Nov 21, 2016 11:34 PM
On vagueness, or, when is a heap of sand not a heap of sand?
https://aeon.co/ideas/on-vagueness-when-...ap-of-sand
EXCERPT: [...] You can find aspects of vagueness in most words of English or any other language. Out loud or in our heads, we reason mostly in vague terms. Such reasoning can easily generate sorites-like paradoxes. Can you become poor by losing one cent? Can you become tall by growing one millimetre? At first, the paradoxes seem to be trivial verbal tricks. But the more rigorously philosophers have studied them, the deeper and harder they have turned out to be. They raise doubts about the most basic logical principles....
Can there be anything good in the experience of illness?
https://aeon.co/essays/can-there-be-anyt...of-illness
EXCERPT: Some say that illness is morally improving, others that there is nothing good about being sick. Can philosophy adjudicate? [...] Much of what is said about the philosophy of the good life presupposes health is a prerequisite. But if illness is a constitutive feature of the human condition, we must take a wider view of how the dependent, afflicted and vulnerable can flourish in the face of adversity. Looking seriously at the edifying potential of illness is a step in the right direction.
[...] It’s true that some people have pushed for the active pursuit of illness. Diogenes, one of the Cynics of ancient Greece, reportedly rolled in hot sand in summer and walked barefoot through the snow in winter, insisting that virtues such as self-sufficiency and discipline could be developed only by enduring hardships. (The cause of his death was said to be either eating raw octopus, an infected dog-bite or holding his breath by choice.) Nietzsche, who admired the Cynics, said that, while great suffering might not make us better, it certainly makes us deeper – and is the ultimate liberator of the spirit, exposing our true ‘energies’ occluded by the ease of wellbeing.
But few philosophers seriously entertain such austere notions of what moral cultivation looks like. [...] A second set of detractors observes that illness does not make everyone morally better....
https://aeon.co/ideas/on-vagueness-when-...ap-of-sand
EXCERPT: [...] You can find aspects of vagueness in most words of English or any other language. Out loud or in our heads, we reason mostly in vague terms. Such reasoning can easily generate sorites-like paradoxes. Can you become poor by losing one cent? Can you become tall by growing one millimetre? At first, the paradoxes seem to be trivial verbal tricks. But the more rigorously philosophers have studied them, the deeper and harder they have turned out to be. They raise doubts about the most basic logical principles....
Can there be anything good in the experience of illness?
https://aeon.co/essays/can-there-be-anyt...of-illness
EXCERPT: Some say that illness is morally improving, others that there is nothing good about being sick. Can philosophy adjudicate? [...] Much of what is said about the philosophy of the good life presupposes health is a prerequisite. But if illness is a constitutive feature of the human condition, we must take a wider view of how the dependent, afflicted and vulnerable can flourish in the face of adversity. Looking seriously at the edifying potential of illness is a step in the right direction.
[...] It’s true that some people have pushed for the active pursuit of illness. Diogenes, one of the Cynics of ancient Greece, reportedly rolled in hot sand in summer and walked barefoot through the snow in winter, insisting that virtues such as self-sufficiency and discipline could be developed only by enduring hardships. (The cause of his death was said to be either eating raw octopus, an infected dog-bite or holding his breath by choice.) Nietzsche, who admired the Cynics, said that, while great suffering might not make us better, it certainly makes us deeper – and is the ultimate liberator of the spirit, exposing our true ‘energies’ occluded by the ease of wellbeing.
But few philosophers seriously entertain such austere notions of what moral cultivation looks like. [...] A second set of detractors observes that illness does not make everyone morally better....