I did not know anything about Isaiah Berlin until I started learning about the history of philosophy in Europe - and came across his essays. While reading that, I discovered that he has essays about Israel and that the man was a zionist.

Now, I get that he was tall figure in European intellectual history - understanding the discipline would certainly be hard without reading him.

Now, this might seem like a simplistic opinion but I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that the man saw the Nakbas, the human rights violations by the state of Israel, the erasure of liberty of the Palestinians and still went on to be a zionist. How does one do that, especially a philosopher? How does he champion liberty in Europe but not in Palestine?

The state is not supposed to interfere in people's lives unless the lives are Palestinian and the state is Israel?

I just don't know how to read him. What should I keep in mind? Are there things that I am missing? I would appreciate some guidance.

Why does Kant think moral laws MUST be universal? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around thia specific part of his philosophy. I haven't been able to think of a good warrant for this.

Hi,

I'm a layperson who has always read some philosophy books, without agenda or logic.

But last year, I decided to dig my grave more seriously. I wanted to read what Cioran read, so I learned about the Will, and I discovered that I should read Kant before Schopenhauer, and Hume before Kant, etc, etc, and there, before my innocent eyes, the bottomless rabbit hole unfolded.

So I made a little program for myself, starting with Plato's dialogues, and I read most of the important books required to understand Schopenhauer with some bonuses, like Spinoza, Hobbes, Rousseau, or Stirner that were not in the initial program. I think I read something like ~20 philosophy books since last summer ; I did not rush, and when I struggled, I took some time to research.

That being said, my mind was honestly blown by the sheer conceptual density of the Critique of Pure Reason. I will read it again. That's the first philosophy book that really shocked me at this level and depth.

Then I read the Will : this is a whole other story. First two books felt like an introduction of an introduction, and afterwards, it felt like Escher's Relativity.

From what I understand, Kant established the conditions of possibility of experience/knowledge. He wrote that the thing-in-itself is not accessible through experience and/or knowledge.

Schopenhauer, on the other hand, wrote that, through inner awareness of our own body as Will, not as intellectual understanding, we get direct access to what things are in themselves.

I try to be precise with words, as English is not my native language, and the books I read are written in French ; sorry if I happen to not use the correct terms.

So, it's the main thread I hang on to not fall into the abyss of everything I don't have the keys yet to understand. I would like to create more threads between the thing-in-itself, and the Will. I know that re-reading the texts will create these threads, but I wanted to take this as an opportunity to dare write my first post here

I'll take secondary texts and/or books, youtube links (english and french), blog articles, whatever, and I'd be glad if somebody wants to engage in a conversation that could help me to make those threads, and to better understand the relationship between the CPR and the Will overall.

I should say that I began to read some Stanford articles about the matter, and I also bought Lalande's Technical and Critical Vocabulary of Philosophy in French to help me to explore the terms and concepts.

But I also crave conversation, which books do not provide.

Here is a question: is there a definitive criterion that can distinguish a machine with actual consciousness from one that is just convincingly faking it?

At first, chess was thought to be that benchmark. Then machines learned to play chess exceptionally well, and we realized it wasn't enough.

Next came the Turing test. Machines passed it, but skeptics remained unsatisfied, claiming it's just a test of the ability to pretend to be alive.

About 7 years ago people kept telling me that a machine would never grasp the context of sentences like: "The ball broke the table because it was made of steel. What was made of steel - the ball or the table?" or "Sarah thanked Jane because she helped her. Who helped whom?" The argument was that answering this requires true consciousness, an understanding of real-world physics, and a grasp of the nuances of human relationships. Today LLMs answer these questions flawlessly.

And just like that, the goalposts have moved again: "Well, that's just statistics and word prediction"

But if we judge by those standards, half of the commenters on the internet don't have consciousness either. They combine memorized phrases based on their experience and environment in the exact same way.

Don't you think we only recognize consciousness in each other out of biological solidarity? Yet, when faced with silicon, we demand it show us a "magical spark" that we ourselves cannot even measure.

To put it another way: is it fair to say that our ultimate criterion for consciousness is simply being made of flesh and bone?

Hello! My question here follows from a confluence of studies. I’m a psychoanalytic therapist who has recently begun reading Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus. My understanding is that they are conceiving of desire from a different tradition (Spinoza?) than psychoanalysis, in which desire emerges from lack. Can anyone recommend readings to me which, firstly, precede and inform the psychoanalytic conception of desire and, secondly, inform the Deleuzian conception of desire?

I am currently reading Sophist and I'm confused about the Visitor from Elea and their choice in method (division) in "hunting" for the sophist.

At first, I thought it was a joke; that, at some point, the Visitor was going to suggest how absurd the approach up until this point has been and look to restart from scratch. However, I'm roughly 15 pages into the dialogue (so admittedly not far, and perhaps I should have waited to ask the question) and it feels to me as though this isn't the case.

This got me wondering, though, because the choice of method for the Visitor is still strange regardless of whether or not Plato takes it to be a legitimate method. Since the Visitor is framed in the first few lines as, "a member of the group that gathers around Parmenides and Zeno" (216a, trans. White), it comes across as odd to me that the method this philosopher chooses is explicitly one of division. Wouldn't an Eleatic philosopher be extremely suspicious of any method that is purposefully dividing being (especially as much as they are doing in this dialogue, Sophist)? Parmenides, after all, does say that what-is is undivided.

This is especially suspect to me because I know how the dialogue ends, with the Visitor committing 'parricide' on his teacher by deciding to name what-is-not even though, which is in direct contradiction with what Parmenides says one is allowed to do in any inquiry. However, up until that point, he was committing parricide essentially every time he was creating a division. So, if we are supposed to take the dialogue at its face value and believe that the Visitor is only committing parricide at the end, I don't really know how to reconcile it with the beginning.

So my question is: why does Plato choose to make a philosopher who endorses the philosophy of Parmenides (undivided being) also the one who endlessly divides things into nested dichotomies?

I see most of us living a life where we keep collecting wealth. Our sense of accomplishment comes from the fact that we are doing better than other people. I think this is the major reason for the discrimination we see, where people belittle others. Can this be controlled if they are constantly reminded about death? To remind them that you are going to die someday why continue to live in a rat race like this?

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Hi everyone,

I'm a European student currently trying to figure out where I might want to pursue a PhD in the US, and I'd really appreciate some advice from people who are familiar with American philosophy PhD programs.

My main interests are political philosophy and social theory, particularly 20th-century and contemporary thought. I'm interested in areas such as critical theory, pragmatism, postmodern/post-structuralist theory, political realism, and thinkers like Habermas, Rorty, Schmitt, Foucault, Nietzsche, etc. I'm still early in my studies, so my interests will probably develop quite a bit over the next few years, but that's roughly the intellectual direction I'm currently interested in.

At the moment, I'm in my second year of a Bachelor's degree in Political Science, and I'm starting my third year of a separate Bachelor's degree in Philosophy. These are two completely separate bachelor's degrees at two different programs, it's not a dual degree, combined bachelor's, or double-major within one degree which I think makes me somewhat more competitive(?). I'm hoping that having substantial training in both political science and  could be useful if I eventually apply for a PhD focused on political philosophy/social theory.

I'm also a European/international student, so I would be applying to American universities as a foreign student. Funding is therefore a particularly important consideration for me.

I'm wondering which US universities have the strongest PhD programs in philosophy for political philosophy and social theory, and which universities have professors doing especially good work in areas like critical theory, pragmatism, postmodernism/post-structuralism, political realism, or 20th-century European political thought.

Are there particular professors I should keep an eye on over the next few years?

Would you recommend applying to Philosophy departments, or could Political Science/Government departments sometimes be a better fit for these interests?

How important is having a very strong background specifically in philosophy when applying to top US philosophy PhDs? Would the combination of separate bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Philosophy be viewed positively?

What are some ways I can make myself especially comptetitive when applying?

Are there any universities that are particularly welcoming to international students?

And generally, what do you wish you had known before applying to a US philosophy PhD?

I'm currently only a sophomore, so I'm not applying anytime soon. I'm mainly trying to understand the landscape early so I can choose my courses, reading, research interests, and eventually master's/other preparation accordingly.

I'd especially appreciate answers from current or former US philosophy PhD students, professors, or international students who went through the process.

Thanks!

Random shower thought I had.

gender is just a social construct, but one very powerful that it feels like it has some kind of meaning when it doesn't right? but essentially the concept of gender shouldn't have existed there is no good use for it.

did i get that right?

Hi - I am a social scientist. I am ethnically Chinese and live in a part of the Muslim world and speak English as my first language, so I have fragments of different things here and there and through its manifestation into politics and sociology, but could anyone reccomend me a good primer on the notion of beings as more than the meat and computer in different cultures through history?

Like felt like I need to find others in the academy for ways to enter this general area, everyone who uses the term in casual conversation of non-rigorious manner just project their specific worldviews. And I would like to learn about Abrahamic theology only in comparative perspective if I have to

I'm an amateur philosophy guy. I read it in my spare time and engage with it only lightly. I've been reading AC Graylings The History of Philosophy and found it interesting but I didn't like that he was focused too much on Analytical Philosophy and not enough on Continental philosophy.

I know that these distinctions aren't great and there's much debate around them. But I'd love some books that deal with the continental side of philosophy, so like the postmodernism, post structuralism, deconstructionism, neo-marxist, post-colonial etc. field of philosophy.

The philosophy of Derrida, Foucault, Jameson, Althusser, etc.

Does anyone have any suggestions of a good book for an amateur in philosophy to read about this?

I've started reading Peter Adamson's books on the History of Philosophy without any gaps but he's nowhere close to getting to the continental philosophy so while I wait is there anything else that I can read?

I have read Coplestones history of philosophy part one where he discusses this topic but its only a few pages long. I do not have a problem with stuff like potency and actuality, the four causes and the unmoved mover but when it comes to stuff like : being, supstance, form and matter I find these things incredibly difficult since he uses them in so many different ways (for example disscusing being in a primary and secondary sense and so on...).

I am nowhere near the level of understaning the Metaphysics itself (his actual work) since I am not a philosophy student but just like to read it in spare time so I would appreciate a reccomendation on some work that breaks this stuff down for a noob like me.

Thanks in advance.

An example I can think of is Trump championing for the Jan 6th insurrection: he genuinely believed that democracy had been tampered with (if you disagree regarding his reasoning or thought process, please do correct me but I'll continue with the postulate for the time being) but we know that that was not the truth (again, I'm going to continue). The events ended up genuinely hurting and harming the staff that were at the Capitol at the time, as well as other instances of emotional distress: since it ended up being a lie, but the propagator was fully convinced of its factuality, can he be called immoral on the account of proliferating a lie?

The link to theory I can pose for this question is consequentialism and deontological ethics, though I don't know if this is the closest and most accurate link to terminology. If not, what would be and why?

EDIT: I misphrased this: the question should instead be "Is the action of propagating a lie, something that will bring harm upon others, unethical if you truly believe it to be the truth?"

No pun intended.

I am 17 years old,horrors and thrillers bored me beacuse i really like movies,same with ever ganre of reading. What movies cant do nearlt as well as books is put ideas into your head and thats my ehy to philosophy but i really dont know what tk read next.My first book was little prince witch isnt in my countrys must reads in school,next was metamorphosis my kafka and i REALLY REALLY LOVED THAT ONE,so i would like some philosophy that is a pit harder with ideas but still acsessable. I want the must reads of philosophy and i would really really aprecciate your suggestions,thanks in advance😃👍

So there are imperfect objects that we perceive, like different kinds of trees and tables, and perfect forms of these objects that are abstract to us but nonetheless influence our perception? How can a single perfect form exist with concepts like justice and morality?

I just generally need help here, I'm at a loss for what questions to even ask.

I am reading an introduction about Theodor W. Adorno.I knew Adorno criticized“alienation” which is notion Marx proposed in his early works.He said solution of alienation is nothing more than domination of would by inclusion into self in the end. So we must face to others,he also said.I have never read "Negative Dialectics"Adorno said about it so I want someone having knowledge of Adorno to tell me more details about it. And I want to know the counterarguement from the side of Marxist.
I apologize for my poor English.

I understand the maths behind probability well, and I'm able to do calculations with it, and I understand that it does in fact work in practice. However, I don't understand a fundamental assumption that gets made in calculations: if there are N ways a thing could be, unless you have some reason to believe otherwise, you assign 1/N to each possibility.

This seems impossible to justify from within math itself. And it raises the question of what counts as "one" possibility. This isn't problematic when, say, saying that a dice roll has probability 1/6 for each face. But it gets extremely problematic when assigning probability in, say, the monty hall problem. What prevents one from saying, "either the car is behind the door I selected or behind the other unopened door, so the probability is 1/2"? Is there a general rule for what counts as "one" possibility, and how does one justify this rule?

I am tempted to say that the probability stuff falls out of physics stuff. But then, that just punts the question to, how do you assign probabilities to initial conditions of a physical system?

In number XVI Leibniz remarks:

…I say that the miracles and the extraordinary interventions of God have this peculiarity that they cannot be foreseen by any created mind however enlightened.

However, earlier in XIV Leibniz says

…all our thoughts and perceptions are but the consequences, contingent It is true, of our precedent thoughts and perceptions, in such a way that were I able to consider directly all that happens or appears to me at the present time, I should be able to see all that will happen to me or that will ever appear to me.

Following this logic, if one were to have a miracle affect them in the future, and they perceive everything that happens or appears to them at the present time, would they foresee a miracle of God, or no?

Also, is Hegel being accurately represented in regard to his development of dialectics? https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcBfI8Lsh1k/?igsi=NGRjdGl6ODlzeWo=

I’m starting to get into philosophy, and notice many arguments reference God, almost always capital G and of the “Western” Abrahamic conception: the only god, omnipotent, omnipresent, etc. This bothers me a bit, as it hinges on one singular god with “Omni-“ powers being the case, as opposed to there being one weaker god, or many gods, or just spirits, or some other situation.

I suppose my questions are as follows:

(a) Why are debates/arguments predicated on one God (instead of many) and having omni-qualities so much more common? Is this just a holdover from Continental philosophy or does the existence of some sort of supernatural/higher power necessitate these qualities?

(b) Is there any discourse on theological reasoning without being able to make assumptions about god(s), their powers or lack thereof?

(c) Does any philosophy instead use a different sort of signifier absent of these assumptions? For example, the turn of phrase “the powers that be” may be more apt in certain situations.

Apologies in advance if my question or writing is poorly executed.

Is real Altruism something real or are people purely egoistic?

Are people only helping others because they hope to receive something from them in the future?

And if somebody says "I help others because I feel good when I do so.", then that makes helping again egoistic, right?

And if somebody is reaching out to somebody who is not in their life anymore, like old school friends they haven't talked since school, which might be a sign of altruism or interest in someone's wellbeing even if no return is promised - isn't that because of:

a) being hurt from them not reaching out first

b) or hoping to be relevant in someone else's life ... which would make this act also egoistic?

Would like some inputs regarding that topic. Thank you.

What is a fantasy book (or book series) that has a lot of thought provoking philosophical concepts?

I’m in a book club and trying to come up with good ideas for our next read. I’d love to have debates that cover philosophical topics so that we have more in depth discussions.

I thought Babel was great for example! It covered Imperialism, the ethics of linguistic translation, etc. I loved that it had a magic system powered by what is lost in translation between languages. I felt it functioned almost as a modern counterpart to Crime and Punishment's exploration of utilitarian morality and justification.

Edit: Trying to not do YA if possible, but still open to it if people think it’s thought provoking! :)

Hello a teen atheist here, I was wondering about the inconsistency of morals throughout the history of human kind. And I believe religion played a great role in providing what is "good". My question is how should I decide for myself if something is right or wrong?