Philosophy Now Forum

On Mary's room The title given by Philosophy Now "Does Mary see colours differently outside her room?" is a strange formula. We can see something differently if e.g we were angry at someone, but now appreciate their motivation. Or perhaps if we saw something through a telescope, or even in...

Berkeley seems to have thought that people have imagined they can think of objects existing unperceived, by supposing they can abstract the idea of existence from perceived existences and then supposing they can apply this abstract idea to existences that thus exist, but unperceived. "For can t...

It seems to me that according to the linked item Holder over complicated things. The linked commentary, in the second post here, says his position is not clear, but suggestive. I suppose, in contrast I may be over simplifying. But anyway: This idea of the premises including whatever is agreed to be ...

objectives; 1) To understand how the contents of a situation could bring about what occurs 2) To produce successful predictions of what will happen 3) To find axioms that are certain from which everything else must follow All these three seem distinct although pursuing 2) might incidentally result i...

Archimedes had also to realise that a heavier substance will have less volume for the same weight as a lighter substance. Consequently he could tell if the crown was made from a heavy substance, gold, or something else if he knew how much it weighed and what its volume was. So he needed a way of mea...

Archimedes famously said Eureka! We all know that, and we might also remember that his exclamation came when he was stepping into a bath and realised that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. Here is an example of cause and effect that i...

But what about evolution through natural selection? This has to go on for hundreds of millions of years before there were any humans. And it is supposed to have produced humans and human understanding. To suppose it depends on human understanding gets things the wrong way round. If it did depend on ...

Why, in trying to understand things do you have to describe them? For instance, you might instead notice what you notice and, by making comparisons, try to avoid drawing conclusions beyond it as the situation develops. This is not 'describing it' unless, by noticing there are other possible ways of ...

David Hume had already argued against our having any idea of time in his Treatise. E.g. Selby-Bigge page 65; ‘But if you cannot point out any such impression, you may be certain you are mistaken, when you imagine you have any such idea .’ (italics in original) –There is no impression of time, so we ...