To add to the following list, send an email to the Philosophy Club.
These are various questions which are possible things to "waste" our time with at philosophy club. Have fun.
Should epistemology be naturalized?
What is the relation between philosophy and science?
Can philosophy be scientific? Too scientific? Just historically and/or ahistorically scientific?
What is suitable as inference, methodology in science?
Problems of Local and Global Underdetermination?
Are formal methods useful in philosophy?
Is there still a "first" (think Decartes) philosophy?
Should philosophy try to stay as close to modern philosophy as possible?
Should philosophy be concerned with other disciplines?
Should we concentrate more on Continental philosphy? Hegel, Heideiger, Derrida?
What about hard to classify figures, like Husserl?
Should philosophy be more concerned about studying people?
Or ideas, methods, etc?
Is inductive logic suitable for knowledge? Belief?
What is knowledge? Belief?
Should philosophy be concerned with just beliefs? E.g., Bayesianism or Decision theory.
How is knowledge formed?
Can computers think?
Can a program know things?
What is the ontological status of a virtual machine?
How "real" is information?
Is Church's thesis correct?
Do robots have rights? Always just property?
What is the relation between heuristics, natural and formal languages?
Is the mind like a computer? Are mental states like software?
Is Searle's chinese room argument a good argument? Does the person in the room need to know what the symbols mean in order to communicate?
Should ancient philosophy still be studied?
If a philosophy was studied at any time, is it still relevant today?
Should philosophy stick to "useful" subjects, and not concentrate too heavily on ancient or modern philosophy?
What is time and space? Is there a four dimensional space time?
Is metaphysics useful at all for influencing physics positively?
Is pop philosophy good? Is philosophy too esoteric?
How is philosophy expressed in pop culture?
How much do conventions affect language, communication?
Of what significance are conventions in Philosophy?
Is everything based on "context" or "relativity"?
What exactly is meaning? Use? A formal relation?
Can objects actually "touch"? If so, in what sense, a casual sense?
Universals and Ontology - What exactly is the universe of domain? Is it bounded by language, as Quine and Putnam suggest?
Is mathematics empirical?
Are numbers real? If so, in what sense?
Are mathematical notions discovered?
What is infinity? Cardinality? Cantor's paradise?
What is the relation between mathematics and logic?
Can intuitionist logics be justified? Can classical logic?
Does second-order logic make sense?
Is the law of the excluded middle valid?
Is classical logic "special"?
What is justice?
Should philosophy try and be more applied?
Especially with political and Ethical problems?
Can philosophy justify itself in the 21st Century?
Isn't philosophy just a luxury and not really useful?
What is causation?
Was Hume's skepticism right?
Should we be skeptics?
What is the relation between philosophy and skepticism? |