Search results

Premise 1 is this: What is in question is not whether circular arguments are generally valid (they aren't). It is whether one needs a non-circular argument (rather than no argument at all) for a proposition before being epistemically justified in believing that proposition. You address the...

I suppose the argument you are putting forward is this: P1: For any assumption, P, one is epistemically justified in believing P only if one has a non-circular argument that proves P. P2: We have no non-circular arguments for the assumptions {[I am sane], [My memories are accurate]...

The fancy word you're looking for is 'existential'.

Perhaps you could explain why you believe the bolded claim. I take it you want to appeal to the possibility of a manipulating Evil Demon, but it's not yet clear how.

To address you specific example: The argument many people would endorse is thus: P1. We have overriding reason to act morally. P2. There are some case where we do not have overriding reason to maximize happiness. C. Therefore, we wouldn't always be acting morally by maximizing...

I advise you to explain what you take the sceptical problem to be, and why it is a problem. For you seem to have a non-standard construal of 'the sceptical problem'.

Often, yes. If one is clear about the precise way one is using the term (as many are not) then it can be helpful. How do I know there are many different conceptions of free will? Because people have advanced different conception of free will in papers and books, and I have read some...

No. Yes. There are many different conceptions of free will. Some are incoherent. Some are not incoherent. At least one of the non-incoherent conceptions of free will is instantiated in our world. Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Aesthetics, Logic, Amongst others. There is no...

I've never actually read it. But philosophy would be in a pretty parlous state if the best introductory book were written sixty years ago. I'd suggest something more modern. Simon Blackburn's "Think" is an excellent example.

Not sure [maybe a set]. No. Yes. No. To explain further, there's not all that much that can be said about the statement 'Epistemology says we cannot know anything'. It's implies that the author has not read any actual epistemology. I know precisely zero epistemologists who are sceptics: it...

Neither statement corresponds to the facts.

Neither of these things are true.

So I take you to be saying two things here. Firstly, you want to defend your use of the word 'intellectualization'. Your defence is a little remarkable: you defend it by saying well nigh every tradition in political philosophy is an 'intellectualization'. Marxism, Liberalism, even any form of...

Well, in that case I look forward to your analysis of how it is that Robert Nozick's championship of right-libertarianism in the locus classicus in that field can be dismissed as motivated by 'pernicious self-serving interest'. It's not entirely clear to me what a successful philosophy professor...

Perhaps there are several different strands of contemporary libertarianism, and its a mistake to lump them all together and generalize about the succeeding lump.

Au contraire, you are too generous! I am not even contributing character assassination, for I am attacking your words, not your character. I am trying to prompt you into saying something useful by explaining that you have not yet met appropriate standards of discourse. But alas, it appears I...

This isn't really an argument. It is an extended repetition of you belief that 'for any choice to be free, we must have chosen every circumstance that lead you to make that choice.' And then, tacked on to that, is the question 'What place does free will have in a purely physical universe?'...

This is a rather interesting response. You make quite a lot of assumptions for someone who knows next to nothing about me. You assume the counter-point to Sam Harris's ethical and metaethical views I have in mind is Divine Command Theory. You say this is pathetic, and allude it indicates I...

I rather doubt that. One can condense a great many more complex thinkers than Sam Harris. My negative impression is possible -I venture- because I know about the subjects he chooses to discuss. I suppose one might consider this 'attempting the journey with preconceived notions' - well in that...

Perhaps you would be so kind as to give a short precis of the one hour, twenty minute long talk. I am rather unwilling to watch it, because whenever I have come into contact with the work of Sam Harris previously I have found it to express a shallow understanding of the issues and a lack of...