Index of questions and answers

Page 156


The politics of monarchy
Truth OR meaning?
Quietism in philosophy
Question about Ukraine from a Russian philosopher
Existentialism and feeling

Page 155

Language as a picture of reality
Existentialism and reverse thinking
The later Wittgenstein’s notion of a ‘picture’
I’ve forgotten the reason why I must avoid doing X
Through the eyes of Beyonce
On ethics and reason

Page 154

On truth and revelation
Justice and the death penalty
Ask a Philosopher by Geoffrey Klempner 2011-2021.
Causation and personal identity
On the difference between the truth and facts
Ethical limits to knowledge in the arts

Page 153

Free will and the Black Box
Why should I care about saving the planet?
Why should I bother?
Who knows where the time goes?
Are we just sacks of meat?
On the very idea of a ‘senseless’ question

Page 152

The chances of getting to Heaven
Controlling one’s thoughts
What is a ‘game’?
The art of philosophizing
The story of my life
On what must be

Page 151

The pursuit of happiness
The ‘logic’ of Covid-19 denial
On the possibility of philosophical enlightenment
Split consciousness scenarios and the self
Why is my life so important?
Reasons to be hopeful

Page 150

Knowledge versus spirituality
Plato, Parmenides and the One
Becoming a self-taught philosopher
Haunted by solipsism
On a challenge to the ‘naturalistic fallacy’
What’s the point of knowing anything if I am going to die?

Page 149

Ayn Rand: ‘Principles do not fill the glass’
Platonic ideas compatible with art?
The whole and the parts
The pursuit of wisdom
Gene editing and the dignity of ‘the human’
“Why bother studying ancient philosophy? (2)”

Page 148

Why bother studying ancient philosophy?
Morals – where do we stand with them?
Ethical egoism
On miracles
The nature of time and the age of the Earth
Space, time and reality

Page 147

The age of the Earth and the reality of time
Kant’s critique of Descartes’ theory of knowledge
Verificationism and the self-defeating argument
Asking the Big Questions (2)
Asking the Big Questions
Parts and wholes

Page 146

More on too much philosophy
Too much philosophy?
Death of Socrates
Things and their properties
Nietzsche on truths and untruths
Pitfalls of Young Earth creationism

Page 145

Music and meaning (contd.)
Understanding understanding
Creationism and scientific evidence
Music and meaning
William James and acting on ‘rational beliefs’
Social contracts and self-interest

Page 144

Too much knowledge?
Gorgias and the morality of rhetoric
Cicero and Seneca on god(s)
Nietzsche a tyrant?
Aristotle vs. Empedokles on change and generation
Empedokles and the cosmic cycle

Page 143

Ontological proofs
The ontological argument
On having a purpose in life
Why do I exist?
Purpose of existence?
What is the purpose of human existence?

Page 142

Heidegger and the grid of meaning
Philosophy of language
Can it ever be right to hate?
The Philosophical quest
How many beans make five?
What is philosophy?

Page 141

Theory vs practice
The concept of malice
Plato’s cave and the shadows of reality
Solving philosophy once and for all
Truth in the Western tradition
Solving philosophy

Page 140

What is Truth?
Idea of objective truth
Paradigm shift
Dialectics of Nature or not?
Heidegger on ‘What is a thing?’
Simplified Marxist dialectics

Page 139

The two godheads
Dialectical materialism – brief explanation
Free will and creative reverie
Transcendental wake-up call
Kant’s dogmatic slumbers
‘Two souls, alas, in my breast’

Page 138

The inner voice
What is a ‘thing’?
Would the world exist if I did not?
The formula of soul
Why am I me?
Descartes and imagination

Page 137

Memory and personal identity
Me and my consciousness
How ‘I’ came to be
Religion and hypocrisy
Ignorance before the law in Ancient Athens
Plato and the criteria of knowledge

Page 136

Philosophy of procreation?
The story of sex
Keeping and breaking promises
Where the Platonic forms live
Definition of ‘bigot’
Indelibility of consciousness (continued)

Page 135

Indelibility of consciousness
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle on wealth in the polis and the soul
Doubts about Godel’s theorem
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle on the ‘wealth of nations’
Thought experiments
Metaphysics and contingent existents

Page 134

Deleuze on change
Lao-tse and Western philosophy
Are there basic, universal virtues?
You can never leave
The two truths of solipsism
The paradox of anti-solipsism

Page 133

The essence of ‘I’
History, Plato and Marx
From a would-be conscientious objector
Rawls and justifiable inequality
Starting and ending with Hegel
Gertler on disembodied ‘facts’

Page 132

Advice to Boris Johnson
What makes a chair a chair (2nd opinion)
What makes a chair a chair
Aristotle’s prime mover
Universal virtues?
The essence of art

Page 131

Is hot or cold real or…?
Knowledge and memory
Consciousness and reality
Knowledge versus ethics
Aristotle’s substance and accident
Ontology or epistemology?

Page 130

More on atheism
Christopher Hitchens and religion
Life is not a dream
Religion is neither irrational nor just infantile superstition
Aristotle’s potential infinity
Is separation an illusion?

Page 129

Doubting scientific realism
Solipsistic idealism?
Physics vs feeling: Can I really touch anything?
Sport and philosophy
Thinking in words – or not?
Occam’s Razor

Page 128

Principlist approach to bioethics: works in medical practice
Conceptions of justice
Creationism vs. emanationism
Moral ‘isms’ and relevance
The dilemma of Euthyphro
Karl Jaspers on the ‘axial’ view of history

Page 127

Are there moral facts?
On the Avoidance of Becoming Victor Meldrew
Footnotes to Plato: in a manner of speaking
Footnotes to Plato?
Anaximander and his apeiron
Anaximander’s enigmatic Apeiron

Page 128

The ways of Aquinas
Time
Philosophical novels
Philosophy and science (2)
Philosophy and science
Meaning of life

Page 127

Time travel
Socrates and Mill on the unexamined life
Animals, humans and personal identity
Animals as persons
Gilbert Ryle contra Descartes
Questioning Avicenna’s cosmological proof of God’s existence

Page 126

Causal theory of perception vs naive realism
Spinoza’s mind-body paralellism
More on Descartes’ watermark argument
God’s ‘Watermark’
Is my banana snack free or determined?
Willing and striving

Page 125

Are thoughts made of atoms?
Brexit blues
Robin Hood’s moral tendencies
Arendt on thinking and speaking
Does a hidden object exist?
Where do my words come from?

Page 124

Is metaphysics still a valid philosophy?
What is metaphysics?
Who is doing the talking?
Was Fichte a solipsist? (contd.)
Leibniz on why there is something rather than nothing
Was Fichte a solipsist?

Page 123

Looking for a philosophical name for my chess project
Another view of the Enlightenment
Hoyle’s ‘junkyard tornado’ revisited
Pointless suffering cant be justified
Descartes and the Causal Principle: talking relics
Getting straight about truth

Page 122

Socrates a decadent?
How enlightened was the Enlightenment?
What is duty and what is instinct?
Utilitarianism and moral choices
John Stuart Mill on unreasoned belief
I need to learn how to stop thinking

Page 121

Logical and non-logical justification
Morality and moralities
Faith, reason and ancient philosophy
Is having lots of money wrong?
Locus of mind-body interaction
Can philosophy be defined?

Page 120

Divine command theory and the sinking lifeboat
Is randomness mind-dependent?
Robbing Peter to pay Paul
Visual appearance and illusion
Houses in the sky
Sartre on radical freedom

Page 119

Thinking too much
Thought and language
Classic texts for the beginning student
Better to never have been
Metaphysical necessity
Causation and necessary connection

Page 118

Kant on organ donation
Is it worth reading Plato’s dialogues?
I want to be a Superman
Advice to a newbie
Buridan’s ass revisited
Memento mori

Page 117

Socrates on virtue and the cosmic order
I may be a Brain in a Vat
Nozick’s libertarianism and self-ownership
Locke, Berkeley and Ockham’s Razor
A little more on Hoyle’s ‘junkyard tornado’ argument
On Fred Hoyle’s ‘junkyard tornado’

Page 116

Flukes or simulants?
Are we all ultimately the same consciousness?
Evidential argument against God trumped
Questioning the appearance/ reality distinction
Sins of the nihilist
J.S. Mill and the definition of ‘harm’

Page 115

The examined life
Plato, Parmenides and Heraclitus
Consciousness, nous and the demiurge
A fate worse than death
Physicalism bad, panpsychism good
Materialism, thought, infinity

Page 114

Acting dutifully and acting well
Doubts about materialism
Is religion superstition?
No Marx for Positivism
On a purported objection to Hempel’s D-N model
Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ and philosophy

Page 113

Evaluating the Kalam Cosmological Argument
Proving the existence of the soul
Is philosophy dead?
Forgive me for my failures
Is Achilles still chasing that tortoise?
I am 65 and struggling with philosophy

Page 112

Telling patients the truth
Between Jesus and Hitler
Kant and the Category of Relation
Morality and one’s own desires
I want to live forever
P.F. Strawson’s critique of Hume’s bundle theory of the ‘self’

Page 111

Can water turn into wine?
Can we (literally) perceive value?
Materialism, immaterialism and Ockham’s Razor
What is a moral environment?
Define a ‘pen’
Is it sometimes OK to jump the queue?

Page 110

Problems with J.S. Mill’s Harm Principle
Regretting my decision not to invest in Bitcoin
Believing things into existence
Writing an essay on the Crito
Extracurricular activities of a Philosophy major
Russell, Pascal and betting on God

Page 109

Do panpsychists have a moral obligation to rocks?
What’s the difference between rule-based utilitarianism and deontology?
THE most important philosopher
Jobs for philosophers revisited
The case for Mystery
The awareness of plants

Page 108

Philosophical zombies
How old am I really?
Aristotle on reason and emotion
Ethics and potentially harmful foodstuffs
Is contradiction an objective reality?
Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothingness’

Page 107

Philosophy as eschatology
Ouroboros, birth and death
God and Lucifer
Location of the soul
I want to study philosophy on my own
Why is there something rather than nothing?

Page 106

Parmenides’ One
Politicians’ expert-led fallacies
Personal identity and the Eternal Recurrence
Facts and alternative facts
Virtue ethics and social context
Aristotelian Virtue and Kantian Duty

Page 105

Are some human beings zombies?
On wanting to live forever
I dreamt I was a brain in a vat
How to apply the Categorical Imperative?
The ethics of immigration raids
Michael Dummett’s ‘Truth’

Page 104

Descartes, doubt and God
Puzzle about objects and identity
Could an AI ever be a philosopher?
The consequences of cultural relativism
Descartes and the resurrection of the body
Are psychology and materialism compatible?

Page 103

What do we owe to future generations?
Solving Meno’s paradox
Mental sanity
The Brexit Case and modus ponens
Dangerous professors and sparing the rod
Finding your significant other

Page 102

Negative attitudes to the world
Evolution of bright colours in birds
Losing arguments gracefully
The actor and the spectator
Justifying a war of aggression
Conceivability arguments

Page 101

Mill and higher pleasures
Infatuated with philosophy
Rawls’ principles of justice
Is history of philosophy bunk?
Saying goodbye to religion
Greek philosophers on mathematical truth

Page 100

Deduction, induction and abduction
What’s so bad about an infinite regress?
An invisible God?
Why did Marxism fail?
Fear of death
Marrying a horse or another man

Page 99

Man is semi-autonomous
Socrates and the ‘physikoi’
Definition of ‘definition’
Logical determinism and fatalism
Naturalism vs. Materialism
Ronnie O’Sullivan and metaphysics

Page 98

An entity to worship
Semantics of ‘so gay’
The meaning of ‘the’
‘If God made it, it must be good’ puzzle
What’s so bad about suffering?
Challenging the law of excluded middle

Page 97

Perplexing questions
The good Brahmin
When the Devil plays with us
Monkey’s under the skin
Cartesian dualism and consciousness
Sartre on freedom and evil

Page 96

The meaning of life
Ethics of shark culling
What is ‘the’ question?
(Who) is a philosopher?
Socrates ‘not all pleasures are the same’
After the EU Referendum

Page 95

Who is greater, Aristotle or Kant, and why
British EU Membership Referendum (continued)
The disjunctivist theory of perception
Putting up with bad language
British EU Membership Referendum
‘Ignore all rules’ paradox

Page 94

Metaphysics and epistemology of science
Cartesian mind-body interactionism revisited
Trusting our senses and our reason
Heidegger on the entity-ness of an entity
Real and nominal definitions revisited
Should I be worried that the world is not as it seems?

Page 93

Things I might have been born ‘as’
Objections to emotivism
‘Hard’ determinism revisited
Defending Cartesian mind-body interactionism
Time travel in a dream machine
‘Real’ and ‘nominal’ definitions

Page 92

Is it pointless to have regrets about the past?
Arthur C. Clarke and the prospect of superintelligence
Paradox of the heap and the messiness of language
Bertrand Russell on appearance and reality
Can a computer running an algorithm be conscious?
Questions on hard determinism

Page 91

Philosophical zombies
Being a good person and being a good friend
Relation between science and philosophy
Infinite being
Lies, damned lies, and statistics
Not seeing philosophical questions

Page 90

Gilbert Ryle contra Descartes
Leibniz on necessity and compossibility
Ethics, epistemology and ontology of Buddhism
Slippery slope principle simply explained
Question about God’s power
Dr Johnson and the stone revisited

Page 89

When Dr Johnson kicked the stone
‘The world is all that is the case’
Are all beautiful paintings good paintings?
Implications of the theory of parallel universes
Would the world be a better place without religion?
Question about Jeremy Corbyn and political philosophy

Page 88

Philosophy, psychiatry and anti-psychiatry
Role of the muses in Hesiod’s Theogony
Philosophy of decapitation
Kant versus Hume on the nature of causation
Friendship and intellectual elitism
Heraclitus on change and permanence

Page 87

Philosophy versus theology
Philosophy as a way of life
True contradictions and the Liar paradox
Descartes versus the evil demon
Kant on lies and the axe man
Free will and destiny

Page 86

What will happen to me when I die?
What is direct realism?
Do scientists need help from philosophers?
Newton ‘I frame no hypotheses’
Do ethical propositions have an objective reference?
Does a cloned human have a soul?

Page 85

Philosophers on the nature of philosophy
Euthyphro’s dilemma revisited
Implications of the disappearance of religion
How did Socrates know he was wise?
What is the age of the Earth if time does not exist?
Puzzle about BCE and CE dating

Page 84

Aristotle on the ‘proper function’ of an object
Hume’s problem of induction
Parmenides and Zeno on the impossibility of change and motion
Marx on ‘alienation’ and Heidegger on ‘deworlding’
Is Russell right that ethics is not a branch of philosophy
Which came first: the individual or society?

Page 83

Immaterial substances in a natural world
Personal identity and tele-transportation
Adding premisses to a valid inference in traditional and modern logic
How does philosophy progress? (continued)
Descartes and the challenge of scepticism
Deciding to burn your hand on the stove

Page 82

Why?
Difference between happiness and pleasure
How does philosophy progress?
Making sense of Kant in easy steps
What do you think of my views about the soul?
On the need to convince people to agree with us

Page 81

Secular view on the meaning of life
Could God make it the case that I passed the exam that I failed?
Is truth just a logical property?
In what manner (if at all) do numbers exist?
What questions did Thales ask?
Aristophanes on Socrates

Page 80

Could we be merely characters in a galactic video game?
How different might the laws of nature have been?
Invalid arguments with logically true conclusions
Guidance for someone interested in metaphysics
Looking at an argument for the unreality of time
Could there be a Turing Test for aesthetic experience?

Page 79

The philosophy of Chairman Mao
Is life meaningless?
How Hume woke Kant from his ‘dogmatic slumber’
Nietzsche’s breakdown and his view on pity
Kant on space and time
Divine command theory revisited

Page 78

The central questions of philosophy
Locke’s view on just/ legitimate government
Good and bad arguments vs non-arguments
Where is time?
God and morality: Euthyphro’s dilemma
Fallacy of ‘we are only human’

Page 77

Do philosophers have a duty to heal human suffering?
The direction of time
Descartes’ case for doubt in the First Meditation
Does anything matter if nothing’s real?
The possibility of body duplication
What is the number one?

Page 76

What if the human race screws up?
Plato’s allegory of the cave
The Matrix and philosophy
Does it matter if nothing’s real?
Practical philosophies
Philosophy as classic liberal education

Page 75

Philosophical views about love
Personal identity and brain swapping
Difference between concepts and words
Descartes and the ontological proof of God’s existence
More on Heidegger’s ‘Dasein’
Questions about evil

Page 74

Slavery and moral progress
What does Heidegger mean by ‘Dasein’?
Virtue and hubris in Ancient Greece
Confused about the external world
Puzzle about listening to a tune
Thought experiments revisited

Page 73

The philosophy of Max Stirner
Bernard Williams ‘The Idea of Equality’
Passion in a post-postmodern society
Thought experiments in philosophy
David Hume’s missing shade of blue
Artificial intelligence and the Turing Test

Page 72

On a possible form of faster-than-light travel
Am I here?
On omniscience and immutability
Consequences of the argument from illusion
Free will problem revisited
Kant and Mill on the golden rule

Page 71

Keeping a philosophical notebook
Utility of academic philosophy
Locke on personal identity
Is there free will?
Is Baudrillard a philosopher?
Discriminating on the basis of homosexuality

Page 70

Donald Trump conundrum
What is the meaning of a proper name?
Can a good Confucian be selfish?
Tree in the forest revisited
Quine’s attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction
Things or processes as fundamental?

Page 69

Is metaphysics possible?
Demarcating science from pseudoscience
What is holism?
Do we use only 10 per cent of our brain?
The time before the Big Bang
Are all philosophic truths objective, rational and universal?

Page 68

Descartes on self-knowledge and Leibniz on indiscernibles
Does God believe in himself?
Solipsism as a practical possibility
Descartes’ cosmological and ontological arguments
What is life?
Choosing Philosophy as a major

Page 67

Hobbes’ case for an absolute monarch
Bringing about the past
Scepticism and the Cogito of Descartes
Berkeley vs Descartes and the beeswax
Materialism and the fallibility of sense perception
Leibniz’s theory of monads revisited

Page 66

Moral dilemmas and moral theory
Leibniz’s theory of monads for the perplexed
Puzzle about absent time travellers
Knowledge of truth and the nature of illusion
Reason and imagination
J.S. Mill on higher and lower pleasures

Page 65

Is Kant a naturalist or a non-naturalist?
Strawson vs Russell on analysing definite descriptions
Are the self and material objects illusory?
Love and sex in Ancient Greek philosophy
Determinism, compatibilism and libertarianism
Is Aristotle an ethical relativist?

Page 64

How much intelligence does a philosophy student need?
Kant and free will
Philosophy and the nature of knowledge
The Glass Bead Game and philosophy
Nietzsche’s theory of the eternal recurrence
What is your favourite paradox?

Page 63

Chess and philosophy
Inverted spectrum hypothesis
Greatest 20th century philosopher
Total recall? forget it
Philosophical pecking order
Are all questions philosophical?

Page 62

Is the world all there is?
Knowing when an act is done from duty
Descartes’ method of doubt
Thinking before you speak
Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem
Denying the consequent

Page 61

Would ‘I’ still exist if I was conceived one hour later?
Claims about what ‘most’ philosophers believe
Moral dilemma over career vs family
Heraclitus on change revisited
Intelligence and levels of consciousness
Kant on intentions and consequences

Page 60

Heraclitus on temporal flow,identity and change
Four basic questions of existence
On an attempted proof of mind-body dualism
Cosmology vs ontology in Eastern and Western philosophy
Buddhist philosophy of mind and self
A syllogism named Celaront

Page 59

Descartes and the principle of egocentricity
Does objectivity exist?
Descartes on imagination and intellect
Fatalism and knowledge of the future
Knock-down refutation of skepticism
Latter day Latin

Page 58

Can philosophy help me in my confusion?
AI and the answer to the task of life
What kind of animal is homo sapiens?
Looking for a first cause
One approach to the meaning of life
Scientific laws without a lawmaker

Page 57

Karma for robots
Ending the debate of materialism vs. idealism
Is morality inherent?
Why should I be moral?
A different look at free will
Dating with a Kantian ethicist

Page 56

David Hume and the sensible knave
Who will check my claim about alternate electricity?
Meaning of an artwork to the artist
Free will versus determinism
Big bang holds steady
Confused about Leibniz’s theory of monads

Page 55

What keeps a philosopher interested?
Explaining the differentiation of the universe
Quantum theory and the free will problem
What is the mind-body problem and why is it important?
Wittgenstein on the definition of a ‘game’
What’s the point of philosophy?

Page 54

Nietzsche on the will to power and the Ubermensch
A philosopher’s view of the future of religion
Wittgenstein’s view of philosophy
How our view of reality is shaped by theory
Could two identical objects occupy the same space? (revisited)
Hume’s is-ought problem and its application to morality

Page 53

Contrasting The Matrix and Descartes Meditation One
The three-way cake division problem
David Lewis on the logical possibility of time travel
An eight year old’s question about the external world (contd.)
Experiencing a ‘temporary epiphany’
On a proposed argument for theism

Page 52

What makes someone a philosopher?
When is a question about religion philosophical?
Hegel, Marx and historical materialism
Can you call an invalid argument ‘unsound’?
An eight year old’s question about the external world
What would Nietzsche say about today’s society?

Page 51

Is time travel possible?
Short answer to a question about evil
What’s the most interesting philosophical argument you have come across?
Descartes on the insufficiency of sense experience to determine what is real
Will there come a day when philosophy no longer exists?
David Hume’s view on personal identity

Page 50

Could two identical objects occupy the same space?
Role of philosophy in the postmodern era
Do laws actually make a difference?
Descartes’ argument for God’s existence in the 3rd Meditation
More on ‘must everything that evolves have intelligence/ consciousness?’
More on ‘can a perfect being create something imperfect’?

Page 49

Locke on personal identity
Is human free-will compatible with God’s omnipotence/ omniscience?
What right do we have to be happy when things are so bad?
Reading Hegel’s ‘Geist’ as equivalent to ‘God’
Proving the existence of a teapot
Philosophy in the 21st century

Page 48

How does Hume justify belief in an external world?
What is Hegel’s dialectical process composed of?
What does the soul look like?
Must everything that evolves have intelligence/ consciousness?
Is Nietzsche an ethical egoist?
Can a perfect being create something imperfect?

Page 47

How a good empiricist gets to grips with gravity
The science and the philosophy of colours
One day all human life will be extinguished – so why are we here?
Explaining Kant’s ‘transcendental unity of apperception’
Question on knowledge, faith and certainty
What do you think of my theory that everything is motion?

Page 46

What is a metaphysical explanation of a phenomenon?
On the value of studying philosophy
Can our feelings be our sole guide to morality?
Difference between being philosophical and being a philosopher
Questions on the philosophy of time
Are some acts morally obligatory regardless of consequences?

Page 45

Nietzsche on pity and the death of God
Plato’s allegory of the cave
Philosophy of mathematics and the nature of numbers
More on Mill’s understanding of higher and lower pleasures
Distinction between concrete and abstract particulars
Descartes on the divisibility of mind (contd.)

Page 44

Why dissatisfied Socrates is better than a satisfied pig
Was there a time before the universe existed?
Descartes on the indivisibility of mind
Difference between reality and illusion
Question on human evolution
Logic puzzle about trees and leaves

Page 43

There is no TV in your head – true or false?
Nietzsche on truth, lies and interpretation
Paradox of the tattoo artist
Descartes’ attempt to prove the existence of an external world
What use is formal logic to philosophy?
Why were my comments deleted?

Page 42

What do we want from answers?
Which of these statements did Plato hold?
Kant on why one should not make a false promise
Analyzing Descartes’ ontological argument for the existence of God
Was Hegel a scientologist?
Defining informational content

Page 41

What is a philosopher?
Existence of the external world
Geniuses versus idiots
Can there be certainty outside my currently observed world?
Thales versus Anaximander
How to use a logic diagram

Page 40

Kant on empty thoughts and blind intuitions
Moral philosophies of Kant and Aristotle compared
Plato’s allegory of the cave and his political views
Frege on thoughts, truth, and facts
Cutting Aristotle (and a few other philosophers) short
Science, philosophy and the possibility of free will

Page 39

Benefits of understanding the abstract world
The notorious case of Debora Rodriguez
How did Socrates break the conventions of Athenian society?
On an attempted critique of postmodernism
What’s the use of philosophy?
Aren’t we happier not knowing that our ‘real’ world isn’t real?

Page 38

Is there such a thing as darkness?
Descartes’ method of systematic doubt
Is scepticism self-refuting?
Achieving fellowship with Dionysus
Does mere existence imply causal efficacy?
Worried about the universe

Page 37

Why is death a comparative evil?
Determinism and Laplace’s demon
Existentialist view of free will and responsibility
Removing life support from a patient in persistent vegitative state
Question from a fan of Diogenes
The difference between concepts and propositions

Page 36

Nagel’s example of the infant and the brain-damaged man
Did Berkeley really ask the question about the tree in the forest?
Is artificial intelligence posisble?
Which is most real: the chair or its molecules?
On knowledge, theory and the unknowable
Struggling with Gödel’s incompleteness theorem

Page 35

Comparing the Buddha to Socrates, Plato and Descartes
Utilitarianism versus deontology
Reading original philosophical texts
Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia
A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
Recommendations for an introductory book on philosophy

Page 34

Why are we so scared of death?
How can earth and water produce a live frog?
Does the verification principle fail by its own criterion?
Thomas Nagel on why life is absurd
What makes the cosmological argument of God’s existence an impure argument?
Does the panel understand the meaning of hubris?

Page 33

The Ionians’ contribution to philosophy
Cartesian scepticism and the ontological argument for God’s existence
Descartes and Hume on seeing a red bird
Kant and the idea of empty space
Counterfactual statements and the London Marathon
Casting two shadows with one object and one light source

Page 32

General laws and the notion of causality
Idea of a universal aesthetic
Brain, mind and soul
What is theism?
What is philosophy?
Berkeley as solipsist

Page 31

Leibniz and the zombie hypothesis
Justification for Plato’s ideal Republic
Confucius: virtue is not left to stand alone
The point of studying the Presocratics
‘Transcendental’ in Kant, Husserl, Heidegger etc.
Basic tenets of transcendentalism and challenge to the idea of a soul

Page 30

Problem of understanding an illogical reality
David Hume’s contribution to the debate on God
Why have children when life is so hard?
The thought of Epictetus the Stoic
Problem of understanding an illogical reality (contd.)
How does Plato define ‘eros’?

Page 29

Machiavelli’s notion of truth
God and objective morality revisited
Is lying always wrong?
Intelligence of cheats and non-cheats compared
Are we all victims of cause and effect?
Trying to explain personal identithy

Page 28

Prejudices that prevent you from finding the truth
Understanding Ryle’s ‘Concept of Mind’
Is it more ethical to let the starving die?
Nagel’s notion of ‘what it is like to be a…’
On the plurality of religions, moralities and political ideals
Definitions of ‘scientifically impossible’

Page 27

Who invented philosophers?
Is God necessary or sufficient for objective morality?
The philosopher who says we are a bundle of neurons
What is time?
How Descartes attempts to explain the union of body and mind
Wittgenstein on the true battle of philosophy

Page 26

Questions on mind and materialism
Heraclitus versus Parmenides
Mill’s argument for the greatest happiness principle
Leibniz’s theory of monads
Questions on Plato and Confucius
Proving to a solipsist that you exist

Page 25

A question of business ethics?
Aristotle on the meaning of life
Does education undermine the authenticity of the student?
Hobbes on the state of nature and the social contract
Origin of our notions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’
Kant for beginners

Page 24

Reality of the chair, its molecules, and the perception
Should we have a child?
Startup time for your physical identity
Foundation of environmental responsibility
Invalid argument with true premisses and a true conclusion
What use is philosophy for flipping burgers?

Page 23

Plato’s aim in the Republic
Nature of scientific explanation
Does time exist?
Do criminals ‘deserve’ to be punished?
What is the soul made of?
Question about same sex marriage

Page 22

Is there a legitimate debate over climate change?
The possibility of time travel
The possibility of reincarnation
Determinism, prediction and human agency
Confused about Hegelian logic
Asking ‘why’ and ‘why not’

Page 21

Why should I be moral?
Nietzsche’s analogy of the eagles and lambs
Is alcoholism a self-inflicted illness?
Saying what is true about truth
Question about the ‘one mind’ theory and Aristotle
The meaning of Taoism

Page 20

Is physician-assisted suicide morally justifiable?
So the big bang theory is only a theory?
Must we obey our parents?
Rationalist, empiricist and Kantian views of Plato’s forms
Logic puzzle about knights and knaves
What is the essence of a question?

Page 19

Philosopher who believed we find new laws by guessing
Kant on our ignorance of things in themselves
Bravery as an example of an Aristotelian mean
Is morality dependent on religion?
Question about truth and knowledge
Can anyone be a philosopher?

Page 18

Questioning the ideal of the wise man
Puzzle about the big bang
Aristotle on why the highest good is happiness
Philosophy as astonishment
Criticisms of the ontological argument
Putting effort into the self and into society

Page 17

What would Thales have thought of Sagan and Hawking?
Socrates’ view of applied ethics vs ethical theory
Aristotle on the highest good
Books to get started in philosophy
Proving the existence of God
How do I know that my ‘yellow’ isn’t your ‘green’?

Page 16

Philosophical perspectives on Occupy Wall Street
Karl Popper and the creationist debate revisited
Why do women exist?
Who claimed that forms reside in physical objects?
Should abortion be legalized?
Difference between melted cheese and grilled cheese

Page 15

Can we apply Karl Popper’s ideas to the creationist debate?
Do you agree with Nietzsche that God is dead?
Deciding who should get a heart transplant
Who can call himself a spiritual philosopher?
Confused about Plato’s theory of forms
Thomas Aquinas on the existence of God

Page 14

If you replace all the parts of a car is it still the same car?
How do philosophers decide which answers are worth considering?
Why are most philosophical works linguistic?
Is psychology a pseudo-science?
When was the Big Bang?
How do philosophical questions fit in with modern life?

Page 13

Understanding Kant
Western vs eastern philosophy
Influences of Aristotle on Thomas’s philosophy
Difference between real and perceived space
Anselm’s aims in the ontological argument
Why is science materialistic in its metaphysical assumptions?

Page 12

Why do people have crushes on other people?
Socrates’ view that moral truth is personal
Feelings as a guide to morality
Plato and Descartes on the nature of the mind
Hume’s scepticism about induction
Problem of evil revisited

Page 11

Where to pursue the quest for truth
What is philosophy?
Why do we dream?
Descartes’ First Meditation
Problem of mind-body interaction
Defining logic

Page 10

Pythagoreans and the problem of irrational numbers
Digging beyond the obvious
Advice on reading philosophy
What is reality?
What is beauty?
What is life?

Page 9

Difference between objective and subjective valuation
Socrates and the Oracle of Delphi
Why Socrates held that everything is water
What did Nietzsche mean when he claimed that God is dead?
Does it matter if an artist expresses racist views?
What colour is a blank canvas?

Page 8

Finding the story of Genesis in other cultures
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Good livelihood for a pessimistic misanthrope
How do you know the other person is not a robot?
What is the ancient Greek paradox “catch 22”?
What is a holotes and its parts?

Page 7

Advice on a philosophy self-study program
Why shouldn’t my father take his own plate to the kitchen?
Teacher help with biology practical
Quid est ergo tempus?
On presentism and the cosmos
Taking 300 pages to say what can be said in one page

Page 6

What is time?
The masochist problem in hedonistic utilitarianism
Philosophical advice to a yoyo dieter
What is a possible world?
Ethics for nonbelievers
Chomsky and Plato compared

Page 5

Did U.S.A. pick the right side in WWII?
Descartes versus Leibniz
Berkeley’s arguments for idealism
Opinions about God
The theory of phenomena and noumena
Anselm’s ontological argument

Page 4

What is philosophy?
Theory of evolution
The last philosopher
Churchland’s eliminative materialism
Nature of philosophy and the purpose of Plato’s guardians
Descartes’ argument for mind-body dualism

Page 3

Kant on acting from duty and acting in accordance with duty
Is induction ultimately circular?
How Plato’s epistemological assumptions shape his metaphysics
Descartes’ argument for mind-body dualism
Should children have the right to vote?
Do the objects of philosophical inquiry change with time?

Page 2

Am I a sceptic about the external world?
Philosophers question answers
Appearance and reality in the 21st century
When did the big bang happen?
Are WE God?
If this is a question…

Page 1

Does it matter if an artist expresses racist views?
Plato’s answer to Heraclitus and Parmenides
Kant and Aristotle on ‘why be moral?’
Best soccer team — the objective truth?
Limits on God
What’s the point of philosophy?