So What?
C.S. Peirce and William JamesFelsefe
"A squirrel is clinging tightly to the trunk of a large tree. On the
other side of the tree, close up against the trunk is a hunter.
Every time the hunter moves to his left, the squirrel moves
quickly to its left too, scurrying further round the trunk,
hanging on with its claws. The hunter keeps trying to find the
squirrel, but it manages to keep just out of his sight. This goes
on for hours, and the hunter never gets a glimpse of the squirrel.
Would it be true to say that the hunter is circling the squirrel?
Think about it. Does the hunter actually circle his prey?"
Unintelligent Design
,
Charles DarwinFelsefe
"‘Are you related to monkeys on your grandmother’s or your
grandfather’s side?’ This was Bishop Samuel Wilberforce’s cheeky
question in a famous debate with Thomas Henry Huxley in
Oxford’s Museum of Natural History in 1860. Huxley was
defending the views of Charles Darwin (1809–82). Wilberforce’s
question was meant to be both an insult and a joke. But it back-
fired. Huxley muttered under his breath, ‘Thank you God for
delivering him into my hands’, and replied that he would rather
be related to an ape than to a human being who held back debate
by making fun of scientific ideas. He might just as well have
explained that he was descended from monkey-like ancestors on
both sides – not very recently, but some time in the past. That’s
what Darwin claimed. Everyone has them in their family tree."
Space to Grow, John Stuart MillFelsefe
"Imagine that you had been kept away from other children for
most of your childhood. Instead of spending time playing, you
would have been learning Greek and algebra, taught by a private
tutor, or you’d be in conversation with highly intelligent adults.
How would you have turned out?"
Rose-Tinted Reality, Immanuel Kant (1)Felsefe
"If you are wearing rose-tinted spectacles they will colour
every aspect of your visual experience. You may forget that you
are wearing them, but they will still affect what you see.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) believed that we are all walking
around understanding the world through a filter like this. The
filter is the human mind. It determines how we experience
everything and imposes a certain shape on that experience.
Everything we perceive takes place in time and space, and every
change has a cause. But according to Kant, that is not because of
the way reality ultimately is: it is a contribution of our minds.
We don’t have direct access to the way the world is. Nor can we
ever take the glasses off and see things as they truly are. We’re
stuck with this filter and without it we would be completely
unable to experience anything. All we can do is recognize that
it is there and understand how it affects and colours what we
experience."
The Elephant in the Room
,
George Berkeley (and John Locke)Felsefe
"Have you ever wondered if the light really does go off when you
shut the fridge door and no one can see it? How could you tell?
Perhaps you could rig up a remote camera. But then what
happens when you turn the camera off? What about a tree
falling in a forest where no one can hear it? Does it really make
a noise? How do you know your bedroom continues to exist
unobserved when you aren’t in it? Perhaps it vanishes every
time you go out. You could ask someone else to check for you.
The difficult question is: does it carry on existing when nobody
is observing it? It’s not clear how you could answer these ques-
tions. Most of us think that objects do continue to exist unob-
served because that is the simplest explanation. Most of us too
believe that the world we observe is out there somewhere: it
doesn’t just exist in our minds."
The Prince and the Cobbler
,
John Locke and Thomas ReidFelsefe
"What were you like as a baby? If you have one, look at a photo-
graph taken at the time. What do you see? Was that really you?
You probably look quite different now. Can you remember what
it was like being a baby? Most of us can’t. We all change over
time. We grow, develop, mature, decline, forget things. Most of
us get wrinklier, eventually our hair turns white or falls out, we
change our views, our friends, our dress sense, our priorities. In
what sense, then, will you be the same person as that baby when
you are old? This question of what makes someone the same
person over time is one that vexed the English philosopher John
Locke (1632–1704)."