in this equation, you would say that a+a means a. But it is rational to say that a here is 2+2 because it has no meaning what is left or what is right because the operators and the numbers on both sides are the same and that always means that it's an equation!

In statement no. 1 another number(the 4) appears, which may be irritating for somebody who can only count until 2(in statement no. 2). You don't have to count until 3 to understand statement no. 2, but if you post the decimal system(i don't know if the decimal system counts as an axiom) as something which IS, you can understand this equation with help of the knowledge of the meaning of the operator +. With the number 4 in statement no. 1, you summarized and you shortened the form 2+2 in to one single number(4=2a). You could say that it's a secret script which everybody can understand[if you know the code for it(the operators)^^].
In statement no. 2 it's the same, but you can also understand this statement(that the left side is equal the right side) without the meaning of the operator, but in statement no. 1 at the first sight, you don't know if the left side (2+2 really is the same as the right side 4).



It's all about axioms. How do you know that this law exists in every world?



Answer me: Is the following statement right?
1. Everything which is matter has got no matter at the same time!

This one would be p & ~p as you said. Nobody ever would have believe that it could be two things(matter and no matter) at the same time(like snow couldn't be white and not white at the same time).
But for LIGHT this statement is TRUE!
It simply IS UNLOGICAL, but it IS TRUE!!!!!!!!
(That means that we only use and calculate in logics because it's more easier for us and not because it is THE truth)




Yes, i admire philosophy! *sigh

*moans* Ah, if only humanity would return to the times where the arts subjects(music, philosophy, logic, rhetorics, etc.) were celebrated in school!
But instead of this, subjects like Business seem to be more and more important.

It is "also" honorable to learn an art subject to "its highest extend"(what the todays most skilled philosophers(mathematicians, physicians, etc.) problems are).
Yes, philosophy is a very good subject which deals about life and the world and the sense of living itself which is of course honorable, but philosophers also spread doubts, which can also destroy the beliefs of people of any religion. But philosophers can also inspire the French Revolution for example, which is very positive.^^

As i already said: Light is matter and has at the same time no mass. Discovers like this physical discover automatically is ALSO philosophy, because it shows that logic does not always exist always and everywhere.

Physics gives the laws. Mathematics does the rest. Philosophy combines the results with the experience of humanity. But this all is only a very very very little piece of the truth..............

Ah Prinz Zoisit, I am so pleased with your response. I'll do my best to comment, but please forgive me if I misunderstand something. You've given me a lot to think about here .

Let's go back to those statements again:
1: 2+2=4
2: 2+2=2+2

I'm not capable of delving into the entire mathematical logic involved regarding all the symbols, but I wil discuss the problem of reference presented here. You show that the two statements are equal in one sense, but there is something else that makes the two statements different. I'm going to reduce the statements further, which you have mentioned a bit in your response.

1': a=b
2': a=a

I'm now showing that '2+2' is represented by 'a' and '4' is represented by 'b'. This allows us to look at any statement of the same structure. The 'a' could be the morning star and the 'b' could be the evening star (the two are actually the same item, but different names for it).

Statement 2' seems self evident and does not require any empirical evidence. A proposition 'a' is identical to proposition 'a'. It makes sense to say:

3: the morning star is the morning star

Now it is not necessarily evident that a statement of the structure shown in 1' is rationally knowable (known by virtue of it's syntactical structure). So there is some learning that takes place with statement 1' as opposed to statement 2'. Something must show that 'b' is in fact identical with 'a'.

So, the question becomse to what does 'b' refer? In the first example 'b' refers to '4', which is identical to '2+2' (assuming our basic understanding of decimal mathematics). On the other hand, the actual mark '4' is not identical with '2+2'. In other words, the scribble mark or sign of '4' is different than '2+2'. This means that the sign '4' may refer to something that has the same identity as '2+2' and vis versa.

In our second example, we have 'the morning star' and 'the evening star'. It is through empirical fact that we know the two stars are actually the same object with different names. So, when one says, 'the morning star' to what are they referring? If they are referring to the sign/symbol 'the morning star' then it is not identical with 'the evening star'.

There's so much more, but I feel I've bored you enough already . As you can see the only operator of importance is '=' once the statement is reduced. That operator is acting as 'identical to', which makes it interesting to say that 'a is identical to b'. The signs are not identical, but the nominatum (bedeutung using Frege's term) is the same.

Now to the concepts of 'p v ~p' and 'p & ~p'

In Classical logic there are three laws that are upheld. You can deny them if you want, but communication becomes even more difficult. The laws are:

The law of Identity: if any statemetn is true, then it is true
The law of contradiction: no statement can be both true and false
The law of excluded middle: any statement is either true or false

With these, we can begin studying the actual truth functions of the statemens of the form 'p v ~p'

p | ~p | p v ~p
T | F | T
F | T | T

Based on the law of contradiction, 'p' and its negation cannot both be true.
Based on the law of excluded middle, 'p' and its negation can only be true or false.

Again, all of this assumes the basic laws of logic. At any given point an assumption must be made/axiom. These can be challenged, but I personally don't want to challenge them as it would lead to more private reasoning, which means it would be very difficult to talk to one another.

1. Everything which is matter has got no matter at the same time

This is not a problem statement. The reference for the term 'matter' is not the same in both sides of the statement. In essense it is saying:

1' Everything is matter1 has got no matter2 at the same time.

There is a difference in what is being referred to with the term 'matter' on both sides, therefore it has a p & ~q sense rather than p & ~p. I don't have prepared the argument fully at this moment, but I can look up what I'm thinking about and post it a bit later. It's basically an issue with regards to the meaning of 'natural kind' terms. For instance, water was not always referred to as H2O.

There was a time when we didn't know it's atomic structure. Is there a difference between the water we refer to today than the water we referred to years ago? What if there was a substance XYZ that was called water and had all the same properties of water except the fact that it was chemically made of XYZ? If we ever become advanced enough to discover the difference, then there will be a difference in reference between the two. So, I would say that the meaning of 'matter' in the above statement is one that is not fully defined. Light itself is still a very unknown thing.

I'm sorry if this isn't very clear. I'm trying to tackle a lot in one post. I'll try to break it up later - perhaps after you find many flaws in what I've posted .

You mean that everybody who sees this equation sees the same sense("Sinn" after Frege), but different refererences("Bedeutung" after Frege).
2+2 has another "appearance" than 4, but they're still the same thing....very interesting^^
No, arche! You aren't boring at all!!



Do you mean that the following chemical reaction takes time always and everywhere where water is:
H2O <<<---> OH(-) + H(+)

If you mean that, it's another case than the light case...
If you say it's the fault of our lack of experience that lets you say that logic still exists, then you have to know everything in order to raise yourself over all things and happenings in the universe in the past, in the present and in the future. I think that we use logic, just because it's easier for us. Short, you believe in logic and it's "unbreakableness".

P.S.:
The Logical Proof of Non-Goatism

1. The proposition "Nothing is a Goat" is either true or not true.
2. If it is false, then it's opposite must be true.
3. The opposite of "nothing" is "everything", which give us the proposition "Everything is a Goat".*
4. Now, this statement is clearly false, for not everything you see is a goat. This means that it's opposite must be true.
5. Therefore, "Nothing is a Goat" must be a true statement.

.......but the statement "Nothing is a goat" is false as well as the statement "Everything is a goat".....
..it's so weird because with these general statements, you automatically deny any 0,5, 0,2 or 0,75, only 0 and 1.

please cancel this post, i posted it double, sorry.. Thanks^^

I'm glad I'm not boring or confusing you. Most people get confused and I have to tone it down a bit.

I liked reading up on Frege's Sinn und Bedeutung (I couldn't read it in German as my German stinks). Of course there are other issues with reference and whether reference can be made externally or internally. But it does show the significance of thinking about the difference between two statements that most would just pass off as simply equivalent (2+2=4; 2+2=2+2). There's more going on here.

Now, logic is basically an attempt to bring thinking into terms of validity and invalidity as well as understanding the best way to deal with an argument. To do this, logic uses variables to represent other terms. You've seen this and already understand that (p=snow). Now, a valid logical structure will exist regardless of the terms entered into the variables. So, when I say 'p v ~p' is always true, substituting any values for p should always work.

Of course an important point is that whatever is substituted is consistently substituted. This means that if 'p=snow' then '~p=not snow'. In each case, however, the term being used is the same 'snow'. What if the term is not used consistently?

1: Snow is white and Schnee is not white

Of course we all know Schnee is just german for snow, but if there wasn't a linguist available to answer that question, how you we symbolize this statement? Statement 1 would take the form 'p & ~q' on the surface. So, on its surface value it would not seem contradictory at all, but once we confirm that Schnee is just snow in another language, it can be reduced to the form 'p & ~p'.

The above example is very trivial and is only used to show that the actual meaning of a word changes its symbolic representation. Let's take the case of water. First we have H2O. We did not always know that water was composed of 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. There was a time when we would simply say 'pass the water' and not have any knowledge of this (500 years ago for instance). Even now when we say 'water' we don't really think of the chemestry, but we know it's there and if we had questions about whether something was water or not, we would look at the chemestry to prove it.

Let's suppose that there is a twin earth out there that has all characteristics of earth and a copy of everything on earth (including a copy of you and me). The only difference between this twin earth and earth is that the term 'water' is not actually made of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, but rather XYZ atoms. Everything else about water is the same on twin earth, so people drink it, bathe in it, etc...

Now let's say we visited twin earth and brough our 'water' with us. If we were to examine the two types of water, on the surface there wouldn't be any difference. If I asked you for a drink of 'water' you would not know whether I was referring to H2O or XYZ. Now let's say we discover the truth. That there is a difference chemically between the two types of water. If I were to say, 'this water is not water' would I be breaking the form 'p & ~p'? Of course not. I would be actually making a statement of the form 'p & ~q'.

Another distinction needs to be made before I can talk about your objection specifically. Take this statement made prior to knowing that there was a difference between Twin Earth water and Earth water.

2: This water is not water

On the surface, the statement would be of the form 'p & ~p' because both of us believe that the water is the same on twin earth and earth. Once we know that the water is different, the structure of the statement changes to 'p & ~q'.

Does this mean that logical structures change over time based on scientific evidence? I would say no. The logical structure of the statement is metaphysically 'p & ~q' regardless of our epistemological state. What it shows is that when we refer to something, we may not have the correct definition. This is why definitions and empirical exploration is so important. The truth value of the statement doesn't change, but rather our ability to symbolize the structure.

Now to your objection. When you say that light has the quality of matter and not matter obviously being contradictory, I would say that the term 'matter' is not being used identically. There are two different terms being used, which keeps the structure from being 'p & ~p', but rather a 'p & ~q'.

Goatism:

It's a funny argument isn't it? You can technically argue that Everything is anything you want using the argument. The problem is that it creates a false bifurcation. The problem is not expanding the statement into quantification I think.

1: Everything is a goat

Let's restate this as:

1': For every x, if x is a thing, then x is a goat
Symbolically:
(x)(Tx -> Gx)
Tx:x is a thing
Gx:x is a goat

The negation of this is not 'nothing is a goat', but rather

2: It is not the case that for every x, if x is a thing, then x is a goat
~((x)(Tx -> Gx))
Tx:x is a thing
Gx:x is a goat

Based on 2, you can argue that it is possible that something is a goat and something else isn't a goat.

So, the flaw is in the lack of examining the argument more logically. Negating a quantificational statement is not the same as ordinary language negation.

I hope I got that right - I am rusty on my predicate logic at times. Did I miss something? Please let me know.

wow, these last few posts have just blown my mind, the last thing i need after a long school day and even a longer wrestling practice. Im sorry, i was never really very good in math, but i could see that theres much philosophy hidden under these equations. But im not going to read these and pretend i fully understand them. I really dont understand it when you write p & ~p or 'p & ~q or anything along those lines. What are the p's and q's representing?

They're just representing propositions. Just like an algebra variable. Logic is just math for words . But it's the foundation of philosophy and must be at least basically understood to really get into the meat of philosophy.

The common variables are 'p' and 'q'. Just typical, you can use anything you want, 'a', 'b', 'c', etc...

The other parts are the syntactical connectives. Basically if you use a computer you are familiar with them (and, or, if/then, if and only if, equals (identical to), etc...). These are fundamental to any computer work as well as thinking in general.

Once you put all that together, you can use them to help create cogent arguments. Twentieth century philosophy spends a lot of time on linguistic analysis, so that's where the example statements come from. So, many of the same problems that have plagued philosophers over the years are now analyzed using linguistic tools.

Philosophy is a very technical field unlike what most people think. It is fun, but does require one to be able to think systematically and carefully.

Wow, I actually understand it. Now you have me very interested in it.

Awesome! I usually get the: confuzzled response when I get into it. I'm a bit rusty, so I'm sure there's more to explain/investigate regarding my own response to Zoisit.

Basically what I was noticing with your water and snow examples was that it's showing how human ignorance made the difference between 'p & ~p' and 'p & ~q'. Am I correct on that? Is that what you were explaining with those? Or am I off?
*asks too many questions for her own good*

You don't ask too many question Ailuro!

Anyway, the idea is that there is possibly a difference between what we know and what is (what is called metaphysically true verses epistemically true). We only know what we can through science, but science changes definitions constantly as it refines knowledge. In the end, however, there is a metaphysical truth that we are attempting to match.

It's actually a debated issue, but one way of looking at things.

I probably confused you more

Actually the opposite. That really cleared things up that I didn't understand enough. ^^

Hey, I've heard that reaction before. You're just trying to humor me so I'll shut up .

No, continue! I'm seriously interested. o_o

You guys are simply amazing. Do continue.

What do you like to read Quisitis? Any favorite philosophers/philosophical ideas?

I haven't read very much really (compared to you two, at least. ). I did read some Nietzsche and that was rather amusing. Also, existentialism and metaphysics.

Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialism & Human Emotions was what got me into philosophy. I'm not a fan of existential thinking but at the time I was full of angst and it really hit home .

The big thing about philosophy now is that there are the two main styles. There's the Analytic Style and the Continental Style. Typically the Analytic style is more well known in English speaking countries whereas Continental philosophy is, well continental.

The difference is in the use of logical analysis and linguistics. Analytic philosophers are really into linguistics and analyzing philosophical problems linguistically. Continental philosophers get into the phenomenological aspects of philosophy. Usually the two make fun of each other .

Just a brief contemporary philosophy lesson for you.

Oh, I see. Thank you very much!

*adds down Existentialism & Human Emotions to her wish list of books*

It's really small too and you can probably get it from a used book store for less than a $2.00.

You should read the Apology, Crito and Phaedo from Plato if you haven't already. It's a classic trio of texts that most people read starting off in philosophy. I don't think they're very long either, so again very quick 'break' reading.

I've read those 3 dialogues from Plato just a few months ago, actually. Can't remember most of what happened now. In class, we mainly just discussed the Apology.

I'm taking logic right now... I've been studying theology/ethics for 4 years already...