HT: Ryft @ The Aristophrenium
Tags: Demographics, Islam, Muslim
July 8, 2010
0
Introducing… Analytic Theism
By Gil S in Internet, NewsNo philosopher is complete without someone to challenge their beliefs. This is why we are introducing Analytic Theism, a forum for discussing each other’s views in an open format. Now you’ll be able to replicate what ancient philosophers did in ancient greece but unlike before, you can meet people with different and unique ideas from all over the world. The forum is currently in its early stages so we’d appreciate it if you could sign up and tell your friends about it. All we require is that you follow the rules and respect the other members.
We look forward to seeing you there! If you decide not to join, there will be dire consequences.
Tags: Analytic Theism
July 6, 2010
0
Possible Worlds for Dummies
By Tim H. in Philosophy[Redated post]
Philosophers use the words possible, impossible, necessary, actual, and contingent very differently as opposed to how they are used in popular circles. In philosophy, these terms are referred to as modalities and are understood in terms of possible worlds.
A possible world is simply a way things could have been. They’re a fictional heuristic tool used by philosophers to analyze modal notions.1 It’s important to keep in mind that possible worlds semantics have nothing to do with multiverse theory — the two are completely different. Whereas multiverses exist in the actual world, possible worlds do not.
For dummies!
The possible world in which we live in is the actual world, whereas a world in which the proposition “John McCain is the 44th President of the United States” is true is a possible world. Possible worlds can range from being almost completely similar to the actual world, or they can be worlds which are almost completely dissimilar. For example, there exists a possible world in which planets are triangular and have orbiting teapots as moons; and Bertrand Russell is orbiting the sun. There are two important distinctions within modality: de dicto and de re. De dicto (of the proposition) modality applies to propositions, whereas de re (of the thing) modality applies to entities.
A proposition is necessarily true if and only if it is true in all possible worlds. That is, there are no circumstances under which it can be false. An example of a necessarily true proposition is “5+5=10.” There exists no state of affairs in which 5+5 can equal anything other than 10. By contrast, a proposition such as “A bachelor is married” is necessarily false (or impossible) if and only if it is false in every possible world. In between these two, a proposition is contingently true if and only if it is true in some possible worlds. ”There exist bears in Yosemite National Park” is an example of a contingently true proposition.
Similar to de dicto modality, a being is necessary if and only if it exists in all possible worlds. God, for example, must exist in all possible worlds by virtue of being a maximally great being. A married bachelor, however, exists in no possible world by virtue of being self-contradictory and hence is necessarily non-existent. Finally, bears are contingent beings because they exist on some possible worlds.
It’s important to note the difference between de dicto and de re modality. Let’s say that I am going to bed at 10′o clock. In this case, the de dicto proposition “The time in which I go to bed is necessarily even” is true. However, the de re version of this proposition (“Necessarily, the time in which I will go to bed is even”) is patently false. The differences can be summed up this way:
De dicto: X is necessarily Y
De re: Necessarily, X is Y
There are of course many other nuances, but I hope this will suffice for a brief introduction to possible worlds.
- Some philosophers, David Lewis being one notable example, believe possible worlds to actually exist [↩]
Tags: Modal logic, possible worlds
July 4, 2010
1
What’s Great About America
By Tim H. in Culture, NewsHappy Fourth of July! In celebration of our 234th birthday, here’s a documentary that just aired last night on what makes America so great, featuring John Stossel and Dinesh D’Souza. Our free market economy, our military (Believe it or not), our generosity, and the freedom guaranteed under our Constitution (You’ll be hard pressed to find the same level of freedom in other countries) are just several of these things.
Part II | III | IV | V | VI| VII
Tags: America
July 3, 2010
7
An Objection to Thomson’s Violinist
By Tim H. in Bioethics, Philosophy(HT: Midas Vuik). Sharon Elizabeth Berry, a Havard graduate student in philosophy, has written a short essay which argues that it would in fact be immoral to withhold life-support from the violinist in Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous paper. The violinist thought experiment, for those who are unaware, is considered to be one of the key arguments for the pro-choice position.
Consider the following case: You are making a solo trip across the Atlantic in your yacht, and halfway there you hear the muffledsounds of a person coming out of a coma. It turns out that this person was conked on the head and tossed into your boat by gangsters, the day you left port. Now your engine breaks so it will take 9 months for you to get back. You have enough food stored to either feed yourself in comfort for 9 moths [sic] or to barely keep both you and the involuntary-stow-away alive. Are you morally obliged to share your food with the involuntary stow away?
Intuitively (and perhaps legally) you are. It would not be morally permissible to let the person accidentally trapped on your yacht starve to death rather than share your food with them. But how does this case di ffer from the violinist example? The amount of sacri ce required, the fact that you are blameless in creating the situation of dependence, the fact that the space and resources which the person requires belong to you (you bought the food, and the yacht) are all the same.
Perhaps something of importance turns on the fact that the violinist needs ’access to’ your body whereas the involuntary-stow-away merely needs access to your possessions? Firstly, giving this answer requires us to draw a distinction between needing use your body to save someone (if we suppose the stow away is weak enough that you need to use your body to e.g. carry your food over to them or get it down from a tall shelf this does not change most people’s moral intuitions) as opposed to a suffering person needing ‘access to’ your body in some richer sense which applies to the violinist. It’s not clear that this can be done in a principled way.
Secondly, even if can suitably specify the kind of relationship the violinist needs to be in to your body, this doesn’t seem sufficient to drive the intuition that it’s permissible to refuse aid. For example, the violinist needs to cling onto your body for a certain period of time, but intuitively if this isn’t sufficient to make it permissible to refuse aid. For example, if you are naturally buoyant person in a shipwreck and a small person will drown if they don’t cling onto your shoulder for an hour you obliged to let them.
Well, perhaps there’s some morally significant distinction between the inside and the outside of one’s body – so that what prevents you from being obliged is that the violinist would need to use your blood (i.e. have access to the inside of your body)? But, if we suppose that you had to stay in bed back to back with a stranger for 9 months anyway for reasons of your own health, it doesn’t seem like it would be permissible to refuse to let the violinist take this role and plug into your circulatory system as well. If this is the right verdict about the yacht case, and there is no morally relevant difference between this case and that of the violinist we must conclude that Thompson is wrong, and it is not permissible to unplug the violinist.
Tags: Abortion, Pro-choice, pro-life, thomson, violinist
