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Hi everyone, once again thank you for visiting my humble blog. Knowing that a handful of people read this is very helpful in inspiring me to write. Before I continue and discuss Kant I’d like to share with you an experience I had. Obviously, I have a natural affinity to philosophy generally but sometimes I […]
Read More Kant Vs LibertariansIs The Fundamental Level of Reality Divided into Mind and Body? Or Are Mind and Body Two Aspects of an Even More Fundamental Reality? The answer to this question is the key distinction between Descartes and Spinoza. Lets unpack the two positions: In the Dualist view (Descartes) anything that exists is either an extended […]
Read More Dueling with Dualism Part 1Rambling Intro (As Usual) Ok, out with the Descartes, and in with the Spinoza. I want to see if I can start to break down a little bit of Spinoza’s metaphysics a) to see if I understand it and b) to help satiate my readers’ voracious appetite for 17th Century metaphysics. As usual […]
Read More Meet SpinozaIt’s probably because there’s an exam next week, but quite a few students come in for my office hours for the logic class that I TA. For those of you who aren’t familiar with doing formal logic proofs they are mechanical, at least at the basic level. Think of it as math. You have […]
Read More How to Teach Formal Logic in TexasPreamble Lets do a quick and dirty summary of where we are so far in Kant’s argument regarding obligations to act morally when we know what the correct moral action is. When we left off Kant had made the case that some things are ends in themselves; in ordinary language we say that some […]
Read More Do I Have to Do What I Know Is Right? (Part 2)Intro Ramble: The Purpose of Philosophy in Morality It’s funny how things work sometimes. After making my last post–“What Philosophy Is and Isn’t”–I encountered the following passage in Kant regarding the role of philosophy (in ethics, anyway): It is here that she [i.e., philosophy] has to show her purity as the authoress of […]
Read More Do I Have to Do What I Know Is Right? (Part 1)This entry was prompted by a conversation I had with a good friend the other day. Out of the conversation it became quite evident that outside of my ivory tower the unwashed masses have a misconception of the very important world…nay…universe-changing work that philosophers do. I was actually surprised at how worked up I […]
Read More What the Crap Is Philosophy?p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } This is a short reflection I wrote for my Kant Seminar: p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } Kant argues that making false promises and committing suicide are both contrary to the Categorical Imperative because they are non-universalizable. To demonstrate both acts are immoral he employs to both acts an […]
Read More Is it Always Immoral to Commit Suicide?Kant on Lying Preamble Recall that in Kant’s moral philosophy acting morally is a matter of acting out of duty to the moral law. Let’s break that down. First, the moral law (AKA the Categorical Imperative) as I’m sure you all recall is “I ought never to act except in such a way that […]
Read More Is It Ever OK To Lie?This section of the sixth and final meditation is for me the most interesting and raises the most philosophical issues. I still remember when I first encountered it 12 years ago in my second philosophy class. Arguments For What My Senses Can and Can’t Tell Me About the World and Myself There is nothing […]
Read More What Can A Pain in Your Butt Teach You About Metaphysics?
Wrestling with Philosophy 