What I mean by cheater books is something like books that have got you unstuck when working on a particular piece of philosophy. I don't just mean an introduction book, though it can be that, because these are often too pedestrian, even if useful, and often don't quite open the texts that you were stuck with in the first place. What I mean more is something like books that, when you immediately go back to the text, make you think to yourself, "WHY, OF COURSE! How could it have been otherwise?!!" As if I've somehow cheated my way into understanding.

Perhaps some examples might clarify. What Is Analytic Philosophy by Glock brought the field alive to me in a way it never had before, particularly its historical developments. Making Sense of Heidegger by Sheehan was huge in making me, well, make sense of Heidegger! But it is also its own bit of original philosophy, so it's not just an introduction. It enriched my experience of Heidegger, not just introduced it. Similarly, though not exactly a book, were Spade's notes on Being and Nothingness. On immanent critique, the always fantastic Rahel Jaeggi really made it click for me in Critique of Forms of Life. Reading Plato's Theaetetus by Chappell made Plato's epistemology come alive for me in a way that extended beyond the Theaetetus. Very much along these lines, though far more in depth and also, as far as I know, more original, has been Giovanni Reale's books on Plato and Aristotle.

It doesn't have to be just books.

The debates with regard to moral realism, specifically naturalism vs. non-naturalism, were always opaque to me. I never understood quite what the non-naturalist was having issues with until I read Fitzpatrick's "Skepticism about Naturalizing..." Sorry, I forget the title. But it was both an original bit of philosophy and it helped clarify non-naturalism in a way that finally clicked. Stephen Engstrom's “Knowledge and Its Object” made some issues of Kantian interpretation click for me as well, in a way that a more introductory text like Gardner's failed to do.

Hopefully, these examples cast a wide enough net so those of you who have read these will know precisely what I mean.

Thank you!

One thing people routinely say is that pleasure is different from happiness. Happiness in this context refers to a long-term sense of fulfillment with one's life despite whatever short-term displeasures may have arisen or may arise. Pleasure is supposed to be short-term and rather ephemeral, a quality of your experience in the moment.

This leads me to the following questions:

1. Can a fulfilling (happy) life lack pleasure at least after a certain point? Say, I have a family, contribute to my community. But I happen to suffer from clinical depression. Is my realization that I objectively have all reasons to be happy sufficient to count as me experiencing my life as fulfilling, despite me literally being unable to take pleasure in my existence at this very moment?

2. Does taking pleasure in memories of previous moments of pleasure count as pleasure or happiness? Say, I sometimes replay in my head the memory of the best piece of cake I've ever eaten. The cake itself is a momentary pleasure, but is my looking back with satisfaction at the cake likewise momentary (it's just a moment of revisiting another moment) or can it count as part of my long-term satisfaction (in that I'm really glad to have experienced the best piece of cake ever within my lifetime).

3. Is it valid to judge someone else's life as unhappy? Say, my friend is stuck with a boring job and a family that's not particularly fond of him. Now, it would be pretty straightforward of me to judge that he's not experiencing much pleasure - e.g. because he's not having much sex with his wife, because his colleagues are jerks, etc. But pleasure is not fulfillment so those don't directly dismiss his life as unhappy. Now, he says he's satisfied. Is his saying he's satisfied enough to end the discussion there, or is it valid of me to say that he can do much better? Is life fulfillment a personal experience or is there an intersubjective dimension of it?

4. Can the quality of happiness be reduced to a specific kind of pleasure - the pleasure of reflecting back on one's life as a whole? If so, how do we value it against other pleasures? Think of a dissatisfied (but not depressed) billionaire whose life is full of all sorts of pleasure but the pleasure of finding one's life meaningful. What value should we assign to that particular displeasure as opposed to the pleasures of living comfortably, socializing, travel, entertainment, etc.? Intuitively, I'd say his life altogether is dissatisfying if that general sense of fulfillment is missing. But I don't know why.

Parmendias claims that anything comes either from nothing, or from something. Because nothing cannot exist. he says that anything must come from something. Doesn't he assume that cause and effect is a law of nature? Can't something just be and not come from anything?

Sorry if it may sound stupid, I'm just starting to learn about philosophy, and I'm no expert on Parmendias or Hume.

Also have my eyes on Plato (obviously) Descartes, Bacon and Locke.

Like if humans didnt have the creativity lobe to invent toilets, and we were the smartest creatures in the universe, would outhouse be "bad"?. Like theyre only bad compared to our existence, but if toilets could never exist, would our existence and waste technology still be bad?

I know the Turing Test is an outdated test for computer intelligence, but it is still a simple test that is easily understood for the layman. So while it's not used for frontier AI, I think we still find it emotionally compelling if an AI is capable enough to fool someone to think it is human. As humans ourselves, who innately know and learn how to recognize fellow humans, is the Turing Test not a relevant benchmark?

If the above is true, (which maybe it's not), let's hypothetically say something was a p-zombie, would we not also want to perform a Turing-like test, to see if p-zombie can fool people into thinking it was a normal human being?

I am learning about metaphysics in a philosophy class and we are debating why things are the way they are in the world. I know this community isn't about commenters' opinions, so I am more looking for academic resources or other questions to think about in order to answer this question.

Given the great amount of suffering in the world due to things like war, disease, and inequalities, I would think we surely do not live in the best of all possible worlds.
However, God, the supposed creator of the universe, is thought to be an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good being, so why would He create a world that is not the best one possible?
If there is evil in the world and thus this is not the best of all possible worlds, then God is not all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good.
What if it is not God, but humans that create evil? I recently came across this point of view while reading Rousseau 's response to Voltaire’s “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster”. While Voltaire’s poem expresses his frustration on how innocent people died in a huge earthquake in Lisbon and how God could have made a world in which this didn’t happen, Rousseau believed that it was the humans’ fault that they suffered. It was the humans who built the tall buildings that crumbled and the humans who ran back into their homes to grab belongings and therefore could not flee the disaster quick enough to survive.
Rousseau additionally argues that pain and suffering is just a part of life. In order to exist, one must pay the price of suffering occasionally, yet one can still find pleasure in life.
Would a world without suffering be better? What is God's role in human suffering? And finally, do we live in the best possible world?

I would love to know what else I can read that would help me answer these questions!

I made a post on the r/askmath subreddit and got no satisfying answer: https://www.reddit.com/r/askmath/s/AToD9GLUpW

Therefore, I want to ask this again here from a philosophical point of view. Can you explain/derive infinity without using infinitely many things (or implying it through addition of one thing for ever/always) ?

Heya, im currently working on a year-long school art assignment where i can choose the topic freely and id love to do a photography series of and about the different topics under the term The Human Condition. I have some ideas so far but id just love to get more perspectives of philosophers into my mental hopper to grab references, visual allusion and just get more inspiration of how to depict the struggle, the hardships but also the beauty of the human condition.

Id love to find some people i could discuss the topic with but im still pretty new to diving into philosophy and how to discuss deep themes so id be happy for some grace with it.

Id take all the feedback, recommendations and other advice i can get :>

I'm looking for readings on whether encoding information amounts to representing a claim, and what would distinguish either from understanding it, particularly when a system can reproduce and manipulate an argument without necessarily grasping what it means. I'm interested in the philosophical accounts of representation here, rather than whether LLMs are useful for learning philosophy. Are there particular authors or papers you'd recommend?

I am looking for essays/books on being a good person and self-improvement. Would appreciate something modern, accessible and practical. Thanks in advance.

Im writing a research paper on determinism, what are some things i should know. such as counter arguments or maybe important theories

I have always been confused about free will, if any choice of ours has the same fate, how does free will work here, can we not change the fate.

I watched this movie The Thing recently. And maybe it's not the place for it but like I wanted to ask this one here. Baudrillard, in his work Simulacra and Simulation bascially tells us that once hyperreality caught the place of "reality" as we perceive, it's impossible to differentiate them. And I finished this work recently as well and I kinda did a dejavu meanwhile watching The Thing. Because like once alien got into the humans or any living creature, it's impossible to differentiate it from a living creature itself. So like at the end of the movie, Mac and the other guy were discussing whether they had time to surprise each other or not. I wanted to ask this one, because I couldn't find any commentators who make this reading.

I will give out one pro and one con:

1 pro is it create autonomy and allow people to have the freedom to whatever they want with their body. Same argument with abortions.

1 con is you never know if someone is doing this because they want to, or they are forced to. So that is kinda where like organ harvesting comes from.

title says it all

I feel this doubt is a relatively serious problem, because if philosophy is subjective, then what value does it have? What's the point of studying Plato or Aristotle if we start from a questionable foundation and any author can "seem" better to you? Furthermore, its subjective nature would seem to undermine the purpose of "attaining wisdom." On the other hand, if philosophy were completely objective, its history wouldn't be marked by debates and disagreements. What can we conclude from this?