Think, Tap-Dance, God

Descartes's a priori argument that God exists is a version of what's called the Ontological Argument. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an entry on Ontological Arguments. They all have that weird structure:

The idea of God exists in my mind.
[fancy philosophical tap-dancing.]
Therefore, God must really exist.

Most seem to think the problem with the argument occurs somewhere around the tap-dancing.

Why Trust Our Senses?

We may not have a lot of time to go over this in class, so I thought we could try discussing it on the blog.

Descartes's argument for why we can trust our senses, and as a result have knowledge about the external world, is pretty unconvincing. So what do you think would be a good argument for trusting our senses? What's a good argument that we can and do know stuff about the external world?

In other words, why shouldn't we all be skeptics? (OK, some of you may think we should. If so, this post isn't for you. For all you know, this blog may not even exist. Did I just blow your mind?)

Link to the Future

Over the next two weeks we'll be going over the debate between rationalists and empiricists. Here's an advanced survey article on the debate from my favorite free online philosophy encyclopedia:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Rationalism vs. Empiricism

Yes, there are more than one free online philosophy encyclopedias.

Keanu-Approved Links

Here's a trio of links. The first one's that guide to reading philosophy we talked about in class on Friday.

Jim Pryor's Guide to Reading Philosophy

The next two relate to epistemology and skepticism, which are what we'll be talking about this week. Both are about the movie The Matrix. The first is pretty straightforward (Neo reads it and says 'whoa'), but the second is a little more advanced (Neo reads it and says 'huh?').

The Matrix: Dream Skepticism

The Matrix: Brain-in-a-Vat Skepticism

By the way, if you have any links you think I or others in class might find interesting, let me know.

Email Subscriptions

So why a blog? Well, why is anything anything?

The blog is an experiment. Hopefully it can benefit the course in some way. I’ll be posting course updates, discussion topics, and other stuff here throughout the semester. Go ahead and subscribe to the rss feed if you know what that means.

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