• Is Climacus's comic ironist within humour, or irony?
    Never mind, I found the answer. Comic is humour, tragic is irony.
  • Cogito, ergo sum


    1. I would think it should be "I am here because I think" not "I think because I am here". We could not be here without perceiving here.

    2. "Thus I perceive the existence as something that belongs to the realm of my mind", should be more along the lines of "I perceive my mind as existence".

    3. Using cogito ergo sum, we can technically state we exist. I would suggest you read Meditations. The fact that there is a thing that thinks points to the fact that there is indeed a thing. Though, I think cogito ergo sum falls short, as it is not so much that we think that makes us a subject, rather it is that we are aware we think that makes us subjects. As through primary thinking, we become objects. With secondary cogito, we can view the objects as the subject.

    With that, the secondary cogito is where reason lies, but this reason acts on the objects and is not itself an object. So, we do not live through reason, we reflect and perceive with it. I would argue that we do not feel reality solely through reason, rather we feel reality through negation And I do not think reason "denies the spirit" because it is not physical, nor because it is an abstract concept. The opposite of reason is not abstraction, they can easily go hand in hand.
  • Substance Dualism: Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes

    Interesting. We didn't even get to write about Aristotle on the exam. It's good stuff to know though.
  • How can we justify zoos?
    A lot of zoos are shifting focus to conservation. I suppose most people figure animals are happy at zoos, granted not as happy as in the wild, but the happiness brought by zoos outweighs that.

    Or some people may figure that those animals wouldn't exist without the zoo so therefore it's fine and the animals should be grateful haha.

    Hasn't Peter Singer written about animals and how their utility and whatnot needs to be taken into account?
  • Substance Dualism: Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes

    Thank you!

    Well, that exam was a hot mess. The prof changed all of the questions he gave us. I forced my Plato dualism knowledge in though by tying it into epistemology ha.
  • Substance Dualism: Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes


    True. For one exam, which I got an 86 on, I went to talk to him about it. Some of the class got 10-25% on that exam, as most people just wrote down jot note answers.

    For one answer I asked him why he took off a mark, his reply was "it could always be better." He ended up giving me a full mark after rereading it. Then after proving Sartre actually said man was in anguish he bumped it up to a 90%.

    And he wrote a paper on Socrates, yet didn't know what aporia was? I don't know, he's a wild cat, and him and I are two very different people.
  • Substance Dualism: Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes


    Thank you! Very good advice. This prof, while a nice guy, is confusing. His PowerPoints look like he did them at 1am while drinking lol. And he doesn't seem to know what he wants from students at all. It looks like he just marks things based on his mood that day.

    Like I got a 98.80% in my philosophy of Sex & Love class (not trying to be arrogant I'm just super proud lol). I breezed through my Bioethics class. His class I'm getting an 85% and it's like I'm crawling through quick sand haha.

    Though he may respond well if I approach it as you suggested, maybe I can memorize a page in the textbook (if there is one for Aristotle's dualism) and reference it just to really drive the point home.
  • Substance Dualism: Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes
    Thank you for the replies! I wonder if my prof knows that Aristotle isn't technically a substance dualist. I feel like if I put that on the exam he will take off marks.

    He didn't know Sartre said that man was in anguish and I had to go and buy a book to show him he actually said that lol.
  • Substance Dualism: Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes


    Thank you for the reply. So he thought the substance to my body is my soul? Which clearly differs from Plato. And differs from Descartes as he thought the mind/body were two distinct substances simply intermingled (If I'm not misguided).
  • The key to being genuine
    Sartre believed we never could truly be authentic or sincere, it was just a form of bad faith. As once we set out to be sincere, we destroy the person we are trying to become. We have to be what sincerity is not in order to become it. If I am asked a question, in order to be the honest I must first, for a fleeting moment, become a liar. And then, thereby, by being honest I am no longer the same honest person as I projected myself to be.