Philosophy Feeds + Content Sharing = Netvibes Universe!

Inspired by Mark Eli Kalderon's recent posts about RSS feeds of philosophy journals and the idea of sharing one's electronic bibliographies, I just put 1 and 1 together and had the idea of sharing one's compilations of philosophy feeds online. A nice and convenient way to to this is with the net-based feed reader Netvibes, where you can publish your own feed pages with only two mouse clicks. If you want to see how this works out, then just click on the tabs of my public Netvibes universe.

New Paper "In Defense of Metaphysical Analyticity"

A new paper by Frank Hofmann and me is now online. Here's an abstract:

According to the so-called metaphysical conception of analyticity, analytic truths are true in virtue of meaning (or content) alone and independently of (extralinguistic) facts. Quine and Boghossian have tried to present a conclusive argument against the metaphysical conception of analyticity. In effect, they tried to show that the metaphysical conception inevitably leads into a highly implausible view about the truthmakers of analytic truths. We would like to show that their argument fails, since it relies on an ambiguity of the notion of ‘independence of (extralinguistic) facts’. If one distinguishes between variation independence and existence independence, the unwelcome view about the truthmakers of analytic truths no longer follows. Thus, there is at best a challenge, but no conclusive argument. The door to the metaphysical conception of analyticity is still open.

Ramsey + Moore = God ?

There's a very nice one-page paper by David Chalmers and Alan Hájek with the promising title "Ramsey + Moore = God". It tries to prove, by assuming the Ramsey test and the irrationality of Moore-paradoxical beliefs, that any rational being ought to believe that it believes everything that is the case and that everything that it believes is true (there's also a little discussion about the paper on fragments of consciousness).

Williamsons neues Buch online

Als Begleitlektüre zu den Hempel-Vorlesungen in Princeton gibt es Williamsons neues Buch über Metaphilosophie gleich gratis dazu. Titel: "The Philosophy of Philosophy"

Analytischer Pessimismus

Better Never to Have Been
The Harm of Coming into Existence

David Benatar

Description

* Is it good to be alive?
* A radical challenge to bioethics.
* Clearly argued, accessible to non-specialists.
* This may be the most provocative philosophical view ever defended.

Most people believe that they were either benefited or at least not harmed by being brought into existence. Thus, if they ever do reflect on whether they should bring others into existence---rather than having children without even thinking about whether they should---they presume that they do them no harm. Better Never to Have Been challenges these assumptions. David Benatar argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm. Although the good things in one's life make one's life go better than it otherwise would have gone, one could not have been deprived by their absence if one had not existed. Those who never exist cannot be deprived. However, by coming into existence one does suffer quite serious harms that could not have befallen one had one not come into existence. Drawing on the relevant psychological literature, the author shows that there are a number of well-documented features of human psychology that explain why people systematically overestimate the quality of their lives and why they are thus resistant to the suggestion that they were seriously harmed by being brought into existence. The author then argues for the 'anti-natal' view---that it is always wrong to have children---and he shows that combining the anti-natal view with common pro-choice views about foetal moral status yield a 'pro-death' view about abortion (at the earlier stages of gestation). Anti-natalism also implies that it would be better if humanity became extinct. Although counter-intuitive for many, that implication is defended, not least by showing that it solves many conundrums of moral theory about population.

Readership: Philosophers, especially moral philosopher; bioethicists

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Why coming into existence is always a harm
3. How bad is coming into existence?
4. Having Children: The Anti-Natal View
5. Abortion: The 'Pro-Death' View
6. Population and Extinction
7. Conclusion

Author
David Benatar, University of Cape Town


Dazu passt der folgende "kontinentale" Klassiker:

Vom Nachteil, geboren zu sein.
von Emile M. Cioran

Verlag: Suhrkamp; Auflage: 13., Aufl. (Januar 1979)
ISBN: 3518370499

Auszug:
Drei Uhr morgens. Ich nehme diese Sekunde wahr, dann jene, ich ziehe die Bilanz jeder Minute. Wozu das alles! - Weil ich geboren wurde. Aus durchwachten Nächten besonderer Art erwächst die Infragestellung der Geburt.

"Seitdem ich auf der Welt bin", - dieses seitdem scheint mir voll von einem so erschreckenden Sinn, daß er unerträglich wird.

Es gibt ein Erkennen, das dem, was man tut, Gewicht und Tragweite nimmt: für dieses Erkennen ist alles bodenlos mit Ausnahme seiner selbst: rein bis zur Verabscheuung der Idee des Objekts drückt es dieses äußerste Wissen aus, nach welchem es einerlei ist, ob man eine Tat ausführt oder nicht; zu ihm gehört eine ebenfalls höchste Befriedigung: nämlich, bei jeder Gelegenheit wiederholen zu können, daß keine Geste, die man ausführt, wert ist, daß man ganz zu ihr steht; daß nichts durch irgendeine Spur von Substanz überhöht wird; daß die »Wirklichkeit« dein Bereich des Sinnwidrigen angehört. Eine solche Kenntnis verdiente es, posthum genannt zu werden: sie formt sich, als sei der Kennende lebendig und nicht lebendig, Sein und erinnertes Sein. Das ist schon Vergangenheit", sagt er von allem, was er ausführt, und zwar schon im Augenblick der Tat, die folglich für alle Zeit der Gegenwart beraubt ist.

Wir rennen nicht dem Tod entgegen, wir fliehen vor der Katastrophe der Geburt, wir zappeln uns ab - Gerettete, die vergessen möchten. Die Angst vor dem Tod ist nichts als die Projektion einer Angst, die mit unserem ersten Augenblick anhebt, in die Zukunft.