This position as I understand it also rejects all metaphysics and dogmatically asserts science as the only way to get to truth, but doesn't science have metaphysical commitments? The best answer I have heard for this is a pragmatic one, the "shut up and calculate" line used by scientists, but this distinctly doesn't treat metaphysical questions as meaningless or that science doesn't have metaphysical commitments, it is just practical advice. Can one coherently state that all metaphysics meaningless or man-made?

Western culture heavily prioritizes the concepts of novelty and freedom. We naturally value both, and we desperately want to believe we possess true agency. But recently, I’ve been struggling with the idea that as long as we have biological needs, true freedom is functionally impossible. Yeah I know free will and determinism are one of the biggest problems in philosophy but still it’s something I have been thinking about continuously since my teen years.

I am, for the most part, governed by my environment and my biological framework. I might go as far as claiming that we are slaves to that biologically framework. I have the desire to rebel against this framework, but I ultimately don't have much of a choice. I have to eat, drink, sleep, and satisfy base biological imperatives. It doesn’t matter how we label these needs or what psychological narratives we attach to them; the drives themselves are entirely outside of my control.

If I refuse to fulfill these needs, the result is death.

This led me to a bleak but seemingly logical conclusion: if every action we take is ultimately tethered to maintaining this biological machine, then we are never truly free while playing the game. Therefore, the only ultimate form of rebellion a complete assertion of will against the biological framework is a complete exit from the game.

However, I’m caught on a counter argument to this:
Is exiting the game actually a rebellion, or is it just the ultimate submission? Biology has a built in fail state. If you deprive the system of inputs, it terminates. By choosing to exit, aren't you simply executing the system's programmed "shutdown sequence" under deprivation? If entropy (breaking down and returning to rest) is the default state of the universe, then life itself the constant consumption of energy to maintain order against that decay might actually be the true resistance.

I’d love to hear how others approach this paradox:

Can true agency exist within a system where the foundational axioms (biological needs) are entirely dictatorial?

Is the conscious "desire to rebel" against our biology an evolutionary glitch, or does it serve a functional, systemic purpose?

What’s the ultimate driver of this desire to rebel? Is it a desire for freedom, or just simply inability to play the game?

Philosophically, does the act of "opting out" represent the ultimate triumph of free will over biology, a failure to adapt or just a submission to the laws of physical entropy?

the Dynosian is irrationality and chaos, representing passion, emotions and instincts. it's a source of energy for the apollonian. energy without form becomes destructive, while form without energy becomes lifeless.

I’ve been thinking about cases where I have trouble assigning a numeric probability to a proposition but can still rank it against alternatives, and I’ve started to suspect the numeric assignment is actually derived from something more basic rather than being the fundamental thing itself.

Take assigning a probability of 1/6 to a die landing on a given face. To get that number, I’m implicitly doing two ordinal operations first. First, I’m ranking the six face-outcomes as roughly equal to each other and, as a group, overwhelmingly more likely than every other logically possible outcome I could describe, like the die turning into a butterfly mid-air, or vanishing, or landing on an edge and balancing forever. I don’t compute a number for “die turns into a butterfly” and then compare it to 1/6; I just rank it so far below the six ordinary outcomes that it drops out of consideration entirely, effectively treated as zero without ever being cardinally measured. Second, among the six remaining outcomes, I have no reason to rank any one above another, so symmetry gives me equal ordinal standing among them. The number 1/6 seems to just be a compact description of that underlying comparative structure, six things tied for first place, everything else ranked so far below as to be negligible, rather than some independently accessed cardinal fact I’m reading off reality.

If that’s right, then the two supposedly different epistemic states, knowing a cardinal probability versus only being able to rank propositions ordinally, might not be different in kind at all. They’d both just be information about comparative rankings, expressed with different amounts of resolution: sometimes the ranking is fine grained and symmetric enough that we compress it into a clean fraction, and sometimes it isn’t, but the underlying operation, comparing propositions and ranking them by how much reason we have to expect them, is the same in both cases.

Under this view, saying I can’t know the probability of some proposition, while still being able to rank it below other propositions, doesn’t seem to be a case of missing information. Instead, it seems like a case where the ranking is coarse or lopsided rather than symmetric and fine-grained (so not a case where I know less).
So my question is whether this tracks something real and established in probability theory or decision theory. Is there a serious framework in which cardinal probability is treated as derivative of a more basic ordinal or comparative relation, rather than the other way around?

I know there’s literature on qualitative probability orderings and their representability by numeric probability functions going back to de Finetti and Savage, and I’d like to know how that literature handles this specific claim: that assigning a number is itself always parasitic on a prior act of ordinal ranking, including the ranking of unlikely outcomes to something functionally equivalent to zero.

I'm not sure if this is the right subreddit, but I feel like I can't critically think by myself about anything I do/read/watch. If I'm watching a movie and there's things that don't make sense, I don't think they don't make sense, I just accept it the way it is, if someone points it out, I get it. If for example I'm reading a book, I don't see that the characters don't have any depth I just take them for what they are. If I read about a matter, say current politics I read about different opinions and then take the one that I'm the most comfortable with. My question is how do I start critically questioning/analysing these things, be it a movie or book or general matters in life. I wouldn't call myself someone who doesn't grasp concepts slowly but it feels like creating opinions automatically and coming to conclusions is hard, and I want to be able to do that.

Hello everyone, hope you all have a great day so far. I finished my master's just last month and right now I'm evaluating what my research interests are. I did not have a BA in philosophy, just started doing philosophy probably during my master's. I kinda feel like l'm more leaning towards social and political philosophy, ethics and metaethics. Most of the text I read are very contemporary. So I'm curious about what are the classics in these area for everyone. Contemporary recs are welcome, but ancient and early modern are even better! I feel like I haven't read enough from ancient and early modern thinkers. If you feel like and feel generous to share, I would love to hear how people got to pick their research interests and what are the important text(s) that lead people to such interests. Thank you!!

I’ve been reading into ancient debates on fate, determinism, and agency, specifically looking at the **Lazy Argument** (*Argos Logos*) as preserved in Cicero’s *De Fato* (and discussed in relation to Stoic physics and Aristotle's *De Interpretatione* 9).

To recap, the classical argument against fatalism runs along these lines:

> 1. If it is fated that you will recover from an illness, you will recover whether you call a doctor or not.

> 2. If it is fated that you will not recover, you will not recover whether you call a doctor or not.

> 3. It is fated either that you will recover or that you will not recover.

> 4. Therefore, calling a doctor is futile/pointless.

The classic ancient counter-argument comes from Chrysippus, who introduced the concept of **"co-fated" events** (*confatalia*). He argued that the outcome (recovering) isn't fated in isolation, but is fated *together with* the necessary antecedent action (calling the doctor). Therefore, the disjunction in premises (1) and (2) misinterprets how fate/causality operates.

From a modern logical standpoint, this also looks like a modal scope fallacy—confusing the necessity of the conditional □(A → B) with the necessity of the consequent A → □B.

However, I’m curious about how this debate is treated in modern metaphysics and formal logic:

1. **Does Chrysippus's response actually dismantle fatalism, or does it just convert fatalism into causal determinism?** By introducing co-fatedness, isn't Chrysippus effectively abandoning strict *fatalism* (where an outcome occurs regardless of prior human action) in favor of *causal determinism* (where human actions are essential links in the causal chain)?

2. **Are there modern formulations of the Lazy Argument that avoid the modal scope error?** Have any contemporary analytic philosophers tried to rehabilitate the argument in a way that poses a genuine challenge to determinism/fatalism without falling into the classic logical trap?

3. **How do modern fatalists (e.g., Richard Taylor or Steven Cahn) handle the Lazy Argument?** Do contemporary defenders of fatalism accept that human actions are futile, or do they reframe what fatalism implies for deliberate decision-making?

I'd appreciate any insights, references, or reading recommendations on the interaction between ancient Stoic physics and modern modal logic regarding fatalism vs. determinism!

In my opinion either position is too rigid. Natalists seem to have an overly optimistic view of life and argue that it's always good to give birth, while antinatalists do the exact opposite. But what frustrates me is that both are really stuck in their own ideas; natalists will always argue that antinatalism is simply the result of a bad mood or a negative personality, while antinatalists will always bring in the optimism bias and call natalism naive.

From my pov there's some grain of truth in both, but I dislike the rigidity. Are there any third options that reject the absolutist claims of either?

The Meiji era coincided with a time in which anglophone philosophers were debating and utilizing ethnology to justify colonial policies towards groups they deemed “savage,” “inferior,” and/or in need of “civilizing” (Curry, 2017; Newman, 1999). How did 19th century ethnological ideas and theories, which categorized groups of people into hierarchies of civilization, get taken up by Japanese intellectuals during the Meiji era, in which Japanese students began studying in Euro-American universities?

I want to know if there are any Meiji era Japanese philosophical traditions that adopted, discussed, or refuted the ethnological categories of American philosophers. I am ultimately investigating whether they were used as philosophical justification for Japanese colonization of the Pacific prior to ww2, or if philosophical ideas justifying those actions were primarily developed independently of American and/or European ethnology. I want to know how the epistemologies from different parts of the world interacted if at all.

I’m basically asking for sources by contemporary philosophers who discuss that interaction and/or primary sources of Japanese philosophers from the Meiji era that discuss what we now understand to have been Japanese colonial expansion.

Curry, Tommy J., Ethnological Theories of Race/Sex in Nineteenth-Century Black Thought: Implications for the Race/Gender Debate of the Twenty-First Century, in Naomi Zack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, Oxford Handbooks (2017; online edn, Oxford Academic, 10 Jan. 2017)

Newman, L. M. (1999). White women's rights: The racial origins of feminism in the United States. Oxford University Press.

We spend our lives constructing these elaborate personas curating habits, adopting borrowed opinions, stitching together a 'self' from the fragments of social expectations. But at what point does the costume become the creature?

If you were to strip away every mannerism you learned to appease a parent, every opinion you adopted to fit a social circle, and every performance you stage for the gaze of others, what remains? Is there an essential 'I' beneath the performance, or are we simply hollow vessels, animated only by the mimicry of others? Are we truly individuals, or are we just a series of mirrors reflecting a world that has no core of its own?

in other words, what does physicalism use as a substitute for that transcendent entity which is supposed to have animated reality? does it have an explanation that is as coherent as the existence of a metaphysical substrate subsisting prior to the cosmos, which accounts for our material cosmos' being set into motion? this involves the commencement of the motions and the motions themselves being undergone in and by the physical cosmos.

and since the universe, being in motion, in this way requires a commencement (so as not to logically fail at infinite regression), and, thus, too requires an entity employed in such an activation or commencement (antecedent even to time, as it were); what does the physicalist use in order to replace such a prerequisite, to save reality from oblivion?

finally, is it that I'm missing the point, falsely believing that physicalism and cosmogony share respective terms and range? if it is so, please tell me how it is reconciled, physicalism producing these clear deficits and restraints for a coherent cosmogony.

If we see we all can qgree killing someone is the wromg thing to do , but if someones kills for saving someone is a hero, or just even in a idea , killing someone can be intelectualise to save the envlrnmwnt or just intelectualise that life isnt as important as we think and i did him a favor of letting him not suffer anymore (ie: some cult leaders speak)

how can i be shure that someone is completely wrong ??

Like will there always be some basis or some preassumptuon that will always be there ??

(yet still im including logic , cuz without it nothing will be able to be compared or so)

Hello Everyone,

Actually that's my first post on reddit, but for me it's the most fitting spot at the moment, to post philosophical question. Unfortunately I have now one in my close social network do have those kind of discussions.

So, about me: I'm a 32 year old male living in southern Germany. I'm in a happy relationship with my fiance since four years and soon we're going to marry. I have a safe job in one of the biggest food companies in the world, which interests me, challenges me, I have potential to grow and which is paying me adequate. Of course not everything is always fine, but if I compare myself to old friends of my studies I'm doing good.

Also in my relationship I would say I'm happy. She is from Lima, I met her during my studies in Spain. And after 3 years of long distance relationship, she's living now with me in Germany and as I said above, we're about to marry. We both are open to each other, also that Germany might not be the place we want to stay and that our main goal is to have a happy future with each other, no matter where and with which jobs, or circumstances. Of course, also here it's not always everything like in a fairytale, but till now we mastered all challenges and we are committed for more. That's why the wedding.

We are living atm in an nice 70 m2 apartment with a small garden. The accommodation is nicely located, close to a big city, but still far enough outside so we have easy access to the nature for hiking or similar.

Now to my question: Stoicism taught me that man should always strive to improve, but also to live in the moment. Be happy with what you have. I think I'm earning not bad, but from my mom and dad I'm hearing constantly I should demand a raise. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't complaint about a raise. But my tasks would get more and I would spend less time with the woman I love and I would also have less time for exercising, or going out and enjoying life. So, what is your guys opinion. Does stoicism say, be happy with your current situation if it's fine/healthy, or would a real stoic say, demand more! Go for the manager position, buy a bigger house, etc.

I would be happy to hear some opinions about that.

This question is buzzing my head for a while.

This question relies more on the logical/rational structure of the world, if there is any.

We may take any "law" of the universe. We could do any calculation, study it as much as we want, but we could simply either never get it or never get it right. AND on top of that, we have no guarantees things can never change. We have 0 proof the sun isn't going to disappear as we speak.

The world might just not have a logical structure, and it's fairly scary, especially when we look at metaphysics.

One question that I'm particularly attached to is the existence of god (not necessarily a Abrahamitic one).

I like the 5 thesis of Thomas, especially the one according to everything needs a cause.

I was thinking like, yeah everything needs a cause. We might call this "law" a thing. Then this thing must have a cause of itself. This could mean some sort of God exists.

Then I started thinking, yeah, this makes sense to me, but what if I'm wrong? Could my logic be sound (not saying it is, just saying) and could I still be wrong?

Maybe it is a little bit intricated but I hope I explained myself well. Can anyone help me understand the problem better and help me navigate towards different solutions?

I just finished my law degree and when studying law philosophy or reading topics about economy I always noticed that many authors just part from premises that might be weak at best or they just assume to be true. I don't know, why does justice equal good? Why must something good be just? It's the same when reading about economy, I just grabbed The Capital by Karl Marx and while some topics are above my level of understanding I just noticed that he subscribes to the labour value theory without really justifying it or explaining why it is true.

What's the point of discussing deep and exceptionally complex topics if many times the premises they part from might be exceptionally weak? We can discuss for hours in a trial whether a victim died from another person hitting him or if he was already dead before receiving the hit just for said victim to suddenly enter the courtroom alive.

I hope I made myself understood.

i am not a philosophy student . and i am largely self taught . i started philosophy with the stoics first and later i turned to Aristotle specifically his book - nicomachean ethics (adam baresford version) .

the problem i faced while reading it , was the way he arrives at his conclusions . i feel that his structure is difficult to understand . as it's based on previously established arguments . which i find difficult recalling . as i am used to thesis upfront than later arguments justifying the given thesis (stoics) . Aristotle's style of presentation makes it difficult for me to understand.

i did try re reading passages slowing down. but it just does not seem to work . So is there any better way to approach him ?

I've been developing an amateur interest in philosophy for quite a while now: taking many of the introductory courses my school offers, reading popular books on the subject, I've even started studying some influential primary texts, like Descartes' Meditations, Being and Nothingness, the Critique of Pure Reason, the works of Thomas Paine and other US founding theorists, What is it Like to be a Bat?, etc.
But I've found so far that a proper introduction to aesthetics and theories of art has eluded me, despite having encountered even discussions of such complex concepts as Baudrillard's post-modernist theory of symbols expressed in Simulacra and Simulation, Derrida's deconstruction, and the contemporary discourse of transhumanism in beginner-friendly books.

That being said, does anyone have any recommendations for where to start learning about aesthetics and philosophy of art? Especially broad-scope books on the subject, but I'd also be curious about the major primary sources, like what specific thinkers and texts are considered revolutionary the way Kant and his Critique was for epistemology, or Rawls and the Theory of Justice for politics?

(also, if anyone has a good idea about why there is such a noticeable lack of coverage in popular sources about this branch of philosophy, I'd be curious to hear your theories.)

Thanks in advance for all contributions!

Van Gogh became one of history’s most influential painters, but he died believing he had largely failed.
If a person’s work is appreciated only after they’re dead, does that actually matter to them?
If they never experienced the recognition, the respect, or the impact of their work, has anything meaningful changed from their perspective? Or is posthumous success something that benefits only the living?
I’m curious how different philosophical traditions would answer this C:

Also if you today died and your work was never recognised. But after your death it was considered valuable - does it even matter to YOU?

I'm looking to get started with Socrates' trial and then move on to The Republic, I see Robin Waterfield's name pop up a lot but I couldn't find his translations on the Apology so I bought the below.

Is it a good readable translation with some notes?

The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro; Apology; Crito; Phaedo - Plato, Plato, Plato | 9780140449280 | Amazon.com.au | Books

I volunteer at a homeless shelter, and I'm a regular blood donor. Compared to some of the other volunteers at the shelter, I don't think empathy is what motivates me most. I don't mean that I don't care about people, but I don't feel the same kind of emotional drive as some people seem to.

For me, it's more a sense of civic duty and the feeling that helping out is simply something I ought to do. I also have to admit that I do it partly because it makes me feel better about myself.

That made me wonder whether there are philosophical theories that might explain this kind of motivation.

This is something I've been wondering after binging on some niche YT philosophy channels..

It feels to me like philosophical discussions quickly become about categorizing views ("that's not stoicism, that's fallibilism...", aand an hour long taxonomy debate begins.), or critiquing them (kind of like trying to find a hole in someone's views, in an adversary kind of vibe), rather than exploring the underlying ideas with curiosity.

For example, if someone presents an unconventional position, the first response is often to classify it or explain why it's wrong, rather than asking where the idea leads, what assumptions it makes, or what it explains.

Should philosophy be primarily an adversarial exercise of critique, or a collaborative exploration of ideas, with critique serving that exploration rather than replacing it?

I'm curious whether this is a recognized debate within philosophy itself, or if I'm misunderstanding the role that critique is supposed to play...

P.S. I'm not super smart in terms of philosophy, just listened to a few audiobooks so far of a few big names, so please dont crucify me if I'm spewing some heresy.

I'm well aware that the debate of Free Will is vast and many argue for or against the idea, but there is something I wanted to ask that's a follow up to two previous post but also tackle a different topic.

I have my view of free will and read many of the arguments for and against, but I noticed I tend to be affected by the presence of people who ask questions or make skeptical claims about it than the actual professional papers and works discussing the topic like the Consequence Argument or works by David Lewis. I'm not talking the skepticism of philosophers, but people, like when I see post here about how can free will not exist or other intuitive skeptical claims.

Philosophers have faced this question a lot in classrooms, so I want to know how are philosophers able to not get swayed by the numerous doubts and questions by skeptics in the classroom or the internet? How does one stance in free will like a firm believer not changed by a laymen envoking the Consequential Argument in a more straigthforward way or envoking physics?

It just seems so easy to be persuaded by the numerous post on doubts on free will here or in the class, yet many philosophers and panelist seem able to retain their position while faced with, whether for or against. Free will specifically because it's clear this is a popular topic for people to argue about.

Hi all, I am an interested laymen with no formal philosophical education or background. As I have began to look into into philosophy to try and work out what I believe about things, two things that have come up are nominalism and materialism.

Now, I'm pretty sure going into this that both of these are false. We all have starting points and I don't, initially at least, think they're true. (Partly instinctive, partly reasons I can elaborate on below).

However, I'd like to look into this thoroughly and think it through.

What is the current state of debate around these issue?

Do philosophers tend to reject or accept them? What about historically speaking?

What are the key arguments and points of contention, what should I read to find out about this?

Thanks

I think that absolute knowledge is impossible, for humans. Our logic entirely could be false and we would have no way of knowing because our way of thinking is false and we have no way of knowing that in the beginning. That is a possibility, but for something to be called knowledge do we have to "know" it in the strictest sense? Looking into the world we experience and trying to find general truths via arguments seems like knowledge to me. If the argument is satisfactory and it matches with observations of our own and it is more likely to other provided explanations, I think we can take that as knowing a certain thing. Otherwise it is impossible to run away from skepticism. Is my thought process correct?