The PuritanBoard - Philosophy

Writing a paper on Post-Modernism, I need help.

awretchsavedbygrace — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:44:04 GMT

While everyone in my class is picking an easy topic to write on. I have decided to take up the challenge of writing a 5 page paper on Post-Modernism. I first want to introduce what Post-modernism is and attempt to give an accurate definition. Speak about some of the proponents of Post-Modernism. And lastly, attack such a philosophy. Does anyone on the board have any good links to some articles online? Any books I might want to get into? Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

What causes nations and empires to decline?

JM — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:25:57 GMT

YouTube - Francis Schaeffer - February 21, 1982 (Part 2)

Francis Schaeffer answers the question. :gpl:

The first-person perspective of knowledge, sin, and God's omniscience

Confessor — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:44:30 GMT

One aspect of knowledge which is unattainable is a first-person perspective of other beings. For instance, we as humans can use sonar to navigate the ocean and can therefore understand to some extent how bats use sonar as their main means of getting around -- but we can never understand what it would be like to have sonar in the first place and utilize only sonar. Likewise, there is a certain first-person aspect of sinning, such that only the sinner really knows what it is like to commit the sin he just did. He has knowledge of his sin from a first-person perspective.

The rub of this is that, in order to possess this knowledge, one must actually commit the sin. Therefore, there is a dilemma: either God does not know something (what it is like to sin), or He sins. Either He is not omniscient, or He is not sinless.

This is actually one of Michael Martin's (an atheistic philosopher) arguments against the existence of an omniscient, sinless God. But I just recently understood it (although I hadn't even read the argument in about a year), so I would appreciate some insight.

How does his argument fail? I have a hunch the answer is very simple -- having to do with the facts that omniscience (perhaps) refers to "third-person knowledge," and that subjective knowledge of sin is not a desirable attribute and therefore would never be ascribed to God in the first place -- but I would nonetheless appreciate the words of friends.

The Morality of Entitlement

Michael Turner — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:46:57 GMT

Fleshing out a thought here for feedback....

"The boundaries of our entitlement due from another are defined by the least that we ourselves have given."

True or false? [Feel free to tweak it]

Following this through to divine proportions: God, being perfect and holy in all of his actions, is entitled to nothing less than perfection.

what is required for moral responsibility? - Galen Strawson's Basic Argument

steven-nemes — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:08:25 GMT

Lately I have been thinking over the issue of what exactly is required for moral responsibility.

It is said, I think by Jonathan Edwards, that was is required is being at liberty to what you please, and being able to do the thing you ought to do if you so desired. So, we cannot hold a paralyzed man responsible for running a race, because even if he is at liberty to do what he wants (no one is chaining him down, or whatever), he still is not able to do the thing, even if he wanted to (say he has no legs).

But these conditions don't seem enough to me. Imagine an evil neuroscientist who puts a chip in my brain such that he controls my desires and what I do. Suppose he makes me want to kill my worst enemy. Suppose then, after wanting to do so sufficiently strongly, that I do it. Now, I was at liberty to do what I wanted to do--no one chained me down, nor did anyone take me by the hand--and had I wanted to not kill the man, I wouldn't have--after all, the neuroscientist could have made me to not want to kill him. Yet I am hardly responsible for doing the thing.

But then what are the conditions?

I have also read an article by philosopher Galen Strawson who argues that we cannot be ultimately, heaven-and-hell morally responsible for what we do. His argument is this:

1. Interested in free action, we are particularly interested in actions that are performed for a reason (as opposed to “reflex” actions or mindlessly habitual actions).
2. When one acts for a reason, what one does is a function of how one is, mentally speaking. (It is also a function of one's height, one's strength, one's place and time, and so on. But the mental factors are crucial when moral responsibility is in question.)
3. So if one is to be truly responsible for how one acts, one must be truly responsible for how is, mentally speaking—at least in certain respects.
4. But to be truly responsible for how one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, one must have brought it about that one is the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects. And it is not merely that one must have caused onself to be the way one is, mentally speaking. One must have consciously and explicitly chosen to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, and one must have succeeded in bring it about that one is that way.
5. But one cannot really be said to choose, in a conscious, reasoned, fashion, to be the way one is mentally speaking, in any respect at all, unless one already exists, mentally speaking, already equipped with some principles of choice, “P1”—preferences, values, pro-attitudes, ideals—the light of which one chooses how to be.
6. But then to be truly responsible, on account of having chosen to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, one must be truly responsible for one's having the principles of choice P1 in the light of which one chose how to be.
7. But for this to be so one must have chosen P1, in a reasoned, conscious, intentional fashion.
8. But for this, i.e. 7, to be so one must already have had some principles of choice P2, in the light of which one chose P1.
9. And so on. Here we are setting out on a regress that we cannot stop. True self-determination is impossible because it requires the actual completion of an infinite series of choices of principles of choice.
10. So true moral responsibility is impossible, because it requries true self-determination, as noted in 3.

The problem with the argument is that it seems plausible and intuitive, but the conclusion is so obviously false, and dismal and depressing, that it cannot be true.

But then we have to offer some sort of conditions of responsibility, which would survive under attack! What exactly might these conditions look like?

How Familiar Was Aristotle With Jewish Theology?

KMK — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:08:07 GMT

Were the OT and Rabbinical writings well known among the Greeks during the 4th Century BC?

Darwinian Fairytales

Richard Tallach — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:05:58 GMT

Amazon

Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution: Amazon.co.uk: David Stove: Books
Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution: Amazon.co.uk: David Stove: Books

This is an excellent book, and quite funny in places, showing the erroneousness of tenets that Darwinian sociobiologists hold dear.

It was written by a late professor of philosophy, David Stove.

Sadly he wasn't a Christian and some of the book's blemishes are due to that.

We could do with more such work that challenges the simple truth and logic of the extravagant claims made by Darwin, and his followers, for his theory.

Philosophy vs. Theology

Skyler — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:21:19 GMT

What would you say the difference between "philosophy" and "theology" is? Especially from a Reformed perspective?

It seems to me that if we take the Bible as a basic presupposition, that affects all areas of "philosophy"--not only religion, but also metaphysics, epistemology, ethics(especially ethics!) and so forth. So, for the Christian, is there(or should there be) a difference between philosophy and theology? Or are they co-extensive in scope?

Dispinsationalism confusion

Sonny — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:16:58 GMT

Dispinsationalism (Spelling) what is it? I hear people talk about this, but I have no idea what it is. I have read things online but its way above me. Could someone explain what Dispinsationalism is in non PHD terms.
Thanks.

Axioms

P. F. Pugh — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:55:13 GMT

Can we build a whole epistemological system on one axiom? That is, do we have one axiom or many? Should we be pre or post-Cartesian foundationalists?

I contend that we should have many axioms upon which the epistemology rests.