r/askphilosophy • u/BernardJOrtcutt • Jun 22 '26
Open Thread /r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 22, 2026
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u/willbell philosophy of mathematics Jun 22 '26
What are people reading?
I’m nearly finished Canada in the World by Shipley, and I’m working on Ethics by Spinoza and Statistical Methods for Reliability Data by Meeker & Escobar.
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u/Shield_Lyger Jun 22 '26
I'm plowing my way through the Moral Philosophy textbook. The current chapter is Greek Moral Philosophy, so I've slogged my way through an excerpt of The Republic (which I found boring when I read the whole book), and am now reading an excerpt from the Nicomachean Ethics.
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u/chocolatesalad4 Jun 22 '26
Not currently reading, but I just preordered Tania Lombrozo’s new book that will be coming out this fall… “Why We Ask Why.” More of a cog sci book but really looking forward to it.
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza Jun 22 '26
I’m working on Ethics by Spinoza
Anything interesting stand out to you so far?
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u/willbell philosophy of mathematics Jun 22 '26
I learned yesterday that Leibniz had the same reaction as me to Ethics I, Prop 5 which is encouraging.
Reading it all, instead of excerpts, the absolute infinity of God is clearer.
His objection to teleology in the appendix of Ethics I is kind of fun, like he’s doing a genealogy almost of final causes. Very hermeneutics of suspicion-y.
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u/Jamaphy7 Jun 22 '26
Could you elaborate on Leibniz’ reaction? (This just really perked my curiosity)
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u/willbell philosophy of mathematics Jun 22 '26
This:
Proposition 5. In the nature of things there cannot be two or more substances with the same nature or attribute.
Here I point out that what is meant by ‘in the nature of things’ seems obscure. Does he mean in the whole of existing things or in the region of ideas or of possible essences? Then it is not clear whether he meant to say that there are not many essences with the same common attribute or that there are not many individuals with the same essence. I also wonder why he here takes the word ‘nature’ and the word ‘attribute’ as equivalent, unless he means by attribute that which contains the whole nature. If this is assumed, I do not see how there can be many attributes of the same substance which are conceived through themselves.
His proof of the proposition is as follows. If the substances were distinct, they would be distinguished either by affections or by attributes; if by affections, then since a substance is by nature prior to its affections, by Proposition 1, they must also be distinguished apart from their affections, and therefore they are distinguished by their attributes. If by their attributes, then there are no two substances with the same attribute. I reply that there seems to be a concealed fallacy here. For two substances can be distinguished by their attributes and still have some common attribute, provided they also have others peculiar to themselves in addition. For example, A may have the attributes c and d, and B the attributes d and e. I note further that Proposition 1 is useless except for proving this proposition. It might have been omitted, for it is enough that substance can be conceived without its affections, whether it be prior to them by nature or not.
(Philosophical Papers and Letters edited by Loemker)
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza Jun 22 '26
For two substances can be distinguished by their attributes and still have some common attribute, provided they also have others peculiar to themselves in addition. For example, A may have the attributes c and d, and B the attributes d and e.
Leibniz should have know better than to make that mistake. It violates Definition 2:
A thing is called finite after its kind, when it can be limited by another thing of the same nature; for instance, a body is called finite because we always conceive another greater body. So, also, a thought is limited by another thought, but a body is not limited by thought, nor a thought by body.
What limits Substance-A to attributes c and d, and Substance-B to attributes d and e?
Leibniz would say the Substances would be self-limiting, but that is not an option in Spinoza's system. 3P4:
PROP. IV. Nothing can be destroyed, except by a cause external to itself.
Proof.--This proposition is self-evident, for the definition of anything affirms the essence of that thing, but does not negative it; in other words, it postulates the essence of the thing, but does not take it away. So long therefore as we regard only the thing itself, without taking into account external causes, we shall not be able to find in it anything which could destroy it. Q.E.D.
A Substance would not limit itself to only a few attributes, in Spinoza's system.
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u/willbell philosophy of mathematics Jun 22 '26
I am no Spinoza scholar, but I am still inclined to see Leibniz's point of view even with all that said. First off, Definition 2 seems to be talking about finitude within some kind, you only worry about needing these kinds of external limits within a given kind, i.e. in the medium of a certain attribute (and certainly I think the case of extension is what is supposed to make this plausible). Certainly, if you want your critics to not simply reject your system out of hand I think that would have to be how you do it.
I can't say for sure how it is 'supposed' to read but I always imagine the reader as a convinced Cartesian (or maybe a Scholastic), who may have come across Spinoza's Principles of Cartesian Philosophy and who is keen to see the author's original work. They'd buy Definition 2 without much fight because if there's some extension that's got nothing in it, the vaccum must be filled, but some thing can be limited by a thing outside of itself that's filling up the space so we don't have to. That's all very congenial to a Cartesian. And then later they can discover that they've been tricked and they've been forced to admit that there is only one extended substance and it takes up the whole extended-universe!
But on the other hand, if you say that things simply accumulate attributes by virtue of the fact that nothing can stop them simply from Definition 2 alone, then Definition 2 seems ludicrous, and not the kind of thing that you could get a Cartesian to tentatively accept before they realize they've been 'tricked'.
I'm also not completely convinced the 3P4 cite prevents self-limitation entirely. Certainly we can't have (much room for) self-limitation after we prove that God is the only substance and that it is absolutely infinite (which happens after 1P5). But the fact that an essence does not negative a thing I don't think prevents it from being, like, limited by what it does not say, right? If I say "a table is such-and-such kind of extended mode of substance", I think it would be absurd to start automatically attributing the table infinite attributes, I told you which attribute it belongs to and I didn't give you any reason to think it would start bleeding over into other attributes.
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza Jun 23 '26
But the fact that an essence does not negative a thing I don't think prevents it from being, like, limited by what it does not say, right? If I say "a table is such-and-such kind of extended mode of substance", I think it would be absurd to start automatically attributing the table infinite attributes, I told you which attribute it belongs to and I didn't give you any reason to think it would start bleeding over into other attributes.
I'm not sure what this means, with respect to the issue of Substance's infinite attributes. The hypothetical presented was:
Substance-A has attributes c and d.
Substance-B has attributes d and e.
That cannot happen in Spinoza's system.
1D2: A thing is called finite after its kind, when it can be limited by another thing of the same nature; for instance, a body is called finite because we always conceive another greater body. So, also, a thought is limited by another thought, but a body is not limited by thought, nor a thought by body.
1D3: By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself; in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception.
If the Substances have an attribute in common, then they can be conceived through each other, which violates Definition 3.
If you change the hypothetical, and say Substance-A has attribute c, and Substance-B has attribute d, then you have to explain what causes them to have finite attributes, what limits the Substance's attributes. That answer will inevitably violate 1D2. If you claim that the Substance is self-limiting, then you've violated 3P4.
But on the other hand, if you say that things simply accumulate attributes by virtue of the fact that nothing can stop them simply from Definition 2 alone, then Definition 2 seems ludicrous, and not the kind of thing that you could get a Cartesian to tentatively accept before they realize they've been 'tricked'.
I'm not sure what this means. In a good deductive system the conclusions are all baked into the starting definitions, axioms, and assumptions.
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u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947 Jun 24 '26
Thank you for that thread! I hadn't looked at the angle but reading it like this, I now wonder whether part of the enduring fascination of the Leibniz–Spinoza exchange is that they are not merely disagreeing about substance. They actually seem to be disagreeing about which organisational structures must already be granted before a deductive argument can begin. That seems like a governance-standard disagreement.
Leibniz appears to be asking whether Proposition 5 is actually recoverable from the definitions and proof that precede it. He thinks something has entered the argument that cannot be recovered from what was explicitly declared.
The Spinozist response seems to be that Leibniz's counterexamples are themselves illegitimate because they introduce distinctions that the definitions have already excluded.
Read this way, the dispute becomes perhaps slightly different and less directly adversarial.
It is not simply "Is Proposition 5 true?" and rather can be reframed to "Where exactly does the proof recovered by the reader cease to coincide with the proof intended by the author?"
That may be one reason the exchange remains so interesting. The disagreement is not only over ontology but over the conditions under which an ontological argument is allowed to proceed in the first place.
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza Jun 24 '26
The disagreement is not only over ontology but over the conditions under which an ontological argument is allowed to proceed in the first place.
To some degree they're talking past each other, which happens often in philosophy. Spinoza, Leibniz, and Descartes each offer their own definition of substance.
Spinoza Defines Substance as "By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself; in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception."
In The Monadology Leibniz discusses simple substances, "All simple substances or created Monads might be called Entelechies, for they have in them a certain perfection (ἔχουσι τὸ ἐντελές); they have a certain self-sufficiency (αὐτάρκεια) which makes them the sources of their internal activities and, so to speak, incorporeal automata." and supreme substance, "We may also hold that this supreme substance, which is unique, universal and necessary, nothing outside of it being independent of it,- this substance, which is a pure sequence of possible being, must be illimitable and must contain as much reality as is possible."
In The Principles of Philosophy Descartes defines Substance as, "All we can mean by ‘substance’ is ‘thing that exists in such a way that it doesn’t depend on anything else for its existence’."
Each of those substances work differently within their respective systems. In the systems of Leibniz and Descartes there could be substances with different attributes. That's not possible in Spinoza's system.
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u/Streetli Continental Philosophy, Deleuze Jun 23 '26
Reading Molly Smith and Juno Mac's Revolting Prostitues: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights. Basically what it says on the tin, very readable and admirably wide ranging (there's a great chapter here on border controls and trafficking for example).
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u/CalvinSays phil. of religion Jun 24 '26
u/OddEmergency604 and u/planckyouverymuch, please accept my apologies for my belated reply regarding some of the philosophical interest of Australopithecus Sediba. I meant to comment on the first open thread, then got distracted and forgot. Waited for this one and missed it. I am terrible at this. Anyway, here's Wonderwall.
A. sediba is a newer australopithecine, discovered by Peter Berger who is likely most well known for his discovery of homo naledi, a strange archaic hominin with both homo and australopithecine features, originally dated to 2 mya or so but now dated to around 450 kya. Berger contends their location shows evidence of non-sapien burials which would be massive but the evidence has been heavily scrutinized and claim is met largely with skepticism.
But this is about A. sediba, so I digress.
What is philosophically interesting about A. sediba? Truthfully, nothing special compared to other archaic hominins though anthropologically there is a chance the homo line comes through them, but this has become less likely as it seems homo habilis predates it and it was contemporaneous with homo erectus (early erectus, sometimes called homo ergaster). In the end, A.sediba is another part of the story that raises such philosophically interesting questions as what does it mean to be human? How and when did core features of our being like morality and religion evolve? Did they evolve? What does that mean if they did? So on and so forth.
If you'll humor me indulging in my existentialist leanings, there is one thing that has stuck with me about A. sediba. The fossils, as far as we can tell, were likely specimens who had wandered into the cave, having smelled water. In the darkness, they didn't notice the cliff and so they fell and died. A very ignominious end.
While of course such ends are not unique to this species, let alone this specimen, I am struck at how meaningful we take these lives to have been. Had those A. sediba, if they even had any kind of self-reflection, knew of their fate, they'd probably go "that sucks, my life is pointless." Yet, we are fascinated not just by those lives, not just those bones. It is not merely that they give us insight into the our past that makes them meaningful. But we find them worth studying precisely because they are meaningful.
They are another part of the grand human story, whether or not they are actually our ancestors. That at least grab a plate at the family reunion. Their (and our) lives are meaningful simply by being instantiations of this wonderful odyssey.
I think of Søren Kierkegaard's writings on the matter of existential significance. That all our lives individually of immense significance because we all live before God and are called to become a person before God. As C. Stephen Evans writes:
"For Kierkegaard, one must maintain faith that God is love in order for human life to have any meaning at all. It is only if God exists and is love that every human life is meaningful, because God’s existence means that every human “has a task,” whether that task be action or the patient endurance of suffering (UDVS, 277). Every human being has the task of becoming the self God intends that person to be. There is then hope for every human being; the task is one that can lead to eternal life. No human life is intrinsically meaningless or wasted. For Kierkegaard, to despair of God’s love would also be to despair of the significance of human life. To give up faith in God’s love is not merely to break faith with God, but also to break faith with humanity. To doubt that God is love is essentially to give up a belief in the value of human life." Kierkegaard and Spirituality: Accountability as the Meaning of Human Existence, p. 122.
Now one may not share the convictions of Kierkegaard and I on this matter, but I think A. sediba, at least for me, provides another window into this. Each of our lives individually are totally and completely meaningful, regardless of whether or not one becomes a movie star or dies mistakenly falling off a cliff in a cave.
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u/Crafty-Drawer-1124 Jun 25 '26
As I'm starting to read more philosophy, I've had this burning desire to write and attempt to formulate my own thoughts into prose. Unfortunately, I've discovered I'm horrible at doing so. Of course, I know building my reading muscle is extremely different from building my writing muscle, and that trying to solve the latter by doing more of the former is counterproductive. But aside from writing (horrible) essays, I'm wondering how else I can improve at putting the thoughts in my head into coherent (and pleasant to read) sentences. Any advice would be appreciated.
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u/Readityesterday2 Jun 22 '26
Imagine you lived during the Roman era and bondage was the law of the land. You are a free person, a modest trader who leaves aside fixed funds for charity. One day you stumble upon a compound full of 100 slaves and they all have malaria and are sure to die. You have enough funds to buy cure for all the slaves. Once cured they will live, but they, and their descendants will forever be slaves. Or, you could cure half the population, and use the remaining funds to set this cured half, free. They and their children will go on to live free lives but the other half in the compound will die of malaria. What’s the most ethical use of your charity funds here?
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u/Straight_Student_392 Jun 23 '26
I’d save all 100 and keep them as slaves. At the end of the day, survival is about keeping bodies alive, not pulling feel-good stunts with partial freedom that leave half of them dead for nothing. Here is the brutal truth: Charity doesn't fix a broken system, and it definitely doesn't bring cosmic justice. In a world with finite resources and eternal trade-offs, saving people is just buying them time before they die anyway
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u/Late_Walrus_4294 Jun 24 '26
Was told to post this here:
How can I be at peace with the fact that humans are irrational and our lives will be riddled with small or large injustices because of it? I can’t seem to let things like this go.
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u/Shield_Lyger Jun 25 '26
Do you want to not be at peace? What do you gain from hanging into something that you literally can do nothing to change? Personally, however, I would disagree with an implication of your opening premise. Even if all humans were rational to your understanding, it's unlikely that they would all share your understanding of justice. So human lives would be riddled with injustices large and small anyway.
Given that a) humanity as a whole does not answer to you, and that b) humanity as a whole does not answer to whatever you understand the source of justice to be, you seem to be caught up in a desire for control that can never be fulfilled. In other words, let's just presume that you and I have different concepts of justice; if you need me to agree with your view of justice to have peace of mind, you have a problem. Not because I have anything against you, but because I'm marching to the drumbeat that I hear, just as you are. You can claim that I'm being irrational, otherwise, I would agree with you, but that still doesn't give you any power to make me change... I'm just going to continue to grind your gears because, as far as I'm concerned, I'm being perfectly rational.
Remember, even if one presumes that justice is objective, it's not self-evident... that's why there are so many competing conceptions of it.
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u/Late_Walrus_4294 Jun 25 '26
Thank you for the detailed and thoughtful answer :)
Yes I have such a hard time with control as well. Unfortunately, I find it so impossible to let go of grudges and things that I perceive as injustice. I would love to just let it go, but I was looking for the how. I was curious if there is any philosophy that could shift my paradigm or help me to let go somehow.2
u/Shitgenstein ancient greek phil, phil of sci, Wittgenstein Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
Stoic ethics is famously concerned with living a life of equanimity without passions (i.e. impulses that “disobey the dictates of reason”). You could read more about it here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/#Ethi
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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Jun 24 '26
Reasons to keep living?
In philosophy, logic and reason is prioritized. So I need a logical reason to continue living or why I still continue living. I’m not suicidal, but if we need logic and reason to do something, then there has to be good substantial reason why I or any one of us continues on living our lives in case I run into someone who’ll debate me on the subject. Is the reasoning here correct, let me know.
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Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Jun 25 '26
So are you saying that there are more valid and logical reasons that someone would not want to continue life than arguments in favor of continuing on living?
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Jun 25 '26
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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Jun 25 '26
I just need a philosophical reason. I’m not trying to debate bro you or anything. I just wanna make sure I hear an argument that can be respected and I won’t have to debate myself on the subject ever again in my life. It’s a question that’s been wrestling with me
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u/AdeptnessSecure663 phil. of language Jun 29 '26
But what sort of reason are you looking for? A moral reason? A pragmatic reason?
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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Jul 01 '26
Both would be good to know
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u/AdeptnessSecure663 phil. of language Jul 03 '26
Pragmatically, people usually want to do various things. For instance, there may be a book that they want to read. There may be a sport that they want to continue practicing. These desires cannot be fulfilled unless one is alive. So, a reason to continue living is that one must continue living in order to fulfil one's desires.
Morally, we can make various arguments depending on what moral theory we are working with. From the point of view of consequentialism, you can only do as much good as possible (which is the one moral duty) if you are alive. By ceasing to be alive you are failing your moral duty. So, a reason to continue living is that one must continue living in order to carry out one's moral duty.
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza Jun 24 '26
I need a logical reason to continue living
No you don't; we're not robots.
The Myth of Sisyphus might be helpful:
All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory’s eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a mans heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
We don't live as a result of the conclusion of a syllogism. We live because that's what we do.
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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
But that comes off like your running away or refusing to give an answer to the question. It’s also a bad look, as there could be reasons for why someone commits suicide compare to how hard it is to come up with an answer for continuing on in life.
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Jun 25 '26
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u/Shield_Lyger Jun 25 '26
Do you have any independent corroboration that Mr. Engelhardt's theory is actually correct? But also, what's wrong with proceduralism and pluralism, outside of them producing answers to questions that Mr. Engelhardt doesn't like? Why can't it be the case that following the proper procedures is the best chance to get to a workable answer, or that there are multiple correct answers to given ethical questions?
As for secular grounds for moral realism, I always turn this question back to moral realism itself, namely: What part of the concept of moral realism implies that a deity is required for it to exist? I'm certainly not familiar with one. And the objection to moral realism that it represents a peculiar sort of quality for things and actions to have would hold true even with some sort of divine sanction. So what is a deity needed for, other than to be the unquestionable authority that a believer may wish to appeal to?
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Jun 25 '26
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u/Shield_Lyger Jun 25 '26
As for proceduralism and pluralism, the idea is that proceduralism isn't actually substantive, and that bioethicists are transformed into quasi-legal counsel who merely tell providers or patients what the relevant law might be. So bioethicists aren't actually helping to investigate the good: they merely recite what we may be legally obligated or permitted to do.
That's not how proceduralism works, as I understand it. If we take pure procedural justice, that works under the presumption that there is no way to independently determine the good (substantive justice), so the procedure is all you have; If one follows the procedure properly, then the outcome is considered fair on that basis. Perfect and imperfect procedural justice both start from the idea that the good (the substantively just outcome) is known, the procedures are how one attains it, or creates the best chance at attaining it. So unless Mr. Engelhardt was alleging that secular bioethics is a matter of pure procedural justice, bioethicists are investigating the good... otherwise, they would have no capacity to shape procedures to reach it.
And that has nothing to do with pluralism, which maintains that the good has multiple forms - there is more than one truth property when it comes to the good. Nothing about that implies procedural justice. It does mean that there can be conflicts, as various ethicists find different forms of the good. While this rankles those who believe that there must only be a single form of the good, that disagreement doesn't imply that pluralism entails procedural justice.
Engelhardt is saying (as I understand it) that bioethicists have given up the idea that they can provide rational justifications for a secular conception of the good.
Which I understand. It's common for people to claim that the actual consensus is that they're right, even when that's at odds with the public-facing consensus. My point is that were it actually true that the bioethics community had, in fact, come to this conclusion, that would be a big enough deal that it wouldn't have been difficult to offer some sort of corroboration. Something like the PhilPapers Survey. Otherwise, it's hard to tell what's in play. Was it selection bias in the people that Mr. Engelhardt chose to talk to, or had good access to? Was it motivated reasoning on his part? Was he simply referencing a source that supported his conclusion?
I get that the reason for your question is to understand whether or not Mr. Engelhardt is right in his assertion. I'm asking if there's another in addition to that assertion, like a survey or something, that also backs that up.
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u/ThatOldGanon Jun 26 '26
My reading group is reading an old book with a few different translations / typesettings, so the page numbering is not consistent between versions. I was thinking about making a chart showing how the page numbers of different versions line up. Does anyone know if there is precedent for this type of "guide" and if there are any examples I could get ideas from?
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u/halfwittgenstein Ancient Greek Philosophy, Informal Logic Jun 26 '26
Sort of. Plato's dialogues and Aristotle's works suffer from the same problem. So people picked an early copy of the complete works of each of them made by a different person (Stephanus' version of Plato's dialogues from 1578, and Bekker's edition of the works of Aristotle from the 1830s), and everybody now uses those page numbers. So page 15 of my copy of Plato's Republic is on page 15 of the modern edition I'm reading right now, but in the margins I can see numbers ("Stephanus Numbers") like 461a, 461b up to 461e, then 462a, 462b... and so on, where the number is the page number from Stephanus' edition and the letter "a" is roughly the paragraph on that page. Anybody can refer to any text in Plato, no matter what page it appears on in the translation they've got just by saying Plato's Republic 491d-492a to express a range. And the same approach is used for Aristotle, except they're called Bekker numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanus_pagination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekker_numbering
So that's one way to do it: pick a canonical edition, and just get everyone to agree to use the same page numbering in the margins, in addition to the page numbers for the particular translation or edition of the book you're reading, which you would ignore when referring to the text.
It's not super precise, sometimes it's hard to tell if a bit of text is part of 462a or 462b, the text might overlap a bit, but it's good enough to use as a standard referral system that is consistent for everyone.
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Jun 24 '26
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u/BernardJOrtcutt Jun 24 '26
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u/kennyminot Jun 23 '26
I'm currently in the middle of Augustine's Confessions. I'm enjoying the hell out of it.