Philosophy: Who Needs It
Posted by jchristyatty 10 years, 3 months ago to Philosophy
Ayn Rand's address To The Graduating Class of The United States Military Academy at West Point New York — March 6, 1974
fare.tunes.org/liberty/library/pwni.html
"In the titular essay, “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” Rand shows why, in order to deal with concrete, real-life problems, an individual needs some implicit or explicit view of the world, of man’s place in it, and of what goals and values he ought to pursue. The abstract premises an individual holds may be true and consistent, reached by conscientious thought—and the purpose of the science of philosophy is to teach one how to achieve this—or his premises may be a heap of clashing ideas unwittingly absorbed from the culture around him. But either way, she argues, the power of philosophy is inescapable. It is something everyone should be concerned with."
fare.tunes.org/liberty/library/pwni.html
"In the titular essay, “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” Rand shows why, in order to deal with concrete, real-life problems, an individual needs some implicit or explicit view of the world, of man’s place in it, and of what goals and values he ought to pursue. The abstract premises an individual holds may be true and consistent, reached by conscientious thought—and the purpose of the science of philosophy is to teach one how to achieve this—or his premises may be a heap of clashing ideas unwittingly absorbed from the culture around him. But either way, she argues, the power of philosophy is inescapable. It is something everyone should be concerned with."
Her speech was at the Air Force Academy which is an institution based on science. There is no room for superstition when flying an airplane at Mach 3 or 4 against an enemy that wants to destroy you and your plane.
From her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, appendix on the workshops:
"Q: And what common features of particulars are retained in order to get the concept 'God'—
"AR: I would have to refer you to a brief passage about invalid concepts [page 49]. This is precisely one, if not the essential one, of the epistemological objections to the concept 'God'. It is not a concept. At best, one could say it is a concept in the sense in which a dramatist uses concepts to create a character. It is an isolation of actual characteristics of man combined with the projection of impossible, irrational characteristics which do not arise from reality—such as omnipotence and omniscience.
"Besides, God isn't even supposed to be a concept: he is sui generis, so that nothing relevant to man or the rest of nature is supposed, by the proponents of that viewpoint, to apply to God. A concept has to involve two or more similar concretes, and there is nothing like God. He is supposed to be unique. Therefore, by their own terms of setting up the problem, they have taken God out of the conceptual realm. And quite properly, because he is out of reality."
Your false assertion equating Ayn Rand's morality to "the Inquisition" and claim that it "has justified the killing, in atrocious ways, of millions of human beings and the total obliteration of dozens of other cultures" is a disgusting smear with no basis in reality.
Pay attention to what Ayn Rand and her characters say rather than making things up in irresponsible misrepresentations.
As to AR's writing of Galt's speech, I would assert that she wrote AS in whole to entertain and to popularize her philosophy. Galt's speech was an incorporated portion of the whole. I respect her fictional writings but more so her scholarly writings, essays, and published interviews. I base my understanding of her philosophy on my personal experiences of life combined with personal analysis of her body of work. I don't waste much time in memorizing and quoting her work to footnote everything I say. This comment string began as a reply to bringing atheism into a conversation about AR's speech on the importance of philosophy. AR's atheism is one result of her philosophy, not the basis of her philosophy and I tire of the constant attempt to emphasize that one aspect over the import of all the other aspects.
If you don't believe that AR's rejection of God was based on her reasoned and rational rejection of superstition and mysticism as a sound or logically rational basis of decision making or morality in reality, then you've missed the point.
You're reply to me is arrogantly pedantic and obnoxious just to blow air up your own skirt/kilt. You're obviously well read and studied in AR's work, but your presentation strikes me more as rote than reasoned on your own.
You falsely asserted that Ayn Rand did not mean to reject a metaphysical god. The quote I gave you is one of many that refutes your claim. It is in fact her position, not irrelevant "rote quoting and memorizing". Your claim has been refuted by fact. You don't have to footnote everything you write, but you had better get it right if you don't want to be challenged.
To point out to you that Ayn Rand rejected mysticism in all forms does not mean that atheism is the "basis of her philosophy" and is not a "constant attempt to emphasize that one aspect". You brought it up yourself, and you have the response. That her rejection of god is a consequence rather than the starting point of her positive philosophy of objectivity does not mean that it is somehow dispensable. To reject a consequence while ignoring its meaning is to logically deny the basis from which it is a consequence. You can't have it both ways.
Reasoning on one's own does not mean that in discussing Ayn Rand one can ignore what she in fact said in the formulation and explanation of her own philosophy. You don't decide that. Rejecting your misrepresentations, based on the facts of what she wrote, is not "pedantic", "obnoxious", and "rote". It is a straightforward rejection, based on evidence, of your false claims misrepresenting her. Religion is not compatible with her philosophy. Ayn Rand did not waste her time constantly emphasizing going after religious dogma and neither do I, but when they try to insert it into her philosophy as supposedly "compatible" in a forum dedicated to discussing her philosophy by admirers of it, and do so in a dogmatic and insulting manner in addition, you had better expect it to be refuted. The emphasis and the obnoxious insults are all yours.
(2) I have no idea what you mean when you say, "Your morality has justified the killing, in atrocious ways, of millions of human beings and the total obliteration of dozens of other cultures." When you speak of "your morality" what are you talking about? I must insist that you recognize (though not agree with) my assertion that all morality is choice. One does not choose morality. You can choose a moral CODE, and from that a catalog of ethical actions (or inactions).
Col. said, "[S]he was first suggested to me by Kelly Weems, an officer who worked for me at West Point. When he made the suggestion, I immediately realized why it was a valuable idea: I'd read her work and knew that she could provide the kind of generalized overview of philosophy that we needed, and besides she was a very well-known person, and it would be great to have someone like that come to my program, so I invited her."
"I had read enough and seen enough of life to know the quality and the value of her ideas, and that's exactly why I went to the authorities, the two people above me..."
There are also those whose philosophy/morality seemingly changes on a whim. Blacks are killing one another in record numbers in the large cities, but let one white cop shoot a black guy (and seemingly with justification after being beaten himself) and people start raising holy hell. Or let a football player discipline his son (we can argue the merits of such a different time) and one would think that the kid had been strung up and beaten half to death, but in Milwaukee mothers are sleeping with their babies in their beds and rolling over on top of them and killing them (truly - look it up, something like 30 of them this year alone) and nobody says a peep.
I'm not convinced, by the way, that philosophies often turn on a dime. Those who seem to condone an action in one setting and condemn it in another have simply started from a premise which permits that. The example in your first sentence, for example, rests on the premise that one is a person and the other is not. The reverse - anti abortion, pro death penalty - assumes both are persons but one is innocent and helpless while the other is guilty and was able to mount a proper defense. The difference is in the premises.
The potential presence of "other choices" does not make abortion murder, justify its prohibition, or justify a claimed duty for women and their families who do not choose your "other choices" to sacrifice themselves to your demands.
Ayn Rand was pro-union and anti-gun.
She was not supportive of the US entry into World War Two.
She did say that the USA had the moral right to launch a first strike agains the USSR; but she also said that the USSR was wholly impotent to be a threat to the USA because communism is so hopelessly inefficient.
On the matter at hand, Rand was pro-abortion, of course; and she also was not sanguine about capital punishment, begging to let the issue be settled by a future generation of jurisprudence scholars.
She was not "anti-gun". Even Dagny used one at a critical moment. She opposed the use of force, including guns, in general for settling disputes and for government imposition of injustice. She did not oppose the police having guns or direct self-defense by individuals when required, but did oppose taking the law into one's own hands in retaliation. She stated that she did not know enough about the subject of gun control laws to take a position on what is appropriate, but did not think registering or prohibiting guns would prevent criminals from having them or that registering guns would be harmful to innocent citizens (in the context of the time).
She supported the US "entry" into WWII after the attack at Pearl Harbor, but not before that, the same position as the vast majority of Americans at the time. She said that the US had nothing to gain from entering the war other than the necessity of self defense after the attack.
She said that the USSR was "no threat" culturally and economically, not that it's nuclear weapons were not a threat. She said that a war with the USSR would be unnecessary if we stopped helping it economically because it would then collapse under its own evil system (which is ultimately what happened), not a non-threat due to "inefficiency".
She wasn't "sanguine about capital punishment" and didn't "beg" anyone else to "settle" the issue. She said that murderers deserved to die as a matter of justice, but that she could not support the government imposing it because of the wrongful punishment by death of the inevitable innocent improperly convicted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADvHO-lG...
In 1972, Edwin Newman interviewed Ayn Rand for his show “Speaking Freely” on NBC-TV. Among other statements, Ayn Rand said: “I am not an enemy of labor unions. Quite the contrary. I think that they are the only decent group today, ideologically. I think they are the ones who will save this country, and save capitalism, if anybody can.” She went on to say: “But the one flaw is that labor unions are government-enforced and become a monopoly and can demand higher wages than the market can offer. This union power creates the unemployable. It creates this vast group of people, the unskilled laborers who have no place to go for work. The artificial boosting of the skilled laborer’s income causes unemployment on the lower rungs of society. Every welfare measure works that way. It doesn’t affect the so-called rich, if that the humanitarians are worried about it, always affects the poor.”
"Ayn Rand versus Conservatives" here in the Gulch: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/b8...
Her reference to "unless you're ready to begin a private uprising right now, which isn't very practical" was at a different time than Obama's pen, phone and guns -- even McGovern was overwhelmingly defeated except in Washington DC and Massachusetts -- but today it is still not practical to expect to take on the US government by force, nor would it help even if you could do it under today's widespread acceptance of statism and collectivism, which is worse than it was then. The chaos would only accelerate the decline and give them a concocted excuse to go after innocent people even more than they do now, especially against rational individuals who dare to speak out. We would not get another American Revolution, only a replay of the French Revolution.
But Ayn Rand's abhorrence of arbitrary force does not mean she was "anti-gun". It's important to keep the distinction clear, especially in today's context of a lot of people running around sounding as if they do want people with guns taking the law into their own hands, even if they don't always intend that literally. The answer to that is not "anti-gun". She wanted laws sanctioning direct self defense but not leading to "killing people at whim" in the name of that or worse. Today's statists want to squelch self defense and simultaneously do what they want to people "at whim" themselves, with the Constitution regarded as an anachronistic joke.
Also her statement on unions being the only ideologically decent group that will save the country should not be taken out of context to endorse everything unions were doing at the time (even aside from the bad economic affects she mentioned), let alone their ideological history or the kind of strong arm progressives they are today. At the time, some of the labor leaders were publicly making observations against Wesley Mouch-style statism and pandering to the Soviets in foreign policy.
The death penalty inevitably bestows undeserved and irreversible execution on the accused innocent.
So yes, these two religious positions are consistent, consistently unjust and irrational.
what is the point here? nothing follows.
Is it at birth? I have a four-week old (among other children). You want to argue that he is any less dependent on his mother than he was five weeks ago?
Is a child only human when it is self-sufficient? That rules out most children - and especially teenagers! And what about those with Asbergers or Trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome)?
THUS the slippery slope: WHEN does one qualify for protection as a human being? If not in utero, at WHAT arbitrary point and based on what arbitrary reasoning - because that's exactly what the argument then boils down to if you accept abortion as part of your philosophy.
Does the absolute exist? Absolutely. ;) It may not be what you want, but it nevertheless exists as an alternative.
Human nature is absolute, as an aspect of physical reality. A young child can find a police officer and lodge a complain against her parents. That is objective. An embryo cannot. That is an absolute.
I want to know where on that slope "personhood" begins and rights are obtained according to Objectivism. I want to know the standard. If you can not define it and draw a line in the sand for me to see, I would submit that you are not actually using an objective standard at all - but a subjective one.
Note, however, that Nathaniel Branden identified "chocolate versus vanilla" issues for which no absolute or objective standards exist.
Rather than demanding that I provide you with a stuffed mannikin to whack with a stick of your choosing, it might be more fruitful for you to explain why an entity that cannot speak for itself is a human being.
I might say that the child is independently alive when it says the word "I". See Star Trek:Next Generation "Measure of a Man" courtroom scene here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PMlDidy...
Look at it another way. Objects are defined and categorized according to their characteristics. There is an object behind a curtain and I want to know what it is. So I ask you to design a test - a list of characteristics that will tell me if the object behind the curtain passes or fails the test. If it passes the test by adhering to the definition so constructed, we categorize it as A. If not, it is A! (read "not A"). What you are trying to tell me is that there is a third state - neither A nor A!: a statement which defies epistemiology and reason entirely.
This is precisely why I warned about the slippery slope condition of pro-abortion advocacy. Such advocates by their own volition must either take an arbitrary position when defining personhood status or they take no position at all, and seriously undermine any other possible logical arguments they might endeavor to make.
"I might say that the child is independently alive when it says the word "I"."
So you would support killing infants up to about two years of age, as well as anyone who is born mute or has cognitive issues such as Asberger's or Down's Syndrome? You realize that such an approach is used to justify genocide, right? You do realize that was Margaret Sanger's morality?
"it might be more fruitful for you to explain why an entity that cannot speak for itself is a human being"
Because you are judging it based on what it is at the moment and not on what it may become. The moment (pun intended) that you take time into account in attempting to define a human life, you will fail. If your definition of humanity depends on the moment, you then relegate any momentary dissonance as justification for termination. No room for error or imperfection. No room for improvement or discovery. No room for scientific inquiry or learning. No tolerance for life.
Moreover, I am not an official spokesman for Objectivism. No one is. If you can find more cogent and insightful statements by David Kelley or Leonard Peikoff, I am willing to consider those as expert opinions.
Maybe your mother _always_ has the right to kill you. You turn out bad at 35 and she terminates you. Could be. (Here in the Gulch, khalling said that she would kill her adult daughter - an actress in AS3, in fact - to ensure her own happiness. So, you see, it cannot be settled in a thumbnail "dictionary" definition of human life.
Do not say "you brought it into the world by your actions." Benjamin Franklin's son, William Franklin, was the governor of New Jersey and a Tory loyal to the king. Should Benjamin Franklin not have attempted his demise, though he sought to hang his father? (What if your son joined the IRS? or fought for immigrant rights?) These are tough questions. You will not find them in the dictionary under "life, human (see abortion)".
Perhaps it does not matter what "human" life is. "I swear by my life never to live for the sake of another man or ask another man to live for mine." Even if the embryo is human, how is its claim to your life any more valid than the claim of a welfare moocher or bureaucrat looter?
You mentioned Asperger's Syndrome twice. The truth is that Hans Asperger's attempts to socialize "little professors" was approved of by both the German Nazi government and also the US occupation forces who interviewed him and - being Boy Scouts themselves - agreed that marching the little professors in to the wood, singing songs behind a flag was a good way to socialize them. That's why they called it "national socialism" and it did not die with Hitler.
what does Asperger's have to do with any of this?? well I can think of an angle...but
I disagree. Life can begin at conception. Black and white. No moral ambiguity whatsoever. No rationalization. No jumping through hoops or mental gymnastics of justification. An easy refutation for rationalized murder by categorization. If it has the potential to become human, it should be considered as such with all the rights therein contained.
Much of the rest of your argument belies the notion of owning one's self. If my mother always has a claim over me by virtue of maternity, then many of my natural rights cease to exist.
The reason I bring up Asberger's and Down's Syndrome is because I have relatives and close friends who are afflicted with these conditions. I could add in autism or a whole host of other conditions. The end effect is that their minds do not function within the full realm of reason you or I enjoy. The dangers, however, in claiming that these do not deserve protection or rights similarly brings on a whole host of justifying reasons for initiating force against these individuals. It is the same reasoning by which our current Administration is seeking to limit the access to firearms by anyone with a "mental condition" - an intentionally subjective conclusion. Am I arguing that these so afflicted are capable of acting on all their rights? No, as some rights infer a certain level of reasoning capability. But I would rather take the stand that the rights are there until taken away than the alternative - that they are only granted upon clearing an arbitrary bar.
be considered as born and with rights while it is still only a potential. The mental gymnastics and rationalization for violating rights by miscategorization is all yours.
Your irrational demands to apply entitlements in the name of rights to the unborn lead to an unambiguous violation of rights.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/...
The short version: a medical doctor who personally performed over 1200 abortions testified to Congress and laid out to them exactly what takes place during an abortion, including the 2-3 days of lead-up. One of the great myths he debunks is that abortions are carried out "for the health of the mother."
To consider: having sex carries the risk of pregnancy. Simple truth. To attempt to disassociate cause and effect is disingenuous. The whole reason women choose to get abortions (or are "persuaded" to by their boyfriends in most cases) is to avoid the consequences. If one does not wish to take the chance of being responsible for bringing life into this world, one should either forego sex or use contraception.
The 'health of the woman" means in the context of the rest of her life, not a temporary difficulty of the abortion.
The risk of an unwanted pregnancy means that the woman has the responsibility to herself to minimize the risk, not a duty to have a child versus the sacrifice of abstinence. An abortion is the last resort, whether or not more prudent methods have been selected first.
"Cause and effect" has nothing to do with banning abortions or insisting on abstinence. There is "cause and effect" in stepping out into the street in front of an oncoming car, too. It does not mean that whether or not you looked first you have a duty to be run down rather than trying to jump out of the way.
This is a critical point of philosophy, because if one chooses to take the view that one gets to apply an arbitrary standard to when a person obtains rights, it very literally throws any Objective measures out the window. If I judge another person NOT to have achieved personhood, all my Objective stance can conveniently be set aside and I can initiate force, I can be altruistic, I can do whatever I choose and I can rationalize all this behavior by claiming that I'm not violating my Objectivism because I wasn't really dealing with "people", but some lesser ... something.
You don't have rights until you are born.
beings too.
Does the unborn child value its own life? We might grant that it does, but we cannot ask. We can ask the mother because the mother is rational, sentient, intelligent, self-aware individual. The unborn child, howevet rmuch is it is alive is none of those things.
To say that "human life begins at conception" and deduce "rights" for a blob of cells equivocates on what is meant by "human life". The human genes in cells are not the source of rights, and neither is the outline of the shape of a human hand in a fetus. Religious conservatives relying on the supernatural have no idea what the nature and source of rights is. Their assertions of "absolutes" under the claim that a "god" provides certainty and stability are subjective decrees leading to anything but certainty and stability, and are mystic incantations that provide no understanding whatsoever, but lead to countless bloody battles between warring sects, each decreeing its own absolute in a realm in which cognitive standards are impossible.
To the extent that the unborn as a potential human has value to someone (which it certainly does), the _rights_ of the mother prevail, not the desires of someone else and not the noncognitive automatic biological process of development of the pre-human entity.
I could make the same argument for the mentally disabled, or physically disabled. Because they're funny looking, dependent and inconvenient... we should be able to "abort" their lives at will, should one of them happen to be a relative of ours.
Hey, I'm all for denying the humanity of various human beings, but if you get to kill an unborn human because he's funny looking, inconvenient and dependent, then by God I'm going to expect you to defend me at my trial for slaughtering thousands of inconvenient, dependent and funny looking (fully grown) illegal aliens.
The unborn are not *potential* human beings. They *are* human beings. Either humanity is a matter of genetic pattern, or it is a superficial matter of looks and independence.
I choose the former.
Do the actions of this mother constitute child abuse - ie did the actions of this mother contravene their rights? Please explain why or why not.
Wow. So now you are a god - able to declare which people are really people: which people are eligible to even procreate. The arrogance and presumption in that statement is so staggering as to leave me shaking my head. You deny God exists because you would supplant Him with yourself.
If you can't (or refuse to) see the danger and pitfalls in your own reasoning after all this, I can only shrug and move on, hoping that at some point you will re-examine your arguments in the light of sanity.
Whom she is willing to support. When life begins is irrelevant to the moral obligation to care for and nurture. Earlier I think blarman said something about options. Yes, encouraging and persuading a pregnant female to consider adoption would be ideal -however to completely refuse to acknowledge the risks involved in pregnancy and delivery is irrational. That a pregnant female should be forced to put the life she carries above her own life i.e. abortion is murder, is morally abhorrent. That she finds herself in an unwanted pregnancy-the accident or bad decision on her part is irrelevant to her choice to carry the fetus to term. Doing everything possible to make that decision easier for her (reducing the risks, incentive) should be encouraged in a society. but claims of murder if she chooses not to take the risks of carrying a fetus to term?
Your other arguments are also fallacious. Anyone with the mental capacity to understand the possible consequences (pregnancy and disease) that can occur from intercourse but engages in same through their own free-will cannot claim a subsequent "right" to eliminate the creation of life that occurs. That would be akin to a bank robber stealing the money but once caught and facing jail time offers up to return the money and call it all even. Actions have consequences. Your position relieves the individual of responsibility for their actions - seemingly a very un-O position.
This particularly in an age when so many pre-conception options are available to reduce/eliminate the possibility of the life being created.
Hell, I valued the life of my dog more than the life of most people...
But, the people I *value* I'd kill or die for... or in one case, willingly walk eternity through hell...
Value, as always, is subjective.
You make an interesting point, since George Washington's life couldn't have been valuable without his mother and father (both in creating him and in making him into the man he became).
It is not a matter of 'one life is more valuable than another', but what kind of life is more valuable to whom for what purpose. The concepts of morality and rights do not pertain to the unborn and only _potential_ human.
To claim that cells, embryos and fetuses have "rights" because they are "human life" equivocates on the meaning of human, dropping the context of the basis of morality and rights. You are a moral being and have rights because of the necessity to choose, not because you have gentetically human cells or appendages that are shaped like fingers and arms.
No, human is someone with a unique human genetic pattern. Period. The definition of Man is the species known as homo sapiens.
The religionists who advocate mystic faith as the basis for a literally meaningless concept of morality cut off from reality drop the entire context of what makes morality possible and necessary, while pretending to appeal to science with irrelevant verbiage about "genes" cut off from the discussion.
Being born means no longer being a biological parasite; it is the point at which the new human begins to directly perceive the external world and use his mind to understand it. But at that level of 'timing' it is most important to specify an objective standard within a range of options so that everyone knows what the law is. That standard is not at the level of embryos, fetuses and cells.
The mystics ascribe "rights" to a "soul" in a cell, with no idea of where rights comes from in a rational philosophy, then outrageously call cell-biology and medicine "murder" while trying to ban contraception (as they once did), then try to pretend that they are only trying to deal with a border line case distinguishing birth at the last moment -- and proceed to argue like medieval scholastics counting angels on the head of a pin while ignoring essentials in the name of a supposed "precision".
The source of rights is through recognition of the nature of man and his mind, and objectively formulating and defining legal rights accordingly, not an out of context decree of 'intrinsic value' gleaned from subjective revelation of the supernatural promoted behind a smokescreen of last minute "precision" while accusing others of mysticism.
Birth is not a mystical moment that gives status and rights to an individual. but it is in that moment, for a lack of a better way to describe it-- I am no longer thinking, I am acting.
I create life. Could care less when the cosmos claim credit. Life doesn’t happen unless I say so. Know one thinks for me.
You truly do choose a slippery slope as soon as you start saying that some life is intrinsically more valuable than others - especially when you have no idea what that life is going to achieve later.
The reason a slippery slope exists is because if you deny that an embryo is human, you must then declare at what point and upon what rationale humanity begins because rights begin at the same time. I claim zero authority or ability to be able to make such a judgment? Do you claim such ability or authority?
Then so is "murder believing Objectivists".
How is it different?
We say things like, “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” You're saying that doesn't apply to women? We have to live our lives for the sake of what might become a child?
If a woman chooses to have a child, she is responsible for what she has created. There are many ways to avoid having children, including as a last resort abortion. She has no duty to have children as the price of enjoying sex. There is no duty to actualize "potential outcomes". An alleged duty to have children with no other purpose for sex is a mystical, nihilistic Catholic dogma that does not deserve survival past the Dark Ages, and it didn't deserve it then either.
I would like to put a word in for the philosopher Susanne Langer (Philosophy in a New Key) who wrote in the 1st half of the 20th c. and did a good job of integrating art and science (using the sonata format).
Jan (Good morning!)
I like the 'approach' approach (!) because, like most of the folks on this list, I rarely agree with anyone 100%...but if the underlying principle is strong, then I can alter the content to some degree without altering the philosophy.
Jan
Much of the Leonard Peikoff's OPAR (as it's called) was assembled from presentations he gave in previous lectures on philosophy, mostly in the 1970s, and you may have encountered some of it in that form.
Jan
Jan
An anomaly is a fact that cannot be explained by science, i.e., an empirical observation for which no theoretical explanation exists. Pure empiricism - and I know that you did not intend that - leads to a bewildering array of anomalies: the sun rises, but no one knows why; heck, it might not rise again...
Thanks also for recommending Susan Langer. I just requested her book from the UT Library. In fact, early editions are stored at the Rare Books Archive, but two can be had from the Architecture Library. I got a later, third, edition from A&S.
So you see, I agree with you. I was just focused on the 'tinyness' of science vs the 'pervasiveness' of philosophy. The contrast between the two made an image for me.
I am looking up The Logical Leap now.
Jan
fare.tunes.org/liberty/library/pwni.html
And I would encourage you to investigate the abortive procedure. "Emergency" abortion was a misconception (no pun intended) I was under as well until I did more research.
"Although I think it is sad when pregnant women choose abortion, it is not my right to force them to carry to term. that is what you advocate. gun at her temple. comply with MY morality"
You are straying from the point. It starts with sex - not with pregnancy. Sex is a choice (I exclude rape/incest for obvious reasons) and choices have consequences - whether desired or otherwise. But again, the philosophical debate goes back to whether or not that newly created life has rights independent of the mother and father. Is it a moral decision? Absolutely: whether or not to recognize and respect those rights. It is not _my_ morality or _your_ morality at all - it either IS, or it ISN'T.
nd you have no problem forcing them against theirwill, telling yourself it is a simple inconvenience. Problems arise in pregnancies all the time. Ob gyn s pay some of the highest med mal rates of any medical specialty. For a reason. It's not our choice.