Those of us who believe in the truth typically accept contingent truths or, to use possible worlds semantics, truths that are true in some worlds and false in others. For example, the sentence ‘Dwight Goodyear was born in 1970’ expresses a… Read more ›
Our experiences of beauty and duty appear to be very different. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), in his book Critique of Judgment, argued that judgments of the beautiful must be “disinterested.” This means that we make these judgments (1) without concern for the truth; (2) without… Read more ›
In his essay “What Pragmatism Means” the great American philosopher and psychologist William James (1842-1910) asserts that pragmatism represents the empiricist attitude in both “a more radical and in a less objectionable form than it has ever yet assumed” (see… Read more ›
Aristotle (384-322 BC), in his Metaphysics, observed that philosophers study being or reality at the most general level. To do so, they need to use logic or syllogisms; and to use logic they need to be absolutely clear about certain principles… Read more ›
Relish not only the sweet fruit but the pit at the core; the part hardest to digest, the part which alone can yield more.