How Could Nostradamus Have Seen the Future?

What we really are asking is whether there can be knowledge of the future which is not grounded on observation and memory. If Nostradamus genuinely foresaw events that were to happen in the future — that is to say, if he possessed the power of clairvoyance — what we are saying is that his state of belief was caused directly by something happening in the future, rather than by events preceding the formation of that state of belief. In other words, for his state of belief to be anything other than a lucky guess, a cause would have to occur after its effect.

You don't have to go along with philosopher David Hume's analysis of causation, or his account of belief, in order to find the concept of 'clairvoyance' problematic, on the grounds that we simply cannot understand what it would mean for a cause to occur after its effect. Suppose I discovered that whenever I say 'Humpty Dumpty' three times as my daughter is walking up the driveway towards my house, I receive a letter containing five dollars. But when I fail to say 'Humpty Dumpty' no such letter arrives. Then it looks as though, by some mysterious process, saying 'Humpty Dumpty' three times brings it about that yesterday someone put five dollars in an envelope and sent it to me. Isn't that weird? How could that possibly happen?

One answer would be, 'We just don't know how a cause can occur after its effect, but still we can — for example, in the Humpty Dumpty case — know that it does. I am very unhappy with that answer.

The point is that we seem to understand the idea of a capacity to see the future. The question, which I leave open for discussion, is whether any sense at all can be made of that idea.

Can God Make a Rock Bigger Than He Can Lift?

God could make a stone heavier than he could lift, but if he ever did, he would be able to lift it. — What we have stumbled upon is a kind of paradox in the whole notion of omnipotence.

We see that some people have more power than others. This leads us to believe, quite rightly, that there is a scale of 'powerfulness'. We then infer that this scale has absolute limits, i.e. powerlessness and omnipotence.

But omnipotence is not a coherent concept. This is so despite the genius of Aquinas and the other theologians who have tried to show that it is. In the same way that Plato saw horses and concluded that there must be something that is 'horseness', theologians have seen power being wielded and have concluded that there must be omnipotence. Both rest on a confusion.

Reason is a powerful tool. But we should see to it that it does not blind us from the obvious.

'Power' can be explained by giving examples of things that have power. But there are no examples of things that are omnipotent, except of course God. This might work if it weren't necessary to define God by his omnipotence. Seeing as though it is, we are trapped in a vicious circle.

I read somewhere that arguing about the attributes of God (what God can and can't do), is like blind men arguing about the color of the sunset. Leaving aside the literary merit of this analogy, I think the point was that we should either have faith, or leave it all alone. It is not the place of science or logic to define what God can do and what He can't do. Faith must be blind. And where there is faith, there can be no philosophy.

Why Does Plato Think That Philosophers Should be Kings?

The definition of a philosopher and the characteristics required of the philosopher-ruler are subjects of the dialogue Republic. Summarized it can be said that, according to Plato, human beings may reside in two worlds: the lower world of Belief and the higher world of Knowledge. While governance by non-philosophers would mean to be caught in the sensual world and therefore governed by mere opinions, beliefs and self-interest, the philosopher ruler will in contrast govern with virtue and justice without self-interest because of his/her special education in knowledge of absolute virtue, justice and other qualities.

As true philosophy means gaining the above qualities, philosophers are the only possible rulers. It is important to make a distinction between the acquisition of knowledge and the acquisition of truth, because knowledge is not necessarily the final truth. So philosophers of course can make mistakes, but will be ready (and hopefully able) to correct their views towards more truth.

Why Do We Fear Death?

The Greek philosopher Epicurus argued death is nothing to us. It does not concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more. Epicurus was an atomist. He believed that at death the human body is dissolved into the atoms into which it is composed. Philosophers have taken him to be saying something stronger than merely, ‘Don't worry, there is no place such as Hades that you go to when you die.’ There is no subject who undergoes the transition from life to death. According to Wittgenstein, death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.

You can argue the point. If life is good, then death deprives me of something good, which is bad. But in what sense does that concern me? I won't be around to miss anything. Yes, but surely if I am told I am going to die tonight, then I miss the things I was looking forward to enjoying tomorrow now.

I actually think we need something a bit stronger than Epicurean atomism, if we want to show that all such 'fears' for a future reality where I am absent are irrational. Wittgenstein argued that the fear of death is irrational because there is no "I" that exists from day to day, or hour to hour.

In the light of the illusory of personal identity, I would therefore distinguish practical fear and metaphysical fear. Practical fears are for things that we experience, that we go through, that are part of our lives. Those things are real. So the process of dying is very real, is very much something to fear. Metaphysical fear, such as the fear of death as such, the sheer absence of "I" from the world, concerns something unreal and is therefore irrational.