This semester I have started school and after meeting with students and professors, I am beginning to have concerns about what the future may look like for the field. Before I started, I tried to read as much as possible out of passion, but have not developed my writing or public thought at all. I am aware of the decline in academic jobs and opportunities, but I'm more concerned with my ability to branch out and contribute to the field, and the prospect of getting an academic job is more of a secondary for me.
Has anyone else been in a similar spot? What would you recommend?
Thanks in advance, and sorry if this doesn't fall within the rules.

Book titles and why perhaps?

I'm confused by what Anselm means by "greatness" in his ontological argument. Is greatness some kind of objective property like mass that things can have more or less of? If so, how do we know that this property is real and how are we determining that some things have more or less greatness than others? Are we measuring it with a greatness-ometer or something? And what is the basis for thinking that existing outside the mind is greater than only existing in the mind?

The question is: Does social status transform the individual?

I’m not sure how he would respond, maybe that at the end of the day we are all still human?

I'm finishing my first year in a philosophy research-master’s program, and next year I will write my thesis (in the form of an article and PhD proposal) + and then graduate. I have a double BA is in history and religious studies, a minor in philosophy. Because I had good grades and a good motivation, I got accepted to this program.

I was told this was an exception, because normally one only gets accepted with a BA in philosphy. I am super happy I got in and I really enjoy it, but I often feel a bit lost and 'behind' compared to other students and the programs expectations, probably due to my lack of prior knowledge in philosphy.

When I started the masters one year ago, I did not have any idea of what I wanted to study within philosphy specifically. I knew I liked 'continental philosophy', but I had barely followed any classes on that during my undergrad years (my uni was heavily analytic, so I switched uni's for gradschool to be in a more continental environment).

Now I'm one year in, have passed all my classes with good grades, I have read a lot and did a lot of self-study to somewhat 'fill the gaps'. But I still feel behind. Most people who did philsophy as an undergrad definitely have definetely read more 'classics' then I have, and other students are already publishing and presenting their work. Technically I have enough time to pass classes and write a decent thesis, but I feel like I don't have enough time to develop my interests more 'deeply' and read the big classics, (+ network in the academic community, publish etc.) all within one year.

Now, I don't know how to approach this last year, what should be my priority. For exampe, I could focus on reading more of the classsics, e.g. plato/aristotle, kants critiques, hegels the phenomenology of spirit, etc. I have some basic knowledge of these works to navigate literature but not as much in depth. But I also want to develop my own 'specialisation' and 'niche', read up on contemperary debates in philosophy, which is also necessary in writing a good thesis. How to go about this? Advice?

For example: classical logic, epistemic logic, paraconsistent logic, intuitionistic logic...

Assuming that logical pluralism is true. (that there are multiple correct ways you can infer a conclusion based on some premises (= that there are different possible inference rules.))

A common thing I often hear is that every logic has its own application area. For example: classical logic seems to be useful in math and computing, but not for reasoning in our world because, for example, of its material implication. A sentence like "if I died yesterday, i would be alive today' is true in classical logic because any Implication A -> B is always true if A is false. (that is just how implication is defined) but it is not true in our world because if I would have died yesterday I would still be dead today.

My question specifically is how we know what "works" in what application area?

It seems like the choice isn't made logically if logic itself is multiple ways to infer conclusions from premises (although logic is often seen as the cornerstone of philosophical argumentation). So it's just intuitions then? Our emotions/values?

And what, then, is the role of formal logic in philosophical argumentation?

Hello, i am currently researching in the literature on mental causation and moral causation. It strikes me that difference-making accounts of causation are very popular (and i happen to find them intuitively plausible).

However, difference-making accounts need take a stance on "what to hold fixed" when considering counterfactuals. From what i have read, a popular move is to hold all fixed in so far as metaphysical possible. Here is a worry I see and a resulting question.

If we hold everything fixed in so far as metaphysically possible, this means that in any case where lower-level facts/properties metaphysically necessitate higher-level facts/properties, the latter come out as causally efficacious if the former do. This is great for ensuring higher-level causation. But it seems to rule out even the possibility (!) of there being epiphenomnal properties / facts.

This seems cleary absurd. Sure, maybe there are no such properties. But they surely are not metaphysically impossible. What then are ways that difference-making accounts can avoid this result, while still allowing for higher-order causation in innocuous cases?

I am happy for any pointers to recent literature, including more broadly on more recent (than Kim´s work in the 90s) on this and mental causation. Thanks so much!

Edit: clarification and breaks.

I know it sounds harsh at first, but for example, a smoker might acknowledge that tobacco is carcinogenic but continue to use it out of addiction. I might be aware of the horrors of factory farming but eat meat because I live in a society where not doing so leads to constant marginalization. Seen in this light, is it really a valid criticism to call a philosopher a hypocrite simply because their actions contradict their theoretical ideas?

I’ve recently been learning about Al-Ghazali’s kalam cosmological argument and am curious how it compares with other major arguments for God’s existence.

His argument, in short, is that whatever begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, and therefore the universe must have a cause beyond itself.

How does his argument compare with those of Aquinas, Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Leibniz, and Anselm?

What are its strongest points and biggest weaknesses? Does it successfully establish the existence of God, or only a cause of the universe?

I’m interested in a philosophical perspective rather than a religious debate. How would you compare these arguments in terms of logical strength and resistance to criticism?

Ive kinda just stumbled upon this as I was pondering life and whatnot, but let’s take a scenario where: a student has gone off and applied their learned knowledge, and in turn has become known as a “great” in their field. On the other hand, a teacher, who taught this person all they know, yet never applied it in the same way, therefore is not recognised as a great. Is the teacher greater for having the knowledge? To be able to teach a “great”? It is all quite confusing to me. Logically I want to say the application of it is what differs, while one goes off and uses their knowledge to change the world or something, the other has sat with this knowledge. But at the same time, the ability to hold knowledge that could make a person “great”, is great in itself no? A lot of a history’s “greats”, had teachers only known for being their teacher, yet they were the giver of knowledge to said great, would that not be more valuable? I hope this comes across clear, it’s a newfound thought for me, so my thought process is strained by the continuous reasoning haha. Let me know what yall think anyway!

I want to understand Bertrand Russell’s criticism of Gottlob Frege and grasp what exactly their disagreements consist in.

I would appreciate an explanation covering the following points:

1. The problems at issue. What specific problems were Frege and Russell trying to solve? Why did these problems arise, and why was it important to solve them? If possible, please provide the established names of the problems or topics so that I can study them in more detail independently.

2. Russell’s solution. What exactly did Russell propose in response to these problems? What was his innovation, and how does his approach differ from Frege’s?

3. Examples. Please provide concrete examples of the problems and show how Frege analyzes them and how Russell solves or reconceptualizes them. Ideally, explain not only the result but also the logic of the argument: why should the proposed solution work?

4. Terminology. What key terms and concepts are used in these arguments, and what does each philosopher mean by them? I am particularly interested in concepts such as Sinn, Bedeutung, name, definite description, logical form, and existence. Please avoid conflating the meanings of terms as used by different authors.

5. Explanation rather than paraphrase. I want to understand why an author arrives at a particular conclusion, rather than merely learn what their position is. Therefore, it would be helpful to explain the structure of the arguments, their premises, and their conclusions.

6. Distinguishing branches of philosophy. Please distinguish between logical, semantic, epistemological, and metaphysical questions wherever relevant. For example, an analysis of how a sentence expresses the existence of an object is not necessarily equivalent to resolving the question of which objects exist.

7. Interpretations and disputed issues. If a text admits multiple interpretations, scholars disagree about the meaning of a concept or argument, or the available evidence is insufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion, please state this explicitly. I would prefer disputed interpretations not to be presented as established facts, and authors not to be attributed arguments they did not make.

If possible, please provide primary sources, specific articles, or sections of Frege’s and Russell’s works

I've been down a Nietzsche rabbit hole lately and something keeps bugging me. Everyone calls him "the nihilist guy," but the more I read, the more it feels like he was the one sounding the alarm.

When he says "God is dead," it doesn't read like a victory lap. It's more like: we've removed the foundation our values stood on, and we haven't realized what that means yet. Without that anchor, everything we thought was objectively meaningful starts to wobble. That's the nihilism he was worried about.

But he doesn't stop there. He splits it into passive nihilism (giving up, numbing out, "nothing matters so why bother") and active nihilism (tearing down old values that no longer work). Then comes the real challenge: building your own meaning from the wreckage.

That's where it overlaps with existentialism for me. Sartre and Camus pick up the same problem. There's no built-in meaning, so now what? Camus says live in revolt against the absurd. Sartre says you're condemned to be free and have to define yourself. Nietzsche's answer is amor fati, and the eternal recurrence thought experiment: could you live this exact life again, forever, and say yes to it?

Honestly, that hits harder than any "find your purpose" advice. It's not about finding meaning, it's about becoming someone who can affirm life without any guarantee.

Curious how others read this. Is Nietzsche a nihilist, an existentialist, or neither? And has anyone actually lived by amor fati, or does it sound better than it works?

I’ve been thinking about a question concerning physical reality and infinity, and I’m curious whether philosophers have explored something similar.

When we observe nature, we see the same fundamental processes occurring repeatedly, from atomic interactions to the formation of stars and galaxies.

That got me wondering whether there’s a philosophical argument that anything physically possible must also be capable of occurring more than once. In other words, could something exist that is fundamentally incapable of ever being repeated?

This eventually led me to another question about actual infinity:

We can describe an infinite universe mathematically, but we have never directly demonstrated that actual physical infinity exists. Is there an established philosophical argument connecting the apparent repeatability of natural phenomena with the possibility of an actually infinite universe? Or are these fundamentally independent questions?

I’m not claiming they must be connected. I’m interested in whether philosophers have examined this relationship, particularly in discussions of physical laws, metaphysics, or the philosophy of cosmology.

I’d appreciate any relevant philosophical arguments or reading recommendations.

I am a 20y/o first-year undergraduate student from Bangladesh, majoring in philosophy. I am mostly interested in metaphysics and political philosophy, and I want to pursue my postgraduate studies abroad. To strengthen my resume, I want to get at least one paper published. Unfortunately, my college and faculty cannot help me. How can I conduct research and publish a paper? And how can I develop the foundational knowledge required for research?

I read the recommended readings for beginners and noticed theres not a lot of eastern philosophical thought there, and was curious as to where I could start with eastern philosophy. Mostly asking because İ'm seeing a lot of western philosophers recommended for beginners and im getting into philosophy more and more so I wanted to see some more options. Sorry if this breaks the rules, just curious

I saw this debate occur in the context of a debate about gender between Talia Mae Bettcher and Thomas Bogardus.

Talia tried to argue that there are ordinary usages of "Man" which refer to things which are not adult human males, and used Superman as an example. Thomas said that these are clearly non-literal usages of man, and compared saying Superman was a man to saying that stone lions are lions.

So subjectively, I intuitively think of Superman as a "man" just in the same sense I think of Batman as a "man", and similarly for other fictional cases where we can think of something that is like a human male without actually being a human male. But I also don't think it'd be very convincing from an argumentative point of view to just appeal to one's personal subjective intuition about a case like this.

So my question is, how do we decide whether or not a word use is "literal" vs "non-literal" if we don't already agree about the meaning of a term?

Policymaking that requires deductive reasoning or inductive reasoning

Evidence based policymaking presupposes objectives the means to achieve which can be measured based on effectiveness. But what about processes of defining those objectives themselves ? Those seem to rely on reasoning to a large extent rather than pure empiricism

I have talked about this a few times with a friend and would like to hear some thoughts. She thinks it’s not inherently wrong to take something from someone without asking/letting them know, because nobody really owns anything and we’re too materialistic.

I don’t disagree with the nobody truly owning anything, but I do not agree that taking something from them just because of that is okay. I just don’t really know how to explain myself further with that and it’s irritating.

This issue is very interesting to me and I would really love to hear other people’s more thought out and better articulated opinions on this, or if there’s a single ”correct” answer then that too.

The debate on the existence of and function of free-will as one of the constituents of choice is tiresome, well-worn, and easily resolved when one can simply wave their hand at a whim. This forces us to confront the reality that there is an additional facet of consciousness responsible for choice. The remaining question to ask is what is its nature and status?

What do theologians speak about ?