The terminology of philosophical art is coercive: arguments are powerful and best when they are knockdown, arguments force you to a conclusion, if you believe the premisses you have to or must believe the conclusion, some arguments do not carry much punch, and so forth. A philosophical argument is an attempt to get someone to believe something, whether he wants to beleive it or not. A successful philosophical argument, a strong argument, forces someone to a belief.

One way to determine if a view is inadequate is to check its consequences in particular cases, sometimes extreme ones, but if someone always decided what the result should be in any case by applying the given view itself, this would preclude discovering it did not correctly fit the case. Readers who hold they would plug in to the machine should notice whether their first impulse was not to do so, followed later by the thought that since only experiences could matter, the machine would be all right after all.

Philosophical argument, trying to get someone to believe something whether he wants to believe it or not, is not, I have held, a nice way to behave towards someone; also it does not fit the original motivation for studying or entering philosophy. That motivation is puzzlement, curiousity, a desire to understand, not a desire to produce uniformity of belief. Most people do not want to become thought-police. The philosophical goal of explanation rather than proof not only is morally better, it is more in accord with one's philosophical motivation.

I guess my tendency is to think essentially that the new wrinkles won't do the job if the old major idea didn't, and so you have to try something different. Then maybe they can all be combined in some coherent piece.

It is, from another angle, an attack on requiring proof in philosophy. And it's also the case, I guess, that my temperament is to like interesting, new, bold ideas, and to try and generate them.

Through the evolutionary process, those who are able to engage in social cooperation of various sorts do better in survival and reproduction.

The terminology of philosophical art is coercive: arguments are powerful and best when they are knockdown, arguments force you to a conclusion, if you believe the premisses you have to or must believe the conclusion, some arguments do not carry much punch, and so forth. A philosophical argument is an attempt to get someone to believe something, whether he wants to beleive it or not. A successful philosophical argument, a strong argument, forces someone to a belief.