How to make better arguments in philosophy

By Eric Bright

Two birds screaming at each other as if they are arguing.

I cannot remember reading any serious philosophy article or book, either by authors of antiquity or contemporary writers, in which the author engages in a fist-fight. I frequently see such fist-fights in some on-line philosophy communities. One reason might be because there is usually a monologue in those texts and no opponent’s voice can be heard. Yet, Plato’s dialogues do not suggest too many fist-fights between their participants either.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ~Aristotle read more...

Please cite this article as: Bright, Eric. (2018) How to make better arguments in philosophy. BlogSophy. https://sophy.ca/blog/2018/02/how-to-make-better-arguments-in-philosophy/

Intellectually Dishonest – how to drive a poster crazy by your comments in forums

By Eric Bright

It’s curious to see how religious geniuses (Christians and the like) are almost the only ones who “find” flaws in articles such as this one; only them. You never have the “right interpretations” for what they think must be the case. You don’t see as many commenters under those posts who are (1) non-believers and (2) do not wish to cover their own asses by trying to take down anything that questions their sanities and (3) find something substantial about the argument to attack, instead of red herring and attacking a straw man of their own making. For that matter, you don’t find a commenter who only meets the first criteria in the list for posts such as that one. Isn’t it interesting? One should ask what their motives might be. Why only them and not anyone else? read more...

Please cite this article as: Bright, Eric. (2013) Intellectually Dishonest – how to drive a poster crazy by your comments in forums. BlogSophy. https://sophy.ca/blog/2013/04/intellectually-dishonest-how-to-drive-a-poster-crazy-by-your-comments-in-forums/

Science and religion are similarly invalid; or are they?

By Eric Bright

[Note to the reader: (1) This is not an ad hominem attack on the people mentioned in the post (the names are not real names). I don’t know them in person and I also don’t care who they are so far as this post is concerned. You should be able to change the names to anything else and the arguments should still hold valid. (2) If you prefer, you can download an ODT or a PDF version of this article from here: http://goo.gl/AEHOc]

When someone starts asking questions about his fundamental convictions, he does not necessarily go all the way down the rabbit hole to derive the implications of what he believes as true. Most of us stop early in our search. Most of us never even reach the threshold for understanding the territory in which we plan to dwell. An example would make it more clear. read more...

Please cite this article as: Bright, Eric. (2013) Science and religion are similarly invalid; or are they?. BlogSophy. https://sophy.ca/blog/2013/03/science-and-religion-are-similarly-invalid-or-are-they/