A Quote by Elliott Sober
Some philosophical arguments (e.g., in connection with the mind/body problem) look pretty good, while others (e.g., those that criticize moral realism) do not.
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The terminology of philosophical art is coercive: arguments are powerful and best when they are knockdown, arguments force you to a conclusion, if you believe the premisses you have to or must believe the conclusion, some arguments do not carry much punch, and so forth. A philosophical argument is an attempt to get someone to believe something, whether he wants to beleive it or not. A successful philosophical argument, a strong argument, forces someone to a belief.
Maybe the most provocative thing one can do - and I'm not the first one to do it - is to ask the moral and philosophical question: why are some people better than others? Why are some people more moral than others?
Highly technical philosophical arguments of the sort many philosophers favor are absent here. That is because I have a prior problem to deal with. I have learned that arguments, no matter how watertight, often fall on deaf ears. I am myself the author of arguments that I consider rigorous and unanswerable but that are often not such much rebutted or even dismissed as simply ignored.
A Winner's Blueprint for Achievement BELIEVE while others are doubting. PLAN while others are playing. STUDY while others are sleeping. DECIDE while others are delaying. PREPARE while others are daydreaming. BEGIN while others are procrastinating. WORK while others are wishing. SAVE while others are wasting. LISTEN while others are talking. SMILE while others are frowning. COMMEND while others are criticizing. PERSIST while others are quitting.
Our normal tendency is to feel dissatisfied and to criticize our body, speech, and mind - My body is out of shape; my voice is unpleasant; my mind is confused. - We are so caught up in this pointless, neurotic habit of criticism that we disparage others as well as ourselves. This is extremely damaging.
Chevron has wrapped itself in some pretty good arguments that make you scratch your head. The moral responsibility is certainly at its door. I leave it to other people to figure out whether there's legal responsibility.
While the body is young and fine, the soul blunders, but as the body grows old it attains its highest power. Again, every good soul uses mind; but no body can produce mind: for how should that which is without mind produce mind? Again, while the soul uses the body as an instrument, it is not in it; just as the engineer is not in his engines (although many engines move without being touched by any one).
Even papists could not see that a moral evil was detained in the soul through its physical connection with the body; and that it required the dissolution of this physical connection before the moral contagion could be removed.
I don't mind people writing about me. Personal attacks are different, but political arguments? I'm putting myself out there on a daily basis. I'm giving my opinion. So it only makes sense that others might differ and will criticize me.
Unfortunately, philosophers of science usually regard scientific realism and scientific anti-realism as monistic doctrines. The assumption is that there is one goal of all scientific inference - finding propositions that are true, or finding propositions that are predictively accurate. In fact, there are multiple goals. Sometimes realism is the right interpretation of a scientific problem, while at other times instrumentalism is.
Strong moral arguments exist for why we should often try to ignore stereotypes or override them. But we shouldn't assume they represent some irrational quirk of the unconscious mind. In fact, they're largely the consequence of the mind's attempt to make a rational decision.
Many people talk about the mind-body connection and how what we think can affect our physical self. What I have found, even more than the mental connection, is that the emotions rule the body.
Most psychologists treat the mind as disembodied, a phenomenon with little or no connection to the physical body. Conversely, physicians treat the body with no regard to the mind or the emotions. But the body and mind are not separate, and we cannot treat one without the other.
The Negro problem, like all other political problems, is fundamentally a moral issue. This is realism, not idealism. Those of my colleagues who believe that they are particularly 'hard boiled' because they overlook the fact that human beings are struggling for their consciences are simply unrealistic.
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.
Some individuals may perceive their losing fight with gravity as a sharp pain in their back, others as the unflattering contour of their body, others as constant fatigue, yet others as an unrelentingly threatening environment. Those over forty may call it old age. And yet all these signals may be pointing to a single problem so prominent in their own structure, as well as others, that it has been ignored: they are off balance, they are at war with gravity.
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