Here's a fun "interactive survey" (ht: Joshua Rasmussen) that asks you about a bunch of general metaphysical principles, and constructs an argument for a necessary being out of your answers.
Though this probably isn't the intended purpose of the site, I find it nicely illustrates the methodological lesson that general principles that sound plausible at first (when we think of only paradigmatic instances, say) may no longer seem so plausible once certain (less "normal") instances of their use are brought to our attention.
Monday, August 06, 2012
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"I find it nicely illustrates the methodological lesson that general principles that sound plausible at first...". True. Good article.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the intended purpose of the site is. Certainly there are many lessons; another is to be extremely careful when a claim involves multiple modal operations going on at once ("is it possible that there are such and such contingent things,") as it can often happen that such a claim ends up being much stronger (and so much less plausible) than it appears at first glance.
ReplyDeleteYes, good insights.
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