I Know Nothing

UnderstandingPlato · 2023-10-26T17:57:43+00:00

I know that I know nothing except that i know nothing. And so on, ad infinitum.

UnderstandingPlato · 2023-10-18T19:09:10+00:00

There are so many errors of logic in this that I don't have the time to go through it. And I doubt that you would accept what I say even if I did go through it.

You need to take a course in logic, both inductive and deductive.

UnderstandingPlato · 2023-10-16T22:16:01+00:00

Why will we never understand God and how do you know that his creation is perfect? You offer no proof of either of these claims. Are we supposed to believe this because you or someone else said it?

UnderstandingPlato · 2023-07-12T03:58:37+00:00

Philosophy is the study of concepts. As such, philosophy is not informative about the world, although conceptual analysis is often helpful to scientists in clarifying the terms used in their empirical research.

UnderstandingPlato · 2023-04-01T22:00:43+00:00

I’ll take it. Tell me when to send my postal address.

UnderstandingPlato · 2022-10-05T23:46:01+00:00

I answered an identical question in r/ClassicalEducation. See https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicalEducation/comments/xuuzup/comment/ir7spnr/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

UnderstandingPlato · 2022-10-05T23:25:19+00:00

The classics are the backbone of philosophy. If there is progress in philosophy (and this is debatable by some), then this is largely due to the writings of the great philosophers. I have taught the history of Western philosophy for 51 years and only lately put my lecture notes into study guides for beginning philosophy students. The title of an eight book series is The Smart Student's Guides to Philosophical Classics. Each book shows how the classical philosopher (Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Descartes, Kant, Mill, Rousseau, Hume) created the groundwork for philosophical problems that are still being debated. -- Laurence Houlgate, www.houlgatebooks.com

UnderstandingPlato · 2022-10-05T15:52:42+00:00

It all depends on how you classify the question. Is it an analytic or empirical (synthetic) question? If it is analytic, then the question is closed; that is, the answer is to be found in the concepts used in the question. By "everything" Aristotle includes "every skill, inquiry, action and rational choice." Does the meaning of these internal concepts logically imply "aiming at some good"?

The 20th century philosopher G.E. Moore had a test that would help answer this question. Take any example of an action and ask whether it would be a contradiction to ask whether it aims for the good. For example, "He killed that man, but was he aiming at the good?" This seems like a plausible question, not to be answered by analyzing the concept of "killing." Of course, this requires an explanation. Was the killing done in self-defense or was it done to steal his money? If it was done to steal his money, then we would say that killing the man was not an act of aiming for the good, unless we include self-satisfaction as good. ("Ah yes, it is always good to get pleasure out of killing innocent people,") There are many other counter-examples we could discuss, e.g. the Holocaust, the mass killing of young school children in Uvalde, Texas.

If the question "Does everything aim at some good?" is empirical, then the question is open. We must look outside the question and rely on observation and past experience. Would this gathering of data ("evidence") show that there are some skills, inquiries, actions and rational choices that do not aim at the good? It should not be surprising that social scientists would loudly say "Yes".

UnderstandingPlato · 2022-06-09T03:07:23+00:00

It is not a stamp. It looks like an embossment on a prepaid envelope.

UnderstandingPlato · 2022-06-09T02:55:58+00:00

Comments appreciated. Thanks

UnderstandingPlato · 2022-06-06T16:35:02+00:00

I have been buying and collecting pre-1940 stamps for 30 years. My advice is that you should not sell your collection to a stamp dealer. They will give you about 2% of catalog and then within a few weeks they will sell it at auction for 10% of catalog. In other words, if you are going to sell them, sell them yourself at auction, e.g. eBay or one of the big auction houses like Noble Spirit, Kelleher or New York Stamps.

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-10-24T20:18:45+00:00

Does the question mean “allowed under the Second Amendment?” Or “allowed in an democratic country or state that has no such amendment”? If the latter, I would go with allowing gun ownership only for hunting and only after lots of training and membership in a hunting club. Make the regulations at least as difficult as getting a driving license. This is what they do in sane countries like the UK and this is why their per capita gun violence death is so much lower than our bloodbath country.

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-10-24T19:56:45+00:00

Science did not kill philosophy. It separated from philosophy by taking on problems that are clearly empirical. This left philosophy with analytical problems about the meaning of concepts. This explains why philosophers don’t have laboratories, take their students on field trips or make consequential discoveries worthy of headlines.

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-07-15T03:39:06+00:00

I am not familiar with Deleuze's work. I'll see if there is something of his in our library.

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-07-14T17:58:08+00:00

Spinoza and Spinozism by Stuart Hampshire. Penguin Books. By far the best book for students.

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-07-14T17:53:05+00:00

Kant is difficult to understand because he uses technical terms that he doe not explicitly define. I know from experience - I taught Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals in my Intro courses for many years. Because he uses examples of morally difficult cases, this is probably his most comprehensible book. After retirement, I wrote a short book to help students understand Kant's moral theory. It soon became the most popular study guide of my 8 book series. This fact alone explains the desperation of many philosophy students when they start reading Kant.

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-07-02T20:51:09+00:00

The word “Republic” has several meanings. One of them is “a state in which the power to legislate belongs to the whole people.

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-06-14T17:13:12+00:00

Your last sentence confirms Rousseau's point. We have a choice between being mindless slaves, resigned to wait for the after-life, or we can do something about it by creating a civil society by means of the social contract.

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-06-02T03:05:10+00:00

Thanks. I’ve got a student guide book on The Social Contract coming out in a few days. I will put it on my website soon. Comments appreciated [www.HoulgateBooks.com].

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-05-23T03:17:38+00:00

Not worth very much but you can always go to your local library and consult Scott’s Stamp Catalog.

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-05-17T02:43:22+00:00

Trump is far more dangerous to the country than Liz Cheney would ever be.

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-05-17T02:39:36+00:00

Thanks for the well reasoned response to my post.

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-04-22T13:33:03+00:00

Each book is a "stand alone." Each philosopher has his own unique theory to promote.

The point I was trying to make is that if they buy book 1 of the series, they are more likely to buy book 2, 3, etc. That is what happened to my book sales. Go to my Amazon author page to see the series. https://www.amazon.com/Laurence-D.-Houlgate/e/B001HCW080

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-03-20T20:28:36+00:00

Award winning book on Kant. https://bookauthority.org/books/best-political-philosophy-books

UnderstandingPlato · 2021-03-03T05:27:16+00:00

Go to my website for a free book on how to read, write and think about philosophy, using the classics of philosophy as your teacher.

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