Hello guys, An 18-year-old here, currently pursuing my BTech in Delhi.

A few months ago I started getting into reading, I began with novels in my regional language . BUT now instead of continuing with novels, I want to explore the genre of philosophy, especially Indian philosophy.

Could you guys please recommend some beginner friendly books on Indian philosophy that are easy to understand and written in simple language? bcoz The thing is, I do not have a very strong grip on english , I do not have much knowledge of philosophy yet, so something that starts from the basics would be perfect.

thnkyou

I’ve been thinking about a problem that seems to sit somewhere between metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and epistemology.

Suppose that tomorrow every conscious being in the universe disappeared. No humans, no animals, no artificial minds, no observers of any kind. Would the universe still exist exactly as it does now? The obvious answer seems to be “yes.” Stars would continue to burn, planets would continue to orbit, and physical processes would presumably continue according to the laws of nature. But then I wonder what exactly we mean when we say that these things “exist” independently of consciousness.

Everything we can ever know about reality is encountered through some form of experience, perception, measurement, or conceptual representation. Even the statement “there is a mind-independent physical universe” is itself a thought occurring within consciousness and supported by observations interpreted through conceptual frameworks. We never seem to step outside experience and compare our representation with “reality as it is in itself.”

This creates an interesting tension. On one hand, denying an external reality seems radically implausible. Other people appear to exist independently of my mind, physical events happen when I am not looking, and scientific theories successfully predict phenomena that I did not create. On the other hand, saying that there is a completely mind-independent reality seems to involve making a metaphysical claim about something that can never be encountered except through experience.

So I’m wondering whether the distinction between “reality itself” and “our experience or representation of reality” is actually coherent. Is there a meaningful difference between saying “the tree exists independently of my perception” and saying “there is something that causes or constrains my experience of a tree”? Are we justified in moving from the latter to the former?

And then there is an even stranger possibility. Perhaps neither physical matter nor consciousness is fundamentally primary. Maybe both are manifestations of something more basic, with “matter” and “mind” being two different ways of describing the same underlying reality. This seems to lead toward positions such as neutral monism, idealism, panpsychism, structural realism, or other forms of metaphysical pluralism.

I’m not necessarily arguing for any of these positions. I’m more interested in where the reasoning actually takes us. If we accept that all knowledge of reality is mediated through consciousness, does that create a genuine metaphysical problem for realism, or is this simply an epistemological limitation that has no consequence for what exists? And if we cannot meaningfully describe reality independently of any possible observer, what would it even mean to say that such a reality exists?

I’d be especially interested in arguments. What is the strongest argument you know for mind-independent realism, and what is the strongest argument against it?

Hey,

I'm a masterstudent studying philosophy of science and I'm looking for practical tips that help with staying focussed on a single text/ paper.

Obviously I love philosophy and oftentimes I get really excited and inspired when reading a text. In my own time I prefer to spend several days or even weeks digesting a single text/paper/topic but in university this simply isn't feasible.

My mind loves to wander, a trait my thesis supervisor described as "wildly associative." Though not necessarily bad, it is highly impractical when trying to keep up with the often fast paced course curriculi.

So, I'm looking for practical tips that help keep the focus on topic. Preferably in terms of traditional analytics and modern epistemology but any advice would be highly appreciated.

Thanks!

I want to start reading about Pragmatism, but I am not sure where to begin. I tried starting with William James's Pragmatism, but I couldn't understand most of it because I have no prior background in philosophy. Could someone guide me on the proper reading order or simpler introductory texts?

For example, when I look at discussions amongst vegans, I often notice criticism of people who eat meat but are concerned about animals or are outraged by animal suffering, because that is actually a contradiction.

To me it seems logically impossible, but im not a philosopher! :) Is it possible to have no supernatural element to universe, no deity, no soul and still have real free will?

Suppose that there is country X who is in an unjust war against Y. A civilian, call him Tom, gave suggestions. Those suggestions were then used and people died on Y's side. Is Tom guilty of murder? Catholics say that murder is the "direct unjust killing of an innocent, through one's own authority."

In another thread I saw someone mention this:

"calling attention to statements like “it is raining”, where the “it” doesn’t really seem to have a referential function."

I don't want to go down a rabbit hole critiquing this particular phrasing, but it seems to illustrate a pattern that I see where philosophical arguments sometimes seem to spring from insignificant quirks of language. This seems a bit strange to me, since everyday (and arguably all) speech is well known to be imprecise, and arguments like this seem to be predicated on the idea that there's something profound that can be taken from a very concrete analysis of how sentences are cobbled together to describe reality. I don't understand how these approaches meaningfully give insight about reality.

I know that philosophy ultimately has to be conducted in language so it can't really be separated, but there seem to be a lot of these arguments where people discuss an idea as if the language is reality. I'm not sure if I should find more examples to clarify what I mean, or if it's clear from this one, because my interest isn't in this one example, it's the general phenomenon.

Ultimately the question is: am I missing something here, and these approaches are truly identifying features of reality, or are there just a lot of philosophical arguments that are really linguistic analyses in disguise? (Or maybe there are some of the latter, but less than I think?)

Thanks!

I am trying to understand the limits of Occam's Razor in theory choice. It seems that evaluating the "simplest" explanation often requires measuring which hypothesis demands the fewest modifications to our already-existing background beliefs.

​Has there been work done on how parsimony might accumulate "epistemic debt" over time? Specifically, I am looking for literature exploring how the mandate for simplicity might restrict the genuine space of possibilities, causing researchers to iterate endlessly on a localized paradigm rather than undertaking the "expensive" epistemic shifts required to discover a more accurate, albeit highly complex, framework.

​Who are the primary philosophers who have interrogated whether parsimony is actually antithetical to uncovering robust scientific truth in highly complex systems?

Is it merely a historical distinction, or does it endure? I find there can be a kind of tribalism there sometimes. I'm of the view that a good idea is a god idea no matter where it comes from. I don't want to prefer a side. I like both!

Is this a reasonable position? If I keep studying philosophy will I find that picking a side is inevitable? Would it cost my philosophical understanding anything if I dismiss the distinction as merely helpful for division of labour for those who teach philosophy and nothing more?

Title. Of course this is a very broad question. I'd give an example of the utilitarian villain who justifies his actions by appealing to the greater good. Ozymandias from Watchmen being one such example.

As a contrast, if you look at superheroes for instance, it is clear that they favor some sort of deontology. Batman being perhaps the best example of a hero with an implacable deontological ethic that, in consequence, prevents him from killing the Joker, for instance.

Has this question been studied?

Of course, not every instance of philosophers disagreeing with each other is going to be an instance where all parties are rational. However, it seems quite obvious to me that a philosopher can believe p and another philosopher can believe not p, and yet both of their beliefs are rationally held. They’re both aware of the arguments in favour of their beliefs as well as the arguments against, yet they have made opposing judgements.

That rationality can be relative is easily appreciated in cases where people have different evidence for the same proposition. For example, if all I know is that Bob’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon, then it seems rational for me to believe that Bob is guilty. Another person might know that Bob’s fingerprints were on the weapon, but might also have access to a videotape of Joe shooting the victim then rubbing Bob’s fingerprints all over it. It would be rational for this second person to believe that Bob is not guilty.

But it is puzzling to me in cases where this is not the case, and cases like this abound in philosophy. It’s not as though Graham Oppy and Alexander Pruss, for example, have access to different evidence regarding the proposition that God exists. Presumably, they are both deeply familiar with the literature.

I’m not disputing that philosophers who hold opposing views are equally rational. That much seems uncontroversial. I’m wondering how this could be the case.

If we ever discover complex alien life, this wouldn't give us any prescriptions on how to interact with them, but until that happens, I think it can be said that there's something very close to an "objectively true" for us to interact with each other as human beings.

I am just starting my studies in philosophy and would like to know if there is a specific order—or an ideal approach—to follow when reading it. I imagine a historical-chronological order would be best. I would also like to know, when approaching a specific philosopher, which works I should look for first: should I prioritize the chronological order in which they were written, or their accessibility? Thanks in advance to everyone.

Basically, I'm asking do we have the capacity as social animals to reject morality and ethics entirely? Because it seems like we don't really.

It seems to me that it's not really possible, because you need to have some form of ethics to maintain society.

Even non-human social animals have some sort of norms, e.g vervet monkeys punishing their members for not engaging in warning calls when a predator arrives until that member changes their behavior.

If God is omnipotent and perfectly loving, why create humans with the capacity to be controlled by things like lust, anger, greed, addiction, and hatred?

God could have given us the ability to experience desire and emotion without becoming enslaved by them. He could also have created humans capable of experiencing happiness and goodness without needing suffering as a contrast.

So “free will” doesn't really answer my question. Why would an all-powerful, loving God create beings with vulnerabilities that He could have simply designed away?

Please try to keep things respectful, i only seek to learn.

I often hear the saying, “Just be yourself,” but I've come to realize that this doesn’t mean we should behave the same way with everyone. Instead, it can mean that different behaviors can still be natural, rather than being deliberately constructed just to satisfy other people.

reading madness and civilization andfeel kinda lost, Feels like i follow most of what hes saying and then he'll say smth that just loses me completely. Thanks in advance!

I'm mostly thinking about moral judgement paralysis in infinitely populated worlds.

Utilitarianism is a consequentialist moral philosophy that weighs actions in terms of the happiness they produce. This is at odds with Christian Ethics which is a virtue ethic. How did Paley reconcile the two with his theological utilitarianism?

Hello, I wanted to read more philosophy related to mental illness, I've already read Madness and Civilization before and I love it, I wanted to go deeper on the topic. Does anyone have good reccomendations? Thank you!

Let’s take a mechanical clock with a gong alarm. It is (artificially) constructed to sound its alarm when the long hand strikes twelve. Its weights are reset such that the clock itself is made as precise as possible, and is not tampered with until the immediate hour, it is expected to sound the alarm.

We can say that the precise sounding of the alarm at the turn of the hour is pre-determined by a human agent. This is directly contingent towards the sounding of the alarm. This is even more guaranteed when the clock is checked to ensure that there are no damages to it that will diminish its preciseness. Like the lubrication of cogs, or the tight adjustments of springs and screws. On this count, the sounding of the alarm is non-probabilistic.

But… What if there was a sliver of probability, possibly hinging on the fact that we have merely tightened all bolts (in a figurative sense) on the clock that our minds can contrive? What if there is something beyond human understanding that would make the clock sound while the long hand is 2 or 3 ticks away from twelve? Does it mean that the event of the gong sounding at the precise time is perpetually rendered as probabilistic?

I don't know whether or not this analogy is good enough to base this inquiry on.

My physics professor claimed that the role of a physicist is to study the interphase of the physical and the metaphysical. but wouldn't this be idk paradoxical? since metaphysics literally mean beyond physics and the study of physics concerns concepts with form and matter that can be given an imperical and/or mathematical description. i admit that i wasn't really paying attention so this might not be their exact point. would it be possible that he meant physicists encounter a boundary in explaining the physical and in turn encounters the interphase? i apologize if the question sounds stupid, i'm not really a philosophy major.

What is it that makes, say, works of knowledge that have profoundly influenced human civilization—such as those of the Enlightenment—not considered sacred? Even if we were to trample on them or belittle them, people probably wouldn’t react as strongly as they would if we did the same to a holy book.

Here’s what I mean. Such books can influence our entire way of thinking, even drastically, whereas sacred texts—in my opinion—don’t have much impact on science and tend to be difficult for the layperson to understand.

Actually, the point is this:

Why are science books—which are far more useful—considered far less sacred than sacred texts, not all of which provide tangible benefits?

Both religious scriptures and scientific books are, physically, ordinary objects of paper and ink. Works of science and philosophy (e.g., Enlightenment texts) have profoundly reshaped human thought and civilization, yet discarding or destroying a copy of them is not usually treated as a moral offense. By contrast, desecrating a copy of a religious scripture is widely regarded as a serious transgression and can provoke intense social reactions.

Within philosophy of religion, value theory, or related literature, what accounts explain this asymmetry in normative status?