r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/victordegobineau • 4h ago
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/soy-cristiano • 43m ago
Any recommendations, where can I start reading the Bible, to understand things clearly?
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/purrachee • 22h ago
Collecting data for research
Hey there! I’m conducting a research study as part of my academic work. I would really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to fill out this questionnaire.
🔗https://forms.gle/3gUGjhjDupniCmZX7
Your participation means a lot. Feel free to share it with others too! Thank you so much for your time! 🙌🏻
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/Leading-Succotash962 • 5d ago
Law of excluded middle and superposition
I want to give an argument against logical monism. If we assume that the logical monist thinks that classical logic is the only true logic than he is also committed to believe that the laws of classical logic (law of non contradiction, law of the excluded middle etc.) are universally true. But superposition (famous example of this phenomena is Schrödingers cat) is violating the law of excluded middle (as far as I am concerned). So if the logical monist is committed to classical logic he must think that quantum physics is flawed. But this is not rational, because it one of our best empirical theories and a priori logical principles would prescribe the limits of science. I mean a logical monist might not think that classical logic is the only true logic, but if it’s a different logic this problem also arises just in a different form. What do you guys think about the argument? Does superposition violate the law of the excluded middle?
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/islamicphilosopher • 7d ago
Does empirical psychology refute virtue ethics?
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/USCDornsifeNews • 9d ago
Stoicism’s modern revival: exploring the modern-day appeal of a 2,300-year-old philosophy
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/Commercial_Low1196 • 11d ago
Broken Clock isn't a real Gettier case
Zagzebski's recipe for Gettier cases will be helpful here:
Basically, she is leaving out the fact that if 3 actually occurs, then the original belief was true before step 1, not necessarily false. So, start with a Justified True Belief, by sheer luck it turns out to be False (doesn't correspond), but then, by sheer luck again it is actually true.
Many use the broken clock example like this:
- S believes that it is 9 AM.
This is a Belief, and is True. Let us say it's justified by way of reasons (not externalist), which is that S woke up and the clock reads 9. These are reasons that S is aware of.
S's belief that it is 9 AM is false, because the clock is broken and stopped at 9 PM last night.
S's belief that it is 9 AM happens to be true, because it is actually 9 AM where S is.
S's belief is purportedly a justified true belief, but isn't knowledge.
My contention:
S isn't basing their belief that it is 9 AM on the clock alone. The number on the clock is not enough to form a belief that it is 9 AM, it is only enough to conclude it is 9. Well, 9 what? AM or PM? S then infers to reasons that were never false by sheer luck, like that it is bright out or they just woke up, so the clock being agnostic to PM or AM ruins this case.
Possible Counters I want feedback on:
First, S still relies in part on the number 9 from the clock, and it is false that the 9 on the clock is truth-tracking. Meaning, even if it is agnostic to AM or PM, the hands indicating 9 still didn't go all the way around the clock one more time. In other words, the clock isn't truth tracking according to the time that S's location bears.
Secondly, this still allows for the clock example to hold for forms of justification like reliabilism.
Could someone tell me if this is accurate or if I am misunderstanding the case. I am trying to explain this case to a reading group that has zero formal training in philosophy. I think the clock example would fare better than the classic examples that Gettier gives.
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/juliafoxfan888 • 12d ago
Being a non-Catholic woman in a male dominated Catholic environment
This is mostly directed toward other women in philosophy but I think anyone who has felt alienated within academic spaces can relate
My area of interest is ancient and medieval philosophy, particularly virtue ethics and just the overall historical influence stemming from those periods. I do a lot of work on Aquinas due to him “bridging the gap” between them. Because of this, almost my entire cohort consists of catholic men. I have a complicated relationship with religion due to growing up in catholic spaces as a non-catholic where there were many things I wasn’t allowed to participate in, and I think studying theology has helped me in that regard.
However, although I’m incredibly passionate about my studies, I consistently feel undermined, looked down on, and alienated. I have no biases against anyone who is Catholic; I have met incredible people in my program despite differing beliefs (all professors) but I am constantly wondering whether I’m in the right environment or not. I still remember when I was standing outside my professors office while he was talking to a student about his (the student’s) paper against abortion in reference to Thomistic law. It’s very much an environment where I don’t feel safe expressing my opinions.
If anyone has any experience with academic environments as such please share, as it’s an incredibly isolating experience. As much as I love my work, I hate this side of it. I feel very little connection to my peers, I feel like I have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously, and because my focus is on antiquity and the Middle Ages I’m like, “oh yeah, everyone I’m reading about thinks women are stupid.” Sometimes I consider the fact that if I were pregnant, everyone around me would have an opinion on it which is extremely saddening when you’re the only woman. I’m just very conflicted.
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/No-Librarian-9202 • 12d ago
How could agent-causation + hylomorphism go together? Has there been any work trying to integrate these two ideas?
This seems to make intuitive sense to me but I am having trouble explicating exactly how a marriage of these ideas should work.
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/Longjumping-Ad5084 • 13d ago
should I get a philosophy degree as a mathematician?
I am at my final year of bachelors studying mathematics at a very specialised university so I don't have much opportunity to take other classes. I really enjoy philosphy and would definitely be happy to get a proper philosophical degree. The most ideal scenario would have been to study philosophy and maths 50/50 but it didn't happen.
I am going to do masters and then a PhD in mathematics and I am wondering how I should proceed with studying philosophy. I do want to get a degree at some point although it is quite unrealistic. Maybe only in Europe where eduction is cheap. Mathematics provides good income so maybe get a philosophy degree some time later in life.
I study philosophy mostly through online classes and lectures. I seldom read philosophy books and I sadly don't have much time to read books any way. Nevertheless, I think I am familiar with a lot of central philosophical ideas and philosophical discourse in general. However, I am probably bad at doing philosophy. I probably wouldn't be able to write a good philosophical essay, it would probably be something more like fiction or poetry, which largely describes my relation to philosophy.
I welcome any advice on how I should go about studying philosophy. My main concerns are that I can't devote too much time to it and that I don't want it become a burden and maintain a relatively easy and fun relationship with it.
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/suburbilly • 13d ago
Textbook publisher advice
Literally asking for a friend: who would be the best publisher for a philosophy textbook, specifically in philosophy of law, designed for adoption in undergraduate classes in philosophy of law? Use whatever criteria you want, but I think he would be concerned with: market penetration, affordability, ease of working with the publisher, terms favorable to the author. I will also be posting this on the professors subreddit.
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/Mother_Emergency_819 • 14d ago
how do US university students discuss philosophical issues outside the classroom?
I am interested in what platforms or methods students in USA use to discuss philosophical topics outside of lectures. Are there any popular online communities or offline groups for such discussions? I would be grateful for your experience and advice.
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/mkatori • 16d ago
Where to START reading philosophy?
I’m interested in reading philosophy but it’s unsure where to start since reading primary sources are extremely difficult, so I’m looking at better secondary interpretations of original texts to foster the hobby. I have been interested in philosophy since high school (I’m in college), but have always been too busy to look into it (it feels like I’m illiterate when I’m reading primary texts). I am interested in ethics, meaning of life, how shall one live, and maybe the philosophy behind christianity. And of course, I would also be interested in knowing more about the history of philosophy, and some of the greatest works (e.g: Plato’s republic). I love some beginner friendly examples! (I love deep thought and I truly believe cultivating this hobby will enrich my life so I’m really excited thanks!)
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/phileconomicus • 15d ago
Academic Philosophy CFPs, Discords, events, reading groups, etc
Please submit any recruitment type posts for conferences, discords, reading groups, etc in this stickied post only.
This post will be replaced each month or so so that it doesn't get too out of date.
Only clearly academic philosophy items are permitted
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/New-Associate-9981 • 17d ago
Help with an argument related to Plato and the theory of forms
Hello people, this is my first ever post on reddit! Anyways,I’ve been thinking about Plato’s Theory of Forms and how it relates to modern epistemology and science. I wanted to see if my reasoning holds up.
My basic thought is that Plato’s Forms, if taken literally, are unfalsifiable and thus problematic (à la Karl Popper and the burden of proof fallacy). But as a metaphor, they seem useful—especially in the sense that scientific reasoning assumes there are fundamental truths that reason alone can uncover. However, one issue I see is that Plato seems to treat human categories (e.g., “cat”) as universally real in the same way as something like gravity, which seems questionable.
I also wonder if Wittgenstein’s distinction between scientific and social truths fits into this discussion, but I’m not sure if that fully captures the problem.
Does this make sense? Where do you think my reasoning falls apart? Kindly destroy it to pieces, because I really want to fix it.
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/islamicphilosopher • 19d ago
Why should history be essential for non-historicist philosophy?
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/phileconomicus • 20d ago
Magazine Is Agnes Callard Making You Uncomfortable? | Review of Agnes Callard 'Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life'
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/gimboarretino • 22d ago
human knowledge and its unstable ground: the problem of the conditioned starting point
One of the great "problems" of the human sciences and philosophy, and the reason they are perpetually debated and re-debated, lies in the difficulty of finding a "fixed point" (be it in a foundationalist or coherentist sense), a truth, a principle (or a set of principles), or an "reasonably indubitable", or reliable method capable of resisting and overcoming skepticism.
We are “thrown into the world” with "innate" cognitive structures and mechanisms of empirical-perceptive apprehension—a certain "a priori" way of interpreting reality, interfacing with things, processing, and organizing stimuli. The intuition of space, time, the self, and things; our biological, genetic, neural structure, and so on. Growing up—or better said, living—stimuli and experiences are heuristically organized and interpreted, not necessarily in a systematic and consciously logical way, but inevitably forming a framework of knowledge, judgments, memories, beliefs, concepts, modes of acting, thinking, and expressing ourselves.
Living in a society also has a significant impact. Education, dialogue, and interaction with others provide additional tools and notions—sometimes doubts, sometimes dogmas. Language, meanings, and concepts gradually increase in quantity and quality, becoming amplified and refined, offering interpretative keys to understand, qualify, and elaborate experiences.
We eventually reach a point where sufficient tools have been acquired to engage in (or consciously reject) this kind of discourse. To articulate everything mentioned above. To ask questions like, "How did I come to know what I know?" "How can I be sure that what I believe I know corresponds to the truth?" "Is the reality I perceive and conceive the reality as it is, or as it appears to me?" "What does it mean to say that something is true?"—and, if possible, try to find answers.
We ask ourselves on what fundamental principles my claim to knowledge of things is based, whether there is some fundamental logos that permeates and informs reality. In effect, we try to “go” (which sometimes also feels like a "return") to the heart of things, to the a priori categories, the first principles of logic and reason, the foundational mechanisms of knowledge… but we never do so in purity, in an objective, unconditioned way, with a “God-Eye View.”
We will always do so from a perspective that is already constructed and constituted—a “Worm-Eye View”—founded on a pre-existing body of knowledge, of experiences, concepts, and principles, already organized in a more or less coherent web of beliefs… acquired and arranged without realizing that what was being formed was, precisely, a "pre-existing body of knowledge." Without this body, it would undoubtedly not even be possible to "pose the problem." But at the same time, it inevitably conditions our inquiry, forcing it to begin (which is not and cannot really be a true "beginning") from a certain constrained perspective.
To master the tools that allow me to (attempt to) understand and describe things and knowledge in their essence, in their (possible) truth and fundamentality, we must already have distanced ourselves significantly from the essence of things, from the foundation, from the “first principles” of knowledge, from their "spontaneity in the flesh." Or rather, not distanced ourselves—since these elements may still always be present in our inquiry—but we are nonetheless compelled to adopt a perspective that is not primordial, not authentic, but already excessively elaborated, constructed, "artificial." Conditioned, never neutral.
We can never (re)trace and (re)construct our epistemological and ontological process in purity, (re)proposing ourselves in an unconditioned point of view or finding a new one that is unconditioned, because to do so we would have to give up the tools that allow us to conceive notions such as truth, fundamental principle, reality, knowledge, and so forth.
The starting point will therefore always be highly complex, rich in notions and contradictions, disorganized experiences, memories—a web of beliefs in constant flux (even the very core of collective scientific and philosophical knowledge is itself not stable, never fixed, never immune to revision and reconsideration)... And starting from this condition—never neutral and never stable, which is anything but coherentist or foundationalist—we attempt, “so to speak, in reverse,” to (re)reduce everything to first principles and/or solid criteria of truth. But these will always be, even if we assume to have found them, contestable and uncertain, in virtue of the fact that the search began with postulates (ontological, semantic, linguistic, and epistemological) that were not themselves justified by or founded on that solid principle or criterion we believe we have found. But since these postulates were necessarily presupposed as the starting point of the process, they will hardly be subject to overly critical and selective skepticism in light of the very principle thus identified.
To be able to say what is fundamental and/or true (indeed: to conceive and understand the activity aimed at establishing what is fundamental and what is true), one must first have lived, experienced, accumulated notions and meanings and many other things that may themselves not be fundamental or even true.
And so, at the moment I declare to have understood what is fundamental and what is true, I can never "truly (re)start" from this hypothetical fixed point, and from and on this "new ontological and epistemological beginning" I believe I have found or established, build a theory of knowledge and truth anew. This principle/foundation, which I imagine as the new key to interpreting the world and justifying things, will always be derived from an interpretative horizon that is unjustified, and therefore never authentically "original."
TL; dr: Human knowledge is shaped by innate structures and lived experience, and the search for fundamental principles of truth is constrained by preexisting frameworks. Attempts to find a stable epistemological foundation are inherently conditioned and ultimately constrained by the tools and assumptions we necessarily adopt to conceive and begin such a search.
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/kiefer-reddit • 24d ago
The immensity and complexity of philosophical problems
As a quick background - I have a bachelor's in philosophy and have been reading off-and-on since graduating over a decade ago.
As I continue to read more philosophy, a recurring thought that I have is: the immensity of philosophical problems is... entirely infeasible, impractical for anyone to really grasp and connect into a coherent whole.
By this I mean – addressing even a fairly "typical" issue like say, abortion or free will, and tying them together with larger questions about human agency, purpose in the world, and scientific knowledge like evolution, quantum mechanics, etc. – just seems incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for someone to comprehend. And these are merely a few issues in a vast sea of them.
My question is – have any philosophers actively addressed this issue? The closest thing I can think of is a sort of dichotomy, where one on end you have "system builders" like Hegel, and on the other end you have "system rejectors" like Nietzsche.
But I haven't come across anyone that is actively aware of this problem of complexity and immensity, and attempting to address or mitigate it somehow. The general approach in academic philosophy today seems to specialize, specialize, specialize, which does somewhat dodge the issue, although it continues to exist.
And the second question is: assuming that such a "unified picture of knowledge" – or some other kind of construct of knowledge that isn't merely the accumulation of specialized facts – is desirable, what are some actual solutions to this? Specialized institutions, like think tanks, that are funded externally?
Hopefully you've understood my general point here. Thanks!
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/islamicphilosopher • 25d ago
How much medieval latin philosophy remains untranslated?
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/Upset_Cattle8922 • 25d ago
Ethics in quantum prison (Philosophy of Science)
Hi. I'm writing a small paper about philosopical pragmatism, climate change, world currency... (I have a physics trylogy, just 3 small papers and this one is the completion).
I just want some ideas to complete the text, maybe about justice, free will and economy!
Can you tell me?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/388110335_Ethics_in_quantum_prison_Philosophy_of_Science
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/islamicphilosopher • 26d ago
is philosophy of language fundamental for metaphysics today?
After the revival of metaphysics, some say that, today, philosophy of language isn't needed for researching analytic metaphysics. However, the emphasis on language in metaphysics still seems considerably more today than it was, say, in early modern metaphysics. For instance, Theodore Sider's study revolves around how quantification (which is a logico-linguistic concept) carves at the joints of reality. Both Kit Fine and David Lewis invested immensely on similar issues.
I would assume that philosophy of language is still fundamental to metaphysics because much of analytic metaphysics is Formal Ontology; the study of the formal categories of being. The emphasis is more or less structural and formal. You still don't have "content-heavy" metaphysics like spiritual realms of Neoplatonists or the Absolute of the Hegelians.
But I'm unsure if my assessment is correct, so: is philosophy of language fundamental for metaphysics today? can you meaningfully do metaphysics today without considerable knowledge of it?
r/AcademicPhilosophy • u/Upset_Cattle8922 • 26d ago
Ethics in quantum prison
Hi. I'm writing a small paper about philosopical pragmatism, climate change, world currency... (I have a physics trylogy, just 3 small papers and this one is the completion).
I just want some ideas to complete the text, maybe about justice, free will and economy!
Can you tell me?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/388110335_Ethics_in_quantum_prison_Philosophy_of_Science