• A in-moral Tale.
    neighbor's son. "He walks like a thief", he told himself. "Smile like a thief," he hoped. "And he dresses like a thief." He started to get irritated when he saw the young man. He disliked him. He flushed with rage at the sight of it. Some time later, the man found the lost wrench under a pile of books. However, the contempt he felt for the neighbor's son did not change.[/quote]

    The evil that a man does persists, even without reason.
  • A very expensive book.
    Ok. How much money will the author receive?gikehef947

    1/3.
    How did you hear about this author's book? Adel Habib is used to using heteronyms. Like Pessoa.

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  • A very expensive book.
    Don't answer a question with another question. How much?gikehef947

    It will only be sold in Switzerland and Germany.
    There will be 24 unique books. The starting price will be €499979 (= $557897).
    Thank you for providing us with the initial information.
  • A very expensive book.
    I am not going to help you. What you want to do is against my principles.gikehef947

    It depends. What price would you put on Spinoza's "Ethics" if there were only 25 copies in the world?
  • A very expensive book.
    People cannot be interested in culture if cultural goods are inaccessible.gikehef947

    People are not interested in culture. People are more interested in the NBA or the butts of the Kardashian sisters. The world was always like this. Stinks. Three months before Spinoza died, she had a visitor. Who? Leibniz. Only Leibniz was interested in approaching the genius of The Hague when he learned that he was seriously ill. No one approached except another exceptional figure. Read Mathew Stewart's book, The Courtier and the Heretic.

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    This man deserved to have a better fortune... and a better publisher.
  • A very expensive book.
    There is no way that people are interested in a subject that is beyond their financial means. You contribute to the ignorance of the majority.gikehef947

    People are not interested in cultural goods. Arustóteles did not write for everybody, but for the enlightened public. You have a very naive concept of your fellow men. You must be very young.
  • A very expensive book.
    A good book might cost $20, but whichever way you look at it, $25,000 is a SCAM.gikehef947

    Most people are not interested in philosophy. They prefer to watch the NBA. You must not think of the majority. The big publishers sell books like bricks. An excellent product requires an excellent seller and an excellent consumer. That costs money. If you have to do a numbered, limited edition for 25 people, it's always better than doing it for the crowd. Whatever the price.
  • A very expensive book.
    He also speaks of use value, exchange value and surplus value stolen by those who do not produce anything.gikehef947

    Supply and demand fluctuate. Getting people interested in acquiring a metaphysics book is a job. Often, a dirty work.
  • A very expensive book.
    If an author is good enough, he should be known by as wide an audience as possible.gikehef947

    Life is hard. First duty of a human being is to survive. Second, is to live to the best of his ability. Marx said it: in society everyone sells their work. He wrote "sell" not "give gifts".
  • A very expensive book.
    You should distribute the book freely. I have written to the author to prevent him from of scammers. The book publishers will march behind the harlots into the kingdom of heaven.gikehef947

    You have done well, although the rights to his work belongs to me and I purchased the few copies the last publisher sold. The good thing about a great unrecognized author is that no one bids enough for him!

    :joke:
  • A very expensive book.

    It depends. A book can have artistic or documentary value. The work of Descartes that you find in any library is not the same as the book that Roosevelt used to read. The object may be the same, but the documentary value is not. The Discourse on the Method that belongs to Roosevelt has a market value of €50,000.
  • New Years resolutions

    A resolution is a wish. Analyzing a desire destroys its purpose. Leave the analysis to Descartes or the lab.
  • Deep Songs


    She tells a true love story without words.
  • Hello

    I don't know.

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  • Philosophical Answers to Questions about Wisdom

    What's the best thing that can happen to someone?

    - Be happy. Some need a palace. There was a time when I was very happy and poor.

    What's the worst that can happen to someone?

    - The ancient Chinese said it. The worst that can happen to you is that you live interesting times, that your wishes are fulfilled and that important people know your name.

    What is justice?

    - An aspiration. The desire for the good of others. Justice applied to one is happiness.

    What is poetic justice?

    - The just punishment of a bastard. Benito Mussolini in the Loreto square in Milan.

    What's the best thing that can happen to two people in a relationship?

    - To love and to be loved. When you love someone who loves you, you truly love yourself.

    What is true evil?

    - Neither hear nor see nor speak of evil.

    What's the best thing that can happen between two enemies?

    - Forgive.

    Thanks for the kind intention of trying to get to know other people.
  • Sports

    Sports and Kardashian's ass are good ways to resolve social conflicts. It is unlikely that a person attached to her television will take to the streets to demand rights or justice.
  • I'm really rich, what should I do?

    You should spend the money on what makes you happy. And if you're happy not to spend it, don't spend it. You're free. Be happy. Life is short.
  • New Years resolutions
    Do any of y’all make and try to keep New Years resolutions? If so, what are they?Leghorn

    I would like to be a less cowardly person. I have always done what was expected of me, not what I thought was fair. I did it for legitimate reasons, but there are always legitimate reasons pressing and I get shorty. News shows you how badly those who don't shrink end up. It is enough to remember Anna Politkovskaya or Julian Assange. However, at the same time they remind you that there are people who took the decision to do something to try to make life better. Most of us are within a step or two of ending up homeless. That already makes you a coward. Every day you have less time and opportunities to be otherwise, and yet you remain paralyzed. I don't want to acquire more skills, or have more money, or buy more things. I just wish to live in peace with myself. I see that I am going to leave the world as bad and silly as I found it and that I have contributed to making nothing change. Every year I propose to be less of a coward and at the end of the year I am still the same. This dislike me.
  • A very expensive book.

    Okay. I am sending you the email of the author:
    Ask for his personal email there, because that email gets a lot of spam due to the fact that it matches the name of a Jordanian audit firm.
  • A very expensive book.

    I have the book. I have acquired the editing rights. It's really good. I need an American publisher. See if you are interested in editing it there.
  • The moral character of Christians (David Lewis on religion)
    This discussion is tedious. Yes, there may be folk who call themselves christian who do not hold that god torments souls for eternity. But there are folk who do so hold, and the criticism in the Lewis article applies to them.Banno

    That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm saying is that you argue with fallacies. You take the part for the whole. As it is true, then the subject seems tedious to you. The tedious thing is that you use argumentative fallacies. You attribute as characteristic of religion what also appears in political and sports rhetoric, but you no longer like this and you go back to talking about what offends you.
  • The moral character of Christians (David Lewis on religion)
    As noted above, it's apparently a characteristic of monotheism. But yes, the criticism applies to islam, and to any religion that worships a god who is so unjust. Both Lewis and I have said as much.Banno

    What you want is to negatively characterize Christianity and religions. That is why you take the part for the whole. But politics and sports produce the same kind of reactions. The man from the United States hates the man from Mexico. The Confederates hated the Yankees. Gangs in one neighborhood hate gangs in another. Neighbors of one block hate those of another. The one from the 102 family hates the 103 family. It's not very good to walk around Miami with the Los Angeles Lakers jersey ... Religion is not bad in itself. There are aggressive people who make it a bad thing, but the same thing happens with politics or sports.
  • The moral character of Christians (David Lewis on religion)
    Nothing you have said impacts on Lewis' critique. Those Christians who chose to worship a god they believe will damn fol for eternity remain morally reprehensible.Banno

    But the criticism you make is unfair. Whoever erects an altar does so with the intention of burning at the stake the one who does not bow down to his god. That is not the exclusive heritage of Christianity. Read the article "Genealogy of Fanaticism" within Cioran's Short History of Decay book. It seems to me that you describe the behavior of the Gestapo, the Church of Scientology and the fans of Detroit Pistons.
  • The moral character of Christians (David Lewis on religion)
    That's not the point; it is the supposed monopoly on salvation, not charity, that lacks coherence. In question is the judgement of those who think an evil god worthy of worship.Banno

    If you read the most original Gospel, that of Saint Mark, Jesus did not speak of hell, but of the Kingdom of Heaven. The concept of hell is Greek like Paul of Tarsus, who used it to convince through fear. If you read the episode of Jesus and the two crucified thieves (Lk 23), when one of the thieves defended him from the insults of another and begged him to remember him when he was going to the kingdom of heaven, Jesus replied that in that day he would be with him, because the kingdom of heaven is not a place, but a state of the heart, from which he lives without antithesis, from which he behaves honestly. A thief, also crucified, who did everything possible to prevent a righteous man from being mortified, had already transformed his condition, had entered the Kingdom of Heaven.
    I don't know if you've ever fallen in love. If you fell in love you will remember that the world was still the same, but not you. You were completely another. You lived in the Kingdom of Heaven. Life was different. Completely.

    Christianity as a religion, as we know it, would not exist but for Paul of Tarsus. It's largely his creation, I think. There's no escaping him and his influence. Without him, it's likely it would have been a Jewish sect.Ciceronianus

    Christianity is a sect of sects. There is an orientation chart here.
  • The moral character of Christians (David Lewis on religion)
    So true Christians pay no heed to at least some of the doctrines of christianity. They are far less common than True Scotsman.Banno

    I beieve the unique true Christian died on the cross

    Sharing a meal with someone who is homeless is not the sole province of Christians.Banno

    You should read your own words. You characterized Christianity as a doctrine that condemns those who do not believe in God to hell. That was probably the orientation of Saint Paul. I have not said that the monopoly of doing good is the exclusive domain of Christians, but that you have a somewhat simple concept of Christianity. But Christianity is either a religion of mercy or it is nothing.
  • The moral character of Christians (David Lewis on religion)
    Spinoza says that human beings conceive only two attributes: extension and thought. In Aristotelian terms: first and second substances. The things and the words. Spinoza added that God would conceive infinite other attributes. It is convenient not to believe that the human being is the most excellent being in the animal kingdom. Birds, for example, see much better than we do. We all have more pigment in the retina. In the case of owls, they can see clearly in very low light conditions. Therefore, it can be assumed that there are more things that can be perceived and conceived ... and we neither perceive nor conceive.
    It is also wise not to attribute to Christians things that they would not intelligently admit. The religion of Jesus is a religion of mercy. Tomorrow you can be dead. Live honestly and freely, because today may be your last day. What the neighbor does or believes is none of your business. The true Christian lives for her/himself and without antithesis. sHe has no enemies. sHe forgives them. sHe even loves them: Love your neighbor as yourself! Saint Paul and his followers introduced other books into the religion of Jesus, ok, but the characteristic of an authentic Christian is that he does not demand anything of God. God doesn't even have to be good. Neither does her/his neighbor. It's up to you. Only you have to be good. Simple as that.

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  • Civil War 2024
    A myth is usually an uncertain and unverifiable story about what happened. Unlike what happens with facts, myths allow a varied hermeneutic. The archaic Greek myths and the hermeneutics made of them by Sophocles and Euripides are different things. For this reason, unlike what happens with the facts, in the myth the development of a society is appreciated. They reflect us.
    Anyone who reads the Daredevil comics will see the evolution of the female characters, very much in keeping with the changing times.
    Stan Lee humanized superheroes. Ironman has to face the problem of alcohol. Spiderman has to face a bullying situation. Dr. Banner is a withdrawn and introverted person who carries the inferiority complex of most intelligent people (particularly scientists who work for the government). However, Stan Lee featured superheroes against villains. White against black. The Marvel Factory has lately reinterpreted the problem of power in a way that is reminiscent of Aristotle. They say that with all power comes great responsibility. For Aristotle, the difference between a just government and a corrupt one depends on the common good. Righteous rulers seek the common good, while corrupt rulers only think of using power for their own benefit. Most governments are corrupt, so ... I think Aristotle always considered power to be a negative and corrupting power. Power perverts those who possess it and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Good government is a rarity, as are those who use power wisely. Take a look at the NBA basketball players who end up begging after collecting millions of dollars during their sports careers. The Marvel mythology has been getting the message across in its own way. Everyone in power is going to undergo a transformation. Only a few manage to resist an intrinsic dynamic and that is why they are heroes. This reveals a conception of the human being as negative as the one described in Genesis. We are born with deficiencies and if we prosper, we acquire other deficiencies. Aristotle seems to have tried to solve the matter by means of the theory of the middle term. I think the message from the Marvel factory is much more pessimistic. You can only hope that heroes don't use their prosperity for evil, that's why they are heroes. This reveals a paradox, as the people they save are not good either, but potentially bad. Give the monkey a stick and it will kill another. On the other hand, a good person can stop being so, while it is difficult for a corrupt person to improve. Just take a look at the comics from a decade ago that sparked a Civil War between superheroes. I think Marvel mythology has never been so negative... and mythology only reflect us.

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  • Solutions for Overpopulation
    The idea belongs Thanos (Thank you, Marvel). Without every two people having only one child, the Earth would be more sustainable.Miguel Hernández

    Ok. Thanos' solution seems to me the simplest as long as each person can only have one child. Later, sterilization.
    If each couple has a child, but remarries or couples and may have another, the problem will continue.
  • Best way to study philosophy
    Does a musician make a mathematical discovery? Analytical philosophy is concerned mostly with logic and language analysis. Not natural science.emancipate

    Really? Music is too mathematical to be art and too artistic to be mathematics. You should listen to Bach, Beethoven or Chopin and look at some treatise on musical harmony.
    Analytical philosophy is The Emperor's New Clothes. It is neither science nor art. It is just bad literature.
  • Best way to study philosophy
    That leap is ... either stupid or merely trollish. Have a good one.180 Proof
    It is inherent in the culture of cancellation to call anyone a "troll" who does not think like everyone else. About a century ago, what they called him in some parts of the world was not a "troll" but "Jew." In Kant's Prussia, the term was "libertine".
    On the other hand, it was Blaise Pascal who said that human beings hardly know anything and the little that he knows is that he has to die. He would be a "troll" too, right?
    You would do well to read something elementary from 18th century philosophy, like "Answer to the question: What is the Enlightenment?" (1784). "Sapere aude!", mein Freund.
    Ecclesiastical prejudices must remain in the mind, said another "troll" named Marcus Aurelius.
    If you don't like what you read, nobody forces you to respond.
    Happy day and happy holidays.

    Just to explain a little bit here. In common sense knowledge, we do know that everyone would die sooner or later. But we're not disputing common sense knowledge here, but the epistemological one -- which 180 Proof has been trying to get clarity of.
    If you try to read @fdrake's post above, you'd get a good sense of how you should tackle philosophical examinations and inquiry. Because under this context, "reality" has quite a different existence than the common sense definition.
    Caldwell

    To all the so-called "analytical philosophers" the caricature that one of them made of those who dedicated themselves to metaphysics is applicable: they are only musicians without musical ability. If they were scientists, they would have studied mathematics. Analytical philosophers talk a lot about science without having the slightest idea about it. If they were what they think they are, they would have made some scientific discovery. But the dark secret is that NONE is owed to them. Apparently his contribution is different. Which one? Write boring literature that only they read? And maybe not even them... They only pursue the prestige of scientists as well as their social status.
    I prefer to return to academic philosophy at the hands of Heidegger than of any analytical or neopositivist "philosopher."
    Happy day and happy holidays.
  • Best way to study philosophy
    For clarity's sake, at least, it's useful not to conflate epistemology and ontology.180 Proof

    What absurd clarity! You must be the unique person who does not know that you have to die. Good luck with that.
  • Best way to study philosophy
    There's a lot more to life than death.john27
    Ok, buy I thought we were talking about philosophy and the best way to study it, right?
  • Best way to study philosophy
    An existential bias which ignores the ontological horizon. Only a truism, Primperan, not philosophy. Think it through, dig deeper, further than "Calvin & Hobbes".180 Proof

    The ontological horizon will exist for God (if It exists) or the world (whatever it is), since they are eternal. We only know one thing: that we have to die. There are many ways to entertain time, forget the fundamental or reject it. Does not matter. One day a loved one dies, disappears from the world, but not from you, and you remember what your destiny is. Then you can start building an ontology. Does not matter. You are going to die no matter how beautiful the palace of concepts you build is.

    In other words...
  • Best way to study philosophy
    Death may be the 'Big Problem' in the end but much philosophy is simply trying to work out how to spend and understand your time. What is maths? What is art? What is beauty?Tom Storm
    Entertainments. Mathematics will interest the mathematician. Art is an artist thing ... Those are just diplomatic ways of rejecting the only problem that haunts us all our lives: that we have to die.

    "Death" may be the poet's muse, but the "true" philosopher contemplates – reflectively engages with – the real. :fire:180 Proof
    The only real thing is that we have to die. For the one who dies, it is the same whether he lived 3, 30 or 300 years. Is the same. And we have to die.

    You are more children than Calvin. He imagines heroic worlds and characters. He is Captain Spiff and, also, Stupendousman. But he knows how to take advantage of his time. He amuses himself. Because you never know when death will come. Why do tedious homework when your end could come at any moment? The longest and most profound treatise on philosophy is less philosophical than the sentiment expressed in a simplest comic strip. You are lost. Go back to the principles. Forget Plato, Aristotle, or Kant. Read a "Calvin and Hobbes".
  • Best way to study philosophy

    In three words: "Calvin and Hobbes". You can start with the story of the raccoon run over. True philosophy only has to do with a single problem: death. We are not able to face it. That is why there are so many philosophers. Since we don't know how to die, we don't know how to live either.