Universals and Abstract Entities
One of the ancient problems of metaphysics is about whether universals exist. Universal is what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. For instance, two pieces of chalk have in common a quality of color, namely “whiteness”. There are many philosophical positions regarding universals. The main contemporary ones are: Realism which postulates that […]
Mind-Body Problem
Philosophers has been argued for some centuries now whether minds really do act on the organisms, or whether organisms do act on the minds. Are mind and body two distinct things or they take part of the same realm? I. Dualistic Interactionism Dualistic interactionism is the position that there are mental phenomena distinct from, and […]
Scientific Realism vs. Antirealism
Scientific realism states that science aims to give us in its theories a literally true story of what the world is like, and acceptance of scientific theory involves the belief that it is true. Constructive empiricism holds that science aims to give us theories which are empirically adequate; and acceptance of a theory involves a […]
Realists vs Antirealists
Realism is being understood as the view that regardless of how we think of things they are what they are. Metaphysical realism is the view that there is a mind-independent reality. Contrary to realism, anti-realism postulates that the physical world does not exist outside the mind. There is no such thing as mind-independent reality or […]
Arguments for the existence of God
1. The ontological argument (1) Since God is conceived to be omnipotent, he is a perfect being. (2) A perfect being is defined as one whose essence or nature lacks no attributes or properties in every respect. ∴ Thus, God exists. For if God lacked the attribute of existence, he would be lacking at least […]
Free will problem
“Do we have free will?” is one of the principal metaphysical questions which philosophers are focused on. Let’s consider what we mean by free will. One can say that free will iff it is a voluntary act. In other words, we chose to do it. However, there are voluntary acts but they are not free, […]
Carnap on meaning and meaningfulness
Carnap wants to diminish bad metaphysics influence, so he rejects metaphysical terms which are meaningless and non-verifiable. Metaphysical beliefs are derived neither by logic nor by empirical evidences: Aesthetics – this painting is better than.. Ethics – X ought to do Y, Religion – God exists. These propositions are meaningless as they are non-verifiable. According […]
Quine on naturalized epistemology
Quine argues that the position of the dominant epistemology has failed and we need to reconstruct the traditional view in another way. We should replace epistemology with psychology, because epistemology is asking wrong questions. Instead of “How ought we to arrive at our beliefs?”, the main question should be “How do we arrive at our […]
Goldman’s justified belief
Goldman is an externalist and a foundationalist who thinks that it is possible to have justified belief even if there is not reason to believe that it is true. If it is a matter of fact that our visual perception is reliable, then our beliefs might be justified. Visual perception is reliable when conditions are […]
BonJour on coherentism
BonJour argues that to have justified belief you need to have good reasons that your belief is true. Otherwise, you are epistemically irresponsible. BonJour rejects basic account of strong foundationalism, which claims that there are self-justified beliefs that do not depend on other beliefs. For instance, I possess the belief that the wall is white. […]