What Makes a Quality Definition
Defining and categorizing has always seemed to be at once the simplest and most difficult thing imaginable. I especially enjoy Socrates discuss the topic in his dialogs. It’s interesting to see some (what seem to me to be) silly options tossed out to describe the way to think of a definition, and know that even today we struggle with the same issue, just later on in history.
I’d like to step through the points discussed by Socrates and his fellow debater, and hopefully clearly state some of Socrates’ thoughts on what makes (or doesn’t make) a definition.
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Seriously
I just had a man tell me that he is a finance major and as such shouldn’t have to deal with “this ethics or philosophy stuff.”
Dear God.
Moral Relativity
For Ethics, PL260, I am reading selections from a book called The Moral Life: an introductory reader in ethics and literature.
Tonight’s essay was Ruth Benedict’s The Case for Moral Relativism. In it she argues for (duh) moral relativism, which is defined, by the book’s editor Louis P. Pojman, as:
…the theory that the validity of moral […]
Musing on Postmodernism
I had an interesting conversation earlier today with a friend of mine who is/was/has been skeptical of the idea and very existence of postmodernism. Although his reasoning is akin to those who would say things like “postmodernism is relativism” the conversation brought to light some ideas I’ve been mulling over for a while.
It seems to […]
God and Time: Final Thoughts
I don’t know if I would take the class again.
I learned some things and I was challenged by many things. There were times when it was very exciting and times when I wanted to die. Part of me wonders if this isn’t just going to be the very nature of philosophy; the other part wonders […]
God and Time: Regarding the Incarnation (Part 2)
There are a few other things on my mind that I would like to get out for a couple of reasons. First, I want to write all of my “God and Time” thoughts out before the end of the class and the final on Wednesday. Second, a number of interesting things were really synthesized in […]
God and Time: Regarding the Incarnation
The most exciting part of talking about God in relation to time (or any other thing for that matter) is when scripture or practical situations are taken into account. Today we read an essay today called “Incarnation, Timeless, and Leibnez’s Law Problems” by Thomas Senor. I found it very interesting - for the practical reason […]
God and Time: The Issue of Prayer
We pray to God. Some of us do. Some of us could be much better than we are (speaking mainly to myself here). We also pray for a reason. Whatever the reason is, we base our prayers on the assumption that it is worth our time to pray. The point is we pray because we […]
God and Time: An Analogy
An illustration from my philosophy professor yesterday had me really excited (although it may have just been the 30 ounces of coffee in my system at the time. Don’t ask.)
Background: we have been reading a variety of essays this week by philosophical theologians arguing for an atemporal God. There have been different ways of going […]
God and Time - Perfection and the Purpose of Scripture
Another student in class brought up something which we covered a day or so ago, that is that God is immutable (for argument’s sake) because His changing in any way would either mean (1) that He is becoming more perfect and thus wasn’t perfect before the change or (2) that He was perfect and is […]