What is your thoughtful opinion of Augustine's Truth Argument for God's existence? How does this embody August
higher than human.. and lower than god.. like demi-god.. so you're willing to concede to demi-god.. but god god is too far fetched.... well... in a cosmology sense, space/time requires it to have a structure where god would, in essence, be your philosophy. i understand how seeing this all through earthly terms would confuse you. ask a person staring at the sky w/o an attachment to this planet about the space/time cosmology, and they'll tell you all things are happening at same time, but only one thing is being at the same time. to confuse this w/ unitarianism is going to another extreme. people have to rest w/ who they are in relation to the larger spectrum, just like the person who looked up at the stars made a conscious decision to release attachment. the biggest confusion is that we don't function as a community, that there's just too much out there for us to really benefit from, and we all struggle to evolve through making that false- whether we realize it, do anything about it, or benefit from it.
Are there any sound arguments against cartesian skepticism?
i know we cant actualy "prove" solipsism and cartesian skepticism false. however there has to be arguments against them that show them logicaly false and incoherent even if we cant prove it empericaly. if so what are they?
What are some good arguments against open borders?
Some arguments against open borders:Open borders create a 'race to the bottom' in terms of social benefits and a social safety net. Imagine that borders are completely open and it's near costless to immigrate from one country to the other. Then the country with the best social services and benefits, (especially health benefits and unemployment benefits) will draw the World's poorest people, creating a strong Adverse Selection effect. That country will quickly lose its ability to fund those services and they will be significantly downscaled. This will continue until all developed countries will offer relatively low levels (compared to today) of benefits. Obviously in reality there is friction on immigration so this process wouldn't be immediate, but the dynamics described will still be a powerful force acting against meaningful social benefits.Open borders severely limits the ability of a country to chose its cultural identity. If you're strong believer in multiculturalism this may not seem like a drawback, but if you do believe some cultures are better than others, then this is a huge minus for open borders.Open borders cause wars and catastrophes to create global ripple effects that are hard to control. You can already see some of this with the current refugee crisis in Syria. While in the past if a refugee crisis wasn't at a World War scale it would typically mostly affect the countries directly involved in conflict and their neighbors. Open borders will cause a population affected by war or catastrophe to be willing to immigrate earlier and further, since the cost of migrating is lower and the benefits are higher. This makes prospering countries more vulnerable (in terms of the strength of the population they need to support).Open borders can undermine the rule of law in places where it is well established. If the population of a city can jump dramatically overnight due to truly open borders, then there's very little guaranteeing that the rule of law can be maintained, even in places that are essentially crime free. The rule of law isn't maintained just through policing and a legal framework, but also through a shared cultural understanding of expected norms and day to day behavior. Sudden changes in the makeup of a population can completely undermine this cultural aspect.
What is the strongest argument against moral skepticism?
It is my impression that arguments don't tend to be given for moral realism. Rather, it is taken that the pre-philosophical position is moral realism and that this is supported by ordinary language (we use declarative sentences for moral propositions, sentences that appear to be able to have truth values) and ordinary moral practise. When Smith and Jones have a moral disagreement, we think, pre-philosophically that they are disagreeing about some matter of (moral) fact. Indeed, this is recognised by some who are not moral realists. Take error theorists such as J.L. Mackie. For the error theorists, moral propositions do purport to tell us facts about the world (and not facts about whether someone just likes a particular act a la expressivism). But this is a mistake. Hence the error in error theory. Given this, there don't tend to be many arguments offered for moral realism. Rather, realists concern themselves with refuting arguments for the various forms of moral scepticism.As an exception to this rule, G.E. Moore has an argument in his short book Ethics, this argument makes the claim that various sorts of moral skepticism are incompatible with the reality of moral disagreement. For an easy example, take a basic form of expressivism. When Jones says "lying is bad" he really means "Jones dislikes lying"When Smith says "lying is good" he really means "Smith likes lying"You can see that those two propositions are logically compatible. Smith and Jones don't really disagree about anything!Since moral disagreement is real, moral skepticism is false. I believe that more modern sceptics can get round this criticism (though I cannot remember how). But yeah. The fashion is not to argue for moral realism. It is taken to be the pre-philosophical position.