den_wolf

I've taken about everything in my own time (undergrad years): Economics, Linguistics, English Literature, Philosophy, Political Science, Criminology, Women's Studies, History, Anatomy and Physiology, Math (Calculus, Algebra, Discrete Math), Physics, Chemistry, and I've had good experiences with all of them, but my absolute dedication was to Philosophy. When I look back on my undergrad years, I don't regret having taken so many different courses, it gave me a better view of everything around me. And I did do better on some subjects more than others. I admit I didn't enjoy anatomy too much, dissection wasn't my thing. Poli sci was way too introductory and boring for my taste, but it was pretty easy to get through. Women's studies was a bit hard for me to cope with, because of my anti-radical-feminist views, and the fact that the course was taught by a radical feminist 'dyke'.. I loved my language and linguistic classes and labs. It's great to learn new languages and analysing semantics and language structures, relates pretty neatly to the philosophy of language and thought. English Literature was boring because you can pretty much write anything you want about it and it can't be wrong as long as you can provide a good argument for it (something we as philosophers are trained to do anyway) As for the sciences, I had a blast with them except for my chem laboratory sessions, because the supervisor of the lab was an old woman with a horrible temper. If we touched a flask, she'd yell at us... Economics was boring too. But Philosophy, it's the one subject I've fallen in love with. Give me my books on philosophy and come back in another 40 years, I will still be reading them and trying to find new meanings in them.

No I am not. I am neither an absolutist nor a relativist. I pick and choose philosophical theories in a way that I see best fit according to the situation. In that sense, I guess I am a relativist. I think philosophical theories are relative. I suppose I'm going way over my head here, especially for someone who just woke up.

No. Since the term "femininity" is defined very loosely and varies from one culture and person to another, you're not comparing one person to another by comparing both to the "same" thing. And since we are human beings with free will and autonomy, there is no way one person can be compared to another on an absolute scale. Hence why I used the term "spectrum." And because femininity is not a fixed concept for any one person (i.e. it changes over time and certain situations), it cannot be used for comparison as something absolute and static. It's not as simple as saying, if A = B, and B = C, then A = C.

Sip, I disagree. I think it's the other way around. That is, if you don't make relative statements, you don't need to compare (and in fact are not comparing). So if you look at a certain woman for who she is regardless of her "level" of femininity on the gender spectrum, you are looking at her outside the boundaries of gender (note the difference between sex and gender). Moreover, looking at a woman and evaluating her femininity on a scale, does not imply that you are comparing that woman with all the women or with any particular woman per se, but with the concept of gender and the concept of women as "feminine." Comparison is not the bases of liking or loving someone, unless you say to Woman A, "You're better than Woman B or Woman C, so I like and love you", then that becomes a different issue altogether. But liking someone is not relative. You don't like someone in relation to others. You just like someone. You don't say to your "lover", "I love you more than our neighbour's wife" (or I hope you don't LOL), you say "I love you." Correct?

From what I gather, it's a WinXP thing. I have it too. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default....ng_sequence.asp

hey skittles, are you sure? i think it's easy to say that, but hard to come to terms with death when it's in front of you and you know you're going to die. not that i'm underestimating your feelings, but as someone who has experienced it and pain too (not that you haven't, i don't like assuming things), i want to live, and live life to the fullest. such a cliche' sentence, i know, but it's true for me. are you "suicidal"? or just depressed? i understand that sometimes boredom and problems lead to such feelings and thoughts, so if you want to talk, you can always drop me a line. i hope you'd see life for what it is. and if you already do, maybe all you need is someone to listen to you. and remember, death is not an accomplishment in life. it's just death. leave death alone, i can assure you it will come to you when it sees fit.

Losing faith is not that bad a thing in my opinion, because it means that one is questioning, which, in turn, means that one is thinking rather than blindly following.

LMAO!!!! are you serious? damn, am I good or what!

JustLooking, have you read Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw"? It deals exactly with that type of thing.

Fear of failure (is that a phobia?) I mean, fear of forgetting all I know in philosophy (not that I know a whole lot, but whatever I know). Fear of spiders (arachnophobia?).

Yes, but who says which one is right and which one is wrong? Not that I'm claiming that you're saying that. Just trying to get a discussion going here. Don't get me wrong. I am not a feminist. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I also sport a very obvious dislike of radical feminists, be they women or men. And it depends what you mean by "butch" women. Are you talking about the stereotypical lesbian butch or the short haired woman who is not necessarily masculine in the way she acts, but rather the way she dresses. It's all about a bunch of hair and what you do with it (let it grow or cut it), and clothing. I don't quite understand what the big fuss about all of that is. I'm not underestimating people's taste, just that a lot of people rule out the possibility of butch women being "real women." What's with that? The definition of woman has changed historically and geographically. Some of Levi-Strauss works on that might prove to be helpful in catching up on cultural relativity of what femininity and masculinity are all about. Of course, that doesn't mean that there are no absolute truths, but so far, there has been no proof that the "right" thing to do for women is to act "feminine" and that to act in an "unfeminine" way is abnormal. Or maybe I'm wrong. I don't read much about the scientific analysis of gender and what's related to that (hormones, ..?) You're saying that definitions are not important here. How can you use a label and argue that its definition is not important? How you define something is what makes your use of that term meaningful. Otherwise it's nothing but a word that you use in order to "show" that you're knowledgeable about the latest trends in terminology.

I don't know SevMard, and I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic about the whole thing, so I'm not going to jump in on this one. About the dialect, even in English, there are different dialects (word choice, accent, and so on) depending on what part of the English speaking world you look at. Us English folk don't use certain words in the same context as Americans do. Ditto for Australians. Ditto for Canadians. Ditto for the accent. As for Western Armenian, I do speak it. And frankly, while I like the pronounciation of Eastern Armenian better, I dislike written (spelling) of Eastern Armenian.

O.K., your choice of women respected, but do you really think femininity is the ultimate marker of womanhood? And what IS your definition of a "woman." Is it someone who has the female genitals or someone who is feminine (that would imply that men who are feminine-acting are women)? Or both? The fact that there are categories "female" and "femininity" means that they are two separate and distinct things, that could occur simultaneously or separately.

What would I feel if the genocide were recognised tomorrow? I wouldn't feel surprised. The only reason Turkey will recognise the Armenian genocide is either due to pressure fromt the U.S. or in order to join the EU.

Hey Arpa, are you saying that there should be no such thing as Western Armenian?

Hey Vigil, I don't know you, but good reply. Jews want to be in the spotlight, that is why they keep trying to convince Armenians to stick by them. There is no other reason for Armenians to stick by Jews. The Armenian Genocide has nothing to do with the holocaust, other than the fact that both were genocides. I don't see Rwandan survivors sticking by Jews in order to get their genocide recognised.

I haven't accomplished much YET, but I suppose getting into grad school at the age of 21 is a pretty impressive accomplishment, although I owe it to my university and the unintentional risk I took while in undergrad school. My incoming accomplishment is a 50 page thesis on ethics and what accompanies it (religion, morality, yada yada yada). Not yet accomplished, but coming soon. Another one of my accomplishments was surviving cancer and getting it into remission. Well, not an accomplishment I guess, but still, I guess it's all about the fight. Hey Maral, congrats about the Chinese chicken salad. Sounds very difficult to prepare. Kidding, of course. Damn, I just realised it was supposed to be in 1 sentence.

What arguements can support cultural relativism? I do not believe this is that case in reality, event though it may very much so seem that way in our society and the world as a whole.. Whats your take on it..?? -- I think there is cultural relativism, but the presence of cultural relativism does not mean that there are no absolute truths. The assumptions are as follows, quoting from "The Elements of Moral Philosophy": 1) Different cultures have different moral codes. 2) Therefore, there is no objective "truth" in morality. Right and wrong are only matters of opinion, and opinions vary from culture to culture. (end of quote) However, the problem with jumping from (1) to (2) is that differing cultural norms do not imply that one is not right and the other wrong, unless one believes in the immediate punishment of wrong acts by God (and in this case, God is also "culturally" relative, so where do we go from there?). gevo27 are you by any chance reading James Rachels' book? Just wondering because you gave the eskimo example, and it is also included in that book. good topic.