Well that's not very nice.. not giving any sort of guidelines on how to display it; just some blank screen -_-

Well, at the moment i'm just trying to fill up that blank space our great teacher Alex left us, so i'll be talking about mine later. ^_^

Just this evening, the 20th of July, Tuesday, I think I have decided on what I perhaps may write my paper. (Please, nobody steal my paper topic. lol.)

Originally, I was going to do something concerning McDowell's Paradox, but now I think that I might have to incorporate some ideas from Berkeley, Hume, Kierkegaard (especially), and Wittgenstein. So that's why I find this topic to be a little interesting.

It's going to first explore McDowell's paradox. Then I might apply it to language and explain how the "meaning mystery" is a version of McDowell's paradox. Then I will try to research, find, and explore different solutions or "resolutions" to McDowell's paradox. Then I will make a feeble attempt to conjecture my own opinion (of which I have begun to form certain ideas...).

Well, that's about all. I actually might not do all of that, but that gives a general overview of what overall field about which I was thinking.

At this point I've gotten a decent way into Kant's Prolegomena, and find it very interesting.

Hah, here we thought Nietzche was an elitist, listen to this!: "But should any reader find this plan, which I publish as the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, still obscure, let him consider that not everyone is bound to study metaphysics, that many minds will succeed well in the exact and even in deep sciences more closely allied to intuition while they cannot succeed in investigations dealing exclusively with abstract concepts."

I would like to base my paper, therefore, simply on the main focus of the Prolegoma, which is the question of whether metaphysics is at all possible (or, more specifically, how synthetic propositions a priori are possible). I have not finished the book yet, so this topic might change subtly. In this I will follow Kant's work by exploring first the division of judgments, then the possibilities of mathematics and natural science, and lastly the plausibility of metaphysics and the bounds of reason.

Given that comprehending a page of Kant's writing is like slaying a dragon, I don't think it would be best for me to attempt to go any further than to simply explore his ideas. I never considered myself much of a metaphysician, and don't have much at stake in the field.

Dear Inna,

Your paper sounds like it will be interesting.

To make sure everyone understands the issue, allow me to repeat something I already said in class. Carnap has argued that a large class of metaphysical statements are nonsensical because they involve what he calls violations of logical syntax or, in other words, category clashes. Here is a supposed example of a non-metaphysical category clash: "Chairman Mao is rare." In this sentence 'rare' is being predicated of the proper name ‘Chairman Mao’. But ‘rare,’ one is inclined to say, cannot be predicated of a proper name; these words simply don’t “logically fit” together with one another. While it would seem that ‘rare’ can meaningfully be predicated of a concept word describing a kind of book, animal, person, or place as in the sentence “a clean and well-lighted place is rare,” it seems that one inevitably produces nonsense if one tries to combine this word with a proper name, i.e., the name of a person, place or thing, as in “The 23rd Street Starbucks is rare.” But Cora Diamond argues that if Gottlob Frege was right when he said that a word has a meaning only in the context of a meaningful sentence, then there is no such thing as a category clash, because a category clash presupposes that it is possible for a word to have a meaning independently of the role it plays in the context of a meaningful sentence, otherwise it would be impossible for the meanings to clash with one another in a nonsensical sentence. Diamond argues that “Chairman Mao is rare” may be nonsense, but only because it is not clear what these words, which as of yet have no determinate meaning, are saying, not on account of any “logical clash” between its apparently meaningful parts.

Yours,

Alex

I'm doing the topic about "empirical thought". I was going to do this at the start, but when Alex told me McDowell's solution I was quite annoyed that Dowell stole my idea and traveled back in time so he would get the credit. -_-

But, in recent weeks, I have come back to do this very topic. Unlike my reply to seanan's post in "utulitarianism", I am usually very round-a-boutish in my writings as you can see above. Anyways, I start off my topic by an introduction about the philosophical paradox, and give an example (free will) of the philosophical paradox. *SPOILER*Then, I show that unlike the example of determinism, the possible of a world "no empricial thought" is impossible to exist.*SPOILER*
After all this rambling, I finally come to the actual paradox, explain it, show McDowell's solution, and finally show the logicality of that solution.

Simple, yes?

Honestly, my paper topic is still quite blury. I have decided to attempt the concept of mathematics a priori. My main text being Kant's Prolegomena. But I will also look at Hume. I am still lacking a thesis. However, it does not seem as important as trying to understand what Kant is saying at all, which is what I am attempting right now. What I hope to accomplish is an understanding of what philosophers mean by their conclusion as to that mathematics does not depend upon experience. I am very open to suggestions.

I am still deciding between two possible topics.

The packets we have been reading written by Kierkegaard's psudonyms about Christianity and Chistendom have greatly interested me. I plan to read parts of the New Testament, as well, to gain a better understanding of Kierkegaard's arguments.

The other topic I am considering is Free Will/ Determinism. If I were to choose this topic, I might use Hume's Of Liberty and Necessity. Alex, if you know of any other sources I could use for this topic, could you let me know?

Thanks.