I. Definition Do you believe you have free will? Yet at the same time, if you believe in science then all events have causes, following natural laws; in which case, how can you have free will? Are not your body and brain physical systems, fully determined by natural law? Determinism is the philosophy that all events, whether involving inanimate matter or conscious beings like humans, are complet... »
I. Definition According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an epicure is a person who “appreciates fine food and drink”; this is the modern misinterpretation of Epicureanism, an ancient philosophy which does make pleasure the goal of life—but not sensual pleasures (sorry)—and incorporates a broad range of other philosophical positions—about the nature of reality, knowledge, society, and the gods, ... »
I. Definition Thank you for reading this. You didn’t have to. Or did you? I mean, before you started reading, one of two things was true; either it was true that you were going to read this, or it was true that you were not going to read it. If at that time (before you started reading), it was true that you were going to read it, you can’t change that truth, can you? And conversely, if it was tr... »
I. Definition When Ted Bundy was finally proven to have killed dozens of women in cold blood, there was only one way he could have escaped the sternest punishment (which he did receive) – the insanity defense. Most of us agree that people are only responsible for their actions as long as they have the ability to “freely choose” them; and our legal system allows that if you are sufficiently derang... »
I. Definition Functionalism, in philosophy, is a theory about the essential nature of minds—a metaphysical theory with possibly dramatic consequences for our society in the near future. Because one of the strongest motivations for functionalism, among its supporters, is its implication that artificial intelligence could indeed be conscious. According to most versions of functionalism, any machin... »
I. Definition Do you admire people who don’t care about social expectations? People who march to the beat of their own drummer? Do you think people have the right to do whatever they want without hurting others, including activities that might violate traditional values? Or do you think such people are immature, selfish, sinful, or anti-social? Individualism is believing in individuality, diversi... »
I. Definition Inductive reasoning, or induction, is one of the two basic types of inference. An inference is a logical connection between two statements: the first is called the premise, while the second is called a conclusion and must bear some kind of logical relationship to the premise. Inductions, specifically, are inferences based on reasonable probability. If the premise is true, then the co... »
I. Definition The English word knowledge can mean familiarity, capability (know-how), theoretical knowledge (knowledge-that), or recorded knowledge. It can be explicit, as in a statement, implicit, as in your knowing how to walk, or a bit of both, like your knowledge of language. Knowledge is one of the biggest ideas in religion, philosophy, and science, close as it is to the ideas ‘truth’ and ‘re... »
I. Definition Logical reasoning (or just “logic” for short) is one of the fundamental skills of effective thinking. It works by raising questions like: If this is true, what else must be true? If this is true, what else is probably true? If this isn’t true, what else can’t be true? These are all inferences: they’re connections between a given sentence (the “premise”) and some other sentence (the “... »
I. Definition What do you believe in? What gives your life meaning? How do you know what’s true? If you can answer these questions without saying ‘nothing,’ you’re not a nihilist. Nihilism, most simply, means believing in nothing. The word is derived from Latin, nihil, which means ‘nothing.’ Nihilism can mean believing that nothing is real, believing that it’s impossible to know anything, believi... »