Who Am I?

Self-knowledge. On the entrance of the temple of the Delphian Oracle there was written: "know thy self.” That question of self-cognition was the basic point of Socrates' philosophical dialogues in the Athenian market place. It is a serious philosophical theme. I consider this theme as one of the most labored for philosophical consciousness. Not only because of the difficulty of self-cognition, but because there is not just one way of self-cognition for all people. Everyone should accomplish this knowledge self-sufficiently.

What can we learn from our life experience? What can one know about one's self? Selfhood seems to be the most clear matter. Everyone knows oneself best of all things. Also, only man it seems can know himself. One really knows oneself before all other knowledge. A newborn infant knows nothing, but is first noticed to recognize himself before the age of five. A lot of children prior to that age use time and again the word "I". I am, I can, I want, and I do and so on. Self-consciousness appears at that age and it becomes a man's first and deepest knowledge. Before that age, a child does not separate himself from the world around him. Therefore, we can not affirm the existence of consciousness before self-consciousness. The first manifestation of one's consciousness becomes one's self-consciousness.

What is the Difference Between Internal and External Freedom?

Internally, we have the freedom of thought and reason, the freedom to deliberate and decide. However, there are restrictions on decisions, choices and desires which come from external facts so we are not always free to act as we want.

Although our desires and choices are internal in the sense that they issue from us and no-one can desire or choose for us, the satisfaction of desires can prove difficult or impossible when the means are not available. Desires may arise freely internally but we do not have the freedom to satisfy them whenever we want to so the ability to satisfy our desires cannot be regarded as entirely free. The same is true for choices. There may be a range of choices, but what we really want may not be an available option. An example of lack of freedom of choice is the "money or your life" situation. You cannot choose that the person making the threat should take your life and keep the money, because if he kills you he gets the money anyway. But while external circumstances limit your choice in this situation, there is still a sense in which you choose. The person who makes the threat may be understood as forcing the obvious choice upon you, but it is still you who chooses.

Internal freedom is freedom as a power which belongs to you and which you exercise even when compelled. You may hand over your money unwillingly in the sense that you don't want to, but you have to do it from choice or free will in another sense because the action is performed by you.
However, there are other external factors which affect freedom of choice and desire. If we understand by external factors those forces which limit or restrict freedom, there exists facts about your background and character, as well as unconscious forces. These facts are internal in the sense that they are facts about your person but because they have an affect on, or determine, the nature of your desires and the kind of choices you make, these facts also restrain inner freedom. Some things you cannot choose.

So we are free sometimes and in some ways. Internal freedom is the power to choose and the ability to desire, in addition to the power to be able to think.

Is Philosophy Significant to Anyone Else but a Philosopher?

Yes, I think it is widely significant. There are two main reasons I think this. Firstly, everybody, when they try to think a little more deeply about their beliefs and the assumptions they rest upon (or even better, discuss this with friends) is to that extent a philosopher. And this can have some quite profound effects on people.

Secondly, philosophical ideas produced by 'real philosophers' (whatever they are) can have effects far beyond their recognized reach. It is true that many philosophers are read only by other philosophers — or people who are close to philosophy. The views of these people are affected. They then can write about other matters — political, ethical, whatever, in a way that is affected by the philosophical views they have read. Others read this, and in turn write or speak. In this way, philosophical views spread and influence many facets of our lives.

Let me give some examples. The ideas of John Locke about how to run a state affected the writings of many, notably the American founding fathers. The U.S. Constitution is organized in accordance with them. This has had pretty wide effects, I think you would agree.

Or a couple of others. Immanuel Kant's writings on reason heavily influences the Enlightenment — ideas that progress is inevitable and that objective reasoning leads to better actions. Friedrich Nietzsche's criticisms of this approach have led to a world in which such objective thinking and central planning, based on the belief that there is one right answer to every problem, is now widely mistrusted.

I probably don't need to expand on the influence of Karl Marx — basically a philosopher of sorts — who said famously: "Philosophers have previously interpreted the world. The point, however, is to change it." Anybody who sets out to change the world, however, must first have interpreted it, and although they may not recognize it explicitly, that interpretation is likely to have been influenced by the positions of philosophers.

What is a Determinist’s View of Punishment?

The question is often asked: If all human action is determined, then how can we punish criminals, since they couldn't do otherwise? But if all human action is determined, the action of punishing criminals is determined just as much as the action of committing crimes! The determinism debate is haunted by the specter of a criminal saying to a judge that he cannot be convicted, because all freedom is destroyed by determinism, and all he really could do was therefore to commit crimes. But such a criminal is in no position to complain if the judge replies to him that because all freedom is destroyed by determinism, all he, the judge, really can do is therefore to find him guilty and sentence him.

What is Philosophical Skepticism?

"Skepticism" derives from the Greek word for "doubt." The Skeptic is one who doubts. But, doubts what? Here we should distinguish between "ordinary skepticism," and "philosophical skepticism."

In ordinary language and circumstances, a skeptic will doubt that something exists or is true. For instance, he will, if he is a (ordinary) "religious skeptic," doubt whether God exists. Or, if he is a (ordinary) moral skeptic, he will doubt whether anything has any moral value (whatever he may mean by that.)

But a philosophical skeptic directs his doubts against knowledge. He will, unlike the religious skeptic discussed above, say, "I can know whether or not God exists.” But this is compatible with not being an ordinary religious skeptic: For the philosophical religious skeptic (unlike the ordinary religious skeptic who doubts the existence of God) may, consistent with his philosophical skepticism still believe in God! He says he knows there is a God, but that doesn't prevent him from believing in God.

The great 18th century British philosopher, David Hume is, I believe, best understood as a philosophical skeptic. He believed many things he thought it was impossible for anyone to know. For instance, he believed that there was an "external material world" beyond our senses, but also held that it was impossible to know such a thing.

Could a Computer Behave as a Person?

In certain respects, possibly all, a computer could behave as a person. It couldn't be a person though. The human mind may have developed because of need. But perhaps also because of desire to continue to live, individually and collectively. Could a computer have such a desire? Maybe (think of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey). But consciousness would be essential to a desire for survival and I don't think self-consciousness is programmable.

And even if a computer could behave like a person, it couldn't be a person as there is more to a human than determinate programmable input can create. How can we program in the ability to love, for instance? We can't even define it.

What is Moral Relativism?

'Moral relativism' is one of the responses you sometimes hear people give in cases of ethical conflict. For example the Romans fed Christians to wild beasts and kept slaves as gladiators, whereas we do not, and regard it as wrong. You can either respond that we are morally more enlightened than the Romans were, that we today have got it right; or you can opt for the relativistic line that there is no answer to these kinds of question. So moral relativism is a denial that there is any single moral code that has universal validity.

Relativists need not deny that there is such a thing as moral truth, although their account of truth will be very different from an absolutist like Kant. Moral truth, to the relativist, is relative to factors which are culturally and historically contingent. So you can be an ethical relativist about truth and justifiability. The wide variety of ethical beliefs in the world is perhaps a point in its favor. How do you even assess the truth of something outside of your own background, language and community?

You can also be a relativist in a slightly different, 'normative' way. This would be to say that we ought to hold that the values of others are as valid as our own. Anthropology has thrown up an exotic array of practices from distant cultures which we simply cannot relate to and even find distasteful (infanticide, cannibalism, head-hunting etc). A moral relativist might claim that we have no normative grounds for judging these kinds of practice by our own moral standards.