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Aaron asked:
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I was recently considering writing a philosophy paper for my own enjoyment, but was unable to find a
topic that few people had already explored. Has there been much research into the question of
whether or not the concept of God is self-contradictory? Can you shed any advice, opinions, and/ or
references to aid me?
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============
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You know, philosophy is commonly regarded as something that we do after we've done "real" things,
finished with our "real" career, and then we'll sit down and write our contemplations in our old age, or
our spare time. — No, it's not like that.
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Let's say your question above was, "I was recently considering writing a paper in theoretical physics
for my own enjoyment, but was unable to find a topic that few people had already explored." Would
you seriously write that? Ask that? Why is it, then, that philosophy is different? There are three
thousandyears of philosophy, in contrast to about two hundredin physics, to read and understand. In
the Western philosophical tradition. If you read Sanskrit, you'd need to add another, oh, four thousand
or so years of Indian philosophy to that. I won't go into Chinese or Japanese or Arabic (not to mention
various mystical traditions). So, to respond to your question, there are probably hundreds of
questions that no one has explored, thousands. But in order to understand enough to ask them, much
less even suggest reasonable answers to them, you need to spend a little time reading some
philosophy. Like about 5-10 years, to start.
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Then, if you're brilliant, you can ask (and maybe suggest an answer to) something like, "Are bleen
and grue valid categories, really?" To what am I referring? If you don't know, then you're missing
basic — yes, basic, as in something all philosophers know about — background.
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I cannot even begin to answer the last question, in light of the first. References? Start with Plato and
go from there. Aristotle, the Greeks (actually some of the pre-Socratics would be appropriate also);
then the Medievals — Thomism, Duns Scotus, Bacon. I've jumped over about 1000 years there, but
hey ... and keep going.
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Steven Ravett Brown
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