ORIENTALIA | Journal of Eastern Philosophy &Culture: Papers,...
Zombies. First published Mon Sep 8, 2003; substantive revision Thu Mar 17, 2011 Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures used to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike those in films or witchraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like us, and some even spend a lot of time discussing consciousness. Few people think zombies actually exist. But many hold they are at least conceivable, and some that they are possible. It is argued that if zombies are so much as a bare possibility, then physicalism is false and some kind of dualism is true. 1.
Descartes held that non-human animals are automata: their behavior is wholly explicable in terms of physical mechanisms. In the nineteenth century scientists began to think that physics was capable of explaining all physical events that were explicable at all. 2. 3. 4. Philosophy since the Enlightenment. Allegory of the Cave. Plato realizes that the general run of humankind can think, and speak, etc., without (so far as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm of Forms. The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this. In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave.
The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them. From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) Here are some students’ illustrations of Plato’s Cave Go back to lecture on the Phaedo Go back to lecture on the “One Over Many” Argument Go to next lecture on Criticism of Forms Need a quick review of the Theory of Forms? Return to the PHIL 320 Home Page. Consciousness. Search tips There are three kinds of search you can perform: All fields This mode searches for entries containing all the entered words in their title, author, date, comment field, or in any of many other fields showing on OPC pages.
Surname This mode searches for entries containing the text string you entered in their author field. Advanced This mode differs from the all fields mode in two respects. Note that short and / or common words are ignored by the search engine. What is Consciousness? The Relativity of Wrong. By Isaac Asimov I received a letter from a reader the other day. It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship so that it was very difficult to read. Nevertheless, I tried to make it out just in case it might prove to be important. In the first sentence, he told me he was majoring in English Literature, but felt he needed to teach me science. (I sighed a bit, for I knew very few English Lit majors who are equipped to teach me science, but I am very aware of the vast state of my ignorance and I am prepared to learn as much as I can from anyone, however low on the social scale, so I read on.) It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, here and elsewhere, I had expressed a certain gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the Universe straight.
These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. No one knows nothing. Ayn Rand - Faith vs Reason.
Animal Thought. By Temple Grandin, Ph.D. Department of Animal Science Colorado State University Western Horseman, Nov. 1997, pp.140-145 (Updated January 2015) Temple Grandin is an assistant professor of animal science at Colorado State University. She is the author of the book Thinking in Pictures. Television appearances include 20/20, CBS This Morning, and 48 Hours. Dr. As a person with autism, it is easy for me to understand how animals think because my thinking processes are like an animal's. I have no language-based thoughts at all. Most people use a combination of both verbal and visual skills.
A radio station person I talked to once said that she had no pictures at all in her mind. Associative Thinking A horse trainer once said to me, "Animals don't think, they just make associations. " Animals also tend to make place-specific associations. Years ago a scientist named N. Fear Is the Main Emotion Both animals and people with autism are also fearful of high-pitched noises. Effects of Genetics References. The Question of Free Will. Advances in brain science are calling into question the volition behind many criminal acts.
A leading neuroscientist describes how the foundations of our criminal-justice system are beginning to crumble, and proposes a new way forward for law and order. On the steamy first day of August 1966, Charles Whitman took an elevator to the top floor of the University of Texas Tower in Austin. The 25-year-old climbed the stairs to the observation deck, lugging with him a footlocker full of guns and ammunition. At the top, he killed a receptionist with the butt of his rifle. Two families of tourists came up the stairwell; he shot at them at point-blank range. The evening before, Whitman had sat at his typewriter and composed a suicide note: I don’t really understand myself these days. By the time the police shot him dead, Whitman had killed 13 people and wounded 32 more. For that matter, so did Whitman. At the same time, Alex was complaining of worsening headaches. Suicide Note. List of paradoxes.
This is a list of paradoxes, grouped thematically. The grouping is approximate, as paradoxes may fit into more than one category. Because of varying definitions of the term paradox, some of the following are not considered to be paradoxes by everyone. This list collects only scenarios that have been called a paradox by at least one source and have their own article. Although considered paradoxes, some of these are based on fallacious reasoning, or incomplete/faulty analysis. Informally, the term is often used to describe a counter-intuitive result. Logic[edit] Self-reference[edit] These paradoxes have in common a contradiction arising from self-reference. Barber paradox: A barber (who is a man) shaves all and only those men who do not shave themselves.
Vagueness[edit] Ship of Theseus (a.k.a. Mathematics[edit] Statistics[edit] Probability[edit] Infinity and infinitesimals[edit] Geometry and topology[edit] Logical Paradoxes. Unsolved problems in philosophy. This is a list of some of the major unsolved problems in philosophy. Clearly, unsolved philosophical problems exist in the lay sense (e.g. "What is the meaning of life? ", "Where did we come from? ", "What is reality?
", etc.). However, professional philosophers generally accord serious philosophical problems specific names or questions, which indicate a particular method of attack or line of reasoning. Aesthetics[edit] Essentialism[edit] In art, essentialism is the idea that each medium has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, contingent on its mode of communication. Art objects[edit] This problem originally arose from the practice rather than theory of art. While it is easy to dismiss these assertions, further investigation[who?] Epistemology[edit] Epistemological problems are concerned with the nature, scope and limitations of knowledge. Gettier problem[edit] In response to Gettier's article, numerous philosophers have offered modified criteria for "knowledge. " Qualia[edit] [edit] Ethics. Ovid.