What is Philosophy?
Given the word philosophy is in the very title of this forum, it seems like a fairly straightforward question, "What is philosophy?"
The term itself, as we know, means "love of wisdom" from the Greek. But that doesn't help much until we know what "wisdom" means.
Interested in hearing various interpretations.
The term itself, as we know, means "love of wisdom" from the Greek. But that doesn't help much until we know what "wisdom" means.
Interested in hearing various interpretations.
Comments (533)
In the 'beginning' philosophy was more aligned with mysticism but since Descartes it has become more and more abstract and intellectual.
:rofl:
'cause there's all them other sorts of tautologies.
Perhaps philosophy is what happens when unbridled imagination meets logic and the two are forced to dance together side by side in perfect harmony as equals. Come to think of it, thats my second quote. I demand to be remembered by this as well.
All interesting so far.
It is generally more structured than general thinking. Also being a conversation, communication is required and hence the extensive use of words and language.
But is a reflection of ones conciousness necessarily philosophy? I could be young and never question anything with my deepest thoughts being little more than I'm alive, bored, five feet and however many inches, and I want to make lots of money to get booze and chicks. No?
Building on your statement of conciousness being a cornerstone, what is your (or anyones) thoughts on saying it is the act of questioning the inherent views, conclusions, mechanisms, or observations of ones consciousness in a way that can be logically expressed?
Edit: Actually when you consider the word having more than one definition or 'state' you're exactly right. Ones way of thinking or consciousness is indeed "ones philosophy". You get where I was coming from though. :D
The love part suggests a way to live as a lover. When you love someone, you make them stronger. You build them up. That is why all the Greek traditions put so much emphasis upon education and wrestling with opinions that a person does not share. You need your friends and your enemies.
No, but expressing our consciousness seems to be something we fundamentally do. Either by philosophizing or raging, or however else.
Quoting Outlander
-This would be in the ballpark, I believe.
I propose a series of points which may serve to identify whether a discourse is philosophical in a current sense. Something like the demarcation criterion of current philosophy. I insist on "current", because in the past it has been many more things.
These are my criteria for distinguishing philosophy from what is not. Philosophical criteria, of course.
Philosophy is not religion
Philosophy is not sophistry
Philosophy is not science
Philosophy is not just ethics
Philosophy is not math
Philosophy is not just a form of literature
I plan on doing a series of threads on each of these demarcation problems soon.
If you don't mind I would say that these are examples to which my ten criteria can be applied.I find the last one more difficult. Especially because there are certain forms of literature that are very philosophical and there are certain types of philosophy that are very poetic.
In the first case I would give Dostoevsky as an example and in the second case Nietzsche.
But one cannot expect a demarcation criterion to be like a perfectly drawn line. Rather, they are like those borders that have not been perfectly defined and the border guards fight over whether the detainee was in my country or in yours. I recently saw an episode of The Good Wife in which something like that happened. The Canadians were taking him away, but they were cheating. Well, so did the Americans, which shows that the line of demarcation wasn't clear.
Philosophy and literature are a bit like that.
Some argue that there are mathematical or logical tautologies.
I'm not sure about this one. Early philosophy was closely aligned to mysticism (eg Plato's cave). Only in recent centuries did philosophy become heavily abstract and intellectual, 'reasonable'.
Can't surrealism be philosophy?
A tangent drawn to the curve on the leading edge of foreign policy is never parallel to a crow's beak at noon. And.
An interesting list indeed.
Quoting David Mo
I very much agree with this especially -- and it's striking how often it's forgotten. I think this is largely because science is so successful and is thus seen as the ultimate court of appeals for truth. Since science deals with objects in nature, with matter in motion, it can very easily be forgotten that these sets "facts" are also interpretations, parts of explanatory theories, etc.
Obviously this isn't new -- Kant pointed this out as well, to name one major figure, but it's still worth bearing in mind.
Quoting David Mo
I think this is in fact what the view has been for over 2,000 years. That philosophy is the ratio or logos: that we're thinking entities, or the rational animal, or the primate with language, and so on -- philosophy being thus the human being's highest activity.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Quoting Pfhorrest
See, here it's tricky in my view. On the one hand, of course philosophy isn't science or religion -- they differ in many ways. But on the other hand, they deal with very similar questions.
What do you mean by 'thinking'? Abstract 'rational' thinking? Isn't simply being conscious thinking? If thought is energy 'flowing' through the mind then being is thinking. Thought is being. Being is thought.
I agree, and understand this insight in spinozist terms: Human Being [bondage] both presupposes Being itself [substance] and implies (a/the prospect of) Well-Being [blessedness] aka eudaimonia.
:mask:
[quote=An old gringo...]All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.[/quote]
Philosophy is the struggle against stupidity (i.e. the problematique of maladaptive 1:1 identity - confusion - of the ideal (maps, words/metrics) with the real (territory, facts-of-the-matter) :point: 'essence = existence'). Insofar as it can be discerned (or conceived of as a 'criterion of judgment'), the real is defined by a process of eliminating - negating - 'ideals' (necessary fictions, impossible worlds/objects, "realer" reals ... :point: members of the empty set).
[quote=Witty, PI §309]What is your aim in philosophy? – To show the fly the way out of the fly bottle.[/quote]
Against stupidity philosophers (i.e. sisyphusian 'meta-cognitive hygienists' and/or 'dialectical rodeo-clowns') struggle in vain. Even "the gods" are too bored for that!
:sweat:
True, but it is the ways that they approach those questions that differentiates them.
What is Philosophy?
Of the many types of human inquiry, philosophy is inquiry by means of rigorous reasoning in the pursuit and formation of creditable beliefs. As such, it is not bound to any specific field, concern or interest. Many, if not every, cosmic dimension and question can be approached by way of philosophy: religion, science, literature, farming, cinema, education, politics, cooking, etc. Philosophy is one of many tools humans employ to render the world and their experience more intelligible. While, for some, philosophy is strictly a theoretical enterprise, for others it is a therapeutically satisfying way of life.
Excellent question. I wish I had a definitive answer.
Quoting EnPassant
I see that as one mode of thought, yes.
Quoting EnPassant
Again, it depends on what we mean. Is thought equated to words and concepts and abstractions? If so, then I'm sure I "think" without these at times -- in imagery, for example.
But if "thinking" means anything we're consciously aware of, then we're very much agreeing with Descartes, and in which case it'd be hard to differentiate philosophy from "thinking" in this sense. or really anything at all -- since conscious awareness seems to be involved in nearly everything to we do. I don't feel this is quite right, but it's a powerful position.
Quoting EnPassant
I think you've actually touched on something that has been a dominant view in the West for a long time indeed, namely that being and thinking are either the same or that "being" is really subsumed by thought (in the sense of consciousness), which sounds to me a little like Kant's representations -- not that "being" in the sense of the objective world isn't there, but that the mind contributes to it. Here we're in the subject/object form of knowledge, with time and space being the forms of perception and hence everything knowable.
Whether being and conscious awareness ("thinking") are the same is an interesting question. Again I find Heidegger a very interesting resource on these issues. I don't want to make this about Heidegger -- I have another thread for that -- but needless to say your question is a good one.
Sure, but here we get into the issue of a scientific "method" that differentiates it from the others -- especially religion and philosophy, which are often looked down on in science -- and to which science owes its success. Personally I'm not convinced by the arguments in favor of such an "inductive method," although others on this forum have emphasized predictability as an essential feature above the rest. That's all debatable.
Regardless, this isn't really about science, but since science was originally called "natural philosophy," and since religions throughout history (not simply Christianity) have asked the same basic questions philosophers ask and have come to conclusions that don't involve the "supernatural" at all (like some Buddhist and Daoist ideas), it's sometimes not so easy to see where religion ends and philosophy begins. After all, Augustine, Aquinas, Spinoza, and Anselm are considered philosophers. Galileo and Newton were pretty religious men yet are considered great scientists.
You see my point. Again, it's not that there aren't differences -- they are often quite clear, in fact -- but when pushed to answer it does get a bit tricky. I think our Western answers and attitudes are shaped in reaction to specifically Christian dogma, and so science and philosophy get separated from this dogma (which comes to represent "religion") and hence against things like heaven, hell, the supernatural, angels, a humanoid sky-Father, miracles, etc.
Appreciate the responses.
Inquiry certainly plays a role, as does reasoning. Whether it's the pursuit of "creditable" beliefs (do you mean credible?), this too has a long history going back at least in some ways to Plato, but obviously the question then becomes "What is belief?" and "What is truth?"
So to tweak what you've said a little bit, does philosophy as the "pursuit of truth through rational inquiry" sound good? Or have I misunderstood you?
Also, regarding "therapeutically satisfying way of life," I'm not totally clear on that -- how does this differ from a rational or theoretical enterprise? Or does it?
“Philosophy is the theoretical conceptual interpretation of being, of being’s structure and its possibilities.”
or
"Philosophy is universal phenomenological ontology."
Agree? Disagree? Incoherent?
I really did mean 'creditable' rather than 'credible'. 'Credible' suggests something “capable of being believed.” It could be just this side of not credible: believable, yes, but. . . . oh, my! Whereas, 'creditable', in the way I mean it, suggests something much more robust, something “worthy of belief,” “something sufficiently good to bring reputation or esteem, deserving of judicious praise,” as Merriam-Webster would have it.
I have intentionally avoided the word 'truth' for something more modest and, for me, more precise in terms of our demonstrated human capabilities. Perhaps something less hubristic.
By “therapeutically satisfying way of life” I meant to distinguish between philosophy as it is practiced in academia today, and, for example, that of the Hellenistic philosophers for whom philosophizing was a kind of medicine. I was thinking of the distinction made by Pierre Hadot, in which philosophy “is essentially a dialogue, a living relationship between people rather than an abstract relation of ideas (Hadot, The Present is Our Only Happiness, p.55).”
In my commentary I noted that I was referring to today's philosophy. In any case, Plato's dialogues are debates that make explicit the modes of reasoning of his time and have served as a model for centuries. Socrates never says "believe it because I say it". Platonic thought has nothing to do with the visions of Saint Teresa. As much as he called the world of ideas "divine". He meant that it was a perfect world that generated the existence of the real world or the best of it.
Surrealism is an artistic movement that sometimes expresses a content similar to certain philosophies, but in a different way. What differentiates them is the form. When Albert Camus says "if you want to be a philosopher, write novels", he thinks that the philosophical form is exhausted and that one can say the same thing as philosophy but in a more attractive way. Although, like all aphorisms, it is debatable, there is some truth in it.
Being interested in someone's work does not mean interfering with what they are doing. The philosopher and the scientist who operates on a certain theoretical level are interested in similar problems, as you say. But philosophy cannot claim to rival the scientist in establishing the facts. It can interpret what science is doing (philosophy of science), but it cannot correct or replace it.
On the other hand, the scientist would do well to have a philosophical background if he wants to get into the field. Usually theoretical scientists confuse the philosophies of the past with those of the present. They think they have refuted "philosophy" when they have dismantled some beliefs of Plato or Thomas Aquinas. Although there are often contacts between scientists and philosophers, the great popes on both sides are often surprisingly misinformed. A matter of egocentricity, I suppose.
I agree that this is necessary. Many centuries of empty metaphysics have made me apprehensive about these kinds of "universal" tasks. When I hear the word "Being" it gives me chills. A conditioned reflex I suppose.
I think most of today's philosophers do the same. They wouldn't see themselves reflected in these kinds of philosophies.
Both of them would say that there is an order beyond the physical image. As the hydrogen atom is an image of energy, the physical world is an image of a non physical order. In this way science and religion are based on a similar idea: that there is an order beyond physical particulars. Scientists call this order 'the laws of nature' religion/Platonism may call it other things, but it is 'the world beyond the world.'
I'm thinking of philosophy first and foremost as an activity, one of many types of human inquiry. Rather than "an interpretation," I see philosophy is a way of arriving at an interpretation.
I think it's a very weak relationship. That way you can equate St. Teresa of Jesus with Albert Einstein. It seems to me much more what separates them.
Only, perhaps, in the way that the elephant's foot is very unlike its ears. They are both 'elephant stuff'. The non physical 'world beyond' is equally a quantum world and a divine world. The universe is immense and looks different from different angles. The Platonic realm and Teresa's world and quantum energy fields my well be the same world.
Suppose we define philosophy as 'knowing the world'. Then a cat is a philosopher because the cat, through consciousness, knows the world. And knows it in ways we cannot easily imagine. I don't want to be facetious but extend this to human consciousness; don't we know the world through consciousness? If you eat an apple you know what an apple is in a way that the intellect will never explain to you.
But we 'sophisticated' people in the 21st century are addicted to 'reason' and are conceited about any kind of knowledge that does not come from 'reason'. Reason is abstract, consciousness is concrete. Which is more truthful about the world?
Something like this was going to be my first post in that thread series:
As regards the definition of philosophy, a quick and general answer would be that philosophy is about the fundamental topics that lie at the core of all other fields of inquiry, broad topics like reality, morality, knowledge, justice, reason, beauty, the mind and the will, social institutions of education and governance, and perhaps above all meaning, both in the abstract linguistic sense, and in the practical sense of what is important in life and why. But philosophy is far from the only field that inquires into any of those topics, and no definition of philosophy would be complete without demarcating it from those other fields, showing where the line lies between philosophy and something else.
The first line of demarcation is between philosophy and religion, which also claims to hold answers to all of those big questions. I would draw the demarcation between them along the line dividing faith and reason, with religions appealing to faith for their answers to these questions, and philosophies attempting to argue for them with reasons. While it is a contentious position within the field of philosophy to conclude that it is never warranted to appeal to faith, it is nevertheless generally accepted that philosophy as an activity characteristically differs from religion as an activity by not appealing to faith to support philosophical positions themselves, even if one of those positions should turn out to be that appeals to faith are sometimes acceptable. The very first philosopher recognized in western history, Thales, is noted for breaking from the use of mythology to explain the world, instead practicing a primitive precursor to what would eventually become science, appealing to observable phenomena as evidence for his attempted explanations.
Is not morality a part of reality?
I'll try: philosophy is, essentially, ontology -- the science of being. It's the activity of interpreting being through theories and concepts.
So in Aristotle, "First philosophy" is (although often translated anachronistically as "metaphysics") ontology; "Second philosophy" is essentially natural philosophy, and so all the positive sciences in our time (many of which he founded).
I think that's a decent place to start. This raises a welter of questions, of course. But I'm being deliberately provocative.
Quoting Statilius
I'm still not sure what you mean by a "kind of medicine."
Quoting David Mo
You're presupposing a difference, though. When does philosophy end and science begin? Or religion and spirituality, for that matter. I agree wholeheartedly there are examples where it does appear to be fairly clear-cut and obvious, but other times not so much. So, for example, we could ask whether Kant or Newton or Galileo were "doing" science or philosophy, but that question wouldn't really arise in their day. Was Aristarchus a scientist? I'd say absolutely. Was Thales or Anaximander? Democritus?
You see what I'm getting at. Like I said before, I'm not saying there is never a difference. In today's world there certainly appears to be in terms of university departments and the kind of papers being published, etc. But like many things, we don't have a real rule or solid "definition" for determining which is which -- although we may feel like there's one. Maybe we simply have to say "So much the worse for definitions," and leave it to intuition and specific situations.
Quoting David Mo
Very true. It's no big surprise that the real trailblazers in science are the individuals who engage with the thinkers of the past, rather than dismissing it all as useless (while inadvertently presupposing the philosophy of 80 years ago).
Quoting David Mo
Rightfully so. What did Nietzsche say about being -- that it's an "error" and a "vapor"?
A very good interpretation, in my view. Philosophy as asking fundamental questions, which traverse all other fields. This is partly why I also like philosophy as ontology (in the Greek sense). You mentioned before that you believe this isn't quite right, because philosophy is also about morality -- but I'd say that morals, values, justice, "good" and "bad," actions, etc. -- are all "beings" as well. Maybe a better way to say it: they're all "things," after all. So taking "being" in a very broad sense, philosophy as ontology also includes morality.
Quoting Pfhorrest
A very good place to start. On the other hand, even "formal" philosophy starts with axioms of some kind. Granted, it does not justify it's propositions by appeals to "faith" as often as some religions do. But the problem then becomes: what is "religion"? Is religion simply beliefs held on faith and not reason? In that case, I'd argue Buddhism really isn't a religion at all. There are no gods, no supernaturalism, no accepting anything on faith. Other religions, including Christianity, use the faculty of reason a great deal, as in Scholasticism. Those thinkers weren't idiots, of course.
Quoting Pfhorrest
This is the usual story, and probably correct in many ways -- although I have a hard time believing no other thought was occurring prior to Thales. Regardless, this is what is extant and so he earns his place. It's interesting that from his case alone we can shed light on what we're discussing here. He was certainly a believer in the gods, but also asked fundamental questions, and sought to answer them with reason and evidence. He's often said to be one of the "founders" of what would become (much later) "science," but he alone embodies all three aspects we've been discussing -- religion, philosophy, science.
Although it can be useful, the fact-value dichotomy was never very compelling to me. But this is beside the point: even morality as a concept is a being. Hence, morality and ethics is part of philosophy, because philosophy is ontology.
Or one could argue.
Very good point.
Consciousness, awareness, attention, concentration -- all very similar in many ways. The latter two have perhaps more specific connotations as sustained or unwavering awareness.
Regardless, it's no wonder consciousness is where "modern philosophy" starts in Descartes. It's striking how often this is overlooked or misunderstood, but Descartes' cogito, ergo sum is not simply "thinking" as in the reasoning and abstracting you mentioned above, but rather "conscious awareness." He makes this clear in his Principles of Philosophy, which unfortunately almost never gets assigned to students but which I would argue (as would Descartes himself) is a much more important work than the Meditations or the Discourse.
The question becomes, in reaction to Descartes, what is "consciousness," what is the "I," and what is "being"? Heidegger essentially says that this should really be flipped: "I am, therefore I think." He'll claim that Descartes largely ignores ontology, taking up the Scholastic variation and moving on from there. I think this is very much true, and that we've thus almost completely ignored the question of being and have been stuck in a mind/body or subject/object divide for a long time now, wrapped up in our scientific pursuits while what's called "philosophy" gets relegated to simply an analysis of the results of science in college and university departments.
It's exactly the lived life, the average everyday life, that we ever begin to philosophize. Yet this either gets ignored, or else interpreted in the same light we interpret anything else in nature -- by de-worlding it. So your point of differentiating abstraction and consciousness is important indeed.
Not necessarily. It can start with a survey of possibilities, reduce to absurdity some of them, and then proceed from whatever is left. I’d argue that to just put forth some unquestionable axioms simply is religion.
Quoting Xtrix
Yes, religion is anything that appeals to faith. And it’s not only claims about the supernatural that appeal to faith. Buddhism just stipulates its principles and asks you to accept them. Even if those principles make no appeal to the supernatural (which, inasmuch as they talk about reincarnation and escaping the cycle thereof, they actually do), just asking us to accept them on faith in the wisdom of Siddhartha makes it a religion still.
Regarding “philosophy as medicine”, Martha Nussbaum speaks of this in her book, “Therapy of Desire.” The publisher's book blurb says: “The Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics practiced philosophy not as a detached intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art of grappling with issues of daily and urgent human significance: the fear of death, love and sexuality, anger and aggression. Like medicine, philosophy to them was a rigorous science aimed both at understanding and at producing the flourishing of human life.”
On page 21 of the book, she says, “The idea of a practical and compassionate philosophy—a philosophy that exists for the sake of human beings, in order to address their deepest needs, confront their most urgent perplexities, and bring them from misery to some greater measure of flourishing—this idea makes the study of Hellenistic ethics riveting for a philosopher who wonders what philosophy has to do with the world.
It is perhaps expressed best by Epicurus in Fragment 221:
“A philosopher's words are empty if they do not heal the suffering of mankind. For just as medicine is useless if it does not remove sickness from the body, so philosophy is useless if it does not remove suffering from the soul.”
And, again by Seneca in Epistle XX,2:
“Philosophy teaches us to act, not to speak; it exacts of every man that he should live according to his own standards, that his life should not be out of harmony with his words, and that, further, his inner life should be of one hue and not out of harmony with all his activities. This, I say, is the highest duty and the highest proof of wisdom, – that deed and word should be in accord, that a man should be equal to himself under all conditions, and always the same.”
I hope this is helpful. Thank you for your question. I appreciate it. -- Stabilius
I love your definition of philosophy Statillus. It and the above quote highlight how truth is not enough. Truth must be accompanied by a pleasant emotional response / result.
For me this provides a glimpse into how consciousness works - a computation in consciousness is accompanied by either a positive or negative emotional response.
I wonder, what if we were able to define philosophy logically and irrefutably, but it yielded a negative emotional response. Would we accept it? I doubt it . I think we would deny and repress it whilst we searched for something we were emotionally comfortable with??
Thanks much for your kind remarks. I appreciate it.
Today was an exquisite spring day, with a cheerful sun and gentle caressing breeze--with irises, tulips, sweet woodruff and poppies all coming into bloom--such a tonic for the soul. When I re-read the fragment from Epicurus (above) I was so moved once again. I just sat for a few moments looking out onto the meadow, just quietly looking, with a sad and tender heart, and a deep feeling for all of us, all across this planet filled with longing and distress. If nothing else, let my philosophy help remove the suffering of the world. Let this be its central aspiration:
May all beings everywhere
Plagued by sufferings of body and mind
Obtain an ocean of happiness and joy. - Santideva
Thanks again for your kind remarks. I wish you well. --Stabilius
St Teresa's world was governed by the will of a personal entity. Where is this personal entity in quantum mechanics? Neither in Plato's.
St. Teresa's "knowledge" was an extrasensory private perception of this personal entity. The facts of quantum mechanics are known through intersubjective experimentation. Plato's epistemology was based on rationality and debate.
They are not the same worlds but opposite worlds.
Philosophy ends when science establishes the facts. This has been the case since the time when science got a reliable method. Therefore, I do not include the philosophy of the past in my demarcation criteria. Aristotle is not Wittgenstein.
On spirituality: it is a vague word. It sounds like religion without god. I don't include spirituality as a kind of philosophy.
Quoting Xtrix
You can't avoid definitions. If you don't make them explicit, they will work in the background. And this is a source of pseudo-problems.
I don't know how you use the term conscience. The way you use it is just like sensation. Sensations are not knowledge in themselves. They can be deceptive. In fact, they are constantly misleading.
There is no knowledge of the pure individual.
Everything we know is mediated by universal concepts, by forms that are applied to sensations to give them meaning.
This consciousness you speak of is nothing more than an abstraction.
So reason may be imperfect, but it's what we have and we should resign ourselves to it. Polishing it, perfecting it, handling it, but not inventing alternatives that are more lying than reason itself.
But insofar as "science" presupposes "being", "the science of being", at best, begs the question, no?
I agree that the real (i.e. MEon, or other-than-being) is fundamental, not as an object of "science" (i.e. academic) but as the immanent horizon, or enabling-constraint, of struggle (i.e. existential).
Okay, better - "being" as presupposed by "theories and concepts" (Collingwood? Spinoza?)
Quoting Xtrix
Okay.
Incoherent. Seems (implicitly) 'epistemically anthropocentric', or idealist-essentialist (re: hypostatization).
And one might notice that the questioner already knows this, as it has been put to a philosophy forum. Such a question is a reflexive problematisation, guaranteed to produce a fine collection of muddles, from the radically circular 'it's what philosophy departments study', to the equally radical denial of subject matter in favour of method or attitude. As if one were to ask 'what is government?' and the reply was that the government of a steam-engine is not the same as the government of a gardening club.
Sharpening the chisel is a part of woodwork, that works the metal with the stone and involves no wood at all.
Despite turning to argumentation to establish its answers, philosophy is not some relativistic endeavor wherein there are held to be no actually correct answers, only winning and losing arguments. While there are those within philosophy who contentiously advocate for relativism about various topics, philosophy as an activity is characteristically conducted in a manner seeking out answers that are genuinely correct, not merely seeking to win an argument. Though the historical accuracy is disputed, a founding story of the classical era of philosophy ushered in by Socrates, at least as recounted by his student Plato, is that philosophers like them were to be distinguished from the prevailing practitioners of reasoned argumentation of their time, the Sophists, who on Plato's account were precisely such relativists uninterested in genuine truth, only in winning. It is from that account that the contemporary use of the word "sophistry" derives, meaning wise-sounding but secretly manipulative or deceptive argumentation, aimed more at winning than at finding the truth. And whether or not the historical Sophists actually practiced such argumentation, philosophy since the time of Socrates has defined itself in opposition to that.
Suffering of the soul is caused by believing lies. The task then of philosophy is to determine a process by which lies can be distinguished from truth. Admittedly no easy task.
There is no way around it -- you have to start somewhere. Any proposition in philosophy presupposes something, and in the end it does in fact come down to matters of belief. These core beliefs I call "axioms," but call it whatever you want. It's not that they're unquestionable -- it's that you have to accept them only in order to proceed. Take Euclid's axioms in geometry, for example. Of course we can still question these, maybe even reject them -- it's not a dogma. Yet if you don't accept them, at least temporarily, the rest won't be very interesting or even coherent.
The same is true of philosophy -- it doesn't start from nowhere.
Quoting Pfhorrest
If we choose to define "religion" as anything that appeals to faith, then we should discuss exactly what we mean by faith. I say it's belief without evidence. But in that case, many things we do on a daily basis involves a good deal of faith as well, yet I wouldn't call it religion.
As for Buddhism -- no Buddhist, that I'm aware of, asks you to accept the "wisdom of Siddhartha" on faith. Quite the opposite.
The Buddhist ideas (in some traditions) of reincarnation really have nothing to do with the supernatural, any more than a cloud becoming rain is supernatural.
That's foundationalism, which is far from uncontroversial. As I said, you can instead -- as critical rationalism would have it -- start with a survey of possibilities, reduce to absurdity some of them, and then proceed from whatever is left. You're not starting out just supposing that something or other is true, you're starting out with no idea what is or isn't true, just a spread of possible truths. Then you find inherent problems with some of the options, and get rid of them. Then you build off of what's left. But you didn't just start off supposing that what's left was the truth. You only fell back on it because all the other options proved unworkable.
Quoting Xtrix
Just believing something yourself without adequate reason isn’t faith. To quote myself elsewhere:
I also don't mean just holding some opinion "on faith", as in without sufficient reason; I don't think you need reasons simply to hold an opinion yourself. I am only against appeals to faith, by which I mean I am against assertions — statements not merely to the effect that one is of some opinion oneself, but that it is the correct opinion, that everyone should adopt — that are made arbitrarily; not for any reason, not "because of..." anything, but "just because"; assertions that some claim is true because it just is, with no further justification to back that claim up. I am against assertions put forth as beyond question, for if they needed no justification to stand then there could be no room to doubt them.
Quoting Xtrix
I am not aware of any Buddhist arguing for Buddhist principles in a way meant to convince someone who doesn’t already believe them. It’s all meant to be taken as self-evident wisdom that just needed someone wise enough to point it out, and now that it’s been pointed out, you’ve just got to either accept it and find peace or go on suffering in your miserable unenlightened life.
Quoting Xtrix
The idea of any kind of self surviving death to live another miserable life of suffering is sort of a key motivating factor in Buddhism. If it weren’t for reincarnation, you could easily escape from suffering via suicide. Without samsara, nirvana and mundane death are the same thing.
This, again, assumes a scientific method, and no one so far has demonstrated there is one -- as far as I can tell. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
Aristotle certainly is not Wittgenstein. The "philosophy of the past" has to be included in anything we discuss about philosophy. I see no way around it. To this day we're in the shadow of Aristotle -- including Wittgenstein. If we forget or disregard the "tradition," the development of Western thought, then we run into many risks indeed. And again, the best scientists are the ones who engage with this thought.
Quoting David Mo
"Religion" and "spirituality" are older than philosophy, certainly. But philosophy deals with the same questions. It's not always easy to decipher one from the other. Rather than defining things any way we like, it seems as if we know the difference when we see it in specific cases.
Quoting David Mo
It depends on what you mean. In explicit, theoretical understanding -- that's certainly true. In everyday life, it's certainly not the case that definitions "work in the background" -- or if they do, it's exceptional.
Good point -- it does indeed. Why? Because before we even "do" philosophy or science, we're in a world, we exist in a world, and with a pre-theoretical understanding of ourselves (and everything else that exists). Since it's from here which we start to philosophize, it is a sort of turning on itself.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Foundationalism concerns knowledge, yes, which has a long history in epistemology. I'm not concerned with epistemology.
Quoting Pfhorrest
You're still starting as a human being interested in these questions, yes? So whether you start inductively or deductively doesn't much matter to me. Both presuppose a human being making an inquiry or attempting to understand the world somehow. Whether or not that's "belief" or "faith" is questionable perhaps, but in any case it's a given. We can challenge whether or not we exist, of course, but I've always considered that an absurdity.
Quoting Pfhorrest
That's a little more specific, and I happen to agree with it. I don't see why the term need apply only to factual statements. In my tentative semantics, "faith" is belief without evidence (or reason), whether personal opinions or universal prescriptions. Hence a little more general, and in that case, having "faith" in the airplane pilot or a belief that human beings are essentially "good" are matters of faith. Quoting Pfhorrest
That's not what Buddhists argue at all -- if they ever do argue. The 4 Noble Truths, for example, are indeed seen as "truths," but nowhere does Buddha or Buddha's adherents ever ask one to accept them on faith. Rather, you can see for yourself through meditation, which is experiential. You can accept or reject it on this basis alone.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Not "any kind of self." Buddhists don't believe your individual personality survives after death. They do believe in continuation and transformation, as a cloud to rain or a dead leaf into soil, etc. At least in the variations I'm familiar with. I know in parts of Thailand they practically worship Buddha as a god, his statues are everywhere, and so maybe you can find beliefs in an afterlife there -- but from what I've read in the Sutras, Buddha himself never discusses the 'self' surviving or anything spooky like that. In fact, non-self is a basic tenant (anatta).
I like all of that very much. So by "kind of medicine" you mean in the sense of what's indicated in those passages. In that case, that's surely true.
We have to be careful, though, not to equate philosophy with some kind of therapy. In some cases, philosophical thought aims simply at understanding the world or an aspect of the world, like a hammer or a tree, without any real thought of morality or health per se. It still comes out of the human mind, with a human desire to understand, but that's still very different from questions regarding a good or healthy or happy life.
I don't see why "opposite." They're just different. Not all differences are opposites.
On the contrary, it is consciousness that we have, if we mean by this our lived world -- our experiences, our being -- and reason in the sense of concepts, categories, words, and logic that is far more often "lying." If consciousness is an abstraction, so is reason itself.
When we're being the rational animal, we're leaving out how we mostly function in the world. It's like saying "thought" is only abstract thought. That's not the type of "thought" that goes through our heads 99% of the time when we're talking to ourselves and visualizing fragments of images. Likewise rationality, or reason, is one faculty of the human being -- and a very important one. But I think we should let go of seeing the human being as simply the animal with reason, especially if by reason we mean the above aspects.
I think I agree with this, although I have no way of completely understanding your terminology here until it's further explained. Yes, "being" and "reality" I too would argue are not simply objects of science -- they're what we philosophize out of and about. In that case, being is a given.
Quoting 180 Proof
Glad you approve. :) Yes, being is presupposed -- it's what's thought and questioned.
Quoting 180 Proof
This one is harder, yes. It depends in this case on what I mean by "phenomenology" first and foremost. Phenomenology is a method, in this case the method for the science of being (ontology). The "universal" here indicates not some being (as in a particular being) or some group or class of beings (entities) like trees, dogs, planets, nature, beauty, mathematics -- but rather being itself.
Yes, indeed, no easy task! And not only for philosophy: Nearly all great literature grapples with the suffering of the human soul: Dostoevsky, Camus, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Tolstoy.
Music, too, in very profound ways: J. S. Bach, Mahler, Beethoven, Shostakovitch, Gorecki, et al.
And the visual arts so powerfully: Munch, Picasso, Cimabue, Van Gogh, Kahlo, Grünewald, Goya.
Though many of these works may deal directly with believing lies, it strikes me that the cause(s) of human suffering may not be fully and adequately incorporated in the narrow concept of 'believing lies.'
Yes, I agree, and in so doing reiterate what Martha Nussbaum said: “Like medicine, philosophy to them was a rigorous science aimed both at understanding and at producing the flourishing of human life.”
It seems to me that, like medicine, philosophy (at its best) is “a rigorous science”, and, like medicine, a practice that aims at “producing the flourishing of human life.”
I would add that, just as medicine has many roles, many ways to practice -- GPs, surgeons, researchers, etc. -- so does philosophy. Thanks much. I appreciate it.
What we today call "science" was once considered a sub-field of philosophy, "natural philosophy". This had been the case for thousands of years since at least the time of Aristotle, such that even Issac Newton's seminal work on physics, often considered the capstone of the Scientific Revolution, was titled "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy". But increasingly since then, what was once considered a sub-field of philosophy is now considered separate from it. What remains still as philosophy is demarcated from science in that while philosophy relies only upon reason or evidence to reach its conclusions, rather than appeals to faith, as an activity it does not appeal to empirical observation either, even though within philosophy one may conclude that empirical observation is the correct way to reach conclusions about reality. It is precisely when one transitions from using empirical observation to support some conclusion, to reasoning about why or whether something like empirical observation (or faith, or so on) is the correct thing to appeal to at all, that one transitions from doing science to doing philosophy.
You're taking epistemological positions for granted, though.
Quoting Xtrix
I'm not talking about induction at all. I'm talking about critical rationalism vs justificationism.
Quoting Xtrix
That then leaves no specificity to distinguish between faith in the sense I mean it and non-faith, unless you want to invent a word for the narrower thing I'm talking about. In my terminology I call the broader position you're talking about "liberalism" (as in feel free to hold an opinion without justification from the ground up, at least until it can be shown wrong, in a critical-rationalist way), and the narrower position I'm talking about "fideism" (hold some opinions beyond question).
Quoting Xtrix
That's my point. The principles are not argued for. They're just asserted. No reason to adopt them is given.
Quoting Xtrix
Anatta is the cure to samsara. If there was no samsara to worry about, there would be no need for a special path to anatta: everyone would get there inevitably when they died. If it were not thought possible to maintain some (however false) sense of self through the cycle of death and rebirth, and so to continue suffering beyond death, then the way to end suffering would be simple: just die. It's only against that background presumption of samsara that Buddhism makes any sense.
(I find it kind of tragically humorous, actually, that what was surely originally an assuaging religious belief, that life continues even after death, then became a source of further anxiety -- not even death offers release from suffering -- that further religious innovation needed to assuage. It reminds me of people who are afraid to live forever, because the boredom and existential ennui would be hell, and the consequent supposition that to people who've spent too long in heaven, actual death in the cease-to-exist sense would be a welcome release).
Philosophy doesn't appeal to empirical observation? What would be considered "evidence" in that case?
I just don't think it's this straightforward. If we decide we want to define philosophy in his way, I fail to see the motivation for it. You're quite right that science was natural philosophy, with "nature" as physics, and physics as a variation of the res extensa- substance that's extended in space. I don't see much reason for so rigidly separating the two, despite claims of a special method. It betrays a reaction to Christianity and has hints of scientism.
In the context of the meaning of being (which I argue is what philosophy thinks). But in that case the nature of ???????? is not being used in the sense you're using it, nor is "truth."
Quoting Pfhorrest
That's just not true. It's against the background of dukkha that Buddhism makes sense. It's clear in the teaching: there is suffering. This is the very first noble truth. The way out of suffering is the eightfold path, which is based around vipassana meditation (panja) and sila (ethical conduct). Whether or not there's an afterlife isn't relevant. Rather if you want to be happy, do this.
Quoting Xtrix
That's like saying light is "what we gaze upon or look for". I don't think so. Rather: we see, as Plato might say, by light - by seeing, so to speak - which is not "given", not "seen" as such.
By "presupposed" I understand, instead, conditions, or ontic commitments, which must obtain for 'thoughts and questions' to make sense, and not "what's thought and questioned" itself. [s]Being[/s] is not a supposition - answer to the question "what is real?" (caveat: Heideggerian "what is" is a gnomic sentence-fragment, and not a question).
A priori argument.
Quoting Xtrix
I am firmly against scientism.
Quoting Xtrix
No, in the context of whether all philosophy starts with assumed axioms.
Quoting Xtrix
We’re not talking about an afterlife, but about continuing in more of the same kind of life again. If all of one’s conscious existence ceased permanently at death, that would guarantee an end to dukkha. It’s only against the prospect of that going on indefinitely that any special escape is needed.
Yes it may be a bit of a simplification.
I just think back to times long ago, when people lived in small tribes of hunter-gatherers. I imagine that people in those times did not experience suffering of the soul, albeit they would have experienced hardship of the body. I imagine they would not have suffered angst over strictures that they 'should' do this and 'should not' do that. Simpler times for the soul.
That there are various scientific methods according to the various sciences and that they are the best way to present evidence about facts seems to me unquestionable. If you know of another method, I can reconsider my position.
Quoting Xtrix
You don't say. Did Wittgenstein believe in prime mover and prima materia? First news.
You're exaggerating a little.
Quoting Xtrix
The definition is only the use of the word. You may be aware of how you use it or not, but you cannot stop using it one way or another. That is its meaning.
Well, didn't you say they were the same? Are they the same or are they different? Because the same and different are opposites. Or aren't they?
You put a lot of things into your concept of consciousness. It is not the same to have perceptions as to capture the 'I'. Among other things because you do not grasp your "self" in the same way that you perceive a phenomenon. What is an empty abstraction is not the concept of consciousness, but the way you use it. It does not refer to anything concrete. The opposition between reason and consciousness that you make is meaningless.
For the rest, it would be good for you to distinguish between discursive reason and reason. In your daily life you are constantly using reason. Even when you perceive things. You evaluate, compare, remember, draw conclusions... Making syllogisms is another thing. Of course.
All these things can be studied from other branches of knowledge that are not philosophy. What makes them different from philosophy?
In my opinion that's a subject for psychology, not philosophy. In any case, if it had a philosophical dimension, it would have to take into account the data provided by psychology.
Unlike other branches of knowledge, philosophy purports to study them, and even to know them or something about them, by thinking alone; from the armchair, as it were (ex cathedra, literally). Not many branches of knowledge can make such a...boast?
Thank you; I appreciate your comments.
I've been thinking about this comment and what you said earlier: “Suffering of the soul is caused by believing lies. The task then of philosophy is to determine a process by which lies can be distinguished from truth.Admittedly no easy task.” And, as I thought about both of your comments, I began to warm to the idea; I began to consider in my mind: What if this were true? What would follow from it? Perhaps there is something deeper here than I first saw? So I think I would like to start a discussion on just this topic. I think it could be fruitful. Would you be OK with that? --Best, Statilius
Well, what makes object-discourse different from meta-discourse? suppositions different from presuppositions? judgments different from criteria? knowing different from understanding? :chin:
Yes of course. I would be happy to discuss it, I would be interested to know what others think on the topic.
- What is philosophy? There are several minds, which when considering themselves "certainties" take for themselves as fact that philosophy is neither formulas nor processes. And really, no, it is more than that, it is much more than any other concept or conviction, it is transcendental in its own idea. Philosophy is not something palpable, something to be bought or used on a daily basis, something mundane or inflationary, and for these and other reasons it is more tasty in the eyes of those who have never tasted it. For this reason, the only way that was “found” to project it to the world was through thoughts, questions, ideas, concepts, senses. However, there will always be those who intend to give it a body, a physical existence - seeking to limit it - through ways of formulating it. There is no such thing - and how could there be such a thing! -. Philosophy is not something logical - it can be used by logic, however, it does not arise from logical reasoning itself -, it is not something that could be built and placed in a physical encasement. Philosophy is nothing but the tired look of the ego that says: - Enough! To all the opinions of others, and that decides to build her own language, her precious and unique language so that it can understand itself in this way .... It is an incessant search for the answer to the whole, which in the end, always returns to the starting point . Itself. - What is philosophy? The simplest answer? - The question itself.
I have theorized that the phenomena most relative to the universe are problems.
The universe is a problem; doesn't expansion mean that it is over flowing? If you can contest me here my premise is false in the following conclusion...
Philosophy is universe-familliar-sense. As a relative of the universe we think 'aww' about it sometimes. I have called it 'relative wisdom'. Questions have relative answers, "are you happy?", "yes", 'yes' equals some process that is relative. "I am happy thus I will stand and say yes" for ex.
Given the previous account of how philosophy is neither religion, sophistry, nor science, one may be tempted to conclude that this means philosophy is entirely about prescriptive matters, rather than descriptive ones; that philosophy is all about using reason alone, without appeals to faith, to reach conclusions not about what is or isn't real, but about what one ought or ought not do, or broadly speaking, about morality. In other words, that philosophy is equivalent to the field of ethics. But philosophy does treat other topics concerning not just morality but also reality, at least the topics of how to go about an investigation of what is real. And while ethics is currently considered soundly within the field of philosophy, I contend that it properly should not be, for I hold that there are analogues to the physical sciences, what we might call the ethical sciences, that I consider to be outside the domain of philosophy, in that they appeal to specific, contingent hedonic experiences in the same way the physical sciences appeal to specific, contingent empirical experiences. I hold that philosophy bears the same kind of relation to both the physical and the ethical sciences, providing the justification for each to appeal to their respective kinds of a posteriori experiences, while never itself appealing to either of them, instead dealing entirely with a priori reasoning.
This is very confusing. "Thinking alone", "armchair"... You mean philosophy doesn't do experiments? This would differentiate philosophy from the natural sciences, but not from many other branches of knowledge. Pure mathematics, for example.
Can you answer your own questions? Some of them are not very clear and I don't like to play riddles. :grin:
You keep giving me perfect segues to introduce the next would-have-been-OP-of-that-thread-series-I-was-going-to-do, so I may as well quote you and make that clear this time.
Philosophy is not Math
I've previously concluded, following that philosophy is not religion, sophistry, science, or just ethics, that it provides the justification for appeals to a posteriori experiences (whether that means empirical experiences for physical sciences or hedonic experiences for ethical ones) while never itself appealing to either of them, instead dealing entirely with a priori reasoning. That in turn may raise the question of how philosophy is to be demarcated from mathematics, which also deals entirely with a priori logical reasoning without any appeal to a posteriori experience. Indeed in some ancient philosophy, such as that of Pythagoras, mathematics and philosophy bleed together in much the same way that what we now consider the separate field of science once did with philosophy as well. But today there is a clear distinction between them, in that while philosophy and mathematics share much in common in their application of logic, they differ in that mathematical proofs merely show that if certain axioms or definitions are taken as true, then certain conclusions follow, while philosophy both does that and asserts the truth of some axioms or definitions.
So while mathematics says things of the form "if [premise] then [conclusion]", philosophy says things of the form "[premise], therefore [conclusion]". Mathematics explores the abstract relations of ideas to each other without concern for the applicability of any of those ideas to any more practical matters (although applications for them are nevertheless frequently found), but philosophy is directly concerned with the practical application of the abstractions it deals with. It is not enough to merely define axiomatically some concept of "existence", "knowledge", "mind", etc, and validly expound upon the implications of that concept; it also matters if that is the correct, practically applicable concept of "existence", "knowledge", "mind", etc, that is useful for the purposes to which we want to employ that concept.
Hedonism is only a theory within ethics. Where do you leave all its opponents?
One's own experiences are very different from scientific ones. These concern inter-communicable experience of external objects. They are or try to be objective. If you restrict philosophy to personal experience this would relegate it to subjective.
To wonder, to explore, to learn, and to capture that learning in a communicable (or at least memorable) format.
I don't think philosophy needs to be academic, but I think it ought be high quality. (else it's shitty philosophy).
Philosophy is more or less the oftentimes superfluous process of refining our learned understanding of things. How, what, and why depends on your given persuasions...
As not actually philosophy at all, in the end, because they ultimately end up saying there is no way to tell what is good or bad. Leaving room only for religion or else sophistry with regards to ethics, which we have already established are not philosophy.
Quoting David Mo
Objectivity is just the limit of inter-subjectivity. Every scientific observation is just a bunch of people confirming that they too also share that same subjective experience in those same circumstances -- or else figuring out what the differences are between them that account for why some do and some don't.
The same can be done with hedonic experiences.
With regards to opinions about reality, commensurablism boils down to forming initial opinions on the basis that something, loosely speaking, looks true (and not false), and then rejecting that and finding some other opinion to replace it with if someone should come across some circumstance wherein it looks false in some way. And, if two contrary things both look true or false in different ways or to different people or under different circumstances, commensurablism means taking into account all the different ways that things look to different people in different circumstances, and coming up with something new that looks true (and not false) to everyone in every way in every circumstance, at least those that we've considered so far. In the limit, if we could consider absolutely every way that absolutely everything looked to absolutely everyone in absolutely every circumstance, whatever still looked true across all of that would be the objective truth.
In short, the objective truth is the limit of what still seems true upon further and further investigation. We can't ever reach that limit, but that is the direction in which to improve our opinions about reality, towards more and more correct ones. Figuring out what can still be said to look true when more and more of that is accounted for may be increasingly difficult, but that is the task at hand if we care at all about the truth.
This commensurablist approach to reality may be called "critical empirical realism", as realism is the descriptive face of objectivism, empiricism is the descriptive face of phenomenalism, and what I would call a critical-liberal methodology is more commonly called just "critical" as applied to theories of knowledge.
On Morality, Goodness, and Justice
With regards to opinions about morality, commensurablism boils down to forming initial opinions on the basis that something, loosely speaking, feels good (and not bad), and then rejecting that and finding some other opinion to replace it with if someone should come across some circumstance wherein it feels bad in some way. And, if two contrary things both feel good or bad in different ways or to different people or under different circumstances, commensurablism means taking into account all the different ways that things feel to different people in different circumstances, and coming up with something new that feels good (and not bad) to everyone in every way in every circumstance, at least those that we've considered so far. In the limit, if we could consider absolutely every way that absolutely everything felt to absolutely everyone in absolutely every circumstance, whatever still felt good across all of that would be the objective good.
In short, the objective good is the limit of what still seems good upon further and further investigation. We can't ever reach that limit, but that is the direction in which to improve our opinions about morality, toward more and more correct ones. Figuring out what what can still be said to feel good when more and more of that is accounted for may be increasingly difficult, but that is the task at hand if we care at all about the good.
This commensurablist approach to morality may be called "liberal hedonic moralism", as moralism is the prescriptive face of objectivism, hedonism is the prescriptive face of phenomenalism, and what I would call a critical-liberal methodology is more commonly called just "liberal" as applied to theories of justice.
[/quote]
When it comes to tackling questions about reality, pursuing knowledge, we should not take some census or survey of people's beliefs or perceptions, and either try to figure out how all those could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority, or some privileged authority, believes or perceives is true. Instead, we should appeal to everyone's direct sensations or observations, free from any interpretation into perceptions or beliefs yet, and compare and contrast the empirical experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for a belief to be true. Then we should devise models, or theories, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be true. This entire process should be carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian academic structure.
When it comes to tackling questions about morality, pursuing justice, we should not take some census or survey of people's intentions or desires, and either try to figure out how all those could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority, or some privileged authority, intends or desires is good. Instead, we should appeal to everyone's direct appetites, free from any interpretation into desires or intentions yet, and compare and contrast the hedonic experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for an intention to be good. Then we should devise models, or strategies, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be good. This entire process should be carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian political structure.
That's a simple philosophical opinion. You should argue better to be a reasoned opinion. Because the characteristic of philosophy is that it reasons what it says. Not like in your case, where you just set your opinion down as the only reasonable one.
On the contrary. Different ethical theories think they know what good is, they just don't agree. For example, with hedonism. I don't agree with hedonism either, unless it is reformulated in such a way that it ceases to be evident.
For example: hedonism says that good is pleasure, but what pleasure? As soon as we begin to prioritize types of pleasure, unanimity ends and hedonism begins to resemble stoicism or eudemonism.
I would ask you not to write long paragraphs that I don't understand. It would be better to go in parts, don't you think?
But it is not the same to share an experience of the same phenomenon, as to share the experience of an event that only happens inside my head. The first, as much as there are variations, refers to something that we can designate with the finger. The second is impossible. There is no possibility of showing it with your finger. A big difference.
There's a fallacy here. The moral good cannot be elected by a majority like the government. A majority of Nazis will define the supreme Nazi good. A majority of cretins the most cretinous good. Even if the entire human species believed in the same good (????), there is no guarantee that it is the most rational good. So, with no way of knowing what the supreme good is by popular acclamation, there is no way of knowing whether we are approaching it or not. This commensurability stuff is an illusion.
And why have you not reasoned why philosophy reasons what it says? (I think you mean philosophy employs reason (i.e: it's logical.rational). However, there are lots of philosophies that don't reason what they say (and some that don't even bother trying); if we want to talk quality then we can deal in standards of reason and evidence (whatever your persuasion may be)).
Being reasonable doesn't have much to do with run of the mill "spiritual" and otherwise subjective corners of the philosophical world (I'm looking at you, Theology), so I wouldn't exactly say "reasons what it says" is a necessary characteristic of philosophy.
But is it sufficient? Is anything that reasons what it says therefore under the semantic umbrella of "philosophy"?...
I wonder...
Can an existing and accepted "philosophy" become ex-philosophy should we discover it un-reasoned?
Both of us seem to have a rather subjective definition for what we consider philosophy to be. Is philosophy decidedly not merely stating one's opinion? What about debating opinions? If I show logical inconsistencies or fallacious use of reason in your statements, does that make the discourse philosophical?
Quoting David Mo
Eh, this is a fallacious appeal to simplicity...
Quoting David Mo
Why?
Quoting David Mo
That's circular though isn't it? You should argue good because philosophy is good arguments? Aren't you just appealing to your own definition?
Quoting David Mo
I didn't actually set my opinion down as the only reasonable opinion :halo:
I specifically used the words "I think" to underline where I invoked opinion, and I'm quite open to being persuaded otherwise.
I went on to invoke quality ("else it's shitty philosophy")....
I even summated with a "more or less"...
Can you at least tell me if it's more or if it's less???
Are we just debating standards and etiquette?
Can philosophy just be a mere series of questions?
Could you give some examples? Let's say ten. If there's a lot of them, it should be easy to do. Please give examples of "pontification", as you called it.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Sorry, I didn't mean simple in a pejorative sense, but not argumentative. Not complex.
About your battery of questions: Which one do you want to start with? Because all at the same time I'm afraid I can't do it. I have my own time limits.
I gladly acknowledge my ignorance of pure mathematics. Let's say natural sciences, practical mathematics, what we used to call the "social sciences"; any branch of knowledge which has as its subject matter the world in which we live and is based on our interaction with that world as living organisms. How's that?
And do you think that Sartre's concept of anguish -for example- does not speak of the world and man's relationship to the world? Sartre would not be an "armchair" philosopher?
My response to your reply to Ciceronianus the White consists of rhetorical questions, not "riddles".
I'm blissfully ignorant of Sartre's concept of anguish, and it is my daily prayer that I will remain so. In what sense does his concept constitute knowledge of the world in which we live, though, and how was it obtained? Those questions would seem to be pertinent.
They say what they think is good, in a way that you either accept or don’t, like a religion. But they don’t provide a way of telling what is good for someone who doesn’t already know, the way that “the scientific method” provides a way of telling what is true for someone who doesn’t already know. Hedonism by itself doesn’t tell you what particular things are good, it just provides a criterion for assessing the goodness of things: does it feel good? Just like empiricism provides a criterion for assessing the truth: does it look true?
Quoting David Mo
Nobody’s talking about things that are only in your head. We’re talking about whether we have the same hedonic experience in the same circumstances or not, in exactly the same way that we compare whether we have the same empirical experience in the same circumstances or not.
Quoting David Mo
I explicitly said that same thing in part of the quote you snipped.
List of religions and spiritual traditions.
Quoting David Mo
(the Pope addresses US congress on the topic of Capital Punishment)
From Webster:
Quoting David Mo
They're rhetorical questions. They're meant to stand unanswered as devices of persuasion. You need not answer them now, or ever; just thinking about them is enough...
Very sensibly, when the Republic transitioned into the Empire, the Emperors were granted (assumed, really) the title Pontifex Maximus, Highest Priest, thereby obtaining imperium over all those damn pontifices of the traditional Roman religion, not to mention the various priests of other temples and cults throughout the Empire. That title was assumed by the papacy, and so, if I ever have an audience with the Pope, I'll hail him by his true title: Salve, Pontifex Maximus!
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A face that only a Heavenly Father could love:
It's not what we gaze upon or look for per se, because it's often in the background -- but it can be understood, hence why we have a concept of "light." As an analogy, light is the basis on which anything becomes visible. It's against this background, often overlooked and never itself seen as light, that we're able to make out anything visible at all.
The analogy fails in the this respect: light, unlike being, is not a given -- some people are blind. It is, however, a given for anything visible.
Quoting 180 Proof
Being is presupposed in that sense, yes -- as the condition of the possibility of understanding anything at all. It is embedded in our language as well, as in the copula. It's not a supposition or an answer to a question.
So philosophy, in your view, is restricted to the a priori. Since anything a priori does not rely on empirical observation or experimentation, it's quite a stretch to associate it with "evidence." If it's a priori, it needs no evidence.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Quoting Pfhorrest
I don't recall saying all philosophy starts with axioms. Remember what I said:
[quote=] There is no way around it -- you have to start somewhere. Any proposition in philosophy presupposes something, and in the end it does in fact come down to matters of belief. These core beliefs I call "axioms," but call it whatever you want. It's not that they're unquestionable -- it's that you have to accept them only in order to proceed. [/quote]
This includes your proposition about critical rationalism. There are plenty of suppositions there as well, namely about knowledge and truth. The point was made in the context of what "faith" means. Thus even the proposition of what constitutes "faith" is based on a number of suppositions, which if we keep questioning will eventually come down to matters we simply accept.
All of this is in the domain of abstract thought, however -- with its words, definitions, concepts, propositions, categories, syllogisms, etc. -- everything we consider rational, reasonable, logical. Within this "theoretical" domain arises these questions and propositions about knowledge, beauty, truth, etc. While we may claim this is the only way to truth, the fact that it is a particular mode of the human being, and an exceptional one at that, should tell you that a great deal gets left out of the picture. We know this is true in science, but it's true in traditional philosophy as well.
Quoting Pfhorrest
From my reading, there's no mention of any kind of "conscious existence" going on. Other people go on, the world goes on, conscious life in general goes on. True enough. But what matters is what you do in this life, not what happens after you die: the point is to remove suffering -- that's all. All other ideas about samsara, reincarnation, karma, etc., aren't necessary to achieve nirvana in the here and now. Things change (anicca), there is suffering (dukkha), and there is really no "self" (anatta), all of which can be recognized right here and now in experience, through meditation (part of the eightfold path to nirvana, to the cessation of craving and desire) -- open to everyone. There's no forcing, there's no asking for accepting any of these "truths" on faith, etc.
I've found the Buddha was wrong about very little. A lot gets translated poorly -- like "life is suffering," etc. I don't think that's true, nor do I see them as "against" all "wanting" whatsoever (what about the "want" or the "desire" to not be suffering?). Nietzsche considered Buddhism a decadent religion, like Christianity (albeit a more sophisticated and mature one) based on these translations. But I digress.
The “evidence” part was just distinguishing it from religion. I said “reasons or evidence” then. Distinguishing it from science further narrows that down to basically “reason”.
Quoting Xtrix
Critical rationalism does not rely on you accepting critical rationalism to begin with. You can start out unsure of whether critical rationalism is true or not, and then find problems with assuming it’s not and so conclude that you should adopt critical rationalism — exactly in according with the principle of critical rationalism.
But you're not demonstrating that there is one, you're just taking it as a given that there is. I don't see it -- I don't see a special method that accounts for the success of the sciences or allows us to easily differentiate "it" from anything else, philosophy or otherwise. You can try, and many have, to formulate one, coming up with a list of factors -- observation, experimentation, predictability, peer review, data collection, hypothesis, theory, etc. -- and of course there are plenty of examples. But there are plenty of exceptions as well. Better to just think of this human activity we call "science" as all of the above -- a rational, reflective, thoughtful inquiry into the world -- which does not consciously follow any kind of "method" at all, other than perhaps attempting to understand the world sensibly.
That's not to say "science" isn't a useful concept, but simply that there's no "method" that distinguishes it from "non-science." Again I like to bring up Aristarchus -- was he doing "science"? Who knows.
Quoting David Mo
Not really. Many of Aristotle's particular claims have been shown to be incorrect, sure. So what? That's not quite what I mean by being "in the shadow" of this man, as you know.
Quoting David Mo
Context here is important:
Quoting Xtrix
Again, this is exactly right.
So you can indeed avoid definitions, because we're simply not thinking this way in most of our everyday lives. We can discuss "meaning," but that's a different and more complicated story in linguistics.
Quoting David Mo
I never made a claim about St. Teresa and Plato -- you did. You said they inhabited opposite worlds, I'm saying they simply have different perspectives and hence make very different interpretations and, therefore, inhabit very different worlds. I don't see a justification for them being "opposite."
OK. So then philosophy is the use of reason, in the sense of the a priori, and science likewise uses reason but also observation, experimentation, etc?
The lived world isn't "concrete"? Experience isn't concrete? On the contrary, it's the most "concrete" thing we have.
I disagree that I put a lot "into" the concept of consciousness -- which is not well defined in any sense: most of our decisions and our lives are probably un-conscious. So in that case I'm actually leaving a lot out when I say consciousness is our "lived world."
Quoting David Mo
That's a common assumption, and in my view a common mistake. I don't believe we use "reason" either in the sense of syllogism or in the sense you're using it at all. That's just not what you see in everyday actions. We don't have to remember them, draw conclusions about them, or evaluate them at all -- we just do them. Take turning a doorknob, driving a car, walking, or the hundreds of habits and skills we use on a daily basis as examples. When you look at it, it's just a mistake to project "reason" on them. There's certainly a place for that -- and usually when something goes wrong, we have to concentrate and problem-solve, etc. Again, this is not so much my ideas as they are Heidegger's -- but the examples are mine (he uses "hammering").
Well your system is fine -- as long as we don't take it too seriously.
Also, I'm glad to have given you an outlet for your series Forrest. Very interesting indeed.
Similarly, philosophy has many similarities to the arts, broadly construed as communicative works presented so as to evoke some reaction in some audience. Philosophy is likewise an evocative, more specifically persuasive, discipline, employing not just logic, as with mathematics, but also rhetoric, to convince its audience to accept some ideas. But philosophy is not simply a genre of literature. Whereas works of literature, like all works of art, are not the kinds of things that are capable of being correct or incorrect, in the way that scientific theories are, but rather they are only effective or ineffective at evoking their intended reactions, with works of philosophy correctness matters. It is not enough that a philosophical theory be beautiful or intriguing; a philosopher aims for their theories to be right.
I thought so, but you oppose concepts that I do not understand or that do not seem to be opposed. For example, supposition and presupposition.
Since I don't know what knowledge is for you, I will answer according to my criteria: The concept of anguish in Sartre is the feeling caused by the knowledge of the factuality and responsibility that freedom entails. It is proposed as knowledge. True or false, it is another matter.
I remind you that this was a condition for not being an armchair thinker and therefore would exclude existentialism from philosophy, according to his definition.
Sorry, comment deleted. It was not directed to you.
First: To say that it is good that produces pleasure is an empty statement if you do not specify what pleasure you are talking about. The difficulties of hedonism in giving content to the term "pleasure" are well known to all those who know a little about ethics. For example, the "scientifically" unsolvable alternative between quantitative and qualitative hedonism.
Second: you cannot find a circumstance that generates pleasure in every person, unless there are a few basic situations that do not serve to "scientifically" resolve the moral problems that arise every day.
Third: Even if you find that there is a situation that produces pleasure in every person, that does not mean that it is morally good. Human beings could be conditioned by society or their instincts to enjoy violence, and that would not make violence good. This is the old problem that you can't start from being to conclude the duty. An old problem that no one has solved, in my opinion.
I think these three points disarm your claim that hedonism can be justified as a scientific truth.
You are right. I have deleted my previous comment.
Sorry, I asked him for examples of philosophers pontificating. I don't think the Pope is an example of a philosopher. And the list of "spiritualisms" I don't know what it's about.
The fact that there are exceptions to a definition does not invalidate it. It is difficult to find a word that does not have margins of vagueness. But that natural science is based on controlled experimentation and observation and philosophy doesn't so, is a clear enough difference. Of course, if you go back to antiquity and the Middle Ages, where modern science did not exist, the confusion between philosophy and science is almost absolute. But we are in the 21st century of the Common Era and we talk about the difference between philosophy and science now.
Wittgenstein does not dismantle particular claims of Aristotle, but the heart of Aristotle's philosophy: metaphysics.
I am not saying that. I am saying hedonic experiences, broadly construed, are the only public criteria by which we could judge things good or bad without some kind of appeal to faith. I am saying the opposite of “there is such a thing as a victimless moral crime”. If something is bad, it’s bad because it hurts someone. To say otherwise is to say that some things are bad just because, even though they don’t feel bad to anyone.
And that this is analogous to how empirical experiences are the only public criteria by which we can judge things real or not, without appealing to faith in claims about things that are supposedly real even though nobody could ever tell if they were or not.
Quoting David Mo
The trivial case of giving every person their own private virtual world would satisfy that.
Quoting David Mo
Violence has to be bad because it hurts people. The only reason it could possibly be justified is that it prevents more hurting of people. Still we find ourselves judging by hedonic criteria.
Quoting David Mo
I didn’t claim that hedonism was a scientific truth, but that it’s the moral analogue of empiricism, which underlies the physical sciences. Anti-hedonic philosophies end up at the conclusion that we can’t really ever tell what is moral in a way that is both critical and objective, in a way comparable to how science approaches reality, but must instead either take someone’s word for what is moral, or else take all claims of morality to be utterly baseless opinion, either of which is just to give up on doing philosophy to morality.
I repeat my argument: the definition of a word is to make its meaning explicit and the meaning is the use of that word. You cannot avoid using a word in one way or another. Therefore, you cannot avoid using an implicit meaning of the word when you speak. You can avoid the explicit definition, but not the implicit one. In certain circumstances this can create a problem of confusion that is at the root of many false problems that arise even in specialized languages. In metaphysics, especially.
Do you disagree with what I have said? Do you have another concept of definition or meaning?
Every experience is concrete. There is no such thing as the experience of the universal. Your mistake consists in believing that the universal categories do not intervene in experience. You do not see a thing; the thing is constructed by your mind with impressions and ideas. That your mind does it automatically does not mean that it does not do it. Look for the difference between sensation and perception in contemporary psychology. It will confirm what I am saying.
Quoting Xtrix
If you didn't remember how you opened past doors you couldn't open this door. If you did not compare the shape of the present door with others you have seen, you could not open this door. If you were not able to reason why the door has not been opened you would not be able to realize that it is because someone has thrown away the key. That these thoughts are not made explicit is frequent, but they work in your head constantly.
You are constantly thinking when you go to the dentist's office, when you park your car in the garage, when you bake a chicken, when you invite your friends over for a barbecue, when you read a book, when you get restless because your wife hasn't come home, etc. These are thoughts that do not require special concentration. In many cases you are not aware of yourself thinking about them, but they are working permanently, without you being able to avoid them.
In other cases, the failure of this way of thinking -almost reflex- forces you to think about your way of reasoning about the problem. This is less common, but it also occurs abundantly in everyday life. You begin to think "How come...", "Why did she...?" And on a higher level when someone tells you, "You have no reason to think that..."
You can see how reason has weight in our daily life.
I didn't realize that the grand pontiff had to swear an oath of celibosophy...
Quoting David Mo
You asked for a list of philosophies that don't reason what they say...
Do you not consider them philosophies because they don't reason what they say?
If so, then that's circular reasoning (your conclusion is actually just a premise; aka: begging the question)
What is philosophy?
You've skipped the hedonism here. Hedonism claims that something is good when it produces pleasure. If I find pleasure in hurting, hurting is good.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Quoting Pfhorrest
Of course, because you're not treating hedonism from an ethical point of view, but from the point of view of psychology: People look for what gives them pleasure and they say it's good.
Now the problems are not ethical, they are of a different nature. Is it true that everybody looks for what produces pleasure? What do we do with those who look for suffering? What do we do with those who choose a pleasure knowing that it will produce more pain in the long run? Are they not human beings?
Yes.
No.
It's a way of differentiating two things that are different. If you want to call the pope a philosopher, you have to differentiate him from those who do not speak from the pulpit. I think the difference is strong enough to justify the usual differentiation between philosophy and religion. If you want to call them by another name, that is your right, but do not use terms that lead to the confusion of what is different.
See here, please:
Quoting David Mo
Religious Philosophy
What is philosophy?
Philosophy is what philosophers do in academia. It is not that a philosopher cannot be self-taught, but if we want to avoid philosophy being an empty field, we must limit it. Knowing what philosophers do in the academic field is a first criterion to separate cheap mysticism, pseudoscience and youtubers from serious philosophy.
Philosophy is about the human being. Although it sometimes seems to treat the universe, it always does so from the perspective or background of the human being.
Philosophy is not based on authority but on the exercise of personal reason.
Philosophy is revolutionary. It does not stop at the commonplace or the impositions of authority. It questions everything.
Philosophy is formed in debate. Bearing in mind that there are no universal philosophical truths, philosophical knowledge can only arise from free debate between various options. Let a hundred flowers open.
Philosophy is clarity. Philosophical discourse is pronounced to clarify the problem in some way, not to make it darker.
Philosophy is rationality. Even when it defends the irrational, it must do so with arguments that can be shared.
Philosophy does not rival science as a form of knowledge of facts.
Philosophy asks. Philosophy does not stop at any question. Nor does it always guarantee solutions. But it helps to ask the right questions.
Philosophy is inevitable. Since it is faced with radical problems that affect the human at their root, philosophy cannot be avoided. It is like freedom: one cannot stop being free even if one wants to.
You're welcome.
For example:
You choose which is the philosophical one. It's not difficult.
Isn't that some kind of double standard?
I didn't ask you to look for ten bona fide philosophers. I asked you to look for ten cases of philosophers pontificating. It's not difficult. Above I have presented an instance to the contrary.
Ay caramba, I repeat myself because you repeat the same question like if I have not answered previously.
You're restating your opinion, sure, but I'm just holding you to the same standard you held me to in your criticism of my response to the thread.
What makes your opinions about the scope and definition of philosophy any more philosophically valid than mine?
We're probably thinking of "knowledge" differently, then, or at least "branches of knowledge." What Jolly Jean-Paul (sorry, I enjoy giving philosophers nicknames) felt was caused by knowledge of the factuality and responsibility that freedom entails, whatever that may be, and why he considered it anguish wouldn't meet my definition of knowledge, any more than the dread I would say is caused, in me, by the thought of reading his work. It strikes me that in the case of Sartre's anguish we have speculation, and in the case of my dread we have what may be called taste, as in inclination or judgment.
I think my philosophical opinions are better than yours because I raise objections and questions that you do not answer, while you ask me questions that I answer.
This is a criterion for judging two competing philosophies. We can raise more, if you like.
I did not propose the feeling of anguish as knowledge, but Sartre's theory on the feeling of anguish. They are two very different things.
And when did the change occur between then and now? When was this special method "discovered"? By our current standards, what was Aristarchus and Newton doing?
Exceptions don't invalidate the definition, but in this case they make it rather arbitrary. There's little motivation for such an unjustified demarcation. All it does is drill into kids' heads that there is a special method that people consciously follow which makes them "scientists." And this simply isn't true.
Science is still natural philosophy, in my view. The fact that Galileo and Descartes lived around the time of Francis Bacon and the rise of inductive logic, and that we've become nervous about Christian dogma and superstition creeping up into our attempts to understand the world, doesn't justify such rigid categorization. It's fine for university curricula -- but it has no bearing on the real world.
Metaphysics isn't the heart of Aristotle's philosophy. The term "metaphysics" itself means "after the physics lectures." Take a look at Aristotle's physics. I haven't read much Wittgenstein, but I doubt he's "dismantled" much there. My hunch is he's very much moving in the space Aristotle opened up, but if he did dismantle it -- good for him. Not an easy task.
Hedonism as about all kinds of experiences of pleasure, pain, enjoyment, suffering, etc. Hurting means inflicting pain or suffering: making someone feel bad. Hedonism just says that badness lies in things feeling bad, goodness lies in them feeling good. Just like empiricism says truth lies in things looking true, and falsity in them looking false. In both cases there are a lot of other details to work out (that I already went over in those paragraphs you skipped earlier), but that’s the basic experiential criteria.
Quoting David Mo
Quite the contrary, I say nothing at all about what people DO pursue, and I don’t support any psychological theories of hedonism that say that people are just looking out for their own pleasure. People do all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons without always factoring pleasure or pain etc into it.
I’m only saying that when we come around and judge the morality of those actions, the only non-arbitrary way we can judge them is by how good or bad they make people feel, in a way that is replicable, as I have already detailed in those paragraphs you skipped before.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting David Mo
"Meaning," I repeat, is an interesting topic in linguistics and worth looking into. You can define it any way you like -- so that they're in the head or not in the head (as Putnam argued, for example). What we usually refer to when using "meaning" is a person's intentions -- "What did you mean by that?"
Meanings are often tied up with values, interests, goals, feelings, intuitions, etc. It can also mean a definition of a word, like we find in a dictionary. In the latter usage, there's no evidence to suggest this is how we "think" in our everyday activities. Which gets back to:
Quoting David Mo
That's not what I'm saying. There's certainly a place for that.
Quoting David Mo
One, my background is in psychology. Two, your comment isn't relevant.
Quoting David Mo
No, they don't. This is the mistake. I don't have to do any of the above to open a door. All of what you mentioned are phenomena that occur in the human mind when it's in a completely different mode -- a consciously aware, rational mode, where we need to "recall" something, compare and contrast, deduce, etc. That's not what's happening in opening a door. It's like saying "muscle memory" involves the muscles activity "remembering" what to do. For that matter, why not apply these terms to reflexes as well? Would that even be coherent?
In fact there's all kinds of actions we perform on a daily basis that simply don't involve any of the above factors. It's not that I have to "remember" how to drive a car -- I just do it. I don't have to think about it at all; I can be carrying on a conversation, thinking about physics, making plans for the future, etc. To describe these activities using the terms we apply to conscious, rational activity is at best very misleading, and at worst incoherent.
In other words, we know something happens in the brain and nervous system when it comes to habits and skills, but to invoke the terms we use for conscious, rational, abstract activity to explain it is the wrong way forward.
[quote=] You are constantly thinking when you go to the dentist's office, when you park your car in the garage, when you bake a chicken, when you invite your friends over for a barbecue, when you read a book, when you get restless because your wife hasn't come home, etc. These are thoughts that do not require special concentration. In many cases you are not aware of yourself thinking about them, but they are working permanently, without you being able to avoid them. [/quote]
Sure. And this is a radically different kind of thinking than philosophical or scientific thinking, as you know. Likewise with activity. To say there's some kind of "thinking" involved in these activities is like saying there's "thinking" involved in our breathing. Sometimes you can become conscious of breathing and control it to a degree, but mostly it's completely unconscious and does not involve thoughts at all.
Ditto for walking, talking, hammering, or driving a car. All of these we had to learn at some point, and some (like driving and riding a bicycle) even required formal teaching, following rules, repetition, etc. But once those rules are used, they are not then compiled somewhere in the brain, being "invisibly" used once we achieve mastery -- they're just gone. Maurice Merleau-Ponty has some interesting things to say about this in his Phenomenology of Perception, in fact.
[quote=] In other cases, the failure of this way of thinking -almost reflex- forces you to think about your way of reasoning about the problem. This is less common, but it also occurs abundantly in everyday life. You begin to think "How come...", "Why did she...?" And on a higher level when someone tells you, "You have no reason to think that..."
You can see how reason has weight in our daily life. [/quote]
Of course reason has weight in our daily lives. I'm not claiming otherwise.
Quoting Xtrix
What role does reason play....wherein lays its weight....in humans generally, from a psychological point of view?
If you say so. I'm not sure what knowledge his theory of anguish would encompass, or derive, in that case. Knowledge of the cause of anguish? Knowledge of what anguish really is?
I can't speak for psychology generally, but my own view is that it plays a role when things break down, when we are consciously solving problems and making plans, etc. Much of our activity is seen as unconscious within psychology, as seen here for example -- a pretty well-known study.
Of course your question depends on what you mean by "reason." I see reason, rationality, and logic as meaning essentially the same thing in our Western tradition: conscious, abstract thought. Consequently, it's pretty clear that abstract thought is essential for philosophy and science and so is very important indeed, as it is in our daily lives as human beings. But we shouldn't forget that although it's a powerful mode of being, it is still, as Heidegger says, "a founded mode," and leaves out what we are "proximally and for the most part" in our "average everydayness." In other words, by viewing the world objectively, we have to leave out all of the aspects of life in which we spend most of our time and out of which we begin to philosophize to begin with.
So reason plays an important role, but it's not the only one. Therefore, to say we're a rational animal, as has been a common interpretation since Aristotle, isn't wrong. But the ???? part is still there nonetheless, and shouldn't be forgotten or interpreted through the lens of "reason." Our instincts, habits, skills, our engagement with equipment, etc. - it does no good to describe these in rational terms.
Today people call themselves ‘philosophers’ because it sounds better than saying ‘I’m just thinking about stuff’ - hence the aura of pretension that shrouds it.
Quoting Xtrix
In the renaissance. It was clear at the time that a Nuova Scienza was emerging. It basically consisted of two innovations: controlled experimentation and mathematization. Today's science is heir to that scientific revolution.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Do you think a philosopher can teach atomic physics only through philosophy? Do you think philosophy is what has created the technified world in which we live? Just to cite two obvious differences.
If you live in a world where science and philosophy are the same, you are a bit old-fashioned. You are a few centuries out of date.
I understand that someone may express doubts that the scientific method can be defined rigidly (nobody pretends such a thing today) but to pretend that the method of philosophy and science are the same is an absurdity.
Aristotle places metaphysics at the top of his classification of forms of knowledge. See if it was important to him: the science of sciences.
In the Tractatus Wittgenstein considers metaphysical propositions as true nonsense -Unsinn. In aphorism 6.53, for example, he maintains that to try to "say something of a metaphysical character" is to condemn oneself fatally to not being able "to give, in our propositions, a meaning to certain signs". Wittgenstein mentions the concept of essence as the typical metaphysical concept. You are not going to tell me that the concept of essence is not important in Aristotle!
By that standard, killing a child is good if it makes the killer feel good. Experimentally proven.
Empiricism doesn't mean every hallucination or illusion someone sees is definitively real, it just means that reality is generally judged by things "looking true", but to everyone, in every context...
Likewise, hedonism doesn't mean just anything anybody likes to do is good, it just means that morality is generally judged by things "feeling good", but to everyone, in every context...
I wrote all this already but you said you ignored it.
TL;DR: Hedonism is not egotism.
Of course you remember when you open a door. It is your memories that allow you to recognize what is in front of you as a door and not a wall. In an implicit way, of course. If you hadn't had previous training you couldn't drive in an unreflective way. What I'm trying to explain to you is that there is a form of non-reflective "consciousness" that conceptualizes sensations to turn them into perceptions. Therefore, knowledge of the individual is not something merely individual. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty has a lot to say for me when she discusses the merely automatic character of conditioned reflexes. In the Phenomenology of Perception, to be exact.
Both.
And how do you justify this empirically?
Quoting Xtrix
In the synthesis of the two, are we not then left with one of two inevitable conclusions: either there are times in our conscious living when we don’t think, or, the constant mental activity called thought, implied by being conscious, isn’t necessarily reason?
I agree reason is conscious abstract thought, but I rather think we reason constantly, all else being given, whether or not we are aware of it, which makes explicit that not only does reason have an important role, it is the necessarily determinant one. Without it, we have no justification in calling ourselves human, as opposed to merely existing as some kind of intelligent biological creature.
Anyway.....thanks.
I think anguish is caused by reading Sartre--dread being caused by thinking about reading Sartre, as I noted previously. Behold this knowledge of the causes of anguish and dread.
I already mentioned Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, and others of the early scientific revolution. Remember the renaissance itself, including these men, was influenced by Greek thought. It's no surprise the Bacon and Galileo reference Aristotle so often, for example. So were the Greeks not doing science? Again, I always like to ask about Aristarchus. Was he not doing science? He didn't have the technology of later generations, of course, and he certainly lived before this special method was "discovered" in the Renaissance. But if he wasn't "doing" science, then it simply proves that we shouldn't take very seriously how we in the 21st century choose to define it. Which is my point.
Quoting David Mo
"Only through philosophy" is meaningless. Yes I think philosophers can contribute to science and often have been scientists and mathematicians. Kant taught astronomy, Descartes founded analytic geometry, Leibniz invented calculus, etc. etc. Even more recently, take a look at Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Planck, et al. Were they "only" doing science? Not at all: they actively engaged in philosophical thought and were explicit in who their influences were. That's in part what made them so trailblazing, I'd argue.
And yes, of course "philosophy" has created the technological world in which we live. One simply has to reject confining "philosophy" to 20th century university departments, completely separated from the "science" being done in other departments.
Quoting David Mo
Yet no one can explain what the "scientific method" is, including you. And this is what's supposed to separate "doing science" from "doing philosophy." I'd be happy to be proven wrong. Poppers and others have tried to show how science differs from other activities, but I don't find much of that convincing. It also differs quite a lot from what you've claimed.
In reality, there's simply attempts to understand the world -- the rest is fine for abstraction and categorizing for convenience.
Quoting David Mo
People do indeed pretend that it can be rigidly defined. But if it isn't, and so philosophy and science as currently understood often interact simultaneously in thought and inquiry, then it's also absurd to talk about the absurdity that these "methods" are the "same."
The sciences study various domains of beings -- life, nature, rocks, stars, cells, etc. Philosophy is the study of being -- ontology in the Greek sense. This is the only "difference" I can see, and even here it's very difficult indeed to mark a clear distinction.
No, he doesn't. Aristotle talks about ?????. You have to remember that "metaphysics" is a later designation, and has connotations that simply can't be applied to Aristotle if we're at all serious about trying to understand his thought.
Quoting David Mo
Remembering and memory, at least in psychology (and as they're commonly understood), play no role opening a door any more than they have a role in breathing. If we want to argue that we have to "remember" each time we walk, or drive, or eat, it's a very strange way to look at things. It's far too abstract. If you say that it's not abstract, but simply compiled somewhere in the brain, and still call it "remembering," it's very misleading. I have to "remember" my to-to list, which the best route is to get to Cape Cod, and what this person's favorite ice cream is -- I'm not doing that when driving, in fact it's so transparent I can think and talk about anything I want. Am I still subconsciously "remembering"?
I don't see why we would need to invoke this term, given the above.
This indicates a kind of computer model view of the human mind. I reject that wholeheartedly.
Quoting David Mo
Very true. At least when it comes to driving, playing basketball, etc. Whether things like acquiring language requires "training" is another matter.
Quoting David Mo
Yes, I'm quite familiar with the arguments your presenting, which are mistakes. It's not "consciousness" at all.
What the central nervous system does with perception is an interesting topic; but again, not relevant here, any more than the the way the visual system creates images from sensations of light is relevant.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting David Mo
Well he was a man, but maybe that was a typo. And yes, he has very interesting things to say about that indeed. Have you really read the book? Because it undermines everything you've said so far about consciousness and "implicit" abstraction.
An important quesiton. I think the latter is the case. If reason is abstract thought, then all this means is that what we call "thinking" is not always conscious, abstract thinking (reasoning). I think we all see this is the case if we introspect a little -- we're always talking to ourselves, for example. We're in the past, remembering things, we're imagining things, projecting in the future, a tune is "stuck in our head," etc. -- it's a fragmented, messy affair. Hardly "reasoning," but still considered thought nonetheless. I call it "junk thought," but I'm sure there're better terms for it. Some researchers in psychology (neuroscience) call it a "default network" -- daydreaming being a key element of this.
Quoting Mww
I would nit-pick a little here and say that if you agree reason is conscious abstract thought, then if something is happening when we're not aware of it -- is that still "reason"?
In any case, I didn't quite understand the entirety of your first sentence. As for the second, I think we certainly can call ourselves human -- just with the caveat that we're not always rational. Besides, this "intelligent biological creature" is still more intelligent than anything else in the animal kingdom, if for no other reason than the simple fact that we all have the faculty of language.
That had me chuckling a little.
There is a transcendental argument which says reason is the entirety of the human cognitive system, from perception to knowledge, so at least some people think reason, or at least some part of the system to which it belongs, may be something that is happening when we’re not aware of it.
However, in a certain speculative philosophy, thought is “cognition by means of conceptions”, and cognition is “process of joining different representations (conceptions) to each other and of comprehending their diversity in one cognition”. Therein, that which happens of which we are not aware is the generation of conceptions, as means given from the faculty of understanding, but the process of joining different conceptions, and of comprehending the diversity of them, is reason proper, the cognitions of which we are certainly aware, as ends given from the faculty of judgement.
Granting all that, the assertion that we reason constantly becomes clear, for otherwise we must have a system informing us of that which we already know, and a separate and distinct system informing us of that which we do not know. Just because we reason much faster under conditions of extant experience, as opposed to having to process new representations in order to cognize merely a possible experience, doesn’t mean we’re not using reason in same way.
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Quoting Xtrix
We have no right to make that claim, that doesn’t smack of anthropomorphism, re: Nagel, 1974. Even if reason is a strictly human condition, and we claim it as proprietary, it is fraught with illusion and intrinsic circularity, one prime example of which is to judge by our standards, that which cannot possibly conform to it.
What was the question again????? (Grin)
Headache, more like. But this is another matter.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
That at certain levels of science there is an interaction between science and philosophy does not mean that they are the same. The fact that there were scientists who were philosophers (especially in the past) does not mean that they acted as philosophers doing science or vice versa, but that they were activities that were closely related at the time and in certain fields. Leibniz was a metaphysicist, and you won't tell me that monads are a scientific concept. (Actually, I'm afraid you're going to say that).
That technology has nothing to do with philosophy is demonstrated by the fact that those who work in it do not employ a single concept of philosophy. In fact, the vast majority of scientists today have no idea about philosophy.
Aristarchus may be considered a scientist, but not in the same way as Galileo. The proof is that his heliocentric theory did not go beyond being a hypothesis until the New Science appeared in the Renaissance. (You could have chosen a better example). It is the difference between ancient science and modern science.
That New Science can be clearly defined as different from the previous one because it is based on two new concepts: controlled experimentation and mathematization of variables. I don't know why you say you can't characterize the current scientific method if I'm doing it right now. (I have done this several times before.) Can you focus on my proposal?
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
I think you've lost sight of what we were discussing. We were discussing whether it's possible to capture the singular without prior abstractions. What I'm telling you is that our perception of the world is determined by our previous preconceptions. You keep referring to reflective consciousness when I am talking about a process of categorization that is prior to the formation of a simple perception. But implicitly. You don't have a sense of a door, but you perceive a door in a complex of sensations and preconceptions that implicit memory provides. Please note "implicit" and don't turn to me for reflection. This shows that when you are looking for something, the unthinking preconception you have of it can make you not see it even if it is right in front of your eyes.
If this is so in reference to a simple act of perception, it is even more so when we refer to an abstract concept of "lived world". The world we live in is not naively given, but is mediated by our conceptualisation and assessment of it. That is, by the world in our own way a priori, with Kant's permission.
I read a couple of books by Merleau-Ponty some time ago and, if I remember correctly, they agreed with what I am saying. Especially in his criticism of behaviourism based on Gestalt. But if not, I'd like you to refresh my memory.
It is well known that Aristotle did not coin the term "metaphysics". It is also well known that it was a good invention because the book to which this name was given contains what corresponds to the superior form of knowledge of the five that he established (episteme theoretiké). And it is this name -"metaphysics"- that corresponds to what Wittgenstein strongly criticizes. Including the term "essence," which is the core of Aristotelian metaphysics, whatever you want to call it. Don't mind names but concepts, please.
By the way, Aristotle is the first to point out that experience is based on memory. You see, even your idols take away your reason.
Philosophy is the belief system that takes it for granted that you can reason your way through everything.
It's not that they're the same - as I've said before, there's also plenty of examples where they're quite different- given the common notions about what they are. But they're not separate either, nor is there any clear way of determining a boundary. Philosophy is always involved in science; this doesn't mean they're the same.
It's worth remembering that both activities come from the human mind. They both attempt to question and understand the world consciously. Both are very careful, try to be precise, etc.
Whether a question like "Why does the cup fall but the steam rise?" can be classified as "doing" philosophy or doing science is a silly endeavor. You, and others like you, want to relegate philosophy to being completely theoretical, and so as soon as one tests ideas in any way the activity suddenly "switches" over to science. If that's how we choose to define things, that's fine. But as I've already said, I see no motivation in doing so beyond education curricula and to clarify division of labor. There's no method that is agreed upon anyway, philosophy and science often interact as you say, etc - so who cares?
Again, the sciences being different of as branches of ontology (philosophy) is perfectly good for specialization purposes and ease of communicating what one is studying. Very useful to universities, etc. But we shouldn't take it too seriously.
Quoting David Mo
The distinction is pointless. There's little evidence for monads in Leibniz' s formulation, if that's what you mean. Of course it's easy to make fun of minds far greater than your own after centuries of new knowledge, but the proposal wasn't unreasonable at the time. Not a huge leap from monads to atoms if you think about it.
Also, to simply declare Leibniz was this or that is pretty ridiculous. What was the invention of the step reckoner, or calculus for that matter - metaphysics? "Leibniz was a metaphysicist" - sure. And also a mathematician, logician, inventor, natural scientist, and even to some a computer science pioneer.
Quoting David Mo
Baseless assertion. But let's take it as true - so what? Computer programmers don't need to know anything about quantum mechanics or electrical engineering. Doesn't mean electrical engineering isn't at work.
Quoting David Mo
It's perhaps a bad example if all you know about him is what you read for a few minutes on Wikipedia. But take a look at how he calculated, with great accuracy, earth's circumfrence. Was that an accident? Was it not science? Was it not the "same" science as Galileo's thought experiments of frictionless planes?
Also, the fact that a hypothesis isn't confirmed until a later period says absolutely nothing about whether something is science or not.
If Aristarchus wasn't "doing" science, neither was Copernicus or Galileo. But there is one major difference: Galileo had a telescope. Quoting David Mo
At long last, you alone have solved the mystery.
But seriously: experiments were performed long before the Renaissance. Galileo in fact performed very few, if any, experiments. Most were thought experiments. Mathematics has been used since the Egyptians and Babylonians.
I keep repeating: it's just not so simple. Here's a decent introduction: https://youtu.be/et8kDNF_nEc
That's not what we're discussing - it's what you keep interjecting.
Quoting David Mo
"You don't have a sense of a door" but "perceive the door" -- I won't try figuring out your semantics here.
No one is arguing about the neuropsychological processes involved in perception. I mentioned before that there's no reason to believe the brain isn't involved in these activities. But it's not "reason," nor is it "implicit reason." It's not that it's impossible to talk about the phenomena this way, but it's not what you see when you observe activities like hammering, driving, etc. To say reason is still involved, but it's just "unconscious, implicit reason" is a move that I see no evidence for. Reason and consciousness just aren't involved in any way.
Procedural memory is a different matter. but it doesn't get us to reason, comparison, or even "remembering." Talking about "preconceptions" in this context is likewise unjustified and misleading.
Quoting David Mo
No one is arguing for naive realism.
Quoting David Mo
Where does he say experience is "based on" memory?
No one is arguing that human being's don't have memory, nor "procedural memory," nor "muscle memory." If that's all you're trying to show, then I agree wholeheartedly.
Sure. I think it's an unjustified move, but I'm aware it exists -- in fact it's probably the predominant view.
Quoting Mww
Yes, this is exactly the above: reason now become "implicit reason," working below consciousness somehow. So it's like saying when we learn something, we have to learn the rules and put conscious effort into practicing -- but then once we master the skill (let's say driving), the rules become stored in the brain somewhere, working unconsciously.
I think that's completely wrong.
Quoting Mww
Fair enough. I'll rephrase: we're the only biological creature with the faculty of language. "Intelligence" is another matter -- look at who we've elected President.
I agree, in accordance with the theoretical tenet that reason is a conscious mental activity. That which happens on the other side, is not reason per se. Precursor to reason, ground of reason, that which makes reason possible.....take your pick. In much the same way as we are never aware of the transition from perception by means of sense organs to the excitation of functional brain mechanics, so too are we never aware of the transition from the appearance of external objects, to the synthesis of representations into knowledge.
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Quoting Xtrix
As aforementioned, reason doesn’t work below consciousness, insofar as consciousness stands for the state of that of which the subject is conscious, or aware.
The brain stores stuff, but it is only because of our own need to understand each other, that “rules” is the name given to that which is stored. If neural pathways are the means for storage of “rules”, and we are hardy aware of our neural pathways and the employment of them in the facilitation of extant knowledge rather than re-learning from each successive set of empirical stimuli.....what is it that is completely wrong?
All good, really. In Heidegger, it's evident in the "ready-to-hand" (Zuhandenheit) activity of dealing with equipment.
Quoting Mww
The use of "rules" really. Neural pathways are certainly involved, but to say the rules are "stored" there is the wrong picture of the mind. It's a kind of computer model of the mind, which is why AI continually fails. May sound nit-picky, but I think it matters.
Whatever it is that changes the brain from a theoretical understanding of driving (rules, principles, etc) to the everyday driving we all engage in (i.e., once the skill has been acquired), I just don't see how the former somehow goes "underground" and is thus stored in the brain. It reminds me a bit of Plato's theory of recollection.
Two things: something is stored somewhere, and, nothing is ever learned twice. One may incorporate those into either a scientific or philosophical theory, but not both simultaneously. Science will probably prove brain mechanics someday but won’t be the least satisfying to Everydayman, and philosophical theories may very well satisfy Everydayman just fine, but stand no chance whatsoever of being proven.
Round and round we go.......
I don't know -- things can certainly be re-learned. The second premise only follows from the first -- because if something is stored somewhere, the rest is a matter of "recall" of some kind. But again, I'm rejecting the first claim. The phrase "something is stored somewhere" really isn't saying much, or at least isn't any different than saying what I mentioned earlier: rules have gone to some underground cache.
It's not that this formulation is absurd, it's that I see no evidence for it. The rules and principles of theory, reason, and other cognitive functions we use when dealing with the world consciously, scientifically, explicitly, etc. -- for example when we're formally learning a new skill (like driving, hammering, playing basketball) -- just do not seem to play any role once we've reached expertise. You see this when observing people in "flow," you see it in brain studies (different regions are being used than when problem-solving), and you hear it from experts themselves in that they don't have to "think" at all.
Where rules fit into all this I don't know, unless we view the mind as a computer that compiles data. It's very true that the brain and nervous system are involved, but bringing in the concepts we use to describe rational, conscious, theoretical, rule-following just doesn't work.
I agree with Heidegger also that ontology and "metaphysics" are essentially the same thing. So in a way, philosophy = metaphysics = ontology. Philosophy is the science of being, "science" here indicating a theoretical, interpretative (hermeneutic), phenomenological inquiry. In fact, "Only as phenomenology, is ontology possible." Phenomenology is the method of ontology (i.e., philosophy).
So what is "phenomenology"? Seems obvious: the study of phenomena. But "phenomena" in what sense? In the sense of not only what shows itself in appearance -- but rather "it's something that does not show itself at all: it is something that lies hidden, in contrast to that which proximally and for the most part does show itself; but at the same time it is something that belongs to what thus shows itself, and it belongs to it so essentially as to constitute its meaning and its ground." (Being & Time, p. 35.)
So the subject of phenomenology is something that does not show itself but can be made to show itself. It's all the things we take for granted, are not conscious of, are utterly mundane, routine, habitual, etc. -- it's what's hidden in this sense, in the sense of being overlooked and "transparent." In a word, it's not "just this being or that, but rather the being of beings" that is phenomenology's aim. It studies the background (because being is usually concealed) and does so through hermeneutics. This makes sense if it is to be considered the method of philosophy, which likewise "studies" being.
So to summarize:
“Negatively, this means that philosophy is not a science of beings but of being or, as the Greek expression goes, ontology.” (p. 11 of Basic Problems of Phenomenology)
Regarding science:
“All the propositions of the non-philosophical sciences, including those of mathematics, are positive propositions. Hence, to distinguish them from philosophy, we shall call all non-philosophical sciences positive sciences. Positive sciences deal with what is, with beings; that is to say, they always deal with specific domains, for instance, nature. Within a given domain scientific research again cuts out particular spheres: nature as physically material lifeless nature and nature as living nature.” (p. 13)
:ok:
This isn't saying much. But yes, I agree it's an activity - the activity of thinking being.
Quoting Xtrix
Aristotle, Metaphysics A1. 980aff. : "It is from memory that men acquire experience",
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting LUMEN. Introduction to Psychology
As you can see, the distinction between sensation and perception is a major point in any psychology manual. I'll spare you the long list of academic articles you can find on this distinction. You can see a list here: https://philpapers.org/browse/construction-and-inference-in-perception. This list refers only to the processes of inference within perception. Some authors speak of "unconscious inference". I have called it implicit. Others call it "non-reflective" to distinguish it from the processes in which inference becomes conscious and discursive.
The list for articles dealing with the differences between sensation (also sometimes called sense data) and perception is much longer.
From all this we can conclude that the phenomena of categorization (socially or individually produced) are an essential part of the world of experience. If this is so, a radical distinction cannot be made between the lived world and the rational-abstract world. Both form part of a complex and inseparable world. And if I understand you correctly, this is what you denied at the beginning of our discussion.
If you agree with this point, either we have reached an agreement or we have had a misunderstanding.
Quoting Xtrix
Philosophy does not includes the natural sciences. You have invented a meta-scientific knowledge that does not exist. Moreover, you give it a totally inappropriate name of scholastic origin: ontology. Ontology was the science of being qua being. Totally speculative. It was substituted little by little by natural sciences -mathematics is another thing-, which do not speak of the being as being but of concrete aspects of reality. There is no such thing as a science of Totality. Ontology is a vestige of the past or a non-scientific way of talking about what the sciences have in common. Philosophically, there is no way to contribute a single idea to physics, biology, etc. And if there is one I would like you to give an example.Because vagueness like "science and philosophy" are "careful" doesn't say anything. And to say that philosophy is "precise" requires saying in what way. My mother is also serious and precise in making chocolate cake and we're not going to say she's a philosopher or a scientist. Words are meant to clarify similarities and differences, not to make indiscernible molasses.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Leibniz was halfway between metaphysics and modern science. Mathematics is something else and we'll leave it at that. As long as he used data from Newtonian science he did not err, but when he tried to superimpose his peculiar philosophical preconceptions on them he gave rise to speculative theories without any value. Like the vortex theory. We must not laugh at him for this, but lament that such a precise mind could go astray by confusing science and metaphysics. For a time his mistake was quite common. Today things are clearer, and I do not believe there is any serious philosopher who would set out to discover monads and vortices. Today's philosophers usually know where the limits of philosophy lie better than you do.
Before the New Science, the scientific method of experimentation was not used. You confuse observation with experimentation. Since ancient times observation was a method used in the natural sciences. There is some isolated cases of experimentation in history. For example, the Pythagoreans experimented on sounds and the length of strings. But they did not create a method that applied to all fields of natural knowledge. That's why it's not the same as the hypothetical deductive method that Galileo devised and Newton perfected. Of course they didn't call it that.
It is of little consequence whether or not Galileo carried out all the experiments he devised. What was important was the idea of the method that was used by his successors to carry out the experiments he had devised and new ones. Like Gassendi or Torricelli. Naturally the idea didn't come out of nowhere. Galileo admired Gilbert's experiments, for example.
But Bacon is a mere precursor. His methods of observation can be seen as an antecedent to Galileo, but if he doesn't cite them it's because they were something else different from what he was doing and proposing. Observation is limited to recording the data that nature offers, drawing consequences that are taken by inductive generalization. The hypothetical-deductive method is a framework in which mathematization, the formulation of hypotheses (in principle they were causal), the manipulation of circumstances and variables that concur and the confirmation by means of the repetition of the experiments are combined. "Hypothesis non fingo", Newton proudly said to differentiate himself from the Aristotelian and Cartesian scholastics. You won't find anything like that in Aristotle or Bacon, who nevertheless gave a more or less great role to experience. Nor will you find it in the Babylonians, who used mathematics and experience as a mere record, without transcending the formulation of legal hypotheses to be confirmed by experiments. The Greeks, especially from the Hellenistic period, are an advance on them. This explains Eratosthenes' success in calculating the circumference of the Earth (you were wrong: it wasn't Aristarchus). But they limited themselves to the mathematical formulation of the problems and their application to observation. They did not move on to the method of confirming legal hypotheses, which is that of the New Science.
And that it differs drastically from the philosophy of then and now.
Hmmm......yes, my mistake; there always an exception to the rule. Things may be re-learned due to brain or mental malfunction. But philosophy has to do with the norm in that regard, not the exception to it, which is the realm of empirical psychology.
(“...Empirical psychology must therefore be banished from the sphere of metaphysics (...). It is a stranger who has been long a guest; and we make it welcome to stay, until it can take up a more suitable abode in a complete system of anthropology...”)
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Quoting Xtrix
Principles of theory, rules, even reason itself, are a priori human explanatory constructs that facilitate understanding. If rules don’t play a part, how does one even become an expert? Just the comparison between an expert and a novice must be in accordance to a rule.
Quoting Xtrix
Seems like “rule” would fit into that definition just fine.
This is meaningless without a context. We have memory - experience is what's happening right now, shaped in part by past experiences.
Quoting David Mo
You didn't say sensation, you said a "sense" of the door. That's not the same thing.
Again I'll repeat in case you didn't catch it: my background is in psychology, and my profession is psychotherapy. I say this to prove nothing except to save you from unnecessary exposition. Better to assume I know as much as an undergraduate.
Quoting David Mo
No radical distinction, just very different modes of being.
Interesting. Reference please?
Quoting Mww
By simply doing things in a different way. This sounds like a cop out, and indeed it is in a sense because it's an open question. I think we're finding out more and more about what's happening in the brain when one is in "flow" for example. But to talk about driving, tying your shoelaces, or even walking as "rule following," even if pushed into some unconscious realm, seems to me of no value. But I grant you that mine is the minority position.
Quoting Mww
But here Heidegger is talking about being, not rules.
I agree that human behavior is complex. Maybe it's helpful to state clearly what I'm not saying:
I'm not saying the sciences don't exist.
I'm not saying rules and rationality don't exist or don't play a large role in human life; they do.
I'm not saying that philosophy and science are the same thing.
I'm not saying that sensation and perception are the same thing.
I'm not saying that the everyday lived mode where we mostly find ourselves and the rational, abstract mode are completely separate (nor are philosophy and science).
What I am saying is that modern science is not always easily separated from philosophy, especially in its basic concepts, and in fact presupposes what's called "philosophical," and especially that what makes science what it is is not a special inductive method, however popular that idea is. Incidentally, on this last point especially I'm not alone -- so if it's modern scholarship that impresses you, there's plenty of it. I gave you a link to a discussion about the philosophy of science with Hilary Putnam, for example -- but there are many others who argue that the concept of an inductive method is shaky indeed. Paul Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn (to a degree), Chomsky, etc., and plenty of others have interesting things to say about it.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting David Mo
I'm not sure what "include" means here. I'm not saying the questions and problems of physics is "philosophical" work. As I said, they're different, but they're connected. Natural philosophy, which we now call the various branches of science, always presupposes something about the world.
Or perhaps a better way to put it: philosophy is ontological, the sciences are ontical. But that doesn't make the work of biologists, physicists, chemists, or anthropologists "philosophy."
Quoting David Mo
A very common view of the history of science and a rather common attitude about "being," which in fact was anticipated by Heidegger nearly a century ago:
"That which the ancient philosophers found continually disturbing as something obscure and hidden has taken on a clarity and self-evidence such that if anyone continues to ask about it he is charged with an error of method."
"It has been maintained that 'being' is the 'most universal' concept[...]that it is indefinable, [...] and that it is held to be self-evident."
He goes through these one by one, and then asks whether instead the question of being is rather than the most abstract and speculative actually the most concrete thing.
So not "totally speculative" at all -- in fact we live with a "vague, average" understanding (pre-theoretical understanding) of it every day.
Quoting David Mo
We're in a different state or mode of being when doing philosophy and science -- that doesn't mean all rationality, logic, problem solving, clarity of terms, etc., are only philosophy or science. You could very easily be following rules in cooking -- recipes are exactly that. Of course that's not philosophy. But it's also a very different state than an expert chef who needs no recipe, much like Hendrix or Clapton didn't need to remember their guitar lessons when playing. They're different states. This is the only point. And as it happens, the state we're in when "doing" science is the former state, not the latter. Ditto with science. This does not make them the same.
Quoting David Mo
I'm glad you've retracted your statement that Leibniz was a 'metaphysicist.' But I'm afraid the story you tell about the history of science and philosophy is pretty confused. It's not worth pursuing other than to re-state the idea that there's no such thing as a "method" that got created or discovered some time in the 16th century. Or at least I see no evidence of that. There are many factors involved, historical, technological, cultural, etc., but defining something out in space and saying "this is the method" while it's still a rather controversial topic in the philosophy of science just isn't interesting.
Quoting David Mo
Yes -- the philosophers of science also notice something about science as well: that a "method" is an illusion that even few scientists accept.
As for the limits of philosophy - I've already mentioned, philosophy is not physics or biology. Philosophy is ontological; it thinks being.
Quoting David Mo
There were plenty of experiments before the 16th century, long before any myth about a special method that scientists employ in order to be "counted" as science.
Quoting David Mo
True. But neither did anyone else.
Quoting David Mo
Or the mechanical philosophy that Galileo accepted and Newton (unintentionally) destroyed.
Also, see https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-94-009-9799-8_1
The same questioning, observation, experimentation was being done in antiquity. Many things were different. But to ask whether these examples were "really" science or not and then coming up with some post hoc explanation for why it isn't (or is) is a waste of time. Call it whatever you like. If you prefer to believe in the invention of a special recipe that coronates an activity "Science," you're welcome. You're not alone. It's completely unconvincing to me but, most importantly, completely irrelevant.
Let's call anything prior to the 16th century "old science" - if it makes us happy. Maybe it's useful for teaching, like dating the fall of Rome or determining the "beginning" of the Renaissance. We can define things any way we like.
But the simple fact remains: human beings care about understanding the world, and have been asking questions about it for thousands of years. If we want to say none of it counts as philosophy because they didn't have university departments, or "science" because they didn't have laboratories, that's our privilegby . But forgive me if I don't take it seriously.
Quoting David Mo
Yes, my mistake.
Quoting David Mo
Again the issue here is whether this method really defines science. Turns out it doesn't. So there's no sense going on as if this is premise I accept.
By your homegrown definition, archeology is certainly excluded as a science. Where economics falls is questionable. But who really cares anyway? Most physicists will probably tell you sociology isn't a science. Medicine is another matter. Astronomy another. Etc.
But again this misses the point. This isn't about science but about what philosophy is. Turns out they're not completely unrelated, but not the same either.
First of all: I prevented some comments ago that I was speaking of natural sciences. If you want speak of human sciences some clarifications should be added.
If you want to deny that sciences are inductive and methodical you are alone. Chomsky is speaking of linguistic and social sciences, Kuhn speaks only of periods of scientific revolutions and Feyerabend is a rara avis without many influence in philosophy of science. He is more popular in internet and pseudosciences, sure.
But even in human sciences progress in the last years is fostered by the application of inductive methods and mathematizacion. For example, dating methods taken from natural sciences in archeology.
But you shoudl understand that when I was speaking of hypothetico-deductive method I was speaking of natural sciences.
I suppose you must know what it means that "natural philosophy" includes the sciences. If you don't know it, the idea is "a little" confusing in your head.
Quoting Xtrix
I am sorry to displease you, but I did not say that Leibniz was not a metaphysicist, but that his metaphysics are intermingled with concepts of the new science. But the concept of the monad, which you vaguely relate to that of the atom, is central in Leibniz and one hundred percent metaphysical. And the difference between the atom, an entity that can be confirmed with scientific experience, and that of the monad, which is totally speculative, is abysmal. To begin with you are a monad, according to Leibniz, and you will not tell me that you are also an atom. I don't see you as an atom, really.
Quoting Xtrix
Don't quote Heidegger to me, please. After fighting hard with his unpalatable Being and Time I learned that he himself acknowledged that he didn't know what Being was. For gurus, the ones from India.
Quoting Xtrix
Why? You say you don't like it, that scientists don't say that, that there's a lot of criticism, that it's a myth... but you never explain what you mean specifically. It all comes down to vague quotes and vague disqualifications.
Quoting Xtrix
Finally something concrete! Now all that remains is for you to tell us about some of those experiments you are referring to. Because when you spoke of the Aristarchus experiments you were mistaken about the author and the concept: it was not an experiment. I'm really interested in knowing the medieval experiments you're talking about. I'm not joking.
While waiting for you to concretize your criticisms I will advance you that they have a flaw in principle: if you recognize that science and philosophy are not the same, it will be because they have different methods. Why else?
I would appreciate it if you would repeat the reference where Putnam says that science does not follow inductive methods. I can't find it.
To which you are most certainly entitled.
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Quoting Xtrix
Sorry.....I edited and didn’t notice I deleted (CPR A849/B877).
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Quoting Xtrix
I realize that, yes. “Rule”, ”being”.......one no more a mere a priori human logical construct than the other.
It can be, and there are examples. But there's no method to distinguish science.
Quoting David Mo
You haven't read any of them, I see. Chomsky is not talking about linguistics and the social sciences, for example. When he talks of science, he's going back to Galileo and discusses mainly the development of physics.
Regardless, if you want an entire list I'll provide one, as perhaps the names I mentioned don't count somehow. But I'm far from alone. Again, Putnam's introduction is a good one: few creative scientists accept such a thing as an "inductive method."
Quoting David Mo
This is incoherent.
Quoting David Mo
Lots of things are speculative, until confirmed. Many hypotheses are speculative. The fact that some turn out to be completely wrong is part of science. To call all ideas (like geocentrism) that have been proven wrong "metaphysics" and thus philosophy, and everything else " science" is again simply a matter of definition, and quite useless in my view. But if it makes you happy, carry on.
Quoting David Mo
Not sure what that last sentence means.
True, Heidegger doesn't give an easy answer about what being "is," because "it" isn't a thing. He never "acknowledged" anything like that, however. It's a silly statement.
Sorry about your struggles with being and time; you're in good company. It's actually a fascinating work, and no wonder (to me) why it's considered the great work of the 20th century.
Quoting David Mo
No, you're thinking of yourself and the scientific method. Saying "mathematization" repeatedly is likewise vague and devoid of context.
Not until the late middle ages do you have experiments in medicine. Al-Baghdadi and others performed interesting studies in anatomy and physiology, although with very different assumptions.
If there are experiments during the 7th or 8th centuries, I'm not aware of them. But I wouldn't be shocked to find it happening, even in monasteries.
You mentioned a number yourself during the Greek and Roman eras. But I already anticipate any examples, say from Archimedes or whomever, being disqualified as they were, as they won't meet your post hoc criteria. (Incidentally, as many experiments from the modern era don't ether.)
So if Eratosthenes or Aristarchus weren't scientists or weren't "doing" science, and weren't performing experiments in the right way or the making the "right" observations, etc., because of some notion of "mathematicization" or whatever you like, then so be it. All that proves to me is that the notion of "science" has become completely useless -- even restricted to the "natural sciences."
Quoting David Mo
No one is saying science doesn't often involve inductive methods. There are all kinds of methods used in the sciences -- for example, the questions, problems, and methods of climatology are very different from those of archeology, geology, or linguistics -- so what?
In any case, here's what Putnam says:
[quote=] “People talk about the scientific method as a kind of fiction, but I think that even in physics where you do get experiments and tests that pretty much fit the textbooks, there’s a great deal that doesn’t and a great deal that shouldn’t.” [/quote]
And further:
[quote=] Bryan Magee: "What’s the point of continuing to use the category, or the notion, or the term “science” anyway? Does it any longer clearly demarcate something differentiable from everything else?" [/quote]
[quote=] Putnam: “I don’t think it does. If you’re going to distinguish science from non-science, that makes a lot of sense if you still have this old view that there’s this 'inductive method' and that what makes something science is that it uses it and uses it pretty consciously and pretty deliberately, and that what makes something non-science is either that it uses it entirely unconsciously (as in learning how to cook, you’re not thinking about inductive logic) or perhaps doesn’t use it at all, as metaphysics was alleged not to use it at all (I think unfairly). But both say that there’s a sharp line between practical knowledge and science and to say that the method which is supposed to draw this line is rather fuzzy, something we can state exactly— and attempts to state it by the way have been very much a failure still; inductive logic cannot be, say, programmed on a computer the way deductive logic can be programmed on a computer. I think the development of deductive logic in the last 100 years, and the development of the computer, have really brought home very dramatically just what a different state we’re in with respect to proof in the mathematical sciences which we can state rigorous canons for, and proof in what used to be called the inductive sciences, where we can state general maxims but you really have to use intuition, general know-how, and so on, in applying them.” [/quote]
I think that's exactly right.
Quoting Mww
Then we really are using "rule" in radically different ways. I don't see the rules of chess being a priori, whether held consciously or implicitly. I assume you're referring now to the rules of physics and the like?
The rules of chess....or rules for anything else for that matter, along with laws, imperatives, principles, maxims, a veritable plethora of logical guides....do not exist naturally. Therefore, they exist only because they had at one time been thought by rational agency, hence they are a priori in origin, and only subsequently put into a natural state (written down, exercised in a game, etc.) by that agency.
That doesn't make them a priori in origin at all. It simply means a human mind conceived them at one point. If we count any rule as a priori that human beings think up, then my rule of not eating after 8pm is an a priori truth. That's a strange way of describing things.
Besides, experience is certainly involved in rule formation in many respects, like cooking or sports. They're not created by deduction alone and are certainly not true by necessity, as 2+2=4 is.
What’s the difference? Rules may become public, but they never initialize publicly.
————-
Quoting Xtrix
Categorical error: rules are not necessarily related to truth. If it were to be impossible for you ever to eat after 8pm, the truth of it holds but it is not a rule. If you are ever forced to eat after 8pm, the rule holds but the truth of it does not. Otherwise, if you choose to not eat after 8pm because of a rule of your own instruction, then it is true you adhere to the rule, but that doesn’t say the rule in itself, is a necessary truth. You could have not eaten after 8pm because you’d just eaten at 7:45, or you’ve had a heart attack.....any one of an innumerable set of contingencies.
Strange indeed.
the discipline which makes idiots and fools seem like brilliant, most probaly that is why it was invented. It's all look-alike, what do you think? We were good before philosophy came into being, or not?
Lovers of wisdom is of course ridiculous, cause a fool cannot be a lover of anything.
I've read about Chomsky in both linguistics and politics. If you go to this bibliography and to Chomsky's official website at MIT, you will see how these are the subjects of his work. I don't know that he has written an article on science and Galileo - a book, of course not - but if you have that reference I would like to know about it. And a word of advice: you should be careful about your risky claims about what your opponent has or has not read. The shot may hit you in your own foot.
Quoting Xtrix
Basic confusion: hypothesis can be speculation, but what differentiates it from metaphysical speculation is that it can be proven through experience.
Quoting Xtrix
Don't you know what it's like to write a formula mathematically? Gee, you're really lost.
Quoting Xtrix
I am not giving you more details of the article because it is one of hundreds you can find on this subject in an academic search engine. Incidentally, this belies Hilary Putnam's cavalier claim that the description of the scientific method in terms of "inductive logic" is outdated.
Your quote from Putnam is nothing more than a series of opinions poured out on a television show, which is not very interesting unless they are more reasoned. He is attacking a vision of the scientific method that did not defend even his worst enemy: Willard Van Orman Quine. It is absurd to pretend that all scientists "consciously" apply the scientific method. No one defends such a thing. That's why Putnam is attacking windmills. If you can't offer something else, I'm afraid there's little to discuss here.
You can apply the concept of science to whatever you want. You can apply it to the ritual dance of the geese in heat, if you like. As you expand it it will become more and more vague until it becomes meaningless. If you want you can put philosophy, science, alchemy, parapsychology and Donald Trump's twitters in the same bag. But that only serves to create confusion. What we are discussing is the difference between science (in the strict sense of what is done today as such) and philosophy (to the extent that this concept can be clarified) and for that, Trump's sermons have little to do with it.
For example, Putnam repeatedly speaks of philosophy and science as two different things. What is the basis for this difference? That's what's interesting.
And if you don't know exactly what Putnam is saying, why do you quote him?
The description of the hypothetical-deductive method may need many nuances. In fact, it does. Nobody thinks that Stuart Mill's methods of inductive logic are applicable to the letter (although Putnam seems to think so). But they are useful concepts to understand something that is an obviousness repeatedly forgotten by relativist philosophers in the middle of their mental entanglements: there is a clear difference between the activity of a philosopher and a scientist and that difference refers to the contrast of their statements by experience.
The rest is mandangas.
If you do not want to get into the mess of the undifferentiated and call what the Greeks did science, you will have to distinguish ancient science from modern science. Okay, make the distinction yourself.
They do initialize publicly. Rules get created or destroyed all the time based on experiences. The 3-second violation in basketball was created based on what was happening in the game - namely, players hanging out under the hoop.
This happens all the time. If this counts as "a priori," what isn't a priori?
https://chomsky.info/201401__/
Chomsky is also a historian. There are others, and videos online as well. He discusses the mechanical philosophy of the early scientific revolution, and how the concept of mind-body dissolves when it's realized that there is no concept of "body" after Newton.
I can link up others if you're interested, but I'd have to look for them.
Quoting David Mo
In that case there's no risk: I'd be happy to be proven wrong. It's less work for me if my interlocutor knows whathe or she is talking about.
Quoting David Mo
All you're doing is defining anything that can't be "proven" as "metaphysical." In that case, monads are either still a metaphysical proposition, or they've been disproven and thus were never metaphysical.
That's a matter of definition, and in my view quite a useless one.
Quoting David Mo
This is irrelevant, but yes. I also know that plenty of science goes on without mathematical formulas. So again, context matters.
Quoting David Mo
Oy. Okay. See my prior post about examples being dismissed. You've defined it all out of existence. So have it your way: no experiments or science happened prior to the 16th century and the development of the "new science." In that case, Archimedes, Aristarchus, etc, were all doing something else- call it "primitive science" or whatever you like. I have no qualms with defining things however we like. I can also claim there was no real transportation prior to the development of the car if I chose to. Would make sense given that premise.
I'm also very impressed that you put his full name. I'm sure you didn't look that one up. ;)
"Intuitively fairly clear." Sure, who would disagree?
Quoting David Mo
The implication being that I wasn't aware of this until you cited it? What were you saying before about "risky" assumptions?
Quoting David Mo
This is incoherent. Could you rephrase?
Quoting David Mo
So they apply this "method" how? Unconsciously?
Or, perhaps, the notion of a "method" is honorific to begin with?
Quoting David Mo
What's becoming more interesting to me is your attachment to such a notion.
You still haven't shown there is a method. Now you're saying there is one and it's not used consciously. Before you said you want to restrict this to "natural sciences," that there are always exceptions, etc. So what's left other than what I initially stated: it's fine to talk about, and there are indeed examples, but we shouldn't take it too seriously.
I agree wholeheartedly. That would be meaningless indeed.
Quoting David Mo
I think so to. They have similarities and differences. But like I've said before, a major difference is that one is ontological, the other ontical. Here I agree with Heidegger. Given this provisional distinction, the questions, problems, methods, observations, data collection, experimentation, mathematical formulations, etc, of physics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, linguistics, etc, are certainly not philosophy, even though they have an ontological basis.
You may disagree with the wording, but fundamentally I'm sure you agree. That leaves us only in disagreement about the existence of a scientific method as being the distinguishing factor between philosophy and science. I don't see us coming to a consensus on that point, but I'll gladly stipulate its existence if that's helpful to moving the discussion further along - it makes no real difference to me. The topic of the thread is "What is philosophy?"
To loop it back to where this digression started:
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
I see no reason to change these statements.
I quoted Putnam because you asked for one, and seemingly never watched the video - which I said from the start was merely an introduction to the philosophy of science. Putnam has a number of books on the subject, if you're interested. Philosophy in the Age of Science: Physics, Mathematics and Skepticism is a decent start.
Quoting David Mo
If you watch the entire video, there's much more context and it's well reasoned indeed -- unlike, say, your claims about "experimentation and mathematization" being the essence of the so-called "method."
Stating "that's just your opinion" is a true sign that one has no argument left. As is attacking the format. (Who cares if it's television or not?)
Chomsky's not a historian. To make an occasional reflection on the history of a problem does not make him a historian. The article you quote does not even refer to the scientific method but to mind-body dualism.
Quoting Xtrix
No. I'm excluding from science everything that can't be proven by controlled experience. Metaphysics is just another case. And that is not a matter of mere definition. It's a real difference between ways of knowing: it can be proven or not.
Quoting Xtrix
If you had quoted him correctly you would have saved me minutes of searching through pages that referred to the Islamist state.
Quoting Xtrix
So you recognize that there is a clear difference between the method of science and that of philosophy? Case closed.
Quoting Xtrix
Hey, didn't you say there was a clear difference between the scientific method of experimentation and observation? Now there is no difference?
Quoting Xtrix
One can speak in prose without knowing the difference between prose and poetry. . Moliére.
The difference between ontical and ontological in Heidegger is as confusing as everything about him. I'd like to know how you understand it.
Quoting Xtrix
I thought we had reached a conclusion about the clear difference between observation and controlled experimentation.
If you have understood that, you will arrive at a clear difference between philosophy and science in terms of method: the use of controlled experimentation (or controlled observation in its absence) to test the validity of statements.
Not that the scientific method is reduced to that. But it is a first step.
Yes, he is. His writings are not restricted to the history of science.
Quoting David Mo
I never quoted him.
Quoting David Mo
It appears "intuitively fairly clear," yes. That's not saying much, nor did I ever claim there were no differences or that it doesn't indeed seem that they are district from one another.
Quoting David Mo
There is no method that accounts for the distinction, intuitive or otherwise. There certainly are differences and plenty of examples of such. I've said that from the beginning.
Quoting David Mo
So they're using this method, but it's invisible. And they started to do so around the 16th century - unconsciously.
Sounds less like a method and more like a mode of thought.
But without quoting him. ;)
Heidegger can be confusing, no doubt. A lot of the difficulty is the translation from German to English. But this is one case where he's clear. The "ontological difference" is how he refers to it: the difference is between being and beings.
Science is "ontical" in that it studies various domains of beings: nature, matter, life, humans, etc
Philosophy, or metaphysics, is ontological in that it thinks being.
Quoting David Mo
Experimentation is often involved in the natural sciences, but a great deal isn't. Controlled, careful observation is also important. I'd say the peer review process is also a very important one. Falsiability, predictive power, duplicability, the use of mathematics, and so on...all very important.
All are features of reflective thought aimed at understanding aspects of the ontical world, which is also deeply interconnected with philosophy. Where the "switchover" is said to take place - exactly where the demarcation line is - is completely unknown and, frankly, both a fruitless and pointless pursuit. It's only a vaguely defined word, and the human pursuit of understanding the world around us goes on one way or another, whether we say "natural philosophy" or "science" or episteme.
Well, I don't see any writings on history in his bibliography either. A historian who doesn't write history books is quite rare. Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
By the way, this is not a good distinction. Most contemporary philosophy does not deal with Being as Being, but with particular branches: philosophy of science, anthropology, philosophy of history, ethics, etc. You have an archaic concept of philosophy as the old metaphysics.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Let's get down to more serious business.
You're falling into an absolute contradiction. A clear distinction cannot be vague. Clear and vague are antonyms.
You give a good and clear list of characteristics that distinguish between philosophy and science. There is no science of the Being qua Being, but many philosophers (in the past) dealt with it. There is no philosopher (qua philosopher) who supports his philosophy with experimentation, who expresses his theories in a mathematical way or who makes precise predictions. If you know of a book on philosophy written in this way I would like to know about it.
The fact that some connection can be established between philosophy and the natural sciences (in the field of theoretical physics, or the interpretation of scientific theories, for example), that there is an undefinition in some special cases does not support your theory that science and philosophy are not clearly differentiated activities.
They are, and the obsession to erase all distinction lies in the hidden attempt to grant philosophy powers that it does not have.
Try 'The Pattern Paradigm'.
And this is not a good argument.
It's not "archaic" because no one has described philosophy that way -- besides Heidegger, perhaps. Is the 20th century archaic?
I'm not concerned with what "most contemporary philosophers" write about. I'm not convinced there are many philosophers, although there are plenty of philosophy scholars, historians, lecturers, etc. Regardless -- let them do what they want, much of it is decent work.
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting David Mo
That doesn't sound too good for me.
Quoting David Mo
Really? I could have sworn they were synonyms.
But seriously - yes, of course you're right, but I don't recall saying that the distinction between philosophy and science is a clear one. It may appear clear, it may be "intuitively" clear -- we may feel it in our guts that a very clear distinction exists -- all that I agree with: it does feel that way. But is it in fact clear? No. Especially when a "method" is invoked that is supposed to account for this "clear distinction." On closer inspection, it's rather vague, rather fuzzy, the boundaries are blurred, and the motivation for wanting there to be a clear demarcation line is itself questionable.
All of the factors I mentioned above do indeed seem to be involved in what science "is."
Quoting David Mo
There is: ontology - the science of being.
Quoting David Mo
Principles of Philosophy, by Descartes. But it doesn't matter anyway, because the "qua philosopher" part is nonsense. You simply want to confine philosophy to speculations -- which we all can do if we choose to. But as I've repeatedly said, I think at best it's questionable to do so.
So in that case, anything Descartes or Liebniz or anyone else writes that's mathematical or experimental or predictive will simply not qualify as philosophy.
If I'm archaic, you're certainly taking the current university department organization too seriously. Modern physics is indeed different than modern philosophy -- but back in the 17th century what Newton was doing was considered natural philosophy. So pick your starting point -- are you talking about what "philosophers and scientists do NOW," as you stated at the beginning of this discussion, or about what they did in the 17th and 18th centuries? If the latter, then you won't have to go far looking for books. Unless of evaluate the writings using a 21st century criterion -- in which case you'll have to sort out Newton's "science" from his "philosophy," as well as Descartes' and Galileo's. But that's anachronistic, and no better than my claiming because their writings were considered natural philosophy then that it should be considered natural philosophy now -- as you alleged I was doing before. (And I do think there's something to it, but as long as we're ruling it out...)
I know you believe there was, at one time, a point where "philosophy" (all the soaring speculations that seem laughable today, like monads -- by your interpretation) and "science" (an activity characterized by a method involving experimentation and mathematics) parted ways. I believe this is a matter of definition mainly due to increased specialization, a division of labor within academia that, as I've said before, is fine for organizing college majors and departments, but really shouldn't be taken that seriously.
Quoting David Mo
It does.
It certainly doesn't support your thesis. Because if they are so clearly distinct, why the confusion about which is which?
Quoting David Mo
No obsession. Personally it's a minor issue. Since "philosophy" and "science" aren't clearly understood as practices anyway, there's little point in arguing about whether they're separate, interconnected, or the same. You have to know something about these subjects beforehand, and this means not only knowing the questions and problems about which they're concerned, but their history as well. I see little understanding of either, both in the general culture and on this very forum, so once again we're left with people throwing "definitions" around without a context, based solely on "intuitions" and maybe a few philosophy books.
"Natural philosophy" is still a fine way to think about it -- If it was good enough for Galileo and Newton, it's good enough for me. Science deals with nature, in a reflective, abstract way. Sometimes they perform experiments, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they simply cannot perform the obvious experiments (in studying the human language capacity, for example). The very term "nature" comes from philosophy, as a Latin translation of the Greek term for being, "phusis." Nature is now conceived as matter in motion, as atoms and molecules, acted on by forces.
It's not about giving philosophy more "power" -- this is exactly what underlies your intense desire for a clear distinction, a kind of fear of religious-like superstition and mysticism creeping into the "truth" and "facts" that science gives us.
So again, by all means define them any way you like. As far as making a compelling argument, I'm not at all convinced. But maybe I'm just archaic!
I think that's wrong, in an interesting way. Antonyms are a good example of how two (or more) concepts can be vague in having fuzzy borders, but yet also be clearly distinct and mutually exclusive, because their fuzzy borders are kept a sufficient distance apart.
Thus, black and white may each have a vague border with grey, but in that way remain perfectly distinct from each other. More here.
Pardon my interjection. I doubt that anyone here is claiming science and philosophy to be mutually exclusive in any particular respect. :chin:
I took a look at the sample pages in Google Books. At least in these I haven't found any example where the author starts from a mathematized hypothesis, establishes precise predictions and checks them in the experience. I think this is not an example of a philosopher using the scientific method.
As I said above, it is very difficult to find words without any vagueness, except for well-defined concepts in science. But giving a rude example, you know perfectly well the difference between black and white, although you probably won't be able to discern whether some greys are blacker than whites. Or you know exactly where a boundary is crossed even though you could not tell exactly whether a person is on one side of the line or the other.
Citing some confusing examples to invalidate a definition of a word would mean throwing away the dictionaries.
You've chosen the worst example of all for your interests. Descartes was fully aware of the difference between his metaphysics and his treatise on optics. In the former his reasoning was philosophical-metaphysical, in the latter he boasted of having done a hundred experiments before affirming a thesis. According to your own definition you will not find in the Metaphysical Meditations -or the Principles of Philosophy if you like- any trace of falsiability, predictive power, duplicability, use of mathematics, and so on... which according to yourself are properly scientific activities. When Descartes proposes a universal method is not thinking in pure science, but a philosophy similar to science in rigor. Of course, he failed because he was thinking in deductive forms. He was not for nothing the clearest example of 17th century rationalism.
And the same for any book of philosophy that you can quote here. Two different methods two different branches of knowledge.
Quoting Xtrix
Just because France and Spain have relations does not mean that they are the same state. Ditto for philosophy and science.
The term intuitive in philosophy does not mean apparent as opposite to essential. Intuitive is immediate, without the need for supporting reasoning. Just as intuitively I see that black is not white. In any case you yourself contributed some characteristics which do not intuitively point out the difference between philosophy and science. Let's stick to them. I'm doing it and it seems like I'm creating some problems for you that you don't know how to solve. See your incorrect view of Descartes above.
Quoting Xtrix
Because of the mistakes you make, I don't see that you know so much about the history of philosophy in general and of that of the last centuries in particular to give lessons to others. This is a forum for philosophy amateurs and we all have our limits. To discuss it in depth, go to a postgraduate master's degree. You will see that things are quite different.
It's a very good argument that you only solve by getting rid of most of the contemporary philosophers. If you give a definition of philosophy that does not correspond to what philosophers do, you eliminate the philosophers and the definition fits you.
The dog is an animal that flies low when it rains.
Hey, dogs don't fly.
I'm not interested in dogs that don't fly.
That way it's easy to make "natural philosophy" dictionaries.
I’m only partially following this conversation so I can’t speak for David, but I agree with him that there is a clear line between science and philosophy, and I don’t agree at all that philosophy is just about speculation. Speculative philosophy happens when philosophy tries to cross over into the domain of science, without “doing as the scientists do” when there. If your philosophy is making claims of the kind that science could possibly prove wrong, your philosophy is overstepping its bounds.
The relationship between philosophy and science is not one of two different approaches to the same questions. Rather, philosophy is (in part) about the questions that underlie science’s approach to its questions. Philosophy is (in part) meta-science: the study of how to do the things science is trying to do and why to do them that way instead of some other way.
Yes, because there is a difference: one is concerned with beings and beings as such, one is part of natural philosophy, namely the questioning, theoretical and experimental attempt to understand light and vision. The latter has now been classified as "science," and the former to "philosophy" -- mainly in academia and mainly for practical purposes. But not because of an adherence to a mythical method. There are many methods in our attempts to understand the world -- theoretical methods, experimental methods, social methods, etc. To argue that Descartes stopped doing philosophy the moment he started experimenting with light is fine, but the fundamental beliefs, conceptual and theoretical aspects don't therefore disappear. So at best we can say he was doing natural philosophy, namely the science of optics. You can't do science without philosophy, even if defined by the aspects I mentioned.
Quoting David Mo
I'm not saying philosophy and science are the same.
You can define them any way you like, without evidence, and be satisfied with that. If you want them to be completely separate, that's fine. It says more about your psychology than anything about philosophy or science, though. As I said, personally I think it's a minor issue and rather silly. If it has any impact at all, I think it's a poor one -- namely that scientists are dismissive of the philosophical underpinnings of their technical work.
Quoting David Mo
So we're now appealing to intuition and common sense? Come on. I prefer a historical perspective, with plenty of evidence.
Quoting David Mo
Oh, is that what's happening? Too bad for me.
I don't see any unsolvable problems that you're presenting. The point stands exactly as it was at the beginning of this digression: philosophy and science do appear very different, but there's no rule or method to determine which is which -- nor should there be, in my view. If we in the 21st century want to take seriously the clear lines drawn by schools and believe this has some bearing on how human beings approach the world, that's fine. I don't take that seriously. Historically speaking, science has developed as different from philosophy for many reasons, but they can never be separated completely in my view -- even if we accept the inductive method. Unless of course we want to relegate philosophy to the realm of the superstitious.
Whatever Descartes was doing, or Galileo, or Newton, they themselves viewed as "natural philosophy." They're usually agreed to be the founders of modern science. We don't have to take this seriously, and things have certainly changed in the last 400 years, but I'm far more inclined to take them seriously when determining how to categorize human inquiry than I am the modern university curricula and the widespread scientism of our day.
If I've made mistakes, you've certainly not demonstrated them in this discussion -- except perhaps writing "Aristarchus" instead of "Eratosthenes," which I conceded. The rest is your illusion, including the remarks about Descartes, which I anticipated immediately after giving that example and which you ignored.
You've repeatedly misunderstood what I've said, however, even after I clearly laid out what I was NOT saying to aid clarification.
Quoting David Mo
So citing what "contemporary philosophers do" is a good argument against philosophy being ontological. Why? Who's to say they're doing philosophy anything? You? Academia? Degrees?
Regardless, I'm sure there's plenty of interest in ontology in contemporary scholarship, just as there is in the sciences. So what? This isn't even an argument, really -- it's just a fatuous remark.
Quoting David Mo
Philosophy is what contemporary philosophers do. This is essentially your response to my (and Heidegger's) statement that philosophy is ontological. If you can't see how this is, at best, irrelevant -- I won't bother explaining it.
If "speculative philosophy" is making claims about the world that can be proven wrong, it's natural philosophy. Science engages in speculations all the time -- in hypothesizing, in explanatory theories, etc. Sometimes it takes years to test these ideas. Is this all "speculative philosophy" until an experiment is conducted?
You claim there's a clear line, but I see little evidence for one. I see only a matter of definition, with questionable motivation: on this hand, fact, on the other, soaring speculation. Think that way if you must.
Quoting Pfhorrest
OR -- philosophy is ontological while science is ontical. That's not the same thing, no, but you can't do one without the other.
In other words, science, which no longer falls under the umbrella of philosophy.
Quoting Xtrix
No, that’s just science, presuming they aim for the things they speculate about to be testable and eventually tested, and aren’t just armchair positing things to be so without respect for whether observation agrees or not.
Quoting Xtrix
I think you missed my entire point, which is that philosophy done properly isn’t at all about speculating on the same subject matters that science investigates. Such speculation is either philosophy overstepping its bounds, or badly done attempts at science. That kind of baseless speculation is neither proper philosophy nor proper science. Science investigates the same subject matter in a better way. Philosophy investigates a different subject matter entirely: higher-order question about conducting such investigations.
And the latter is what philosophers supposedly do?
Quoting Pfhorrest
Science investigates domains of beings in nature -- physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology. Hence branches of natural philosophy -- which is indeed different from "general" philosophy in the sense of dealing with being. The "natural" part indicates a difference: the investigating, thinking about, speculating about, hypothesizing about, etc -- "natural" beings, beings in "nature" (which in the modern sense means essentially matter in motion; from the same word we get "physics").
The subject matter of natural philosophy is indeed different, but in itself has a philosophical basis -- in this case, "nature."
Quoting Pfhorrest
Speculating about an indivisible unit which constitutes the world was what Democritus was doing -- I assume you don't call this science. Certainly testable, however. Turns out, centuries later, albeit very differently formulated, we have come around to a similar view. Both the same subject matter: what the world is made of. However you'd like to categorize it is irrelevant -- call what Democritus was doing "philosophy" or "speculation" or primitive science, or anything you like -- but they're not separate subjects.
No. The entire reason I started posting here again was to day no to that. I don’t know how much clearer I can be.
Quoting Xtrix
Democritus lived in a time before philosophy and science were clearly differentiated. Pythagoras did mathematics under the name of “philosophy” too. That doesn’t mean that, today, math is just a kind of philosophy.
Tangent, but; do you think there are interesting philosophical questions about the metaphysics of objects that don't strongly emphasize human interaction with the objects, or the fact that it's a human asking the question?
True, but this is completely irrelevant.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Well that's debatable too. Is logic a kind of philosophy? Many have tried to reduce mathematics, at least arithmetic, to logic.
Yes to both, if I'm understanding you correctly.
Fair enough. It is more of a philosophical synthesis from a mathematical foundation.
No, it’s completely relevant. Democritus was doing stuff under the name of “philosophy” that was both primitive science and primitive philosophy because neither was well defined yet at that time. Speculating about atoms was neither good science nor good philosophy, by today’s standards and best practices, because best practices for neither existed yet at the time. In general, that kind of baseless speculation is seen as fitting of neither science nor philosophy today.
Quoting Xtrix
Logic is a tool of both mathematics and philosophy. That bit of overlap doesn’t mean the two are the same though. Pythagoras’ reasoning about triangles is not philosophy in the sense we now use the word, even though it formed part of his philosophy as they used the word back then.
Likewise Newton’s Principia is not a work of philosophy as we now use the word, even though it has “Natural Philosophy” in the title, because what was once called “natural philosophy” is now considered a different field outside of philosophy in today’s sense of the word: something we call “science” instead.
I don't know why you say "baseless" -- it was speculation on what the world is made of based on at least some observation, experience, deduction. And however we classify it, it turned out to be very close to what we currently believe about matter.
Quoting Pfhorrest
When have I said they're the same? I fully concede that mathematics and logic are different things, regardless of any reduction.
Quoting Pfhorrest
But that's the point of this discussion, to find out what we mean by philosophy right now. I fully agree that how we think of philosophy now is different than in the past -- that doesn't make it correct.
“Baseless” is maybe a bit too harsh, but the point is that Democritus wasn’t presenting something that we today would call a scientific theory, with proposed observable consequences that could (dis)prove it. Nor was he engaging in a priori reasoning about abstract concepts. He was just saying “hey I think the world is like this”. That’s fine for his time, I don’t knock the guy, it’s just neither good science nor good philosophy by today standards.
Well I don't necessarily agree with that characterization, but I understand what you're getting at. Again I'd revert back to what I said before: appealing to common notions of what philosophy does now doesn't prove much and is in fact what we've all been trying to define. You notice there are multiple definitions, so it's not as if we're in total agreement even today.
"Science" wasn't even a word until I believe the 15th century. That doesn't prove much either.
Spot on.
To be more precise it is a mind activity. An activity of expressing your mind. The output of philosophical thought is information about the mind activity of the philosopher.
So:
[b]Philosophy is an expression of human consciousness ( mind activity ).
Philosophical work is information about the mind activity ( consciousness ) of the philosopher.[/b]
This I take to be self evident, but some people don't get it until they are asked to produce a philosophical work that is not an expression of the philosophers mind activity! - not logically possible.
The question becomes can philosophy produce more then an expression of mind activity?
In a related thread - what is certain in philosophy? - the outcome was - Cogito, ergo sum.
But: I think therefore I am is information about the mind activity of Descartes.
It is an expression of his consciousness!
To confound things a little.
Art is an expression of human consciousness.
Art work is information about the artist's consciousness.
I totally agree. Thank you for your clarification.
On a slight tangent from this discussion, I've started sort of a sequel to this thread, on the subject of progress in philosophy, which I think is very closely related to the relationship between philosophy and science:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8432/does-philosophy-make-progress-if-so-how
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
Maybe this is all a matter of common sense. Don't be so dismissive of common sense, because even philosophers use it. Sometimes quite badly. But the intuition of which the text I quoted spoke was not that of common sense, but the old philosophical intuition, that of Kant or Descartes: the immediate grasp of something as evident in itself. Or do you have many reasons for distinguishing white from black? Do you not distinguish them immediately? It would be surprising.
However, apart from the intuitive clarity with which one immediately sees that science and philosophy are not the same, according to the author of the text, I think I have given you plenty of reasons to justify that distinction. But you have preferred not to see them. Don't blame me.
There is no rule for you to differentiate philosophy from science because when some more or less precise criteria are given - even by yourself - you turn a blind eye.
The debate would be quickly closed if you gave the example of a philosopher who supports his philosophy with experimentation, who expresses his theories in a mathematical way or who makes precise predictions. A book about this Being as Being preferably. Applying your own criteria to your own definition of science.
You can't do it. Therefore, you try to cheat. You take some philosophers of the past who were also scientists-when science and philosophy were not clearly differentiated, as Pfhorrest told you- and put their books under the old name of "philosophia naturalis". Of course this is not a special subject of study. There is no faculty of Philosophia Naturalis in the world. No subject, no science. If you want to invent a name for this nothing I suggest "Totumlogy". or "Totum Revolutum". Because for the "science" of Being as Being there is already a name: Ontology. And it has nothing to do with Physics or Biology, but it is a particular branch of philosophy. Well differentiated, by the way. It is a name from the times when many priests disguised as philosophers were trying to say the scientists and free thinkers what they could think and what they couldn't. A timeworn name, it is clear. I think this is the main reason why today is not a very popular name among philosophers.
I could point out a few things you've written that an expert in philosophy would not have said. You haven't studied philosophy in a faculty and it shows. It's not serious. I'm not a philosopher by profession either, and this is not a forum for professionals. But I'm not trying to belittle amateurs like me. It's not humility. It's common sense. Because sometimes they can show me that I'm arguing about things that I don't master and if I've pretended before that I'm the wisest I'd be very embarrassed. It's a matter of self-esteem.
Because if you exclude by definition most of the class of objects that are usually called X, what the hell should we call them? That's what's called making a persuasive definition. An anti-philosophical vice.
Quoting Xtrix
If you define philosophy as ontology (which I don't know if it's Heidegger's or your own invention) you leave out of philosophy most of today's philosophers, who don't talk about being as such, but about particular issues such as ethics, for example. I already told you that. I repeat it now. Your definition is exclusive, that is, a bad definition.
No science deals with the Being as a Being. Each science has its own particular field. If you think the opposite, give an example. Do you know of any scientific article published in a scientific journal dedicated to the Being as a Being?
Therefore, scientists who study a parcel of reality (I prefer to talk about reality than about the undefined Heideggerian Being) do not care at all about the "being as being". They work on atomic particles, allergies, nebulae or electric cars. And nothing else. If you want to say that at certain levels scientists are interested on questions traditionally attributed to philosophy, the concept of matter, of truth or the role of induction in science, this may be true. It is also true that these questions cannot be answered today without scientific knowledge. Philosophy of science is a meeting point. But this meeting point is as far from Heidegger's metaphysics as two different galaxies that get away more and more.
“....it must still remain a scandal to philosophy and to the general human reason to be obliged to assume, as an article of mere belief, the existence of things external to ourselves (from which, yet, we derive the whole material of cognition for the internal sense), and not to be able to offer a satisfactory proof to any one who may call it in question....”
(CPR Bxl)
Knowledge of what a thing is presupposes knowledge that a thing is, from which follows the study of the being of things in general is both redundant and superfluous. It is absurd to suppose the thing which indubitably affects human sensibility isn’t proven to exist by the affect that it has, otherwise we are met with the contradiction “...we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears...”
Philosophy and science are necessarily connected by the universal commonality of the human intellect that indulges in both. As such, both philosophy and science answer to that intellect, hence the ontological paradigm of theoretical speculation......
“....Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose. To this single idea must the revolution be ascribed, by which, after groping in the dark for so many centuries, natural science was at length conducted into the path of certain progress....”
(Ibid Bxiii)
......, or, on the other hand, is it more the case that we actually are the “pupil” and must take what the “master” allows us to have, hence the ontic paradigm of absolute transcendent determinism? And while the speculative process contains no apodeictic certainty, it seems much the worse that the ontic process makes no allowance for the fundamental conditions of the human cognitive system, which is solely responsible for, not what we know, but rather, how it is possible to know anything.
All that to say this: I’m pretty sure scientists don’t care all that much about being qua being, and I’m almost positive Everydayman doesn’t give a damn about it at all.
What Banno is presenting, if I had to pick a category, is similar to what's called "analytic philosophy," of which I imagine you're familiar. Personally, the traditions of materialism, empiricism, positivism, naturalism, analytical and perhaps "linguistic" philosophy and even what's called "scientism" (not meant pejoratively) seem to share many features in common, and are all incredibly powerful perspectives.
What you say is similar. There's an emphasis on concepts of "mind" and "information" (of which I assume you're using as a synonym for "knowledge", but correct me if I'm wrong), and you seem to agree about the muddled ways of "saying things" (which I read as "propositions") and the identifying, analyzing, and clarifying of those assertions being central to the mind activity we're calling "philosophy."
If I've got all that right, then I think this conception of philosophy is in that tradition and is a very important and very powerful interpretation.
The "come on" was perhaps too colloquial, but what I meant there is that we cannot only appeal to intuition when attempting to formulate a technical notion, which is partly how I see the question of this thread, namely "What is a good technical definition of philosophy?" Many have offered very interesting answers -- but like in science, while common sense notions may be important (in folk science, psychology, etc), within an explanatory theory, they cannot be the final word. I'm sure you agree with this.
So then we have to ask: what is your "theory" or perspective, in which you're defining a technical notion, like "philosophy" and "science" themselves?
If we're not asking ourselves that question, or we don't fully understand it (perhaps in part by ignoring history), then we turn that perspective into a matter of faith, as it's off limits to inquiry.
I've been clear from fairly early on from what perspective I approach these issues, and even put a label on myself: I approach all of this very much as a "Heideggerian" -- which I think is a very important and enriching perspective, but could also be completely wrong. Nevertheless, Heidegger is a central influence.
Since it is from within this framework that I start giving a definition of "philosophy" or "science," and both these and peripheral notions are defined very differently than yours, I think we're often talking past one another. You're coming at the same words from a very different tradition.
I have heard you loud and clear. You've said repeatedly that mathematicization and experimentation are key features of at least modern science. I myself gave a list of possible attributes of science, which you stated you thought were accurate. But I could have "intuitions" about things and make attempts at "defining" them as well -- like "energy" (how much stamina I have at any point) or "work" (somewhere you spend 40 hours a week) or "the meaning of life," etc. All the while giving perfectly sensible reasons. But that doesn't mean I'm using "energy" or "work" as it's used in physics. In fact, the guy next to me on the train could come up with a different definition based on his intuitions.
Quoting David Mo
Because I (1) don't believe any of those criteria are "precise," and (2) I see both philosophy and science as also similar in certain respects: like the use of abstraction, de-"worlding," assuming a subject/object dichotomy, assuming the "world as rational" or that we're the rational animal, and (most importantly) treating the world as a present-at-hand "fact" -- meaning privileging the present -- e.g., the "unchanging," the "permanent," the constant, the "persistent," etc. -- or, from the history of philosophy, the "idea," "substance" (?????), "God," "matter," etc.
To define science or philosophy is to do so already in a philosophical tradition (inheritance from history) -- we all have our influences and assumptions, we all use the words and concepts of the past. I feel like you're minimizing or ignoring this point, and so trying (like others on this thread) to offer a definition of philosophy (and science) without explaining the larger philosophical context in which you're giving said definition. Now if I were to guess -- based on your mention of Wittgenstein, your wanting to clearly separate science and philosophy, and your boredom with, or outright derision of, Heidegger -- I would imagine you yourself would acknowledge more affinity to the analytic philosophers -- perhaps Russell, Quine...maybe Tarski, Kripke, etc. Is that not so?
I think at this point it would do well to flush out that larger context, given that we've now written plenty of words about what we think science and philosophy are. Without that context, and the extra work it entails, one can define things any way one likes -- or even appeal to the dictionary. I don't think that's very interesting -- we'll run in circles.
I don't put their books under "natural philosophy," they do. If nothing else, is that not an interesting historical fact? Just take it as that alone. That doesn't mean I'm saying philosophy and science are the same thing. Philosophy and natural philosophy aren't the same thing either.
I don't understand what you mean by "there is no faculty of [natural philosophy] in the world." There's clearly a faculty of the human mind (call it the "science-forming capacity") that's conceiving an idea of "nature" and attempting to understand it in various domains, like "life" (biology), "stars and planets" (astronomy), "matter" (chemistry), "language" (linguistics), etc. All of these things scientists would say are part of nature -- unless they're "magic." So I don't see your point. Call it natural science if you want -- makes no difference.
As for ontology -- yes it is often viewed as another branch of philosophy. But what does philosophy really "think" if not existence, if not "being" in the broadest sense? How can philosophy not be ontological in that case? And if this isn't happening, and the focus is solely on a domain of beings -- then the pursuit is ontical. Natural philosophy (or natural science) is one such domain, along with all subdomains. But an interpretation of being pervades all of these fields regardless of whether it's questioned or thought about at all.
Well then please point them out -- I'm happy to learn.
Quoting David Mo
You mean as part of a faculty? Or in a university? Yes, I'm not part of any university faculty, that's true. I did, however, study philosophy in college, but only as a minor concentration.
I don't see how this is relevant, though, until it's clear where I go astray. In fact, most of what I've said is quasi (if not at times verbatim) Martin Heidegger, who was a tenured professor (if that's important to you) and, in my opinion at least, a very important philosopher indeed. So it's not about my credentials, really. Yet I repeat: I don't see where my mistakes are.
I've read everything you've written in response to me, and carefully, and have responded in turn. I mentioned one clear error I can recall: writing "Aristarchus." I'm fairly confident that what you claim are mistakes are simply your misreadings (of which there are plenty of examples in this thread).
Otherwise my point stands. And again -- happy to stand corrected.
Quoting David Mo
Sure. But why do you associate this with me? If I've "belittled" anyone it wasn't intended, and I've never claimed to be the "wisest" person.
Making a persuasive definition is an anti-philosophical vice? That's puzzling, if that's what you're saying.
But as far as the first sentence goes -- I'm not necessarily excluding anything. Whatever we call "x," we look to history, to etymology, to our own experiences, and see if the term has a broader meaning that includes X as a subset, whether it's being mis-labeled or misunderstood, how the meaning has evolved, etc.
When you do that with the word "philosophy," for example, you see how the meaning has changed in part by the influence of the sciences, in part by professionalization and specialization, university departments and majors, etc. Most of those we call "philosophers" of the past weren't professors of philosophy, after all -- with obvious exceptions (Kant, Hegel, etc). So who cares about professorships and Ph.D.s? If they're not saying anything new or interesting about the core of philosophy, or haven't at least thought the question of being through for themselves, then we may still label them as "doing" philosophy, but to me it's a pretty strange thing. It's the difference between teaching literature and writing.
So while we shouldn't exclude anything on the basis of what it has been in the past (as I think you believe I'm doing), we also shouldn't exclude what's past simply because it doesn't correspond to what's contemporaneous.
Quoting David Mo
It's Heidegger's.
Quoting David Mo
But if they're philosophers, then they don't study ethics or beauty or knowledge in a vacuum. If they do, then yes I wouldn't consider them philosophers at all. I'd call them perhaps "teachers" or even "scientists," concerned with whatever domain of beings they're interested in without any questioning of being.
An important clarification, though: The best philosophers (if I could make a value judgment) are not exclusively concerned with 'being,' of course -- in that case I'd be arguing that Plato and Aristotle aren't philosophers, since they engaged in political theory, ethics, aesthetics, etc. Is that what you think I'm arguing?
Quoting David Mo
I don't think I'm doing that in the sense you mean. One can certainly study mainly ethics, or optics, or aesthetics, or civil engineering, anything else one pleases and still be a philosopher. This is what I was referring to above.
But regardless: what definition doesn't exclude something? (Besides "being" perhaps.) If all definitions that exclude something are "bad," then nearly all definitions are bad. "Tree" is bad -- it excludes bushes. And rocks.
Right, because being isn't a being (an entity) at all.
Quoting David Mo
I don't.
Quoting David Mo
No, because I have no idea what "the Being" would mean, nor why it's capitalized.
Quoting David Mo
That's probably true in most cases, yes. Most scientists are really not interesting in philosophy. But I think that's a very unfortunate mistake.
It's also interesting you use "reality" -- Heidegger has a lot to say about that concept and its history as well.
Quoting David Mo
It's the last part that has me thinking you're more of a positivist. But of course it depends on what you mean by "scientific knowledge." If you mean objective truth, or finding mechanical or material causes, rules, principles, etc., then no -- science simply can't explain everything, given its ontology (for example, the being of the "ready-to-hand" -- our dealings with equipment, our concern, our purposes, etc). If by science we mean "trying to understand the world," then sure -- no questions can be answered without science.
And probably many whom we call "philosophers" today. I hope that's not true, but it may very well be. In school I encountered plenty of philosophy teachers, but for the most part they were interpreting and popularizing the great thinkers of the past and their texts, almost as part of a "history of philosophy," but with no clear indication that they ever thought "being" for themselves. I think that's a shame.
I'm sorry I don't have time for the huge task of correcting your comments. I'm probably not qualified either. But if this is any indication: you did not understand (I think you still do not) the concept of intuition in Kantian philosophy and its consequences in contemporary philosophy. Nor did you know the importance of controlled experimentation in the emergence of the New Science. You claim to be Heideggerian, but you do not handle the concepts of the ontological and ontic as Heidegger does. Etc., etc., etc.
I find very interesting the study of ancient philosophy. It is a sensitive subject to me for family reasons. But if you don't understand that current philosophy is very different you are lost. And what I was trying is to speak of philosophy now. What philosophers do now?
That's because you don't know what positivism is. (Make a note of that). If I were a positivist I would say that all possible knowledge comes down to science and that all human problems can be solved by science. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that all "objective" knowledge -about facts in the world- comes down to science. Which leaves the field open for other types of knowledge, including philosophy. What I agree with the positivists is that metaphysics, more specifically ontology, is a false science that has done much damage to the reputation of philosophy. But Kant already said this in his Critique of Pure Reason: a scandal. And he was not a positivist.
Maybe it’s as simple as finding no profit in questioning the experience of our observations. Perception presupposes existence, therefore to question either makes for no progress in seeking knowledge. The same holds for possible experience, if it should be the case that, e.g., mathematics, and synthetic a priori cognitions in general, logically sustains that which humans presently conceive but may only eventually observe.
And those modern philosophers who don’t question being qua being, may still be guilty of radicalizing the bejesus out of concept, by theorizing different kinds of being, under different conditions, etc., which, of course, is anathema to pure philosophy. Even Feynman, a combined super-scientist and closet philosopher if there ever was one, posited that if we don’t know which path an electron took to arrive at some observable location, we are justified in supposing it to have taken every possible path (paraphrased sum over histories). But still, that is really nothing more than “...a lame appeal to a logical condition...”, meaning the fact the proposition is not self-contradictory doesn’t say anything worthwhile about its subject.
—————-
Quoting Xtrix
Relations? And if it is humans that are asking, then that which is asked about must ultimately reduce to a relation between it and humans. It follows that at least some fundamental genus of philosophy relates what is, to what we think of it.
I haven't attempted to define being in general. But every particular being or class of beings "is," including language and norms. A pre-theoretical understanding of being permeates everything we do and everything we think; philosophy thinks and interprets being. That shouldn't be controversial.
And because Aristotle wrote on ethics, logic, biology, etc., doesn't mean he's excluded from this definition.
Quoting David Mo
But qualified enough to recognize them.
Quoting David Mo
I don't remember discussing the Kantian use of intuition in this thread. I don't see how I can be mistaken about something I've made no claims about.
Quoting David Mo
Who doesn't know that? Where did I say that experimentation wasn't an important factor in science, or the beginning or modern science? Of course it's important. You're projecting a position on to me which I simply don't hold. I never said it wasn't important, I said that making it the basis for a "scientific method" which is supposed to separate science and philosophy is unconvincing, no matter how often it's repeated, and that there are plenty of exceptions in science -- i.e., where controlled experimentation isn't used or isn't possible.
That's not saying experimentation isn't important, whether in the 17th century or now.
Quoting David Mo
I do. You're simply wrong. I've explained the distinction a couple of times very clearly: the ontological concerns being as such, the ontical concerns beings.
Here's a quote from Heidegger himself, lengthy but helpful:
"We must be able to bring out clearly the difference between being and beings in order to make something like being the theme of inquiry. This distinction is not arbitrary; rather, it is the one by which the theme of ontology and thus of philosophy itself is first of all attained. It is a distinction which is first and foremost constitutive for ontology. We call it the ontological difference--the differentiation between being and beings. Only by making this distinction -- krinein in Greek -- not between being and another being but between being and beings do we first enter the field of philosophical research. Only by taking this critical stance do we keep our standing inside the field of philosophy. Therefore, in distinction from the sciences of the things that are, of beings, ontology, or philosophy in general, is the critical science, or the science of the inverted world. With this distinction between being and beings and the selection of being as theme we depart in principle from the domain of beings. We surmount it, transcend it." (Basic Problems of Phenomenology, p. 17)
Quoting David Mo
Which is fine, but you know as well as I that we cannot understand what philosophers do now without a historical context as well. It's like studying the human being without any attempt to understand evolution, or growth and development.
:roll: Okay...
Quoting David Mo
Yes...
Quoting David Mo
Fair enough. Notice I said "more of a positivist" -- meaning more in alignment with that tradition, not necessarily encapsulated by it. I still think that's accurate, but I see my ambiguity now.
Quoting David Mo
Fine -- you're not a positivist. That's not the important point here -- I'm not interested in labeling anyone and being satisfied with that. But it's in part this area of agreement, towards ontology and metaphysics, that led me to associate your perspective more closely with this tradition than, say, what's called "continental" philosophy (I agree in advance: a pretty vacuous term, but I think you'll take my meaning). Maybe analytical philosophy would have been a more accurate term, who knows. But that misses the point entirely -- I only bring up these broad labels to demonstrate what very different perspectives we're approaching this issue ("What is philosophy?" "What is science?") with.
And of course I agree with you, and Kant, and Nietzsche in fact, that metaphysics and ontology (at least as commonly understood) have been both damaging and rife with confusions. Heidegger in fact agrees as well. This is not a shift in position -- it simply means that what started in the inception of Western philosophy, with the presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle, has gradually become more and more confused, and it's important to re-awaken the "question of being" again.
No doubt there's much truth in that.
Quoting Mww
So you mean a kind of relation between "thinking" and "being," or more of a questioner in relation to what's questioned?
I would say "what is" and what we "think of it" does seem to be a very fundamental and important distinction. I also think perhaps here we may be entering back into the subject/object dichotomy.
I submit it is altogether impossible to escape the subject/object dichotomy, or dualism. Can’t re-enter what’s never been vacated. Metaphysically speaking, of course.
I think we can, metaphysically. The Cartesian ontology of "mind" and "nature" ("body" -- res extensa), while like I said is powerful and important, I don't think is the unmitigated foundation of all being, or even of all knowledge -- although almost ertainly for modern philosophy and science.
But even on a mundane, everyday level, it's not as if we're subjects contemplating objects -- we're not seeing ourselves that way. I don't think to myself "here I am as an individual engaged in this activity" -- in fact much of what I'm doing is often completely habitual and second-nature (mostly unconscious).
We can explain this type of thing using the subject/object distinction, but this assumes a lot of things -- like an "I," an "external world," an "inner and outer," etc. --in turn leading to problems that have been with us for a long time.
I think there are alternative analyses that get closer to the phenomena, are more accurate, more holistic, and (possibly) more useful. Again, here I mean Nietzsche, but especially Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and even Dreyfus and Kierkegaard perhaps. I'd include Pascal, but I still haven't got through all of the Pensees -- however I feel he'd shy away from the Cartesian ontology, from what I've read so far.
So as not to be mysterious: the "I think, therefore I am" should be inverted -- we start with (and "in") being (as human beings) and with (and "in") time. Thus we're thrown into a world and start with it -- i.e., with the "am", the "sum" of the Cogito ergo sum. I am, therefore I think (in the sense of not only abstract thought but conscious awareness generally).
How would that be arranged, that escape?
Quoting Xtrix
Ontology of mind and body? The study of the origin and existence of mind and body?
If the mind/body dualism isn’t thought to be the foundation of all knowledge, but almost certainly the foundation of modern philosophic and scientific knowledge, suggests there is yet another kind of knowledge that isn’t grounded in philosophic or scientific principles. What form would such knowledge have?
Nevertheless, I agree the study of the mind/body dualism isn’t sufficient to ground knowledge of any kind; it merely serves to establish the theoretical conditions under which the possibility of it may be given.
—————-
Quoting Xtrix
Of course not, it is impossible. Human thoughts are always singular and successive; engagement in any activity, except pure reflex and sheer accident, requires thought, so I cannot think myself thinking. I can think myself possibly engaged, or I can think myself having been engaged, but never think myself simultaneously thinking with respect to a present engagement. In addition, humans do not have the ability to think more than one object at a time, so if I think while being engaged in an activity, the activity is the only permissible object for me to form a cognition about, which makes my thought of myself, as another object being thought, quite impossible. You may recognize this scenario as the fundamental ground of the map/territory dichotomy, insofar as the thinker can never think itself. Represent itself, sure, in speculative metaphysics, think of itself as a necessary condition for that which follows from it, but that’s nothing more than theoretical place holding.
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Quoting Xtrix
That can never fly as a philosophical principle, for such should then be the case that anything that is, thinks.
Ya know....poor ol’ Rene, sometimes so demonized. Given that the primary source for that infamous missive is “Principles of Philosophy”, 1, 7, one is well-advised to continue on through 8, in which he tells us what he means by “mind” from which we derive the “I”, and 9, in which he tells us what he means by “thought”. Taken as a whole, the only thing claimed to exist necessarily, is the “I” itself....not the body, not anything else. If that is the case, you have no warrant to claim being “thrown into a world and start with it” with the same absolute certainty as the existence of the thinking self demands.
Quoting Xtrix
I dunno, man. We can only start with or in time, if it is possible to prove with apodeitic certainty we are not ourselves responsible for the creation of time as a mere conception. If we cannot do that, we can see it is impossible for us to be started with....to be initialized by.....that which wouldn’t even exist if not for us. The ol’ cart before the horse routine, doncha know.
—————-
Quoting Xtrix
No doubt; the dyed-in-the-wool physicalist won’t grant the time of day to “mind”, which is fine, there being no such real empirical thing. Which just makes philosophy that much more fun......how to close explanatory gaps by making sense out of something we can never put our fingers on.
Thanks Xtrix, thats very kind and generous.
I arrived at this via a definition of art. Philosophy and art share the same problem in that the output is endlessly variable and open ended. The results of tomorrow can not be conceived of today. So a different approach was required.
Unfortunately the interpretation dose not send a warm shiver up my spine, but I think what the sentence says is that it is consciousness, not philosophy or art that is special. It is consciousness that gives rise to the work – not philosophy or art. Philosophy and art are in fact modes of expressing consciousness. Whilst consciousness is the special immaterial thing creating them. It is the thing that ought to be celebrated.
The whole area of mind, perception, consciousness, I feel, requires significant renovation. The way I understand consciousness is more in line with IIT theory and GW theory, where consciousness is an information entangling / creating / integrating mental facility. From this perspective Mind is pretty much obsolete. Whilst consciousness is pretty much everything.
I would like to think I found something new, but Yogic Logic arrived at something like this some 5000 years ago!
Thanks again.
I consider the "mind/body" dichotomy of Descartes a dualist substance ontology. The "res" is precisely that in Latin (or at least how it's often translated).
This being the foundation of modern philosophy and science just means this is the framework modern science and philosophy uses. There was thinking and philosophy before Descartes, of course. In fact, Descartes was heavily influenced by Scholasticism, as you know -- and so I don't think it's a suggestion of a kind of knowledge other than philosophical or scientific knowledge, but rather a different kind of philosophy, a different ontology.
Quoting Mww
That's interesting. I imagine you're right -- and so a different word for whatever is going on internally, while fully engaged in an activity, should probably be invoked here. I use "junk thought," but that has negative connotations. What's really happening is we're simply drifting on a kind of unfocused autopilot. But you're right, it's certainly not the kind of thing we have in mind when we use "thought" (as abstract, rational thinking).
Quoting Mww
Yes, I didn't mean that exactly. What I'm saying there is that the "sum" is even more primordial than "thought," and thus the Cogito should be inverted in that sense. I didn't mean to imply everything that "is" is a conscious, thinking being.
Quoting Mww
Here I'm taking Descartes' use of "thinking" (cogitares) as what he mentions in the Principles: essentially conscious awareness. So "I am consciously aware, therefore I am" still privileges conscious awareness over being. It's not that we exist because we're conscious, we are able to think and perceive and sense because we "are," because we exist. Even an infant, prior to thought or language, exists. A zygote exists, etc.
As soon as you posit an "I" that thinks, or an "I" that is a conscious subject, you're only positing a certain conception of a being, and so presupposing the existence of some-thing that you're now labeling "I."
Quoting Mww
That's interesting, but how would you go about "proving" it? I think it's clear we've invented a lot about "time" in terms of measurement -- seconds, minutes, predictable changes, etc -- but I think there's a more "existential" way to look at the basis for these measurements, and the ordinary conception of time. Aristotle's essay on time in the Physics is an important point to see where our concept of "time" comes from, in part.
By "existential way" I mean by looking at what we do as human beings. We do appear to be, any way you slice it, temporal beings. Phenomena changes all around us "in" time. I think that's why both Western and Eastern philosophies so often emphasize time as being fundamental. It's fundamental in science as well, but in a different way -- quantitatively. But Aristotle, Kant, Heidegger -- then in the East with Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc. All emphasize time and change.
Quoting Mww
I see what you mean, yes. In that case I'd say that time is embedded in our existence -- we exist as temporality and interpret the world (and "being" and "time" itself) on this basis. This is why I used quotation marks when saying "in" time -- I don't believe time is a container of some kind, or an object, or some kind of clock in our heads.
This probably sounds absurd or confusing. Heidegger is much better at the analysis than I am, but I don't want to simply quote from an "authority." This is the best I can do!
Quoting Mww
That's interesting as well. When you say "physicalist," I view that as almost synonymous with "naturalism" and "materialism" really. It all amounts to very similar concepts: what we can "know" with our senses, with empirical data, is all that can be known -- and that the world is made of substance, matter, "physical" particles (atoms, etc), and so on. This has to be true in some way. I'm no mystic. But on the other hand, perhaps we've gotten too complacent in our accepting of this approach.
Not sure Rene would go for that; it is my understanding that he intended the “I” of “...therefore I am” to be necessarily conditioned by the “cogito”. In other words, they are mutually dependent, same subject, different predicates kinda thing. The “I” that thinks is not the cause of the “I” that is, and the “I” that is is not an effect of the “I” that thinks. The “I” that thinks is the very same as the “I” that is. Somewhat lame, perhaps, even labeled “problematic idealism” by the former Esteemed Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Königsberg, but the proof of the “I” is itself. So while it is true some physically real manifestation is certainly more primordial that thought, that particular kind of existence isn’t applicable to the “I” we know as representing the transcendental thinking subject.
—————
Quoting Xtrix
In effect, yes, agreed. I would call it positing a certain representation, rather than a being; makes it simpler to recognize the kind of object it is and its contribution to syllogistic inference,.
Not an advocate of a priori knowledge, huh? Are we to maintain that it is impossible to know anything that isn’t first perceived?
I'm sure Descartes wouldn't go for it, but I nonetheless think it's true. Remember, the "I" that thinks is nothing more than the conscious subject, in my reading. In fact when Descartes goes to clarify this in his Principles of Philosophy, he says by "thought" he means consciousness. So by saying "I am conscious, therefore I exist" would be more accurate. Even more accurate, and close to what I think you're saying: "I am conscious, I exist." The "therefore" isn't necessary.
But to me it's all like saying "I'm awake, therefore I'm alive." We all know that when we're asleep, we're still alive. Likewise, we're not always consciously aware, yet we exist. Existence seems a more primordial concept, then, and something out of which all other human activities emerge -- just like "life." Or at least it's the background upon which things like thinking and awareness take place -- existence is presupposed.
So, again, the inversion should read: "I exist, therefore I can be conscious of things, think, and even give this the 'I' label." The dead cannot think at all.
Quoting Mww
I was speaking for the empiricists and most scientists here, not myself.
:cheer:
I'll repost this, but this was said by yours truly, though expounded on by me.
Many people really dislike this view, but I happen to think it's true. I understand philosophy as the study of mysteries, which is why the same questions keep popping up time and time again throughout history.
If philosophers manage to carve out some understanding of some aspect of reality, then it becomes a science and philosophers don't need to worry about it much anymore. Hence why it's called "the mother of the sciences"
Obviously this simplifies the situation a bit, discoveries in physics or biology or psychology can have consequences for philosophy, but these fields are now developed to the extent that they don't depend on philosophers anymore.
In this respect, philosophy is likely the broadest field of rational enquiry.
I think I mostly agree with that, except for the "don't depend on philosophers anymore" part. Maybe not contemporary philosophers, but certainly philosophy. The sciences don't simply detach from general human thought or basic philosophcial questions -- they're still very much grounded upon tentative answers to basic questions of philosophy, which also provides their fundamental concepts.
Sure. It varies to the extent that the scientist in question is interested in philosophy. Weinberg, for one, doesn't care for it - though he uses a form of no-nonsense positivism. It's derision for sure, but no one can escape it.
Carlo Rovelli on the other hand, does engage with philosophy quite a lot. As does Sean Carroll.
But this applies well beyond physics too.
At least you weren't bothered about the mysteries part, many people really don't like it. Of course, it's mysteries-for-us not mysteries for dogs or bats. But still, It kind of seems obvious to me.
Philosophy? What you call "mysteries" I refer to as intractable perplexities (i.e. miseries); and OCD-like they keep recurring, like itching that needs, but cannot be relieved by, scratching.
I created my own way of thinking just by using its dictionary term:
-The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.
To start off I studied the fundamentals of how I learn.
Soon after; the fundamentals of my learning to learn require knowing how or why an answer is wrong,
then re-evaluated my own fundamental knowledge. (the useful stuff)
This knowledge of understanding why something is incorrect can lead to answering many questions to the point its just a simple puzzle, only the understanding of why something is wrong helps remove puzzle pieces that are not part of it.
When I see other peoples view on philosophy its usually to external or front facing in my view, if they can't fundamentally evaluate their own experiences/knowledge then they either cant confirm the validity of what they think philosophy is or they are prone to fault and potentially lack the awareness of bias in themselves.
Because fundamentally; philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge and if you have no philosophical approach to your own knowledge then it can lead to a philosophy based on a false premise.
It's equally possible to hold a rigorous philosophy based on a false premise. The conceptual space is highly speculative and contested and academic philosophers can be wrong about all kinds of things.
People use the term philosophy with cavalier imprecision. I frequently wonder what is the fault line between having a worldview and having a philosophy? What is the difference between critical thinking and philosophy?
Just holding a series of beliefs that are philosophically derived is not necessarily doing philosophy. That's more like a person who collects shiny things, like a magpie, with no real system or coherence. I hold positions on issues which sometimes conform to philosophical positions but I don't think of it as doing philosophy and I am not a theorist. At best I could say that I sometimes do philosophy by accident.
Philosophy is the discovery of fundamental knowledge, critical thinking is the evaluation/validation of that knowledge.
A worldview can be biased by cultural influence, a philosophical view can have an awareness of such bias if the observer has studied/learned from what causes mistakes. (A philosophical study in their own learning if you will)
See: "Allegory of the cave"
Quoting Tom Storm
This is an assumption without fact, you cant assume there is no system or coherence without insight to how that individuals philosophy is made/percieved. (False cause fallacy)
Quoting Tom Storm
Philosophy is not just theory, theory is an area of study that is outside its practical application or "Thinking outside the box".
Philosophy expands on this by re-evaluating/challenging the fundamental knowledge of that area of study to remove assumptions, biases and other things that can lead to false information. (kinda like thinking outside and inside the box; deconstructing the box and recycling it into something new.)
But in all honesty I think to many people assume philosophy is just an expression of thought rather than freedom of thought.
That's true - it is not necessarily the case, but I believe it to be mostly true. It's certainly true for me.
Quoting Tiberiusmoon
That's pretty loose. When people are doing philosophy on this site is is generally reading and understanding other's discoveries and applying, or misapplying them - but not making any discoveries of their own. I would also think that people can do incisive critical thinking without any knowledge of philosophy.
Quoting Tiberiusmoon
Yep. That's why I listed them as separate things.
Quoting Tiberiusmoon
Yes, this is my main point. In fact, see below:
Quoting Book273
I call that opinions or views, not philosophy. People use the world philosophy in a non-specialised sense all the time, but having a worldview is not necessarily having a philosophy, even if there are tiny speckles of philosophy in there, like fools gold glittering in a broken rock.
Agreed, and is an extension of Kant's argument by which Descartes’ thesis is deemed “problematic idealism”, in which “existence” as a predicate is at least redundant, hence gives no support to the subject. From this, and if “I think” is given, then “I am” is also given immediately from it. The only reason “I” am is because “I” think, so there is no need for “I am” iff “I think”.
But in Descartes’ time, the “I” that thinks was not given, and had to be proved as a valid conceptual presence, yet separate and distinct from the material realm of things of sense. So, yes, existence is a much more primordial concept.....in fact, it is its own category, given necessarily a priori in human cognition....but Descartes, even if he knew of Aristotelian categories, still needed to prove the existence of a certain thing. In hindsight, we tend to attribute to Descartes a mistake, but in his time, he didn’t commit one.
Whatever possessed you to revive this, a year after its demise? Always an interesting topic, but still....
Addendum:
Scrolling back to gather groundwork, I see it is your thread. Which serves as the best reason there is for reviving it. My bad....sorry.
True, its one of those things where philosophical methodology and methodology of learning meet because its in the same field, the various points or similarities of other/known methods help solidify a philosophical or academic validity.
That's perfectly fine too. We just happen to get stuck on certain questions.
That's certainly what I'm trying to avoid, yes. If we take Descartes to mean by "If I am consciously aware, then I exist" that we likewise exist even when we're not conscious, then that's fine. But the emphasis was placed on consciousness, not on unconsciousness, and it's precisely in unconsciousness where we live the majority of our lives. So I still view this as unfortunate. By saying "If I exist, then I have the possibility to think," we're shifting emphasis. Now we want to ask "What is it like to exist as a human being?" rather than "What is thought/consciousness?"
Well many great minds agree with you. It just rings hollow for me. The influence of epistemology/science and the problems therein (how do we know we know, etc) seems obvious.
When we're not discovering "fundamental knowledge," but still asking basic questions, is that not philosophy? What's fundamental knowledge anyway? For that matter, what's knowledge?
Are the last two questions "philosophy" or not?
:grin: Excellent question, though. I clicked on "discussions" I had created and noticed I failed to respond to you last year, and given it was an interesting reply I felt compelled to do it. Better late than never.
Quoting Cheshire
What about: philosophy is a word we give to a kind of thinking distinguished by the questions being asked. Those questions are perennial ones, showing up in all ancient writings -- what is life, death, a human being, existence, love, justice, meaning, happiness, "goodness," etc.
I feel like this is broad enough a definition to include a lot of what's being said here.
This would better fit the second half of my definition.
Quoting Cheshire
Logically speaking; questions are the fundamental knowledge of answers pieced together with logic and context, because a question will tell you more about the subject than the answer.
Questions are fundamental answers? Maybe examples would help here, because this simply looks incoherent to me.
When we ask "What is justice?" -- this indeed presupposes that we have some idea about what we're referring to. Or "What is a tree?" But to say questions and answers are the same thing "pieced together" somehow by "logic and context" is basically meaningless. We have questions, and we don't always have answers to those questions. Sometimes that's because the questions are incoherent, sometimes because we don't have enough information or experience, etc.
When we ask very basic questions of life, we're "doing" philosophy. When we contemplate the answers to questions, we're doing philosophy. When we're thinking about lunch, we're not doing philosophy. Philosophy is essentially ontology -- we think about being and the being of various beings.
This is arguable, but as close to a definition as I can see. The rest seems "privative."
Okay so what answer tells you more about multiplication?
=12 =12
Quoting Xtrix
As you just said, that information is required of the question itself, the answer is the outcome of logic piecing it together like a puzzle.
The fundamental knowledge of a answer is the question because that is what makes the question.
Neither tells you anything about multiplication.
Quoting Tiberiusmoon
I have no idea what "fundamental knowledge of a[n] answer" means. I really can't make heads or tails of what you're talking about here. I think it's yet another example of Forum word salad.
"The answer is the question because that is what makes the question."
What makes the question? The question. Which is the answer.
If anyone else understands this, I salute you.
So wouldn't you need fundamental information/context in order to answer it?
But a question has no answer at the beginning, the answer is the sum of the question not the other way round, don't you see?
Yes, I see that you're a complete buffoon -- and you're boring me. Bye.
Congratz you've resorted to a Ad hominem fallacy.
Bye.
It's "congrats," not "congratz." Also, it's "an ad hominem," not "a ad hominem."
Add "learning how to write" on your to-do list before spewing incoherent bullshit..
:fire: :fire: :fire:
From Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Lt. Commander Leonard McCoy: Spock, wake up, damn it!
Spock: I am entirely conscious, Doctor. I'm simply contemplating the nature of mortality.
Lt. Commander Leonard McCoy: Feeling philosophical, huh? Massive blood loss will do that to you.
:up:
:lol:
What is matter? Never mind.
What is mind? No matter.
This is from a story told by Bertrand Russell.
Figured this was a good place to put it— I found it amusing.
I was just asking this on another thread! I'll have to read through the responses....
It's a good point this one. I used to assume this meant the love of attempting to find wisdom. I've often wondered how someone how isn't wise can recognize wisdom when they see it. There seems to be a small contradiction inherent in this for me. Many years ago my wife said to me - "I've met a guru who may be enlightened and is so wise that I am going to become a follower." I asked how she knew the gurus was wise. "They told me so and he looks it."
Eh. We believe plenty of things in science as well.
The central dogma of molecular biology...
What is philosophy?
:grin:
Western philosophy: Dominate nature (become king, there's no king)
Eastern philosophy: Submit to nature (become subjects, we already have a queen, mother nature)
Quoting Agent Smith
Duality (identity (monad)). Transcendence. Necessity.
~Duality (~identity (relation)). Immanence. Contingency.
It wasn't me, it couldn't have been me! I was dead! I was on the moon! :lol:
:up:
Quoting GBG
Science too needs believe to exist. It does matter if we believe it or not. Even in the science itself dogma exists. The central dogma of molecular biology, for example.
It’s just not that simple. No matter how much Richard Dawkins we read.
Science was (and is) natural philosophy. The very concept of “nature” and “physics” has a long history. Defining “reality” as anything physical or natural is also not uncontroversial, so to make sweeping declarations like this is just childish.
There is a pretty simple answer to the question "what is philosophy" and that is that philosophy is a subcategory of something called critical thinking. Of course one might ask the question what is critical thinking and the two simplest definitions I can think of is that it is method of thinking used to solve what are otherwise complex issues and the other is that it is the means that we use to "think about thinking"
While critical thinking and philosophy may sometimes sound like the same thing, I believe the areas of critical thinking that is considered to be philosophy (or perhaps just philosophy) is when such methods are used to solve real world issues and not just ponder academic ones, although I could be wrong about this.
Critical thinking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking
https://louisville.edu/ideastoaction/about/criticalthinking/what
:up:
I agree that philosophy is a kind of thinking. I'm sure it involves aspects of critical thinking, too. But not all critical thinking is philosophy.
When I want to solve a puzzle or practical problem, I can employ critical thinking skills, but the question or problem at hand isn't necessarily a philosophical one. So I think you have it backwards in the last sentence: when something is done to solve real world issues, it's often not called philosophical.
Again I come back to my own opinion on this, which is that philosophy is a kind of thinking distinguished by its questions. The question of questions, in my view (and here I'm channeling Heidegger), is the question of being. The next question, equally important, is "What is good?" (in the sense of a good life, and thus how to live, and thus morality).
The "science" in this case being based on human reason, intelligence and creativity. Empiricism is fine, and I have a high respect for science, but your idea of what is "real" is a philosophical belief. "Real" is whatever science tells us is real, in this view. It puts faith in the methods of science. Thus it is itself a belief system -- often called "scientism." It also signifies a certain view of truth -- one basically of correspondence between the "objective" outside world determined by science, and the "subjective" world of our opinions and feelings. This is why nearly everyone who wrestles with these questions should read Descartes and Kant, at minimum, or at least familiarize yourself with their arguments. Then take a look at what Neitzsche has to say about "perspectives" and Heidegger about the subject/object distinction. All that is very useful.
At the end of the day, I think what's called "science" is the best we have for making predictions and understanding causal relations. But rather than being the final court for truth, which encompasses philosophy (and relegates it to useless pondering), it is instead a subset of philosophy -- one which assumes the world is basically a material, mechanical phenomenon; i.e., "natural philosophy."
Science begins with (what it considers) the concrete and moves more toward abstract explanation. "Here is the answer, now what is the question?"
For me these would be a definition of mediocre philosophy and even worse science. Philosophy spends significant time and energy on working to clarify what the actual questions might be. This is not always apparent.
Science is frequently a creative enterprise that begins with an imaginative hypothesis and tests it. Answers are a tentative model based on the best available evidence at the time. As you'll note, science is an ever changing iterative pathway to the best available models and is frequently limited or wrong. Then there are all those moments in science where discoveries are made by accident - like penicillin and lithium and the germ theory of disease.
Philosophy is an exercise in frustration, not the pursuit of comforting our selves.
Unfortunately most people place their comforting ideas under the "umbrella" of philosophy, but that doesn't make them philosophical ideas.
Science is the best way to do Philosophy since it respects and expands our epistemology allowing our philosophical claims to get wiser.
-"Empiricism is fine, and I have a high respect for science, but your idea of what is "real" is a philosophical belief."
-Science respects Objectivism. Emprirical methodologies are accepted due to their ability to produce objective frameworks....not because of an arbitrary belief. Any method being able to produce objective facts is and will be highly respected.
Now what we verify as real in science is the product of an objective evaluation of available facts.
This isn't a philosophical belief but a Pragmatic Necessity based on the epistemic Acknowledgment of the limitations of our methods of investigation and observations.
We don't need to be absolute certain on what we identity as real, we only need to base our claims on the current available facts. This is an on going process of evaluation.
-""Real" is whatever science tells us is real, in this view."
-No real is whatever we can objectively verify to be manifesting in our observable reality. What science tells us is not the criterion here. Its what we can demonstrate objectively and science has the tools to do that with high Systematicity.
ITs the rules of logic and evidence that point to what is real. Science just provides the objective evidence for us to make the ruling.
-"It puts faith in the methods of science."
-No, we don't need faith to trust the methods of science. Those methods have been proven credible every single time we use them. Faith is believing in something without good reason. Science provides a mountain of good reasons to accept its frameworks and methods.
-" Thus it is itself a belief system -- often called "scientism.""
-No scientism is the belief that only science can provide knowledge claims and scientific methods can answer everything. Having a belief in a system that has proven itself again and again its called "being reasonable". Science is the most reliable, methodical and systematic method we currently have. That increase our confidence in our judgments but it also allow us to revise those judgments in the future because all scientific frameworks have a falsifiable nature.(objectivity ensures that).
-" It also signifies a certain view of truth -- one basically of correspondence between the "objective" outside world determined by science, and the "subjective" world of our opinions and feelings. "
-It signifies a certain way to evaluate irrational claims and irrational claims...not Truth. Science doesn't deal with absolute truths since its frameworks are tentative based on current objective facts and observations( observations advance,facts change thus our science may change).
4.300 conflicting religious dogmas, 160+ spiritual supernatural worldviews etc have proven the untrustworthiness of subjective interpretations, feelings and opinions used as foundations for ontological claims. Science does provide the evidence that render those interpretations irrelevant and useless. This ruling comes from logic..science only provides the evidence.
-"This is why nearly everyone who wrestles with these questions should read Descartes and Kant, at minimum, or at least familiarize yourself with their arguments. "
-Those two great philosophers have really bad arguments on metaphysics and what is real. Everyone should read them but they should also be informed of the epistemology and Basic Logic which render their arguments unsound and bad philosophy.
-" Then take a look at what Neitzsche has to say about "perspectives" and Heidegger about the subject/object distinction. All that is very useful."
-They are useful ...only in an idealistic frame of reference. Within Methodological Naturalism and Instrumentalism they are useless. Its a waste of time and a huge argument from ignorance in my opinion.
-"At the end of the day, I think what's called "science" is the best we have for making predictions and understanding causal relations."
-Well those two things is what renders Natural Philosophy superior, because we can verify that a philosophical claim has value from its ability to describe causes and provide predictions (instrumental value). Wisdom has nothing to do with absolute knowledge, or ultimate truth. It has to do with expending our understanding of our world with meaningful frameworks based on our Limited Knowledge and limited observations.
The "absolute and ultimate" is a subject of theology, not philosophy.
-" But rather than being the final court for truth, which encompasses philosophy (and relegates it to useless pondering), it is instead a subset of philosophy -- one which assumes the world is basically a material, mechanical phenomenon; i.e., "natural philosophy." "
-That is a factually wrong statement.
First of all science doesn't assume the world is material, mechanical etc.
Science is based on Methodological Naturalism meaning that we understand that the limits of our current methods of investigation and observations are limited within the Natural realm. So investigating the Natural aspects of the cosmos (matter, physical properties) is a Pragmatic Necessity, not an arbitrary philosophical bias.
That said, science doesn't reject the supernatural as wrong or not real. It rejects it as untestable, unobservable and unverifiable. The moment one comes up with methods that can objectively verify that realm, science will be using the principles of Methodological Supernaturalism.
Secondly science doesn't assume that the world is just mechanical. Complex/Emergent Science and Quantum Mechanics Prove that different scales of nature display different qualities and "behaviors".
You are attacking a strawman of science...not the actual system of methodologies.
I don't disagree with you that much. However, I view science as entirely creative, like any other field with the goal of discovery or novelty.
Rules don't make something non-creative.(Not saying that you said or implied this...) They are rather guidelines to creating the sort of thing one wants to create.
-"Philosophy begins with the abstract and moves toward the concrete. "Here is the question, now what is the answer?"
-I will agree with Tom Quoting Tom Storm
Both, science and philosophy are motivated by observations and epistemology.
This is where we come up with our questions. Science (the methodological part) allow us to produce better questions and answers by expanding our epistemology through objective and systematic methodologies of investigation.
Natural Philosophy and Philosophy in general both should respect our establish epistemology and both should inform their metaphysics on new available knowledge( latest science).
For a reason many think that our Metaphysics should not be limited by our current body of knowledge and for a even weirder reason, they believe their conclusions should be accepted as philosophy.
That is not possible. Ignoring knowledge is not wise and philosophy is in the business of providing wise claims about the world.
Now science and philosophy both describe the world through theoretical frameworks.
If a philosophical theory is based on our epistemology and the conclusion is verified....this is called science.
If it isnt' verified, it remains part of our philosophy (metaphysics).
IF a theory isn't based on any of our knowledge and the conclusion is unfalsifiable, we deal with pseudo philosophy.
For me, philosophy consists in reflectively reasoning to better, more probative, questioning (i.e. an answer (concept) is just a question's way of 'implying' other questions) whereas science, it seems, consists in abductively reasoning to better, more comprehensive, conjecturing (i.e. a solution (explanation) is just a problem's way of 'implying' other problems). And so questioning often can (paradigmatically) frame conjecturing, no? :chin:
Quoting 180 Proof
Poetry.
It seems like a divide and conquer tactic.
It's just as important to verify that a hypothesis is self-consistent(logically sound?) as it is to verify that it is consistent with objective reality. Isn't it?
(I'm sure scientists do use logic, obviously, but with the same rigour as philosophers?)
Science doesn't produce objective facts. "Science respects Objectivism" is meaningless to me -- and I don't know why you capitalize it. If you're referring to Ayn Rand's philosophy, then I have no idea why you'd invoke it here.
What is called science -- astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology -- has a multitude of methods, questions, assumptions. If we want to make generalizations, I tend to hold to the historical perspective, where "science" is natural philosophy. What we're "doing" when we do science is treating the world as natural or physical -- i.e., objective -- as substantive, quantitative, material. It takes on a view of the world as an object, a machine, or as forces acting on matter. Without this naturalistic assumption, it's hard to believe one is doing science. We look for natural explanations to natural phenomena.
All of what I said above is an ontological position. None of it is "arbitrary," nor did I say that.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
It's as if you treat science as an industry that "produces" and "provides" human beings with "objective evidence," etc. If you pardon me, but that's a rather outdated view.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Yes, we do. The fact you don't think faith is involved is exactly my point: you're a follower of scientism. Science and its methods don't require faith because it deals with objective truth, with reason. A view I once held, too. Ultimately misguided, but gives one a nice epistemological grounding.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
That's not scientism. One doesn't have to claim that science can answer everything.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Proven itself how? Also failed us, many times.
Again you treat science as if its well understood what it is. It isn't.
Science is not simple a "reliable, systematic method." There are many questions and many methods in studying nature. It cannot be reduced to a single "scientific method." That has been tried, and has failed over and over again. So by your account, it's reasonable to let go of that picture.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Science deals in truth. Facts and reality.
I never once mentioned "absolutely truth."
"Water is H20" isn't simply a "rational" claim -- it's true. Why is it true? Because there's mountains of evidence and reason supporting it.
There's no contradiction.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
There's that word "subjective." Again, you betray your own beliefs. In this case, a belief in the "objective" world, of a subject-object duality, of science as separate from "religious dogmas and spiritual worldviews," one that finally parts ways with faith and superstition, etc.
Some of this is true, but most of it is just a story we "smart guys" like to tell ourselves.
Modern science is great at dealing with causal relations, in making predictions, in finding ways to quantify and mathematicize questions -- I have high respect for scientists, as I've said.
None of this contradicts my point about ontology.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Sorry, but not all religious belief is founded on blind faith, as you seem to want to claim. Plenty of reasons, plenty of evidence, plenty of logic.
Science doesn't "provide" us with anything. We, as human beings, have our minds and our senses. The world provides the "evidence" and we can interpret/understand it in various ways. Natural philosophy -- seeing the world as objective -- is one interpretation.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
You strike me as rather young. This is something a young person would say, in my view. I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't read a word of either philosopher.
Your entire response reeks of posturing. Please stop that. I'm not interested in ego or power struggles. You want to portray yourself as authoritative, but no one I have ever met who has had any real expertise has communicated as you do. I have grown very good at sniffing out shallowness.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
This is what I mean. First you have no understand what I meant -- which you have shown no evidence of. Maybe I'm wrong: what exactly do I mean by Heidegger and the subject/object distinction? What exactly have you read of Heidegger? Of Nietzsche?
WHAT exactly are you referring to as a "waste of time and huge argument from ignorance"? You say "its" -- as many students do who try to bullshit their way through essays.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
:roll:
It's not a factual statement at all. It's my opinion.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I never once said it was "arbitrary" -- that is your own addition.
I never once said that science believes the world is only material and mechanical -- but those are indeed two important aspects of naturalism. There are also forces of nature, which are not material. And, of course, not everything is machine-like. But historically speaking, and even today, these are often assumed.
The essential feature of science, as I've repeated often, is its view of nature. Thus why it was once "natural philosophy."
So I'm not entirely sure what you're "disagreeing" with here, but it appears you very much want to.
Why you, as a relatively new person who has few posts, want to jump into a thread like this and start contradicting statements of mine -- which you demonstrate over and over that you don't understand -- is beyond me.
If you want clarification or to ask a question, I'm happy to answer. I'm not interested in posturing or lecturing.
1. Objective, independent verification is one of core scientific standards used in the evaluation of all theoretical framework. If that says nothing to you then you should take a modern course on Philosophy of Science ASAP.
Quoting Xtrix
-You are confusing Methodological Naturalism with Ontological Naturalism. Again the remedy is a course on Philosophy of Science. Paul Hoyningen-Huene has a great course for free on his Youtube channel. (no need of a Mooc subscription).
-"It's as if you treat science as an industry that "produces" and "provides" human beings with "objective evidence," etc. If you pardon me, but that's a rather outdated view."
-You are confusing scientists with science. Again...take that course.
-"Yes, we do. The fact you don't think faith is involved is exactly my point: you're a follower of scientism. Science and its methods don't require faith because it deals with objective truth, with reason. A view I once held, too. Ultimately misguided, but gives one a nice epistemological grounding."
-lol Again ....objective verification or falsification makes faith redundant, either we have facts to support our frameworks or we don't......so this is how this will go lol?
Not taking claims on faith is why we use this method. You are obviously way to ignorant to talk about this topic.
I rest my case.
Take a course on Philosophy of Science....
Science doesn't produce objective facts.
I said nothing about independent verification, which is one aspect of what's called science, yes.
"Objectivism" means nothing in your context. You worded it poorly. Science tries to be objective -- if this is what you meant, fine. "Science respects Objectivism" (with the "O" capitalized) is meaningless. "Science" doesn't "respect" anything -- science is not a person. Also, "Objectivism" (capitalized) refers to the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
So perhaps "take a modern course" on elementary writing before giving lectures to others.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
:yawn:
First try showing you're not a complete imbecile before giving anyone advice about courses they should take. I realize I've wounded your ego, but statements like the above only prove my point.
You're mostly a waste of time. But in case anyone is following along this weird exchange: metaphysical naturalism, so called, is indeed what I'm talking about. Whatever "confusion" you're referring to you've simply invented, so that you can further pretend to act as an authority of some kind. But that's your own business.
True, many scientists are religious men and women -- what one may call religious or spiritual naturalists. That has nothing to do with what I'm saying.
(Side note: knowing the various "isms" of philosophy is usually a sign of someone who can't think his way out of a paper bag.)
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I never once mentioned scientists. Take a course on reading. And go create Scarecrows elsewhere.
(Why is it always the most ignorant among us who dole out statements like "Do your homework" and "Go take a course" or "Go read xyz," etc?)
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
And what's the objective verification or objective verification?
Perhaps the world isn't "objective" at all. Perhaps ideas like "nature" itself have a long history and have changed in meaning as time passes.
Or we can stick with the faith (religion) vs. science view -- very commonplace, very simplistic. If this is what all this "philosophy of science" class-taking produces, I'm not impressed.
My honest advice: take a course in the philosophy of science. Don't just talk about it -- really do it. Also: reading comprehension and writing.
You're out of your league.
-So you don't get which quality is responsible for "independent verification"..... Let me give out some letters...it starts with "object" and ends with "ivity"...............
The objective nature of facts allow independent verification.
Being in denial of reality is not an argument.
-"First try showing you're not a complete imbecile before giving anyone advice about courses they should take."
-Its not my fault sir. If you are ignorant of the objective nature of the Scientific Method and the produced knowledge, then something must be done if the for you is to continue conversing on this topic.
-"I realize I've wounded your ego, but statements like the above only prove my point."
-by denying facts???lol.....again this is not how valid or sound arguments are formed.
-"You're mostly a waste of time. "
-and how would you know without basic knowledge on the subject...pls take that course mate!
Quoting Xtrix
-you literally stated :"-"Empiricism is fine, and I have a high respect for science, but your idea of what is "real" is a philosophical belief."
Science identifies what is real by justifying Knowledge Based beliefs...not a philosophical ones. This is achieved because the scientific claims that describe reality are Objectively true with Current facts( not absolute true based on ultimate knowledge/red herring).
You don't understand that Knowledge is a subset of belief. No reasonable individual will NOT believe in a knowledge claim. When you introduce the term " Philosophical belief" in Science's Objective empirical evaluations and frameworks, is when you meshed up and you are in need of some basic education between Philosophical Naturalism and Methodological Naturalism objective verification, and of course the differences between Knowledge based and Faith based beliefs.
Quoting Xtrix
- you do understand that computers since 1978 have this thing called "copy paste". I can copy paste your confusing statements and beat them up!
so your answer for my comment you quote:
"You are confusing Methodological Naturalism with Ontological Naturalism. Again the remedy is a course on Philosophy of Science."
...was the following:
-"True, many scientists are religious men and women -- what one may call religious or spiritual naturalists. That has nothing to do with what I'm saying."
-Red herrings are your specialty!
-"(Side note: knowing the various "isms" of philosophy is usually a sign of someone who can't think his way out of a paper bag.)"
-that sounds like a self critique. Again take a course on Philosophy of Science and you will understand why MEthodological Naturalism is not a metaphysical worldview but an Acknowledgement of the limits in our methodologies and why Science offers Objective Knowledge based beliefs...not faith based ones.
-"I never once mentioned scientists. Take a course on reading. And go create Scarecrows elsewhere."
-Last time a checked scientists are human beings and they are the ones who practice scientific methodologies.
This is really simple, I think I will have to explain to you what objectivity means.
When one can arrive at the same results with the method published by others that means that the conclusions are objective based on an objective methodological process. They all have access to the facts, the same observations and the same final conclusions. This means that personal feelings beliefs and viewpoint are not able to change all the above.
I don't know why this is so difficult for you...seriously.
-"(Why is it always the most ignorant among us who dole out statements like "Do your homework" and "Go take a course" or "Go read xyz," etc?)"
-this is something between you and yourself.....Now go take that course and learn what Objectivity is.
Learn why Scientific methodologies reject subjective interpretations and evidence.
Quoting Xtrix
oh! we already reached the ad Absurdum part of the conversation. Good this means that the end is near of this painful interaction.
Logic my friend....Basic Logic. Subjective claims have produced thousands of magical claims(religions, mystical woo, spiritual worldviews, ghosts, snake oil remedies etc etc etc etc).
Objective evaluation of any claim is how we protect ourselves from con artists.
Objectivity is verified EVERY time we put it on the test.
The acceleration of gravity on the surface of the earth is accepted as knowledge because it has being objectively verified again and again. We can shoot rockets to space because we know what acceleration is needed to escape gravity. We can calculate objective facts in order to design airplane wings and allow them to fly,
Again I am not sure you understand what Objectivity is!
Objective it doesn't mean absolute true or correct. IT means that a claim or an observation is in agreement with current accessible facts and others can verify that!!!!!!!
-"Perhaps the world isn't "objective" at all. Perhaps ideas like "nature" itself have a long history and have changed in meaning as time passes."
-Finally its confirmed...you don't know what "objective" means....but instead asking for definition, you blindly attack science...great.
Quoting Xtrix
-actually its Science vs Magic and Religion.
there is a great course by UCLA on this arm race between scientific and magical thinking and how magic thinking gave rise to religions and returned to fuel new age spiritual beliefs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Zx-qcNZf4&list=PLFFD1C791A86FB485
Here is a short lecture on the Nature of Science by Paula Hoyningen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYK7uhQ_QCk
and his full lecture.(if you are interested I can send you other lecturers too).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP8teUgZcBY&list=PLGV2ddg-PFGvWKDeTyrUji7TXY8y1SHjl
Again...they are free.
-"My honest advice: take a course in the philosophy of science. Don't just talk about it -- really do it. Also: reading comprehension and writing.
You're out of your league. "
-Self critique is encouraging...keep it up!
Cheers.
ps. Pls Let me know what went wrong with your "subjective" definition for "objective". ; )
Peer review could work only if the peers are honest, objective, and of diverse capacities. I have not seen evidence that there is sufficient rigour in determining that peer reviewers are sufficiently honest and capable.
Also there are multiple angles from which to critique a work.
So if you want your work to be reviewed for logical soundness, yet there are no logicians on the panel of peers, for example, it's not likely to be rigorously reviewed for logical soundness.
I'd like to see a checklist for all the things peer reviewers check for, and a checklist for vetting process in choosing a peer to do peer review.
I'm skeptical that the peer review process is sufficiently rigorous.
I am only now starting to research peer review, though
Do you have sufficient evidence or reason for why the public ought to have confidence in the peer review process to tell us what is good or bad science?
I'm very skeptical of any group of people telling the public what it ought to believe. It should tell us what the experiment was, and the results of the experiment, and let the individual reader determine for themselves if the results are sufficient to warrent accepting or rejecting a theory or hypothesis. (My opinion of course)
-well that is a condition but its not the only self correcting mechanism of the process. Objectivity binds the published findings but it also binds the critique. The economic system we are in forces integrity and sufficient honesty to the process. Why is that? Because journals are competing for state so if they manage to publish objectively robust studies that can't be shaken, they will have an edge over others. The same is true for scientists. If they manage to offer objective objections of a study or even an accepted theory this means accolades and wealth for them and the journal publishing their critique.
Its like the air transportation industry. Growth of works comes from an excellent track record. Sure skipping services is a way to save money but having your planes not falling from the sky is a far superior way to increase your sales.
Do you get why science (like air services) are some of a few "industries" that use the economic system in favor of the end product???
Quoting Yohan
-First of all, logical soundness is achieved by the objective verification of claims. So in peer review processes logicians aren't necessary. Basic Logic is more than enough.What is necessary is a good knowledge of current epistemology avoidance of logical fallacies(by demanding evidence) and rejection of non methodological and naturalistic principles.
Quoting Yohan
-Peer reviewers check the claims in relation to the offered facts, the methodology and the standards used in a study.
Quoting Yohan
-You should but that doesn't mean that it isn't a successful process. Issues with integrity or pure incompetent can only delay the final evaluation of studies. The self correcting mechanisms (Objectivity, independent verifiability,meta analysis/ life long falsifiability) offer a dynamic platform where frameworks can rise and fall based on the same high criteria independent of personal agendas.
-"I am only now starting to research peer review, and so far it doesn't look promising. "
-This is only because your expectations were not reasonable. Again the process is messy and slow but it is really successful in keeping nonsense away from science.
You are shifting goal posts.
Science is said to be objective because it is sufficiently rigorous, with experiments and peer review.
I don't see good evidence to think passing peer review is a reliable means to determine if a scientific work is true...Objective? Maybe peer review can increase the likelihood that a work is scientific in nature and worth taking seriously. But how do we determine a work is objectively...true?
No I am not. You set the goal post in a level you expected to be, but like all human affairs, evaluating claims is also messy.
-"Science is said to be objective because it is sufficiently rigorous, with experiments and peer review."
-Correct. The human beings practicing it aren't but the method ensures that.
-"I don't see good evidence to think passing peer review is a reliable means to determine if a scientific work is true...Objective? "
-Then you must be living in a cave or writing from the past and you are not aware of the objective nature and instrumental value of the established epistemology. You don't know that peer review is NOT the pinnacle of our evaluations. the objective nature of all knowledge claims make them falsifiable for life.
-" Maybe peer review can increase the likelihood that a work is scientific in nature and worth taking seriously. But how do we determine a work is objectively...true?"
-Meta analysis and additional meta analysis. Peer reviewing is not a one time event.
You can have a study pass and after a while a meta analysis shows that it is at the low end of a bell curve graph. Or additional data question the methods so the study is challenged and reevaluated.
Again the evaluations of knowledge is an endless process.
Science offer our tentative position based on current available facts.
Our facts change because our technology enables better observations...and when they do our frameworks are reevaluated verified or replaced.
Scientific evaluation can offer objective truth..not absolute truth.
What does objective truth mean? Is this a scientific term? What is the difference between objective and absolute? Can objective truth be wrong?
Also, is possible to apply a science to the subjective.
Eg some claim that there is a science to some therapies or self actualization techniques like meditation and yoga, or to improving ones skills, or the "science of success". As long as one can demonstrate an ability to predict an outcome of a technique many times, with peer review etc I think it should have the right to be called a science as well.
I am not fan of this modern trend of methodological naturalism claiming exclusive rights to the label of science. Of course, it is not MN which has made this claim, but MNists(and not all of them)
Objective truth means that any scientific theoretical framework can be verified by anyone who is willing to reproduce the steps listed in a study and use facts that are accessible to everyone.
Objectively true is a claim that is in agreement with evidence currently accessible to everyone.
Absolute truth is a claim that is based on absolute facts meaning that no new facts exist that can change the value of truthiness of our claim. That of course is not possible.
This opens a possibility for our current objective true to be wrong.
i.e the available facts for centuries were supportive of the objective truthiness of the geocentric claim.
The facts and observations were available to everyone (objective) and the conclusion didn't use any untestable assumptions.
Additional and far more credible facts render that objective "truth" to be wrong.
So objective truth doesn't mean absolute truth but its the only reasonable position to hold based on current available facts
-Of course this is what Neuroscience,psychology, medicine etc are doing. They apply systematic and objective methods on subjective qualities.
i.e. conscious thoughts are objective but since 2017 we can decode them by just reading fMRI scans.
We develope pain killers and therapies to improve specific conscious states that include pain,suffering, depression, etc etc. We even have identified and can affect specific parts of the brain and manipulate subjective experience or use our knowledge to make accurate diagnosis of pathology based on subjective reports.!
Now we know defuse thinking , either during meditation, yoga, self critique, having a shower while reflecting on your day and acts, mountain biking in the wild , can produce unorthodox connection and assist solutions.
Now Nobelist Daniel Kahneman has proved that humans are not good in predictions or intuitive guesses even specialists.
We are all acceptable to our vices, urges and environmental distraction.
Quoting Yohan
MN only identify exclusive limitations in what we as empirical beings and our systematic methods can investigate.
Science has earned our trust for the credibility of its methodologies and its theoretical narratives.
As we said they are objective but we can never be absolute sure for their truthiness.
So we must be careful with what we understand as absolute truth, but we should also understand why it is reasonable to accept science as the most credible source we currently have.
That is not because of a magical property but because of its systematicity and epistemic connectedness to the rest body of knowledge.
Why does the evidence have to be accessible to everyone? And how could we possibly know if something is accessible to everyone? Who is everyone?
Before there were people, there were no objective truths?
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Well, I suppose no claim can be absolutely true. Logically I have to believe there is something absolute though. Even If it can never be put as a claim.Quoting Nickolasgaspar
By the criteria you've noted then, geocentrism used to be objectively true?
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I think methodological naturalism helps us form reasonable positions about the "natural world". I don't see any reason to call these reasonable positions "objectively true"
(I might respond to your other post later. Good day)
-Because this is why we avoid to be scammed by con artists. This is why we don't answer back to emails from Nigerian Princes. This is why we hold receipts and reject claims that have economic implications for our well being. This is an essential quality of good evidence.!
-"And how could we possibly know if something is accessible to everyone?"
-by trying to overview the facts and replicate the observations. By actually evaluating the objectivity of the method and its empirical foundations.
-"Who is everyone?"
-Everyone is ...everyone who decides to evaluate a claim. He should be able without using any subjective presumptions(i.e. the existence of the supernatural), to have access to the same facts,and be unable to find facts that conflict the narrative.
-"Before there were people, there were no objective truths?"
-Correct. Truth is an evaluation term humans made up. True evaluates claims that are in agreement with facts. Only premises and arguments can be true or not true...and post are human products.
-"Well, I suppose no claim can be absolutely true. Logically I have to believe there is something absolute though. Even If it can never be put as a claim."
-Not really. in reality we can NOT know whether a claim is absolutely true or not. It might be but we have a limit at how we can prove things.This is why we try to falsify or verify claims...not prove them. And we constantly try to falsify everything with every new fact that comes to light.
The problem is that we are unable to know whether our observations have reach the absolute "end" or there is more "invisible" reality ahead of us. In some cases we are sure that we are not at the end, but in other cases we can not be sure.
"Absolute " its an idealistic concept, I don't know if it even reasonable to speculate about it since , as I said, we don't have a way to inform ourselves where we are in relation to that ultimate goal.
-"By the criteria you've noted then, geocentrism used to be objectively true?"
-Of course the facts that pointed to that framework were accessible and shared by everyone. The reason guiding to that conclusion didn't utilize any unfalsifiable principles so its was an objective acknowledgment ....based on the available facts of that periods.
Then Tycho Brahe and Kepler and Copernicus came along and with their observations and measurements they bough new facts on the table. Geocentrism was not objectively true any more.
Their observations and measurements were accessible and available for anyone to check them.
-"I think methodological naturalism helps us form reasonable positions about the "natural world". I don't see any reason to call these reasonable positions "objectively true""
-This is a game of words.
Reasonable position refers to the reasoning used to arrive to that conclusion(position).
Objectivity refers to the quality of the available facts that were used and narrated by the above reasoning.
good day
I'm done unless you want to offer a deductive answer to my question
I asked a deductive question, and you offered an inductive justification. No amount of examples of white swans justifies the claim that whiteness is a necessary feature of swans.
Listen....if you don't understand why evidence have to be objective/accessible to everyone then you obviously missed the reasons behind all the misery and suffering in our world.
Priests, Lords, kings, politicians had it their way because none of their claims were objective.
(no Kings and priests don't have objective evidence from their divine authority).
-"Why does the evidence have to be accessible to everyone"
-because this is how we verify the truth/knowledge value of a claim and remove possibilities of some people playing games in the expense of others.
Again if you are unable to understand the value of objectivity...just think about al those religious claims and new age ideologies demanding money from their followers.
The more accessible evidence is to others, the more valuable it will be to others. What I meant was that evidence doesn't necessarily have to be accessible to everyone to be evidence of something. All of us probably have evidence of things only we ourselves are privy to.
Never mind.
Now you are addressing a different issue Yohan. You are referring good evidence and bad evidence.
I don't deny that there are different qualities of evidence.
i.e. Mystical revelations and anecdotal stories are evidence, but they are not good evidence, they don't meet , i.e. the criteria and standards of science thus they are rejected.
The problem with those "evidence" is that they are subjective evidence thus they can not be trusted.
Science doesn't produce objective facts.
That was your claim, and I've already explained why it isn't so. Your digression about independent verification is a predictable distraction tactic.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Yes, please educate us all about what you've learned about the "Scientific Method" (which isn't capitalized, by the way) and its "objective nature" from your high school science course.
There is no scientific method. There are many methods, and many questions, that is employed by human beings to understand the world. Quoting Nickolasgaspar
It's funny listening to a person who can compose the above sentence give advice about "taking courses."How about a course in English?
"Science identifies what is real by..."
Yes, that's exactly my point. What is called "real" is, according to the view I was discussing, determined by science. Science, in turn, is not without ontology. You, like other believers in scientism, like to claim that there's a special "method" that "produces" objective facts -- that somehow this "knowledge" is distinguished from philosophy. None of that is the case.
Science has a philosophical basis. Science -- modern science -- has, in fact, emerged from philosophy, what used to be called "natural philosophy." Eventually you get to assumptions, axioms, beliefs, that cannot further be justified by appeals to empiricism, the senses, or "objectivity." I don't expect you to understand any of this, however -- you certainly haven't understood anything else I've written. You're interested solely in posturing, and you're making a fool of yourself.
"Knowledge Based" is not capitalized, by the way. Try engaging less with philosophy and more with basic writing and arithmetic.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I'll just quote myself again, since you unsurprisingly failed to read -- yet again:
Quoting Xtrix
So again -- forget talking philosophy and science. Try Hooked on Phonics.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Yes, because you've definitely demonstrated you're an authority in this conversation. :rofl:
I can't wait to see what profound insights you reveal...
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Riveting!
"Conclusions are objective because they are based on objective methodological processes."
:up: :rofl:
Start with this:
A much better explanation.
You don't understand what objectivity is. What a shocker. No wonder you want to so desperately appear otherwise.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
:)
Google "correspondence theory of truth," honey.
You're a poor scientism advocate. Too bad you want to spend your energy posturing instead of learning.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
"They just didn't have the Scientific Method yet!"
So great to know human beings, after 200 thousand years, stumbled upon a way to "objective truth."
A nice historical story, believed mostly by posturing simpletons.
Quoting Yohan
Exactly. This is not someone worth spending much time on. Likely a semi-literate high school student on an ego trip. Can barely read or write, but wants to give lectures about epistemology. Hilarious.
Quoting Xtrix
All of this stands.
Science was once called natural philosophy. The assumption made is that of naturalism. Whether this is taken simply as the best method to understand the world doesn't matter -- it still involves ontology. It is rooted in ideas about truth, knowledge, and reality. Ideas about "objectivity" itself is based on a separation between an object and the subject -- another distinction which has a long history and should not be taken for granted.
The word "nature" and "physics" has the same root Greek word, which is itself an interesting fact and worth exploring -- for those interested in learning something, rather than posturing.
That is an objectively wrong statement. Science has a set of empirical methodologies that can provide objective facts either in favor or against our hypotheses(falsification/verification process).
Quoting Xtrix
-This is an other misconception of yours. There isn't such a thing as "A scientific Method". Again science has many methodologies that are capable of producing objective facts.
Quoting Xtrix
-You either sound confused or you purposely trying to switch sides in this argument.
Quoting Xtrix
-We can take this to my native language....but you won't be able to write a word.
Quoting Xtrix
-What we call real is defined by our limited methods used to OBJECTIVELY VERIFY what exists. Science has the ability to verify processes and structures with a specific ontology. This is due to Pragmatic Necessity NOT because of a subjective philosophical bias. In addition to that we are not in a position to know whether different "ontologies" are possible. So pls stop whining if your preferred ontology "doesn't show up" on our "screens".
Now you seem to ignore the definition of scientism. Scientism is the belief that only science can be the source of our epistemology and science can answer everything.
I have never stated the above, on the contrary, I point that Science is limited and just one out of many ways to form knowledge claims....so you will need to let this strawman go.......
-"like to claim that there's a special "method" that "produces" objective facts"
-So you don't understand what "objective means" this is why you declare scientific methods special.
Can't help you there if you don't learn what the word means.
Quoting Xtrix
-Correct...but that doesn't help your case. Science split from philosophy because of minds and mentalities like yours.
Science holds way higher standards than academic philosophy does and objectivity is one of them.
I understand that your goal is similar to a religious people....you are struggling the "nothing special" cards, while you are using the products of science to do that.....hilarious.
Quoting Xtrix
Try to suppress the grammar Nazi in you.....focus on the objective facts and sound arguments you have to deal with and avoid posting red herrings.
-"I'll just quote myself again, since you unsurprisingly failed to read -- yet again:
metaphysical naturalism, so called, is indeed what I'm talking about. — Xtrix"
-I don't care what you think you are talking about. The moment you accuse science for a ontological bias you wrongly accuse Methodological Naturalism being a metaphysical view.
keep your metaphysical naturalism out from the philosophical backbone of Science
.Quoting Xtrix
Dishonest sophistries....picking the conclusion while avoiding the main definition.
I understand that you are desperate to protect your death denying ideology and objective facts together with Logic spoil your party.
So the only thing you are left with is to discredit the method that provide the evidence that render your beliefs unfounded and irrational.
-" The terms “objectivity” and “subjectivity,” in their modern usage, generally relate to a perceiving subject (normally a person) and a perceived or unperceived object. The object is something that presumably exists independent of the subject’s perception of it. In other words, the object would be there, as it is, even if no subject perceived it. Hence, objectivity is typically associated with ideas such as reality, truth and reliability."
-Irrelevant definition....(lol object?) An objective observation, method, interpretation is one that is guided by accessible (to anyone) facts and without any influences from biases and feelings.
You will need to study about Objectivism one of the major breakthroughs of Philosophy...mate.
Dude...you seriously need to educate yourself on basic concepts and what Science really is and why its so successful.
Its a waste of time to talk to someone who thinks that the definition of objectivism is shared also by "the object" lol.
I think you are done. You are not here to learn or challenge your "theology".
You are here to guard your echo chamber of irrational beliefs.
Why don’t we conduct a course on philosophy of science right now? First lesson; a survey of the history of philosophy of science.
You have represented a certain philosophical position on the nature of science, but let me ask you this. How would
you characterize the philosophical approaches to science offered by philosophers such as Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and Joseph Rouse? This is a legitimate question if you are going to represent yourself as someone who has a thoroughgoing knowledge of science studies in philosophy. No decent survey course on this topic would leave out the authors I mentioned above. Also , the position Xtrix has been putting forth in this thread is generally consistent with their perspectives on science. So maybe instead of accusing Xtrix of being unfamiliar with the philosophy of science, you should instead simply state that you dont agree with the views of the authors I mentioned. I suppose you could also claim that these writers are not legitimate philosophers of science, in which case you may want to encourage them to take a course on philosophy of science.
Or you could claim that Xtrix is misinterpreting Kuhn, Feyerabend et al, in which case I’d be glad to go over with you what they have written and match them up against what Xtrix is claiming.
Or you could say that you haven’t read the work of these authors, in which case I would respond…yep, you guessed it:go take a course in philosophy of science.
Here’s your first reading assignment for this course:
“From the 1960s on, sustained meta-methodological criticism emerged that drove philosophical focus away from scientific method. A brief look at those criticisms follows, with recommendations for further reading at the end of the entry.
Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) begins with a well-known shot across the bow for philosophers of science:
History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed. (1962: 1)
The image Kuhn thought needed transforming was the a-historical, rational reconstruction sought by many of the Logical Positivists, though Carnap and other positivists were actually quite sympathetic to Kuhn’s views. (See the entry on the Vienna Circle.) Kuhn shares with other of his contemporaries, such as Feyerabend and Lakatos, a commitment to a more empirical approach to philosophy of science. Namely, the history of science provides important data, and necessary checks, for philosophy of science, including any theory of scientific method.
The history of science reveals, according to Kuhn, that scientific development occurs in alternating phases. During normal science, the members of the scientific community adhere to the paradigm in place. Their commitment to the paradigm means a commitment to the puzzles to be solved and the acceptable ways of solving them. Confidence in the paradigm remains so long as steady progress is made in solving the shared puzzles. Method in this normal phase operates within a disciplinary matrix (Kuhn’s later concept of a paradigm) which includes standards for problem solving, and defines the range of problems to which the method should be applied. An important part of a disciplinary matrix is the set of values which provide the norms and aims for scientific method. The main values that Kuhn identifies are prediction, problem solving, simplicity, consistency, and plausibility.
An important by-product of normal science is the accumulation of puzzles which cannot be solved with resources of the current paradigm. Once accumulation of these anomalies has reached some critical mass, it can trigger a communal shift to a new paradigm and a new phase of normal science. Importantly, the values that provide the norms and aims for scientific method may have transformed in the meantime. Method may therefore be relative to discipline, time or place
Feyerabend also identified the aims of science as progress, but argued that any methodological prescription would only stifle that progress (Feyerabend 1988). His arguments are grounded in re-examining accepted “myths” about the history of science. Heroes of science, like Galileo, are shown to be just as reliant on rhetoric and persuasion as they are on reason and demonstration. Others, like Aristotle, are shown to be far more reasonable and far-reaching in their outlooks then they are given credit for. As a consequence, the only rule that could provide what he took to be sufficient freedom was the vacuous “anything goes”. More generally, even the methodological restriction that science is the best way to pursue knowledge, and to increase knowledge, is too restrictive. Feyerabend suggested instead that science might, in fact, be a threat to a free society, because it and its myth had become so dominant (Feyerabend 1978).
An even more fundamental kind of criticism was offered by several sociologists of science from the 1970s onwards who rejected the methodology of providing philosophical accounts for the rational development of science and sociological accounts of the irrational mistakes. Instead, they adhered to a symmetry thesis on which any causal explanation of how scientific knowledge is established needs to be symmetrical in explaining truth and falsity, rationality and irrationality, success and mistakes, by the same causal factors (see, e.g., Barnes and Bloor 1982, Bloor 1991). Movements in the Sociology of Science, like the Strong Programme, or in the social dimensions and causes of knowledge more generally led to extended and close examination of detailed case studies in contemporary science and its history. (See the entries on the social dimensions of scientific knowledge and social epistemology.) Well-known examinations by Latour and Woolgar (1979/1986), Knorr-Cetina (1981), Pickering (1984), Shapin and Schaffer (1985) seem to bear out that it was social ideologies (on a macro-scale) or individual interactions and circumstances (on a micro-scale) which were the primary causal factors in determining which beliefs gained the status of scientific knowledge. As they saw it therefore, explanatory appeals to scientific method were not empirically grounded.
A late, and largely unexpected, criticism of scientific method came from within science itself. Beginning in the early 2000s, a number of scientists attempting to replicate the results of published experiments could not do so. There may be close conceptual connection between reproducibility and method. For example, if reproducibility means that the same scientific methods ought to produce the same result, and all scientific results ought to be reproducible, then whatever it takes to reproduce a scientific result ought to be called scientific method. Space limits us to the observation that, insofar as reproducibility is a desired outcome of proper scientific method, it is not strictly a part of scientific method. (See the entry on reproducibility of scientific results.)
By the close of the 20th century the search for the scientific method was flagging. Nola and Sankey (2000b) could introduce their volume on method by remarking that “For some, the whole idea of a theory of scientific method is yester-year’s debate.”
Science does not produce objective facts.
Let me help you:
What you mean to say is this: science has empirical methods (experimentation, observation, etc.) that test hypotheses. Some call it the hypothetico-deductive model.
Science does not "provide" objective facts. That's completely meaningless. Facts, in the traditional argument, is a true proposition or what's provide by our senses. Science is a way of understanding the facts of the world. It doesn't create the world. Your 4th grade wording is simply nonsensical.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Funny -- that's exactly what I've been saying:
Quoting Xtrix
What you have said:
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
(Emphasis mine.)
:chin:
Glad to see you've changed your mind.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
No. This is your own home-spun definition.
To say what "exists" only reaches the status of "real" when we "objectivity verify" it is nonsense. The term "reality", what is considered "real," what is considered "truth," etc., has a very long history indeed -- as anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with philosophy would know.
You've simply fallen into a tautology.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Science does indeed have a specific ontology. Which is what I've been saying from the beginning.
No one once claimed it was a "subjective philosophical bias." Whether or not it's "pragmatic" is questionable -- but that's your own claim, and so likely not very well thought out.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
That's not the definition of scientism.
Common definition:
From SEP:
From Wiki:
And what I say about it:
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
If one considers whatever is "real" to be whatever science, through (to quote you) "objective verification", determines is real, then this is indeed trusting in the methods of objective verification and, ultimately, on the methods of science.
And, as I said above, I partly subscribe to it myself. I think it's the best way have.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
:rofl:
Oh, ok!
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Methodological naturalism is also an ontological view. I guess this is where you're confused.
If someone believes God is behind all of nature, but employs a naturalistic stance when doing biochemistry and publishing papers, that's simply adopting an ontological position pro tem.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Naturalism is indeed the philosophical backbone of science. Hence why it was once called "natural philosophy."
You're simply confused. If you have questions or need clarification, simply put aside the posturing and ask, and I'll explain to you what I mean. Can your ego handle that? Or do we have to keep going on like this, where you keep trying to set yourself up as "teaching me a thing or two"?
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I suppose this is also the problem: you assume I'm defending religious dogma or supernaturalism. That's not close to being true, as anyone on this forum can tell you.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Another Ayn Rand follower. What a shocker.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
No, you need to stop posturing and learn something. Next time, before jumping into a conversation in which you were not involved, make an effort to read carefully.
This forum is for adults. Not posturing children.
He's interested only in pretending to be an intellectual authority, when in reality his simpleminded. Ayn Rand-following view is a hodgepodge of cliches you'd hear from anyone on a sidewalk.
"Science produces objective facts."
"What is objective is what is objectively verified."
"Heidegger and Nietzsche are metaphysically wrong, although I've never read either."
sorry but you hold factually and fractally wrong beliefs that you can not support with objective facts or sound arguments.
You are done as I said.
Quoting Joshs
-because chronicling isn't philosophy of science. It doesn't address the reasons or the methods that allow science to be so successful in our epistemic inquiries.
Quoting Joshs
The nature of science? when did I do that? Pls tell me what I said that points to the nature of science!
I might be confused with all those comments....If I mentioned objectivism, systematicity and epistemic connectedness then you may be right.
Quoting Joshs
-Yes I find this question fair....and most of their critique outdated based mostly on Normative guidelines. In my opinion in order to understand why science is successful, our input must be Descriptive. This is why focusing in the history of science and the Normative objections fail to realize and describe the reasons why science works far better compared to any other empirical methodology.
Quoting Joshs
As I already noted no decent survey course on the history of this topic would leave out these authors but again their normative convictions are not helpful in understanding what is science, how it works and why it is so successful.
Quoting Joshs
-I am aware of this outdated Normative approach and the distortion of concepts like Objectivism.
I prefer the Descriptive Approach which allow us to understand what is responsible for science's success not what science should do in order for to meet specific criteria.
Obviously something is awfully right in its methodologies so that we able to communicate from our chairs by using a technology designed to manipulate hidden properties of matter....
I think that most of the Normative critique is based on absolute goals and standards forgetting that Methodological Naturalism by definition sets those absolute marks outside our limits and that is an honest call.
Quoting Joshs
-He is reproducing outdated and failed critiques. What would you say to someone who would argue in favor of the heliocentric model....just because it was part of the scientific curriculum...once upon a time?
For goodness shake, he denies Objectivism, one of the major breakthroughs of Philosophy...the standard that demands access to the facts, access to the methodologies and neutral auxiliary principles(based on Pragmatic Necessity not on metaphysical biases) for everyone who wants to challenge a framework.
Quoting Joshs
-I thought you were a serious interlocutor.....But I will give you some more chances.
Quoting Joshs
-As I said before I am aware of this critique based on Normative guidelines, but their authors have failed to explain the run away success of science.
You do understand that Philosophy of science didn't stop with the work of those philosophers...right?
Quoting Joshs
-I guess you can see now why you have to wait for a response before trying to answer your initial question.....
The rest of your post is chronicling....old criticism is like old science.
I will suggest Paul Hoyningen's lectures and courses. He has by far the best work on Descriptive Science and the best arguments on why Normative Science can't work and why we should stop criticizing science for not "obeying" those norms.
You will need update the "excuses" you use to reject the role of science in our philosophical and epistemic advances.
I understand that epistemology is an anathema for most philosophers and they would do anything to avoid knowledge meshing up their ideologies.
They will deny the etymology of the word Philosophy, the connection between wisdom and knowledge and the Aristotle's method that places epistemology and science withing the process.
Factually AND "fractally"! Damn...guess we all can't pretend to be geniuses.
You're right to bow out of this conversation with your tail between your legs. Well done. Also, good job saving face with the "You're not worth it" line. Superb! A real course in ego protection.
Thanks for the laughs.
Translation: Never read a word of Kuhn or Feyerabend.
So you find most of their "critique" to be outdated and based on "normative guidelines," eh? What works of theirs are you referring? Care to cite some passages? Because you've definitely read them, of course... :lol:
Quoting Xtrix
I am sure that I have posted you links ...don't you read my comments or are you preoccupied preparing your apologetic?
Paul Hoyningen has the best available material on why Normative critique has failed in its job.
He has a create lecture on the Nature of Science and a course on Philosophy of science where he presents a list of qualities and standards responsible for its of success(Descriptive Science) instead of chronicling outdated critiques.
Try changing the sounds in your echo chamber mate....its a process known as "Learning".
So you don't know what normative means, either. Great...
Normative refers to norms or ethics. That has nothing to do with anything I've said, or anything to do with Kuhn. What I'm talking about is ontology. Look it up.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
:lol:
How cute.
Yes, certainly what's impressive about science is its "success." That's definitely not a value judgment, I suppose. Having an iPhone must be an "Objective good." lol
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Ayn Rand dogmatists are funny.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Imagine being so full of yourself that you can't even admit that you don't have the slightest clue what these authors' theses were.
How utterly pathetic.
- you do your best mate.!
Quoting Xtrix
oh this is your goal.......ok, that explains your outdated beliefs.
[quote=" good job saving face with the "You're not worth it" line. Superb! A real course in ego protection[/quote]
-its an accurate description mate!
"epistemic success" is a value judgement, if it's even coherent. No one here is making normative claims other than you.
"Descriptive Science" is meaningless as well. Do you mean descriptive RESEARCH?
You're honestly so poor of a writer that it's embarrassing.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
You haven't once posted links or passages about Kuhn or any of the other authors Joshs cited.
Try to follow along with the discussion.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I never once mentioned this guy. I asked about the authors cited above -- not about Hoyningen.
-You do know that you can google a phrase you ignore...before removing any doubt for your ignorance from your interlocutor....right?
You can use your internet connection to educate yourself...its not just for social media and spicy pictures.....
Quoting Xtrix
-You are confusing commercial applications with the knowledge that enables technical applications......
-"Ayn Rand dogmatists are funny."
-Chronicling is blocking your ability to learn or think....
Quoting Xtrix
-Sorry mate but you are unable to point to a critique by those fellows that will be left standing after I have some time with it.
Your objections are based on rejecting facts like the objective nature of Scientific frameworks , the evidence and methods used to arrive to them.
You have nothing to offer mate.
You are done and you don't know it.
-"How utterly pathetic. "
-Self critique is always welcome...
-lol...seriously...you don't know how google search works? the first in random...here you are.Don't make me work for your education..its your responsibility mate.
https://sciencing.com/normative-descriptive-science-8763863.html
Quoting Xtrix
You haven't posted a single link or passage about Hoyningen's critique on Kuhn or others....
Would a astronomer have any reason to argue against disprove frameworks about the solar system? lol
Ok we get it, you happen to learn about Kuhn's ideas and you thought that its a great excuse to reject objectivity and facts...
Nice to know mate....you are not alone who cherry picks and special pleads.....
So i have to quote philosophical shenanigans of people who were trying to keep academic philosophy relevant(and they justify their paycheck) through arguments from ignorance fallacies!!!!
Great demand!
Says the Ayn Rand follower. lol.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
So you don't know what normative means. Got it.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
You realize I can scroll back and see what you said, right? Like:
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Good God you're embarrassing.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Well since you're claiming you're familiar with them -- what argument or book are you referring to? What "critique" are you referring to?
I won't hold my breath for an answer, since you've never read a word of their work. But I realize your ego won't allow you to admit this. And say "normative critique" and wave your hands. Typical of Ayn Rand enthusiasts.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Because I haven't once claimed, like you have with the authors mentioned, to be familiar with Hoyningen.
You claimed familiarity with their work, and in reality you haven't read a word. You're a liar. It's very easy to see.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
So Kuhn's work -- which you've never read and have no clue about -- is equivalent to a geocentric framework.
I'll ask it outright: what are Kuhn's arguments? What books have you read? Care to cite particular passages that demonstrate how outdated he is?
I'll continue not to hold my breath. Keep evading, by all means.
Well you claim to be familiar with them -- because you're a liar. So it's only right to ask for what exactly you find wrong with their arguments.
But since you have no clue about their arguments, you instead are desperately trying to save face by sad attempts at vague generalities.
Again, the authors were: Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and Joseph Rouse. Keep pretending to be an expert on things you have no clue about. Your bullshit doesn't work here, and can be smelled a mile away.
"Bohr's analysis is wrong...he's way too normative!" See? How easy it is! Brilliant.
mentioning Rand's name ...is not an argument against the epistemic success of objective methodologies.....sorry if you are unable to put together a non fallacious argument against objectivity.
(and you can't distinguish the definition of "object" from "objectivity").
Quoting Xtrix
lol...I see you skipped quoting the link I provided you on Normative and Descriptive Science!
Honest discussions are not your A game right?
Quoting Xtrix
-Yes and you understand that an ad absurdum about iphones doesn't change the fact that technical applications of knowledge enables commercial applications. Iphones is not the proof that Knowledge produced by Science has an objective value. Any company can use science's knowledge on matter to produce goods...not just apple. Commercial application is the symptom of objectivity in scientific knowledge...not the cause or proof....
That was a fallacious argument ..just admit it.
Quoting Xtrix
Self critique is a good think...keep it up.
Quoting Xtrix
-I don't find any claim relevant or capable to challenge the ability of science to feed an objective epistemology.
Again its your burden to deconstruct the epistemic status of science by offering the ultimate argument (according to you). hit us!
Btw you are confusing scientific objectivity with Rand's philosophy on objectivism...Logic offers this criterion to Science...not Rand's views....
Quoting Xtrix
lol ..ok childish arguments. Dude science has a work to show something that its critics can not! Whether you agree or not on which principles are responsible for science's epistemic success...its your job to argue in favor or against them...not mine.
Quoting Xtrix
I reject their objections because science has prove that they are irrelevant to its methods abilities to provide descriptive generalizations....again you need to learn how the burden of proof works.
I won't waste my time with a magical thinker writing long lines for text ....to see you tap dancing like you did with the link on normative and descriptive science....
I will be happy to talk to a bystander who appears to be honest and interested in challenging his "theology".
Quoting Xtrix
lol metaphors is not your strong point...right?
Quoting Xtrix
-again its your job to point out which of Kuhn's arguments qualify, in your opinion,as the best challenge against the epistemic and instrumental value of science mate...you need to do the hard work here.
Well...in order to make you stop whining I will throw you some crumbs
there are ideas of his that agree with (i.e.why scientific knowledge doesn't share characteristics of revolution) but his critique on scientific truth is a huge strawman. Science deals with knowledge...not absolute knowledge or truth.
If you are able to understand this basic difference you will also be able to understand why his arguments address Normative science...not Descriptive science (the one responsible for our epistemic success).
Quoting Xtrix
-and how can you objectively prove this belief of yours? Does my reluctance to not waste time on factually wrong critique proves that I am not familiar with it? Fallacies are not your strong point...right?
Quoting Xtrix
-Argument from false authority fallacy since they argue in favor of a Normative approach in science... plus the facts and critique render their objections irrelevant. Science delivers independently of what Philosophers what to believe.
Philosophy has being shrinking for ages. Science has been claiming most of the fields of inquiry so it is natural to have philosophers kicking back in order to make their occupation relevant....
Quoting Xtrix
I guess you don't really grasp the concepts.
How old are you mate?
Did you go to college?
Only one definition survives: Philosophy is the examination of the the world at the level of the most basic questions. Science is, of course, NOT philosophy. It is pre-philosophical.
No response.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
What objections? What exactly are their “objections” that you refer to? Since you’re lying, and have no clue what they argue, they could be in full agreement with you. But again, you wouldn’t know — because you’re a liar, and haven’t read a word of their work.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
:lol:
After a Google search:
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
That’s not Kuhn’s argument. Keep trying.
I notice not one reference to a work or one passage cited. Hmm…I guess that’s too “hard.”
Next time, don’t claim to be familiar with authors you’ve never heard of. Understand?
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
No — failing to know what those “critiques” are does.
What work of Kuhn have you read? Not hard work — just give a title. Go Google it if you need to.
I’ll skip the rest. I’ve already given this lying bullshitter too much of my time.
Go read more Ayn Rand.
Quoting Yohan
For Ayn Rand and his own bloated sense of self.
Quoting Joshs
Yeah…may even be the same person. Who knows.
This depends on whether we want to define them as entirely different. I look at it as a spectrum. The difference between natural philosophy and science isn’t always clear.
Science rests — like everything else — on an ontology (namely, naturalism/materialism). Ontology is usually considered philosophy. The idea of “nature,” causality, time, and being all have philosophical underpinnings in science.
its like interacting with a 7yo...
Apochavnosism in all its glory.
Sorry, I don’t interact seriously with liars.
The Fountainhead is calling you.
-so how do you live with yourself????
Again, educate yourself! Objectivity is not dismissed just because you come up with some outdated critique of the past century that you don't quite understand.
I can give you homework if you like....
Try not to mix pseudo philosophy with Philosophy mate.
cheers.
:yawn:
Liar says what?
stop talking about yourself...and make some proper arguments! Why are you a science denier?
Ah yes, the ontology of knitting. I've heard of it. I have also heard the paradigmatic shift in the art of knitting and the deconstruction of knitting in a very revealing gender analysis. The term 'ontology' has been made into a catchphrase for any and all scholarly work. A little silly, but useful I suppose if you're giving things a close look.
But philosophy is not an empirical approach. It takes empirical approaches and theorizes about their presuppositions, and in this is apriori, like what Kant did with reason looking at judgment and thought and asking what has to be there in order for judgment to be possible.
Philosophy is the "science" of presuppositions.
This did give me a chuckle.
Quoting Constance
True— not now, anyway. But remember, science comes out of natural philosophy, and is not without its ontological foundations. Once we acknowledge that, clear demarcations begin to get blurred.
We still are debating a huge swath of traditional questions in which we have not managed to advance one iota. What is the self, how can matter think, what is mind, what's the good, is there only one thing in the universe, do we have free will, etc.
Sometimes we get lucky and manage to bring some of the classic philosophical questions into the arena of empirical research, and then we get a science.
Depends on what you read. Go back to a time when the world was not cluttered with new categories, and one could observe without the presumption of knowing. Science did not so much "come out of natural philosophy" as it took what was "natural" and categorized it. What is left is religion: the narrative driven unobservable world that defies categorical thinking. It is the "openness" of our existence in all knowledge claims. The essence of religion, minus the narratives and the popular institutions, is just this openness; and the openness of ethics is front and center.
Except that much of familiar philosophy doesn't "study" mysteries; it ignores them. Religion presents a metaphysics that is, in most of its content, nonsense, and it loses its authority because of this. Then, in rejecting religion and its nonsense, we end up rejecting the entirety of foundational talk about what it is to be a person in the world. This is understandable since the "authentic" issues of religion are unclear in their meaning, and we do like things clear.
But to take this need for clarity to the threshold of inquiry, that is, existential mystery, is just perverse. This mystery is what we, well, "really are", given that what a thing really is, is defined by its final definition, after thought and questions have cleared the way. We are, at the deepest level of inquiry, completely mysterious to ourselves.
I think the topics I listed are a mystery and are studied (or discussed and elaborated) and we still debate them, with no resolution on the horizon.
Religion is very complex and I would probably say that it's even impoverished by the Western entanglement with Christianity, which, compared to other religions, is pretty boring. At least to me.
But existence can be looked at through many lenses, not limited to religion.
Quoting Manuel
Religion looked at as complex and impoverished IS worse than boring; it is dangerous and trivializing, popular religions and their texts. But once the tedious "theology" and politics is removed, what is left is what you called a "study of mysteries." Not so much a "study" by science, and philosophy, in this neck of the woods anyway, is no more than speculative science, and mystery is simply unwelcome.
What is the self? you ask. A good question. Science has nothing to offer here and popular religions are too filled with bad metaphysics. Where does one go? Existence? Same.
That's fine. Where does one go? Depends on each person, I personally like descriptive generalization that make sense to me, that can help elucidate what I experience, obviously inadequately, but it's an approximation.
Others will deny that the self is a problem at all.
Some think science offers all answers.
Some become mystics.
I don’t see the difference.
Science seeks to understand nature, seeking naturalistic explanations. That’s natural philosophy. Yes, we’ve since given it another label — but ontologically it’s no different.
Quoting Constance
Eh. I myself don’t take the conventional distinctions between religion, philosophy, and science very seriously— any more than I take historical epochs like the “middle ages” and “renaissance” seriously. They’re useful in everyday discussion, but when looking at it a little closer they aren’t at all as clear or as neat as one would like to think.
What’s called religion in many ways deals with the same questions as philosophy…and science. I think the knee jerk reaction to this is historical — the Catholic Church persecuting early astronomers, or creationists trying to get ID taught in schools, etc. There’s a fear that our sense of truth is undermined if science and “religion” aren’t separated — that one deals with facts and the other with faith, etc. I used to think the same, and in many instances still do— but with the acknowledgement that it’s not always so simple.
So’s science, no? Plenty of mysteries in science— unsolved problems, puzzling questions, etc.
Science is able to answer questions because it sets certain goals and standards for itself — it is more restricted. But it is by no means the final arbiter of truth. What is or isn’t true is a philosophical question. Nature and naturalism is an interpretation and fundamentally an ontological position.
Quoting Manuel
I think the questions of philosophy can be answered, and in fact are answered all the time. We make our choices and live our lives largely on the basis of these answers, tacitly or explicitly. There’s many reasons and arguments for and against these answers. They don’t come out of nowhere— they come out of the human mind.
Again, empiricism isn’t necessarily the final word on the truth it falsity of something. Empiricism is itself a way of interpreting and engaging with the world, and with truth.
Incidentally, I value empirical evidence and reasons as much as the next person. I just don’t think we need to take the labels too seriously. Thinking, asking questions, solving problems, etc. — all worthwhile human activities. We can try to define various labels for what we do — but in the end the questions and problems themselves are what’s more interesting to me.
145 thousand years ago, human beings still existed. They still lived and raised families and suffered and contemplated the world and told stories. They created new tools and explanations and codes of conduct without a shred of care about whether they were “doing” philosophy or science or technology or religion. Just as they didn’t know or care that they were living in what later humans would call the Stone Age. I think we can learn something from them. Which is why I offered a very general picture of philosophy as a label for a kind of thinking — a kind of thinking distinguished by its universal questions. Natural thinking/philosophy is exactly that — it restricts its questions (and answers) to nature— to matter, to causes and effects, to observable and experimentally verifiable phenomena, to quantification, etc. We now call that science, and want to relegate everything else to religion (read: blind faith, superstition, mythology) and philosophy (the academic pondering of unanswerable questions and ultimately unproductive navel-gazing). That’s generally what I see happening here. Not necessarily you.
But this is only one man’s opinion.
Both science and philosophy try to explain the "mysteries" of our world through the use of theoretical frameworks.
Anything we don't know qualifies as a mystery to us.
So this is not where our intellectual tools differ.
The things are far more simple than most people believe.
When we have limited access to data but we are able to produce wise questions or metaphysical conclusions, then we are doing Philosophy
When we are able to produce additional data and we arrive to conclusions with epistemic and instrumental value, we are doing science.
The early stage of the theoretical process that include the applied principles and epistemology SHOULD be the same. So both methodologies should start from current epistemology, use the same naturalistic principles and through logic they should arrive to functional and meaningful frameworks.
If the early stage in of both processes drifts away from those basic steps then we are dealing with pseudo philosophy.
I am sorry but most of the members in this forum are guilty of reproducing pseudo philosophical ideas which are designed to provide comfort...not wisdom.
I have nothing against what you said. And you are correct, there are mysteries in science too. But I do think that many of the classical philosophical questions are so hard, we don't even know how to go about even giving a good answer. Free will, for instance, or how can matter think? We know it can, but have zero clue as to how it does this.
Yes, it is true that religion and philosophy can be ridiculed and that some of that ridicule is at times, relevant. I love navel gazing, so I'm restricted to phenomenology and better descriptions, it does it for me. But it won't fulfill others.
As for questions that get answered, that's correct. I suppose it depends on what you mean by "philosophy" and what kind of questions you have in mind. If you mean, say, political philosophy, then yes, I think you are correct.
I too value empiricism and empirical evidence. Incidentally, as a side note, Locke and Hume were MUCH more sophisticated than many so called "empiricists" today, but, there are things we know with little evidence or were we only have intuition or best guesses.
Very true. Plenty of bad answers, of course. Sometimes the question itself isn't formulated well enough that there can even be an answer.
Quoting Manuel
Agreed. I'm always impressed when reading those guys. Hume's thoughts on government everyone should read.
Yep. You and I are virtually on the same page on almost all topics. I wonder why? ;)
And yes, we can put words into a "question like" format, doesn't mean it's coherent or sometimes, even answerable by us.
I'm not much into political philosophy. I like phil of mind, epistemology, metaphysics. And on these alone, they have so much gold. Much richer than most modern interpretations.
But I'm sure they both have quite sensible things to say about politics too.
I think you have a point there about people and their diverging points of view. But then, what an individual experiences is not just a matter of choice and personality. We are what we read, and if all I read was analytic philosophy, all I would know is what Quine and his ilk have to say. My subjective inclinations are steered by the literature, and if you bring up the mysteries of philosophy, analytic philosophy is not going to be very welcoming since it has a positivist devotion to clarity. My issue with this kind of thing is simple: The world is anything but clear on these threshold matters of philosophy and to pretend it is is to look away from the world and retreat back into the comfort of the familiar. I don't think philosophy should be comfortable. The world is weird beyond measure when basic questions are taken up.
Philosophical ontology certainly is a question that seeks an explanation, but it does not do this through what one would call natural means. It is an apriori inquiry, about presuppositions of what natural sciences have to say.
Quoting Xtrix
I do appreciate your belief in a kind of unified epistemology. You are right, there is an equal footing for all knowledge claims that ignores the divisional distinctions. This is called philosophy. Philosophy wants to understand, not this or that category, but all categories. Genetics and astronomy have very different thematic interests, but what they have in common is they both issue from the same kind of epistemic relations, which are observational; so what is it to observe? Philosophy asks not just basic questions, but the MOST basic question possible, and this demands a pulling away from observational claims to observation itself.
Religion is essentially a metaphysics of ethics and aesthetics. Take away the stories and the bad metaphysics, and this is what it comes down to.
I take that to be self evident. Though I'm not particularly analytic. I'd say I'm 17th, 18th century phil + Chomsky and Tallis.
And a bit of Galen Strawson. But pure analytic phil, depending on the figures, doesn't satisfy me.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
With this, you will get a philosophy of science, but nothing more. True, all things start with inquiry, but then, philosophy asks very different questions. Einstein talked about time and space, e.g., but not as foundational conditions for consciousness. As to epistemology, science cannot touch this: one cannot observe empirically an act believing or knowing. The best one can do is analyze features of knowledge relationships, you know, S knows P, is justified in this, and P is true; but the rub is in this justification, for P can't be affirmed as true unless there is a line of justification that leads from P to S. Impossible to "observe" this line because P is entangled IN S's relationship to it.
Science simply has nothing to say about this, nor about ethics or aesthetics or reality or being and existence, and so on. What distinguishes philosophy is that the questions it addresses are structurally open, that is, even if you did have an answer, that answer would be contingent. But then, this is true for all knowledge claims whatsoever. All roads lead to philosophy.
Then there is only one way to go. Alas, it is not easy and most think it is prohibitively obscure, and they are right, frankly. But anything is better than Chomsky, Strawson, Quine, Ryle, Dennett and so on. Not that they don't have anything interesting to say, but to be taken as the principle insights for understanding philosophy is just missing the grand point of it all. I mean, if you like rigorous, well defined puzzle solving, then fine, but they will take no further than this.
I am talking about continental philosophy. Begins, if there is such a thing, with Kant.
Well said in the first, my sentiments also, in the second. Although, the beginning might be in Descartes, Kant then being the standard by which all others in the class, are measured.
-No you are confusing Philosophy of science(the study of how the methods of systematized epistemology work and the quality of the end product), with the rules of logic and principles science and philosophy must follow in order to achieve their goals, credible knowledge and valuable wisdom.
Those are two completely different things.
Quoting Constance
That doesn't let her of the hook. Philosophers still need to take in to account the established knowledge and use it as their starting point, they also need to avoid unfounded principles (supernaturalism, idealism etc) in their interpretations and they need to check and include need data and feedbacks.
Their questions are different because their goals are different. Both ask questions about how the world works but Philosophy have an additional set of questions that include meaning and value.
Science stops before meaning and value because its job to produce knowledge. Philosophy has to take that knowledge from science and inform its frameworks on value and meaning.
This is how Philosophy can ensure that their frameworks convey wisdom.
Quoting Constance
-Why he should ever have done that? The first are phenomena studied by physics while the later is a biological phenomenon studied by Neuroscience. I didn't know Einstein had a second degree in Neuroscience!
If you are referring to Modern Philosophy talking about consciousness being fundamental(whatever that means), well some philosophers do talk about it, but that doesn't make a Philosophical idea.
That is pseudo philosophy because Cosmology and Neuroscience haven't been epistemically unified....yet at least.
We don't have observations that point to any links between those different phenomena.
Quoting Constance
Of course it can.I empirically can observe your thoughts, knowledge and beliefs.
We even have a technology that we can read complex conscious thoughts without the need from an individual to communicate them!...By just reading fMRI scans (2017).
https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2017/june/brain-decoding-complex-thoughts.html
Maybe you meant something else?
But even if were we unable to empirically investigate subjective states and we couldn't produce medicinal solutions for states like pain and depression and anxieties and child disorders, or diagnostics linked to pathology and physiology of brains, surgery protocols etc etc etc, the question would be,if a systematic,objective approach and method cannot touch this phenomenon..what can and how can we be sure for the objective takes of that "unknown" alternative method?
Quoting Constance
-Well this is what we do in all aspects of our investigation. We make objective observations and we try to demonstrate Strong correlations between Causal mechanism and Effect by Describing and Verifying the Sufficient and Necessity role of that Link.
Of course all this is achieved by Objective Observations. All those observations are behind the thousands of papers found in Neurosciencenews.com describing how the brain achieve every different state and function.
I don't really understand where did you hear about the "impossibility" to observe and describe the causal role of brain functions to our Mind properties and how they allow us to have testable predictions and technical applications.
Do you also think the same for the "unobservable" process of Digestion, or Mitosis or Photosynthesis??
Quoting Constance
Again the thousands of books and publications of Cognitive Science would disagree, the Techniques and medical applications will find your claim strange. Our theories and medical/surgery protocols render your claim factually wrong. There are many things that Science can say and mountains of knowledge that can offer to Philosophy.
Quoting Constance
-OF course science has an essential role in all of them. Why do you think our morality has involved?
Where did Philosophy got its feedback? How do we know our place on the world(Common Ancestry, DNA, No biological Human races, not the center of the universe etc).
Science has informed us how to tell which of our superstitious beliefs are real and which existential claims are irrational to be believed because we don't have objective evidence.
You seem to ignore the role of science in Philosophy.
You can not have the one without the other.
Sure philosophy might help us define concepts and evaluate meaning and value, but without knowledge those would be empty evaluations. Philosophy is the intellectual endeavor of coming up with wise claims about our world. AGAIN without knowledge NO CLAIM can be considered as wise.
Quoting Constance
-That is a common misconception. BiG Bang cosmology was metaphysics before it was verified objectively and become science.
Continental drifting was metaphysic before it became a scientific theory.
EVERY single scientific hypothesis is philosophy before it is verified or rejected.
String theory is metaphysics.
Again Science is the second most important step in any philosophical inquiry.
Philosophy goes some steps further and tries to address Ethical and aesthetic and political questions, but that is impossible task without Epistemology and Knowledge.
So we should stop trying to separate those two and we should acknowledge as pseudo philosophy the inquiries that ignore scientific knowledge and Naturalistic principles...period.
The important distinction to be done is only between Epistemology and Metaphysics.
We should never mix those two and we should all be informed on what frameworks are in one group and what in the other.
You are correct some to the classical philosophical questions are unanswerable for many reasons.
First of all since Philosophy deals with value and means, most of their answers are mostly subjective.
(meaning of life,of existence,what we value etc).
The big problem is with those questions which are the product of begging the question of fallacious assumptions or factually wrong presuppositions.
Two great example for all three is Free Will and consciousness.
We know that Humans have will and we also know from science that is not free 99% of the time.
We have a good idea(we don't know all the story) on what mechanisms are Necessary and Sufficient for a conscious state with a specific content to emerge but "philosophers" insist in bringing in the supernatural as if it has the same number of good evidence to qualify as competitive explanation.
To be a knowledge field should require an epistemological framework, right?
Is empirical observation a reliable way to verify a hypothesis is true? And is it the only or primary way?
Does deductive logic or mathematics require empirical observation?
Empirical observations may be "objective", but the conclusions one draws from it, aren't they going to be inductions?
"Natural science" constructs theories around observations. The theories themselves are not empirical, are they?
Ethicists, eg bioethicists, also construct theories around observations.
What makes "natural science" theories more "objective" than ethical theories, or economic theories, or political theories, or mathematical theories?
Academically, the legitimacy of this activity is bolstered with vast amounts of canon.
For me, after I read Kant, I felt I understood the foundations of philosophical issues. It occurred to me that there is simply no way AT ALL to escape some form of idealism. This is not to say at all I agree with the CPR. But I had never really understood that science was derivative, as Leo Strauss put it. Every empirical knowledge claim in this world is derivative of the intuitive and cognitive foundation that is set before us.
It is not the empirical analysis of things that we first encounter in the world. It is meaning, and analysis follows on this.
:clap: :up:
Well said.
I wouldn’t bother too much with Ayn Rand dogmatists/liars who are interested only in posturing.
Let them be happy with “philosophy becomes science when it is objectively verified” or whatever Nickelodeon characterization they’re attached to.
You’d have a better chance talking to a sea blob.
The issue I take has to do with your "same naturalistic principles". Philosophy is not naturalistic, if I take your meaning. the method? Well, I can only think of two. The most general is the scientific method, and this is in the nature of thought and experience itself.
The other method is that of pursuing presuppositions in accepted ideas. This is philosophy. But then, I do see that ALL inquiry in science is like this, and this is perhaps what you are saying. It is one thing to accept the "normal science", which is the same as my accepting my cat, all expectations confirmed over and over. It is another to ask questions about this: the question is common to all desire to know.
I obviously don't take issue with logic. That would be impossible. It is the thematic nature of the inquiry. Philosophy has a different mission, one that looks to presuppositional foundations of knowledge claims AS knowledge claims. Science is not interested in this; only in the specific knowledge claims of its field of interests.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Ah, but here you go astray. Take a second (or, a first?) look at idealism, or, as it is later taken up, phenomenology. Science has a wide readership and it produces great cell phones, but as a foundation for philosophy, it has little to say, and what it does have to say amounts to speculative science, merely. You are never going to get this tart to your dessert plate:all one can ever witness is the phenomenon. Wittgenstein knew this. Dennett knows this, they all know this.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
The point about Einstein is that his was an empirical theory about motion, distance measurements, etc. An apriori theory of time and space is very different. It tries to describe the conditions in place that make such observations even possible. A bit like checking out what a telescope does prior to processing the data it gives us. Experience is not a mirror of nature, to borrow a phrase. How could it be this? Have you seen a brain?
I caught that "whatever that means." You need to get out more, I mean, read something else other than what Neil Tyson DeGrasse tells you to read. Me, I've taken lots of science, and I do understand it quite well. But I have also read lots of phenomenology. The latter is philosophy. An entirely different order of analysis.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
You jest, no? Seriously, is this what you think? If a child is drowning and the event produces ripples in the water, then by an examination of the ripples, I know what the child's drowning is all about?? What do you think an MRI is?
But when I say one cannot observe empirically the act of believing or knowing I mean to say that even in one's interior observations, where the belief arises and one can step back and one can step back and acknowledge this in an act of reflection, the knowing the belief is there is still bound to the indeterminacy of belief itself. It is like what Wittgenstein said about logic: it only "shows" itself, but one can never know what it is because it takes logic to observe at all, and this begs the question in the worst way. Belief cannot catch, slip in through the back door, as Hegel put it, sight of what it is to believe.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
The question goes to what the knowing of anything is. You would have to show how anything out there gets in here (pointing to my head). Do this, and I will convert instantly to your side of this matter.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Well, there is a lot of language in this, and it is all from science. You need, if you want to understand philosophy, to look elsewhere, other than a body of thinking that is self confirming. This would bring in questions. A physiologist reads about, witnesses the digestive system, say, microscopically as well, and with all the detail. Ask this scientist, how do you separate what you witness from the phenomena produced in your brain such that your thinking and intuitive impressions are not REALLY just about the hard wired problem solving mechanisms that deal with the affairs in general? How do you separate your knowing about what is before you from the conditions of knowing?
No one I have ever read has any issue with science. At all! They simply say that science is not the place to go if you want to talk about philosophical issues. It is not foundational, but is derivative of the intuitions we call the world. Look out on a starry night and what do you see? Why is there this finitude that prevents penetration into eternity? Isn't that the inside of your cranium you're experiencing? This is my question for materialists on this matter. Phenomenology has its own manner of thinking.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Philosophy observes the world of observations. It does not go beyond this, but into it. It is not that there are no reasonable knowledge claims in science, but rather that such claims themselves bear analysis. Look at it like Dewey or Rorty do: There is a volcano. An event. And my perception of the volcano is an event. I am "here" and the volcano is "there". Do I know there is a volcano? Of course. What does it mean to know, that is this relation that exists between me and that over there? Now wait....that is a different kind of question entirely. I have to remove my geologist's smock. This is an epistemic relation, not a causal one.
You should be able to see that this is a problem. For philosophy, it was THE problem for more than a hundred years, until many just decided to forget it. It will NEVER be resolved is empirical science. You can think as you please, ignore it as you please, but every philosopher knows this.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
The "pseudo" part of all this is just someone's desire to stick with familiar thinking because thinking outside of this is uncomfortable. A bit like putting one's head in the sand. to see things clearly, you have to learn to live with the world as it is: it is indeterminate not just historically (the Big Bang, and so on); it is indeterminate structurally! The trouble is, I don't think you know what this even means.
How about.....derivative of the intuitive and cognitive foundation that belongs to us. If not, yours works.
I agree with both. I lean towards yours.
It depends on whether speculation in the sciences is "philosophy". I think it is not. Even the definition of speculative philosophy is something different.
I don't agree. Not that I think Quine or Kripke are too interesting, but contemporary continental philosophy is pretty bland to me.
Chomsky is excellent. I think people often read into some superficial notions of "scientism", which I think is a mistake.
But Kant is fantastic. Schopenhauer maybe better.
99% of the time we are not free? That's a bit much, no?
But if you like Kant, then you'll adore Heidegger. And Husserl. And Fink; here is an intro:
[i]instead of soaring up over the world "speculatively," we, in a
truly "Copernican revolution," have broken through the confinement of the natural
attitude, as the horizon of all our human possibilities for acting and theorizing,
and have thrust forward into the dimension of origin for all being, into the constitutive source of the world, into the sphere of transcendental subjectivity[/i]
Fink, Husserl's colleague and disciple, follows on the heels of Kant in his Sixth Cartesian Meditation. Haven't had the time to look carefully into Schopenhauer. Soon.
I used to like Heidegger, now less so, but he's interesting. Husserl has insightful things to say, but I do think he gets caught up in very serious mental gymnastics.
But to be fair, Husserl was following Descartes to an extent. The Continentals skipped over the empiricists, which I think is a mistake. I won't hide my pro-Locke, pro-Hume biases and although I think Locke has some chapters which I think should be mandatory reading for phil of mind, skipping over Hume is pretty remarkable. He's a force, I think.
But those figures you mentioned are good, I just really dislike postmodernism. That's where I draw the line.
IMHO your disagreement is not sufficiently informed.
First of all not all speculations are Philosophical We are only referring to structured hypothetical frameworks.
Now science , before leaving the Philosophical Academia was identified as Natural Philosophy. ALL hypotheses formed within science are by default Metaphysics(philosophy), as long as they obey the principles of Methodological Naturalism's, the rules of logic and the established epistemology.
Why less so now? I’m curious.
I eventually felt that he lead me nowhere. He has a very unique capacity to make the ordinary seem extraordinary, but I can't build off of that. And the distinguished philosophers who followed him (Sartre, Gadamer, etc.) didn't really expand on what he said to my satisfaction.
He can be read in too many ways, and although you can always find a quote of his to contradict a statement he said elsewhere, he didn't really illuminate much on the mind, which is what I think is fruitful.
In short, I got stuck there with no way out. So it stopped being such a novelty. I still think he's interesting, but I prefer other methods of philosophizing, such as Tallis whom I think "does Heidegger" better because one can work on his foundations, and some of the classics of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, who have rich insight that I can try to do something with.
- I can see why you have an issue with that statement, since I didn't provide any clarification.
By Naturalistic Principles I am referring to Methodological Naturalism not to a metaphysical worldview (Philosophical Naturalism). Unfortunately our only verified epistemology is provided by Empirical Means. Those Empirical means can only detect an investigate a Naturalistic Realm so we are limited in our descriptions and methods of verification.
Its like being in a room and the only exit to the rest of the world is a door(Naturalism). Sure, we can not exclude the existence of hidden trapdoors and passages(Idealism, Superanturalism) but as long as we are unable to locate them we are limited to that single door.
So by choosing those principles we are not encouraging some kind of arbitrary bias but its a Pragmatic Necessity that we can not really avoid if we care having Objective foundations.
You see "empirical methodologies" are not essential but Objectivity is and as far as we can tell, the only approach able to produce objective epistemology is the Empirical (at least for now).
Philosophy is indeed not naturalistic. Philosophy is the quest for wise claims about our world and only Naturalistic frameworks can be evaluated for their epistemic value.
Without knowledge we can not have wise claims.
Quoting Constance
-Aristotle left behind a philosophical work which is questionable at best, but what he is famous of is his work on Systematizing and organizing Logic and Philosophy. Aristotle first understood the essential steps for every philosophical inquire that can allow us to reach wise conclusions.
You can see the steps of the philosophical method in my avatar pic but I will list them here too.
1. Epistemology(what we know and how we know )
2. Physika (investigation of the world...science)
3. Metaphysics (Hypothesizing on the founding of the two previous steps.)
4. Aesthetic
5. Ethics
6. Politics
-" It is one thing to accept the "normal science", which is the same as my accepting my cat, all expectations confirmed over and over. It is another to ask questions about this: the question is common to all desire to know."
-Yes Philosophy includes science as a step in the whole process and it does go some steps beyond the gathering of knowledge by tackling matters of meaning and value. The problem rises when we include in our premises concepts that aren't justified by our epistemology or science (begging the question, poisoning the well).
The Philosophical Method is an exercise in frustration, not the pursuit of comforting ourselves by assuming the concepts we need to prove.
-"Philosophy has a different mission, one that looks to presuppositional foundations of knowledge claims AS knowledge claims. Science is not interested in this; only in the specific knowledge claims of its field of interests."
-As I said the main mission of Philosophy is to arrive to Wise Questions or Conclusions. We strive to expand our understanding by reflecting on the facts that are available. The presuppositions used in our knowledge are analyzed by Philosophy of Science, but the fact is that we don't have a say in those presuppositions. As I already explained we are limited by our tools of investigation and the observable aspects of nature.
Quoting Constance
-Again you are confusing Technical applications with science. Science offers knowledge on the observable ontology of matter in order for businesses to make cell phones.
You can not remove science from the philosophical method because you will be unable to distinguish wise from non wise statements. Scientific observations has updated our cosmological stories, our place in our solar system and our universe, our stories of how we came to evolve instead of created.etc etc
Now Idealism is not Philosophy but a worldview. It is considered to be philosophy because its historical record. This is huge problem with philosophy that we don't see in science. When a framework doesn't carry any epistemic value it is rejected and it isn't recycled.
Idealism doesn't carry any wisdom and its principles have zero contributions to our epistemology. It is by definition a failed pseudo philosophical view with assumptions that aren't EVEN wrong.
The same is true for any transcendental or non naturalistic variety of phenomenology.
Quoting Manuel
I hear you. But what would you like to do with it?
I feel the question itself, the history, etc., is very focusing. It offers a new understanding of being human, really. That has plenty of application — to politics, to technology, and so on.
You are probably correct. Certainly science evolved in philosophical frameworks. But I think apart from logical structures science is no longer philosophical. Just the way I see it as a a non-philosopher. Once the technicalities of an idea require extensive specialized knowledge that idea becomes speculation by the scientists involved. I consider string theory to be speculative science as long as there is the faintest possibility it can be experimentally verified. If it were clearly shown to be non-verifiable, well, that's a different thing.
Now, there are concepts in science/mathematics that I do in fact believe are philosophical, metaphysical to be exact. Infinitesimals, conjectured by Leibniz and others, are objects of metaphysics. They can be considered foundational in analysis and support a mathematical structure that describes much of the physical world. But they cannot be proven to exist.
I read the section of your thesis on the composition problem. I'm familiar with weak emergence, but strong emergence focuses on consciousness and is deeply philosophical. That all tiny entities that compose to create something grander contain or exhibit the same impression as the larger composition is certainly not the case in weak emergence, which may not be fertile ground for philosophical discourse. Nice paper.
Are you defining philosophy and metaphysics as dealing with phenomena which cannot be proven?
How about the idea that metaphysics is the condition of possibility for understanding the theoretical
framework within which proven facts make sense in the first place? Based on that definition , all proven facts within all sciences are elements of larger theoretical
frameworks, and those larger theoretical frameworks belong to larger metaphysical worldviews.
The conclusion is that science has never ceased being ‘philosophical’ in the sense that theoretical frameworks represent a naive metaphysics.
-You can never say that an objective set of observations can or cant mirror nature accurately!
You are using an argument from ignorance fallacy as an excuse to dismiss our only credible and objective source of knowledge and sneak in pseudo philosophical speculations as competitive ontological frameworks.
Again I am not saying that our observations are absolute true or the picture we receive is 100% accurate. I only pointing out that we can not evaluate the accuracy of our observation so we are forced to work with what we got (pragmatic necessity) either they agree with our metaphysical worldviews or not! On the other hand idealistic and supernatural claims fall outside our Cataleptic Impressions and our methods of observation so we have zero objective information about these speculations.
Quoting Constance
I don't read Tyson. He is too poetic for my taste and diluted in epistemology. Again phenomenology has many varieties. Some are philosophical but many are pseudo philosophical. This is the problem with Philosophy. Under the same umbrella term its possible to found good and bad Philosophy!
My statement "whatever it means" was my response to the claim "consciousness being fundamental".
ITs was not a cheep blow. I used that statement because consciousness in Neuroscience has a specific definition and pseudo philosophy/supernaturalism definitions are pretty vague.
What verify in science is in direct conflict with the proclaimed "role" of consciousness by pseudo philosophical views.
Quoting Constance
-What I personally think is irrelevant. In science we establish Sufficiency and Necessity between a causal mechanism and the effect by verifying Strong Correlations between a process and a phenomenon. So to explain this process in terms of your example.....an Environmental or organic stimuli (a drowning child or a pebble or a fish breaking the surface of the water etc) produces connections in the brain (surface ripples ) that in turn enables the emergence of mental conscious state with a specific conscious content( wave, bubbles, foam, distorted reflections etc).
Again you are making an argument from ignorance (because we can not disprove that there is an addition level of reality responsible for mental states we can dismiss or ignore Neuroscience's epistemology without evidence against it and without any evidence for the suggested idea)!
This is NOT how the burden of proof works. This is not how we identify a Default position(Null Hypothesis) .
This is fallacious reasoning! We can not throw out of the window our objective observations and frameworks that make testable predictions (diagnose pathology) and real life technical applications (accurately read complex thoughts, surgery and medicinal protocols)...just because some believe a fallacious claim!
By definition the truth value of a fallacious claim is unknown so we are forced to dismiss it as pseudo metaphysics.
Quoting Constance
-I think I understand what you want to say. You are misusing the term "observation" and that creates a miscommunication. To set things straight , of course we can observe the act of believing and knowing by many methods. We can either compare brain scans in relation to specific stimuli, check blood profile , behavior etc.
What we can't observe is how others individuals subjectively experience those states. This is because it is a subjective experience!
Our goal is not to experience other peoples experiences!!!!! Its nonsensical to even suggest it! What w can do is to verify the processes responsible for the experience. We can do that with objective methods of investigation.
Quoting Constance
-The "knowing of anythings" is the process of interacting with the world and composing objective descriptions about it. Knowledge is any claim that's objectively in agreement with current facts and carries Instrumental value. Everything gets in our brain by empirical interactions. If you have ever observed babies growing up, you will see that in their early years they know nothing about the world. By interacting with it and testing their assumptions (this is why they are prone to accidents lol) their small brains construct a mental model. This process is called Learning. We can see the changes in the brain and how learning things affect size and function.
Quoting Constance
The think is we are talking about the knowledge on a phenomenon that is studied by a Scientific discipline so "understanding philosophy" or better listening to pseudo philosophical ideas on the mind or consciousness is irrelevant.
When we need to learn things about the causal mechanisms of a biological phenomenon....we study science.
When we want to understand the implications in real life of this knowledge, its value and meaning for our lives...then we use philosophy.
WE NEVER use philosophy to assume magical ontologies that are Unnecessary, Insufficient and Unfalsifiable.
Its not like they are the products and conclusions of our observations!! Someone made up an magical realm and placed his idea in a safe place away from falsification without any epistemic foundations!
Quoting Constance
-Yes some fields of philosophy deals and analyzes how we make observations...but it doesn't have the tools to test whether those observations are capable to be accurate or not of reality.
-" It does not go beyond this, but into it."
-When speculations about the accuracy of them are adopted as worldviews....then no they do go beyond this.
-" It is not that there are no reasonable knowledge claims in science, but rather that such claims themselves bear analysis."
-All theoretical frameworks in science are reasonable BY DEFINITION. They describe Objective facts. This is all we have to work with and our theories provide a narrative without making up realms, substances or entities that we can not falsify.
-"This is an epistemic relation, not a causal one."
-Correct....observing doesn't cause the event you observe....where exactly do you see a problem???
I don't get what problem do you see in an event (volcano) and an observer observing the event (which is a different event on its own).
Could you point out where the problem is????
So metaphysics is foundational, without which interpreting scientific results and speculations go nowhere? This is a bit vague for me, but my background in philosophy is limited. When I think of metaphysics I think of infinitesimals. I need specific examples of concepts in order to understand the concepts. I don't think of string theory as metaphysical, although it may be seen as a result of an initial metaphysical trigger.
Quoting Joshs
I agree if pondering implies philosophical.
-To be accurate science didn't evolved in philosophical frameworks. Science was philosophy with bad empirical methods. As our methods advanced Natural Philosophy was forced to abandon the shrinking ship of Academic Philosophy.
-"But I think apart from logical structures science is no longer philosophical. "
-No it is a specialized Philosophical Category. It deals with ontology within nature since we figured out this is the only ontology that makes senses and has epistemic value.
Like philosophy, science uses the available facts and produce theoretical models in our effort to understand the world. The main difference is that Philosophy as a method expands in a larger number of fields.
-"Once the technicalities of an idea require extensive specialized knowledge that idea becomes speculation by the scientists involved."
-I don't know what that means. Science and Philosophy produce Hypotheses. Metaphysics are a common branch for both methods.
-"I consider string theory to be speculative science as long as there is the faintest possibility it can be experimentally verified. If it were clearly shown to be non-verifiable, well, that's a different thing."
-Yes sting theory is Metaphysics on the ontology of matter? We don't know if we can falsify Sting Theory....well the we have some ideas but nothing close to applicable. I don't understand what your point is? The metaphysical nature of STring Theory support my position, why did you use it?
-"Now, there are concepts in science/mathematics that I do in fact believe are philosophical, metaphysical to be exact."
-Again ALL scientific hypotheses are Metaphysics. Mathematics are NOT science. Its a tool based(that science uses) on an accurate language of logic that has the same role like human language in Philosophy.
So can we agree that Science is Philosophy that doesn't deal with meaning and value because those doesn't have objective metrics?
What I'd like to do with Tallis as an extension of Heidegger is to continue to explore the notion of making knowledge visible. I think that in a time when a great deal of discussion in the phil. of mind is about neuroscience and these abstract models that I think are generally very misleading, essentially a more sophisticated version of what the 17th century classics called "animal spirits" acting in the brain, a new approach is badly needed.
These models often make us out to be much more passive creatures than we actually are.
Yes, there is a lot of literature about Heidegger on the environment, technology, science, history and so on. Some of it is interesting (Dreyfus, Caputo, Fink), some if it is very bad (Derrida, parts of Foucault, Levinas - though I might get hate for mentioning him.). I personally can't see a positive project I can make out of it. So I'm grateful to have read him and I admire his uniqueness, but, I had my fill.
Thank you.
I suppose that some of the problem here has to do with our intuitions. Had we better intuition (differently "constructed") we could perhaps see how mind emerges. We seem to lack such intuition.
Science is full of meanings and values that are germane to discussions within those disciplines. It's usually the scientists who participate. Whether they perform "philosophy" when doing so seems irrelevant.
What do you think philosophy is?
btw I didn't say science isn't full with meaning and value....science doesn't include meaning and value in its investigations. Science isn't interested in what Big Bang means for humans or what is the value of a life or a moral act. Science just describes the BIG BANG and identifies the metrics for morality.
Can you distinguish those two aspects of these concepts?
After 426 posts on this thread there doesn't seem to be a consensus. It's certainly not the philosophy of nature of past ages, having been eclipsed by modern science.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
In fact, astrophysicists study the results of the BB and what they find may very well have implications on future space travel for humans. But I hear what you are saying.
But then, there is that very mysterious phenomenological reduction. People take this as best they can, and even Husserl was surprised by the effect it had on students, making ”protestants out of catholics and catholics out of protestants.” The reduction is an essential part of philosophical insight, I would argue.
I would agree.
I think however there are some very useful pearls of insights in Descartes and Cudworth (who is unknown) that really set the stage for a kind of special "power" in our souls, in which with our "cognoscitive" powers we are able to take stimulations (not objects) and enliven them.
Once this is cleared up a bit, I think one could proceed down the lines of "reduction" or Tallis "episteogony" and much else that follows. But before checking consciousness, I think there are some obscure factors in play, which allow the mind to have the capacities it does.
Well the lack of consensus is because every single one of the authors present a version of philosophy designed to "include" their ideologies.
By referring to the philosophy of nature of the past you are just chronicling....you are not doing philosophy or science.
Quoting jgill
-again you fail to understand the difference in meaningfulness from efforts aiming to technical applications.
It's philosophy to try to understand what it means for our species to be able to travel in space and an other to solve the puzzle of how this can be done without affecting .
The colloquial use of the term"meaning" doesn't make objective and subjective matters of investigation the same ...
You're not responding. Could be we are on different pages.
I have one last question: modern science doesn't investigate meaning and value?
Is the institution of modern science lead by wisdom? If it's not, then isn't modern science run by fools?
If an organization that has the aim to understand nature...for what? A valid vision and purpose requires a why, not just a what, in order to be eligible to be considered wise.
If modern science doesn't have a Wise Mission/vision, ought it not be called out??
Edit PS: I'm not trying to only pick on modern science. Modern academic philosophy I believe also lacks a mission of wisdom as well, and ought be called out for straying from the path of wisdom.
But, I worry I'm arrogant for thinking I know what is best for institutions or to presume calling them out online will make any difference. I probably should be more worried about my own failings.
-"You're not responding. Could be we are on different pages."
-responding to what?
By reading your last comment I am not so sure that we can have a meaningful or fruitful conversation. You are confusing the investigation the meaning and values some facts to us humans with institutions being lead...by wisdom (whatever that means).
Let me try one last time with the following example
-Science investigates the ontology of life (what processes allow this biological phenomenon to emerge and evolve.)
-Philosophy investigates what is the meaning and purpose of life and if we value our life the same under different conditions (being in pain or after loosing a dear one).
BOTH methods use the available facts wise to arrive to their conclusions.
is this helpful????
I don't think so.
It seems to me like you don't want scientists to bear any responsibility for being unwise and irresponsible.
You said science is the investigation of the ontology of life. I don't know if this is good summary of what science does, but it doesn't mention the why. Why do scientists investigate the ontology of life? Without a valid, wise Why, then scientific knowlege is just as likely to do harm as it is to do good.
Are you catching my drift?
oh boy.....
You sound really confused... Can I ask if English is your mother tongue, what is your level of education and your age before investing time in this conversation..?
I am mainly asking what is the mission of science, specifically the Why, if it has a Why.
I only claimed that an institution needs a valid reason to exist, to be considered an institution worth investing time and money into. And in order to be able to measure its success relative to it's aim.
For example, if a business only has the mission to make money, and not make the world a better place by providing a useful service, I consider it illegitimate. It can claim it is successful if it makes money, but I consider that a superficial metric of success.
Seems like a valid question, even for a young uneducated non English speaker to ask.
If you want to determine if I am worth engaging with, please ask for more relevant life details.
Whatever though, I'm a native English speaker, late 30s, high school drop out with an Associates degree in psychology.
I haven't looked that deep into natural science, as I'm not convinced so far that it will help me understand myself and human nature much better nor how to live more wisely, which are some of my aims.
-"It seems to me like you don't want scientists to bear any responsibility for being unwise and irresponsible."
The above statement of yours shows that you either have a hidden agenda or you are unable to understand that different methods of investigation produce frameworks with different qualities.
Scientific frameworks contain knowledge. If this knowledge is used wisely it can produce predictions and technical application.
Philosophical frameworks can produce wise claims on that same knowledge for other philosophical branches.(Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics...).
So just because science can not directly offer wise claims about human values and meanings in Ethics or aesthetics or politics etc ...THAT DOESN'T MEAN that SCIENTISTS DO THEIR JOBS WITHOUT UNWISELY OR IRRESPONSIBLE....lol
Do I really have to clarify this.......seriously??? Do you find your statement serious or wise?
I don't know, I think this is a waste of time and I think we are done..
You yourself are saying science(knowledge) is seperate from philosophy (wisdom).
Without philosophy means without love of wisdom...
Anything not guided by the love of wisdom is guided by something else, no?
Tell me how science can seperate itself from philosophy without being foolish?
Trying to understand nature without first understanding yourself (or in conjunction with) could be THE definition of unwise, on par with trying to gain the whole world but losing one's own soul.
"I was only doing my job!"
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
:chin:
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
…
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
It’s almost as if you’re making it up as you go. As if you’re more interested in posturing. :chin:
Yes, its easy for an ignorant individual to believe this statement.....
:rofl:
Or easy for an individual that can read.
:up:
On postmodern thought, it tends to be ignored because it is so damn mysterious and apart from normal thinking. But I think philosophy makes it clear that this is where questions lead. Analytic philosophers essentially say, oh well, nothing we can do, might as well talk about things we can talk about, which always leads massive question begging about everything they say. Continental ideas move forward into the "threshold". As for Derrida:
As I see it, one needs to take the matter all the way to Derrida, which is not a happy thought for people, because he is deliberately obscure. But what makes him so important is his arguments that show that language is, in its nature, not metaphysically groundable at all. Rorty like Derrida for this. One cannot ever escape the "regionalism" of a language use, is the way I think of it, borrowing from Heidegger who borrowed from Husserl, and this means that when I say, there is my cat, the term cat is not AT ALL a definite designation. It is a kind of context of terms, all related to cats that are not the term cat but "gather" in cat regional thought and relevance and out of this emerges, there is my cat, which is itself certainly definite enough in the usage, but the philosophical analysis yields no definiteness at all. It is, as I think of it, a diffuse meaning, spread out in a web of interference, no single referent of which is itself singular.
This is, I think close, and right. Caputo examines Derrida's thinking in terms of apophatic theology/philosophy: It puts language as, as I see this, a self annihilating position. Deconstruction is self deconstructing as the deconstructive analysis has no exceptions. This is Derrida's version of hermeneutics: radical. Language, to put it in a familiar way, never "touches" the world, for reference is impossible in the familiar way this is thought of. Reference is a "spread out" in language "regions" in which the difference of the interplay expresses as singularity in speech and thought and writing.
So, our language is not in an analogical relation to God's, if God is conceived as being anything at all, because all of our terms are in their nature, at the level of basic analysis, diffuse and in regional "play". And we are, as Caputo cites Eckhart, finally "free of God", that is, God the concept, the idolatry of know ing. Apophatically liberated.
I think that what you're saying was already well known thousands of years ago, and was even discussed by Plato in his Cratylus dialogue.
And all this elaboration on speech and meaning were already discussed very sensibly by Locke, Reid, Priestley and others.
Was there more added later on? Very much so. Quite a lot.
I think you simplify analytic philosophy. People like Nagel, Haack, Tallis, McGinn and a few others are very, very good.
But, to each there own.
Quoting Xtrix
:rofl:
Again— best not to engage seriously with children.
:rofl:
If you are ignorant of the objective nature of the Scientific Method
— Nickolasgaspar
There isn't such a thing as "A scientific Method".
— Nickolasgaspar
:rofl:
-Interacting with you makes me tired and sad.
Thinking is an activity that human beings do.
Thinking defined by the universal nature of its questions— especially the question of being — is called philosophy.
Philosophy is universal phenomenological ontology.
Questioning relegated to the causal relations in nature is natural philosophy. Its ontological foundations are just that: natural. “Natura” derives from the Greek: phusis.
Before we take a look at nature — which is one aspect of being — we are doing philosophy. Science is derived from ontology.
Thanks for the heads-up about math. :cool:
(SEP)
So even tools can be metaphysical.
Quoting Xtrix
Well, that may clarify things. No need to continue. :yawn:
No tools thus mathetmatics aren't metaphysical. Metaphysical views on ideas produced by mathematics (like abstract mathematical objects) ....are metaphysics.
Its in the text you quote!
I agree. :chin:
I see your icon only lists physics as a part of philosophy. Are you saying all the other branches of science are spin-offs? Or is this icon from the distant past?
What is "Total Apochavnosis"?
-so this statement raises on important question....what went wrong with you?lol
Quoting Xtrix
It might be. I can recall people struggling with such concepts. The important question is...are such ontological speculations meaningful. Can we arrive to meaningful and wise conclusions?
Quoting Xtrix
-let me get this straight now.... the term Nature derives from the Greek physis(????)lol????
What exactly the term nature obtains from the term physis? They don't even share letters or etymologies.(nat-born, natura birth/ physis sprout).
This comment take us to my initial question what went wrong....
Quoting Xtrix
-Dude stop saying unfounded deepities. You can not do philosophy without having basic empirical observations to start with . First we interact empirically with your environment, we form our philosophical questions and hypotheses and we look back at nature for additional information that could provide answers and validate some of our hypothesis.
You can NOT have science without philosophy and philosophy without science.
Science is the best tool we have to verify ontological descriptions of the observable reality.
The Philosophy you are referring to as" universal phenomenological ontology" is filled mostly with pseudo philosophical assumptions about unfalsifiable ontological speculations.
Most of the ideas will never be confirmed or dismissed but people will form their comforting worldviews mainly because most of them imply some type of immortality a.k.a. Magical Thinking.
-Those are steps of the Philosophical method, and all major branches of Philosophy are included!
Aristotle presupposed Logic as a tool necessary to do philosophy this is why it isn't in his list.
But its should have been since Logic is shaped by our epistemology too.
-"What is "Total Apochavnosis"? "
-its a diagnosis relevant to how Philosophy is done!
Yes, it does. Natura is the Latin translation of phusis.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
No. First we are.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Yes, you can.
I’ll skip the rest. Lying children don’t deserve serious responses. Go read more Rand.
:lol:
first of all its one thing to feel the need to point out how the word is translated in Greek and a different to say it derives from the Greek word.
I quote...lol
Quoting Xtrix
Quoting Xtrix
We are not arguing the about our existence...lol.
You claimed that:
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
That is a factually wrong statement. We first start as "stupid" babies, kids and youngsters and by accumulating facts about the world thus feeding our philosophical narrative. Put your ducks straight mate.
First is our existence then our empirical interactions then our ability to compose meanings. You need material to work upon in order to produce a narrative.
Quoting Xtrix
Well you can but then you can only be able to produce pseudo philosophy.
I didn’t say it was cognate.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
There are no “facts” involved. So this statement is just stupid.
Look - you have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s obvious. You’re pretending otherwise fools no one but yourself. You’re a liar, and you communicate like a child who pretends to have all the answers. Much like Ayn Rand herself.
I doubt if one person on this forum takes you seriously. A normal person would look at this feedback and perhaps reflect…but self-deluded liars like you apparently can’t.
But keep going…trolls provide many laughs.
:lol: :joke:
Quoting Xtrix
-I agree....."“Natura” derives from the Greek: phusis" is a factually wrong and stupid statement!
:razz:
Quoting Xtrix
-Yes I know you don't have a clue. lol
Quoting Xtrix
- This is your expert opinion as a translator? lol
Trolls are amusing. Imagine not knowing what “cognate” means — or “derive”. Lol
Philosophy has no requirements of prior knowledge. Unlike in physics, you can debate someone's claim on truth without having prior technical knowledge.
Agreed.
Derrida is not Plato. Analytic philosophers have been very helpful for me. It is the sacrifice of content for the sake of clarity that I don't approve of. The world is, at its epistemic foundation, a really, impossibly interesting place. Philosophy should deal with this, not ignore it. Post modern theology, the so called French turn, following Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas et al, does this.
This "reinventing ourselves" sounds like Heidegger and Nietzsche before him. True, I think. But I would go one step further: I put aside terms like "hard wiring" for this. It suggests a resignation to some inevitable limitation that is undefined. One thing about onion layers is, if you will, the onion itself, which has layers, no doubt, questions about questions, and there is no way out of this. But that about which the questions apply sits there. This is existence. Can this be questioned? Of course. But there is in question the palpable world that does not belong to language. This deserves analysis as a palpable world. Tricky.
The only thing I like about "analytic" philosophy is that they try to be clear. But some of them do lack content, at least for me. Quine, for instance, does nothing for me, nor does Kripke or Lewis.
Of course the world is interesting, there are many ways to tackle it. I tend to find certain figures enlighten me more than others, often in an eclectic manner.
But the world should be analyzed correctly too, one can easily confuse elaborate constructions for insight about the world, or the mind for that manner.
Again, Heidegger is interesting, Husserl is fine, but goes into mental gymnastics often. I don't find much of anything in Levinas.
But reading Kant does not yield zero information. That is, well, silly. Not that he's right about everything. Not the point.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
You toss terms like "pseudo" and "supernaturalism" around like you think they have some place in this disagreement. To me it is just the presumption of condescension usually found among those who are limited in their reading. People in science generally are philosophically clueless, which is to be forgiven; after all, they don't read philosophy, or, if they do, it ends up being the philosophy of science.
Generally, when I ask someone with your predilections, they really haven't read anything.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Personally?? The idea here is that a CT scan is not a mirror of the mind in the truest sense of what a mirror is. We can talk like this, but this is a metaphor at work here. In the matter at hand, imagine you had a CT scan of something, but you were told you had to dismiss all familiar possibilities for its interpretation. So much for interpretation. But then, you do have what is there before you to be taken not as something impossibly beyond the phenomenon itself, but simply AS itself. That is where we are.
In this case there the phenomenon is all things. The relation in question is epistemic. If you want to declare the epistemic relation to be a causal one, then you will have a lot of explaining to do. For one thing, the very notion of causality itself would have to be causally accounted for.
The idea here is not to deny what science does, nor its conclusions nor its theorizing. It is to say something really quite simple and without argument: all science has to say rests with what lies before the perceiving intelligence. This is, if you will, a horizon of intuition. Nobody disagrees with this. The most devoted analytic philosopher understands that phenomenology cannot be refuted, only ignored by people why prefer to think of other things. Who cares? You may thematize the world as you please as long as the world has those themes there for the inquiry.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Not to ignore neuroscience's epistemology. To realize that this epistemology is based upon something more foundational: intuitive givenness. Science is left alone since no one is denying its claims. It is a different world of inquiry altogether.
If you are looking for evidence, and you want to be a good neuroscientist, consider how you would you would translate neurological events into events that are not neurological. There is no assumed ignorance. Just do it. If I asked you to do this in any other case of identifiable connectivity, you wouldl be appalled at the presumption that one could make a scientific claim with out this connection in place. So, just make it. If you cannot, and you can't, you may continue on in your fashion. But you would be thoroughly disabused about the foundational validity of your claims.
Or you can exercise your curiosity and ask questions like, how is it that ideas and object are related? I cannot apprehend an object apart from the understanding, so is it that objects cannot be considered as a "stand alone" presence? What does stand alone even mean at the basic level of inquiry? And on and on.
Pseudo metaphysics? Yes, I despise this sort of thing. I am interested in authentic metaphysics.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
You have to read more carefully, and then think more carefully. I did say, "even in one's interior observations." I do suspect your problem is that you don't have a capacity to think beyond the models provided the science text. Observe the thought, the experience rising within. Observe that YOU are in a believing state. To observe this is an obvious and simple matter. You have beliefs and you know this. So, there you are believing the sun is out or the cat is sleeping, and conviction is, say, upon you. Now ask, how is it this belief state has verification? That is, clearly you believe and trust your belief, but what is this trust grounded upon? It is purely an intuitive presence of belief that determines this, but because this is given without a justificatory grounding, then it sits there, indeterminate, believing, but at its basis, indeterminate. Of course, you can say, this indeterminacy is the best we can do. We do not live in the mind of God, and so all knowledge claims are like this. And I say, brilliant. This is our indeterminacy.
The more time you spend trying to see this, the more you understand that this condition is not remote from our existence. It is only remote FROM the pov of the presumption of knowing, which is pervasive in all things, like passing the salt and taking a bus. This philosophical perspective is THE perspective: a suspension of the "pass the salt" affairs in order to examine things at a level where presumption itself can be interrogated. Philosophy asks, what is belief?
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
This is just evasion. Or you really can't understand the question. Empirical interactions? But this is exactly what is being questioned. You can't say, oh well, these are just the way of it. Is this how science works?? Is a cloud just a cloud, with no care given to its anatomical analysis?
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Quite the opposite. What is magical are unexamined assumptions. You are fond of the world magical. This is a sure sign of a dogmatic personality. There is therapy for this; it is called reading outside what dictates your thoughts. It is not magic your fear. It is the unknown, the disconnect from the ready grasp, the letting go of certainty and familiarity, this frightens you. Understandable. It is disquieting to learn that the world is, at the basic level, alien to your ability to know.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
It is the question that has been there throughout. "Observing doesn't cause the event you observe," THIS is just massively naive. What, is causality suspended to account for how you, the perceiver, can "reach out" to that over there? Remember, I am not thinking like aa phenomenologist at all here. I am thinking like an empirical scientist. Witness two distinct events and say the one has a relation to the other, it MUST BE a causal relation. Unless you have something else in mind for objects and there relations? Whatever it is, it will be reduced to a causal accounting.
And there's the problem. Human language lacks the preciseness of mathematics. Start at ground zero: Ontology. "the nature of being"? "being" being what? Existence? Human existence, physical existence Platonic existence, of mathematical theory, of consciousness, of memories, etc.?
Math has its confusing moments also. Category theory is one for me! But, typically, a mathematical argument is a model of clarity, frequently concise and compact, compared with the tsunami of words constituting a philosophical argument.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Philosophy of mathematics. Foundations of mathematics? Perhaps the formations of logical principles by observations of natural phenomena.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
My interpretation: Philosophical explorations in science are speculations in science. When they are not done by those well-versed in a science they rarely have any intellectual depth.
Thus we differ. That's OK.
-correct and Mathematics needs philosophy for its symbols and conclusions to be interpreted.
We don't disagree on the differences pros and cons of philosophy and math. I only pointed out that Mathematics are not science, but a tool of reasoning.
-"Philosophy of mathematics. Foundations of mathematics? Perhaps the formations of logical principles by observations of natural phenomena."
-Again your statement is irrelevant to what I wrote.
I said."You can not do philosophy without having basic empirical observations to start with . First we interact empirically with your environment, we form our philosophical questions and hypotheses and we look back at nature for additional information that could provide answers and validate some of our hypothesis."
We need to observe analogies and relation in order to form philosophical or mathematical frameworks.
-"
My interpretation: Philosophical explorations in science are speculations in science. "
-No. Philosophical exploration in science is known as Scientific hypotheses. Those hypotheses need to be testable in order to be scientific.
-"When they are not done by those well-versed in a science they rarely have any intellectual depth.""
-correct.
-"Thus we differ. "
-where and why?
:rofl: No offense Nickolasgaspar.
:rofl: No offense Yohan.
lol....the above comment is from the mind who gave us the statement "Natura derives from the Greek Physis"....lol
Anyone can make an ad hominem...but he is evaluated by his valid arguments.
First of all your answer doesn't really address any points made in my first paragraph. We don't have a way to be sure whether our feedback of an invisible underlying reality is accurate or not. What we can verify is that in different scales of reality we observe different characteristics that are quantifiable and verifiable.
What Kant or any philosopher says about metaphysical aspects of ontology is IRRELEVANT and an argument from false authority since there aren't any experts or authorities in metaphysical claims!
Quoting Constance
Of course they have. If you talk about mind properties non contingent to natural processes or "post modern Theology" or accept unfalsifiable metaphysical statements as foundations for your philosophical views then both of my labels are justified in this conversation!
Those terms just point out that the promoted ideas do not carry epistemic foundations sot they can not be used as tools for the understanding of the world (not that they are wrong).
Quoting Constance
- Is it? Are they? Maybe you are right.
Two problems.
1. What do you mean by reading philosophy? Chronicling? Finding out who (philosopher) said what?
Do you really think that Chronicling is Philosophy or that it will help you to promote a metaphysical statement to an epistemic degree of value, by knowing about it?
The fact that those conclusions have never being evaluated or used to produce abbitional knowledge or wise claims that we can act upon..... doesn't raise any flags for you?
Sure some great names made some metaphysical claims that you agree with...this is all you have!
The question is What makes you think that they are philosophical or at least meaningful?
2.People in science are generally philosophically clueless....meaning that they are really bad in Chronicling. THis is because they ignore ideas that are not proven Wise and with zero epistemic potential.
They are only familiar with Philosophical ideas that are epistemically and instrumentally valuable. (Naturalism, Objectivism, Humanism, Situational ethics etc etc etc ).
So at least in my case I don't give much attention to philosophical claims that do not achieve the goal set by Philosophy itself....to provide Wise claims about our world on solid epistemic grounds.
Sorry If I sound condescending...that was not my intention.
Quoting Constance"
-Dismiss familiar possibilities???? By studying brain scans we establish strong correlations between mechanisms and produced outcome of the system (thought, action etc). He don't dismiss possibilities (that we don't even know whether they are possible or not) we describe functions and how they are linked to phenomena. Our interpretations are forced to work with available descriptions due to Practical Necessity not of a bias opinion against unknown possibilities! IN science , Philosophy and Logic we can never include Unfalsifiable assumptions or mechanisms that we can not demonstrate their possible nature in our interpretations. That is an irrational behavior.
Quoting Constance
-In science we don't arbitrary declare causality.We test and verify causality by building a case on the accumulation of Strong Correlation between Necessary mechanisms by proving them sufficiency in the process.
[b]Your argument is based on tour inability to prove a Universal Negative (we can not prove that there is an additional invisible underlying mechanism that drives the causality we observe).
That is a fallacy (argument from ignorance). This is your burden not a weakness of our methods. You need to provide evidence that could prove the observable causal mechanisms secondary or superficial.[/b]
Quoting Constance
I will agree with that statement.
-"all science has to say rests with what lies before the perceiving intelligence."
Science can only evaluate frames of what is provided by our Cataleptic Impressions.
-"This is, if you will, a horizon of intuition."
-That is a sophistry in my opinion. Intuition doesn't rest on Systematic accumulation of Objective facts...so equating science to intuition is unfair and troubling to be honest.
Quoting Constance
-How this answer of yours is relevant to the fallacious nature of the main excuse you use to accept claims that aren't epistemically founded.
No, we don't know how accurate our most advanced scientific observations are and we don't have a way to test them. This is the reality and this defines the Pragmatic Necessity that we need to accept.The default position is NOT to assume that they are not accurate, without any indications or evidence and go on presuming invisible realms and substances interacting with the accessible reality!
Science doesn't produce epistemology on intuition. It challenges our intuitive thoughts and preferred assumptions by contrasting them head to head them with objective facts.
Asking questions is a good thing but you need to know that NOT all questions are philosophical. If your questions beg the questions for specific supernatural artifacts or assume what you need to demonstrate they are fallacious in nature. (Again they are not necessarily wrong).
Quoting Constance
-No my problem is thoughts that ignore that their starting point should always be epistemically supported, free of fallacies and they shouldn't assume what they need to prove.
Quoting Constance
-No you are oversimplifying states of beliefs and how they arise.
Belief is the state when someone accepts a claims to be true.
There are Knowledge based beliefs and faith based beliefs.
Knowledge based beliefs are those which are objectively verified by facts accessible by any one.
I can test the claim "the cat sleep on the couch", by pointing it to my gf and seeing her smile, by taking a photo of my cat and sending it to friends and be verified by their reactions, by physically checking she is there etc etc.
Objective empirical verification is how we verify the knowledge value of a belief.
Faith based belief are those claims that aren't based on sufficient evidence and they can not be verified Objectively. Intuition or subjective experience or other bad evidence are offered as an excuse for accept such claims.
Of course we have limitations in the quality and the quantify of the evidence we can gather for a claim.This is why we always aim to satisfy Sufficiency and Necessity and our position are Tentative in the case where new evidence might force us to change our narrative.
Again Intuition has nothing to do with Scientific knowledge. Sure none of our knowledge claim can be accepted as 100% correct but its the best material we have to work with and they are the standards by which we define a belief rational/irrational and our Arguments Sound or Unsound.
Quoting Constance
_we are aware of all those problems in our attempt to verify claims and distinguish epistemology from faith
The problem rises when you use this as a way to lower the epistemic value of Scientific frameworks but you have no issues to promote ideas that do not even reach the half way of those standards.
In short an argument of ignorance doesn't raise its value if we admit the uncertainty in our epistemology. A fallacy is a fallacy and we should dismiss it.
Quoting Constance
What is your argument COnstance?? What are you trying to say? I defined what a knowledge claim is
thus describing our limits in what we can accept as a knowledge claim.
How is this an evasion, how is this me not understanding the question.
The problem is with the question.
The problem is that you deny the standards by which we can verify a knowledge claim
the problem is that you reject empirical methods(which is ok) but you are unable to suggest an alternative method that can also provide objective evaluations.!
NOT all sentences with a questionmark at the end qualify as good questions or they can be answered?
Just because you can form a question that doesn't takes any value of our current standards or epistemic acknowledgments.
Your presuppositions will need to meet the same standards of logic in order to be accepted as reasonable.
You are questioning the ontology of reality and the picture we have without any fact to argue against or even indication for our picture being constantly wrong!
That is an irrational practice.
Quoting Constance
-No, Magic is a sign of a claim that attempts to describe a phenomenon based on an assumption without including the describing a of mechanism that obeys known rules of reality.
Its an intrinsic issue of a claim (magical) not an observer depended one.
Quoting Constance
_I am pointing out the weaknesses in your assumptions.
1. the logical fallacy of assuming a wrong picture of reality without being able to demonstrate it
2. Assuming transcendent causality without being able to demonstrate it
3. Arguing from false authority and chronicling instead of providing evidence on why this type of "philosophy" should be trusted.
4. Now you are using ad hominem arguments because you are unable to accept that something is wrong with your reasoning...but it is easy to accept that something is wrong with my personality!
The proof is in the pudding. You will need to based your assumptions on evidence.
Can you really do that? Philosophy without epistemic foundations is theology.
And dangerous. Like libertarians, morally unevolved.
And intellectually unevolved. What's particularly dangerous isn't Rand herself, but the cult-like following of her. She's only somewhat responsible for that, but not entirely. I think she herself would mostly be against the dogmatism and zealotry of her followers. Having once given her due attention, I've since moved beyond her -- although there are still aspects I like. I like that she echoes Aristotelian virtue ethics, for example. But her views on ontology, epistemology, and politics is very limited indeed.
Her devotees on this forum so far have done her legacy no favors.
Hard to believe she's still taken seriously. I mean, I prefer Deepak Chopra, literally.
Stuck up *****.
Sorry. Had to get that out of my system.
I have no idea what this is about. What makes you think Kant talks about metaphysics??
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
But none of this applies. You are having a discussion with yourself. Mind properties not contingent to natural processes? But of course they are. All I ask you is, what are natural processes? And how can one separate ontology from epistemology? Do do this would require the most egregious metaphysics, as if one could identify something epistemically detached from one. There is nothing metaphysical about asking the simple question: what connects S to P in the equation, "S knows P"? Are you suggesting we should ignore this question? Is this what you call science, ignoring glaring questions contradict your paradigms? I suspect you're heard of Thomas Kuhn? What do you think he would say about this? Do you understand the scientific method? Think this through: it is a method that connects knowledge with the world. How do you think this happens, magically? This has to be explained, and you don't turn away because it is difficult. You engage it because it is difficult, but it is not the job of a scientist. It is the philosopher's job. It is NOT a metaphysical question. It simply accepts that the objects before us cannot be conceived apart from the experience in which they are found.
It is, in its essential justification, that easy. Science is very good at describing objects in the world. This is given. It has no clue at all as to how to describe the intuitive foundation that constitutes that-which-is-being-taken-up by science nor can it speak of epistemic relations, THE foundational relation upon which all science rests. One does not reach into absurdities to do this. One simply observes the relationship and analyses the structure of experience. Nothing metaphysical at all. these are just reflexive responses you have to things unfamiliar.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Chronicling? You would have to say what you mean. Are you talking about recording history?
There is only one goal set for philosophy--only one: to examine the world at the level of the most basic assumptions. Period.
On condescension: All is forgiven. Sometimes I fail to realize that people simply do not know what philosophy is. The presumption of knowing without, well, knowing, is common.
So never mind, then, and put all this aside. Have a lovely day!
By virtue of them being labeled scientific hypotheses they are testable. Philosophical exploration might be any sort of babble. Quantum mysticism, etc.
-Nothing really except his critique. I only pointed out that no matter how great the name of philosopher, a metaphysical speculation is just that.
Quoting Constance
Do you have objective evidence of mind properties rising independent of a functioning biological brain (natural process).
If you do have you then you should make some space on your shelves for a Nobel Prize...
That is a pseudo philosophy.
-" And how can one separate ontology from epistemology?"
-It depends....but basically by studying science.
-"There is nothing metaphysical about asking the simple question: what connects S to P in the equation, "S knows P"?"
I guess we are having two different discussions. I am pointing out that your supernatural and idealistic assumptions render your philosophy pseudo. That's all. What I say has nothing to do with asking simple questions.
-" Is this what you call science, ignoring glaring questions contradict your paradigms? "
-I am talking about failed principles that people believe to be philosophical.
Quoting Constance
-You are tap dancing. You are forcing a position I never expressed. Again I am only pointing out that your supernatural beliefs are not philosophical.
Most people don't understand Kuhn. His ideas were far from Popper's opinions but most of you seem to be ignorant about it.
-" Do you understand the scientific method?"
_common mistake. There isn't A scientific method. Science has many methodologies.
(the first link I got)
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/opinion/there-is-no-scientific-method.html
-" Think this through: it is a method that connects knowledge with the world. How do you think this happens, magically? This has to be explained, and you don't turn away because it is difficult. "
-weird description. Science offers descriptive frameworks which we as thinking agents use them as knowledge. Knowledge is not an intrinsic feature in a description, but its an observer dependent value.
Any Instrumental value is applied....
Quoting Constance
-Irrelevant to our discussion though
Quoting Constance
Quoting what people said even if what they said have no actual philosophical value.
Quoting Constance
That is only an approach in philosophy. The main goal is defined in the etymology of the word...to use knowledge as a way to produce wise claims.
Quoting Constance
Well you insist in using supernatural and idealistic principles in your interpretations ...So I can agree with your realization. People don't understand what philosophy is and how it works.
-No it can't be. Philosophy needs to be based on credible knowledge and produce wise claims that we can use to understand the world around us.
babbles are not good at this.
Details, Nickolasgaspar, details. What, exactly in his Critique is metaphysical speculation?
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
What makes the case of the brain so unique is that while exterior events are forthcoming for observation, the brain itself is problematic, because the only way to confirm its existence is through its own operations, thus, one would have to establish how the brain can be its own source of verification, and this can only be done through the very brain processes in question. Put clearly: all that experience is, is brain phenomena, and the only way one can confirm the brain's existence is through these very phenomena. How is it that one can stand apart from the brain and observe it apart from the very phenomena that are posited as brain generated? All you ever get is the phenomena; you can never achieve that Archimedean point to truly witness the brain.
This, of course, problematizes all witnessed events, for how does one ever witness what is NOT a phenomenon? You need that perspective from another position that is not phenomenological.
Good luck with this. If you can respond in a way that shows the phenomenon can be bypassed, and an observer can jump into the "real" world that is not conditioned and constructed by thought and experience, not only will you win the Nobel Prize, but you will have discovered God's omniscient providence.
People are pretty clueless about this sort of thing. Back in the 40's, The Fountainhead was made into a movie starring Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper, a kind of celebration of the capitalist ubermensch, the guy whose talent placed him far above the pettiness of normal people's affairs. Everyone else was a parasite on his genius. Rand thought herself like this.
American Christians were so full of themselves and worshiped the corporate gods of capitalism, and so afraid of communism, they never understood that she was telling them all they were just a bunch parasites to the rich and famous, to whom they should all bow low. And Rand was a professed atheist! They bowed anyway.
:lol: :up:
Quoting Constance
Indeed. Both the plutocracy and the evangelical community often love her.
Look! He’s doing her greatest hits! How quaint.
How would you categorize the many worlds interpretation of QM? At this stage it is not a scientific hypothesis since testing it is a distant objective. Is it thus excluded from being a "philosophical exploration" in science? Is it metaphysics?
ITs irrelevant to this topic but you can always google it. Well here is the first link I got.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/
Quoting Constance
-And.....? its the same way. We observe people's brains like we observe all environmental phenomena. We gather systematic information for every aspect of that organ and its factions. That is a text book example of special pleading and an argument from ignorance fallacy.
Our ignorance of specialized knowledge on how the brain works doesn't justify to assume supernatural explanations.
Quoting Constance
-That is not true. Scientists use objective methodologies and criteria to study other people's brains and establish strong correlations between brain functions and specific properties of mind.
If you visit neurosciencenews.com and search papers on "how the brain +(the mind property you are interested) you will learn how we can objectively verify sufficiency and necessity between mechanism and emergent property of the brain.
-" All you ever get is the phenomena; you can never achieve that Archimedean point to truly witness the brain."
-That sounds like an argument from denial (Ignorance). This type of argument is used by flatearthers or creationists who use the absence of absolute certainty as an excuse to sneak in their belief.
We can observe the brain and we can establish Necessity and sufficiency....that's all we need. Absolute truth or certainty is a red herring that is not achievable in any of our frameworks.
The brain is not special. i.e. we can not prove that our digestive track is the source of digestion 100%.
Again by verifying necessity and sufficiency we establish Strong correlations between causes and effects.
What too many fallacies in your reasoning.
Quoting Constance
This is why we don't use "witnesses" in science but we make Observations in order to verify objectively the ontology of a phenomenon.
Quoting Constance
-Numerous Nobel prizes have being awarded to scientists that have provided objective observations of Necessary and Sufficient mechanisms responsible for a phenomenon.
Now god concepts do NOT belong to the real world (only anthropologically as ideas) since we are unable to objectively verify supernatural agents.
This is not an issue with our methods but with the nature of god claims themselves.
The keyword is "interpretations". We have more than 10 quantum interpretations competing each other...without any supportive facts.
It is metaphysics and it is a proper hypothesis since it "multiplies" entities that we know they can exist.
We know dimensions exist, we know a world exists, the assumption is just unparsimonious but that doesn't mean it is wrong.
The principles are Naturalistic, so it means that to verify it we will not need to investigate realms that do not interact with our methods.
MW interpretation is not science. its a philosophical take on observations that might help us in the future interpret new evidence that don't fit in all other frameworks of QM.
Now since most of you pseudo philosophers are only good in chronicling....check when Rand make her observations on the contribution of objectivity in science....
I understand that you are here to protect the echo chamber of your specific death denying ideology but your dis-likeness of specific philosophers can not change how we evaluate knowledge and the importance of objective verification in epistemology....sorry.
-Again chronicling is irrelevant. What Rand believed or not is irrelevant. Objectivity stands on its own merits. Objectivity has been an established criterion way longer than Rand's takes on its importance.
Nickolasgaspar, just say it. Why do you think Kant is just metaphysical speculation? Proof is in the pudding. Give me a paragraph, your assignment: Write in one paragraph a concise statement on why Kant's CPR is speculative metaphysics.
I'm not going to say up front that it isn't. It's just, if you know it, you can explain it. so explain it. Who knows, maybe you've got something there, but we will never know until you properly say it.
People who have something to say, say it. Spell it out Nickolasgaspar. I'll help you:
In Kant's CPR, he argues.............It is his claim that .......that I argue is merely metaphysical speculation, because........................
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
You have to understand that philosophy's business is necessitated by the real condition in human affairs, which is its foundational indeterminacy. This cannot be ignored since that would mean ignoring a condition in plain sight, and science will not permit this. This would amount to ad hoc dismissal. So we apply the scientific method: What has to be the case, in order for what is the case before us to be what it is. Usually in science, this works out fairly well, no? One's sees mountains' irregular features and asks, why? What caused this? And theory of weathering is born, so to speak.
But what if the question about something has no empirically observable response? As when we ask, what is knowledge? You should see first that this is not a merely speculative question. One encounters the question as one would encounter a any other phenomenon's question. Only here, the question goes to the observer and the act of perceiving, and this is a foundational question, applicable to all things, for all things are first presented as knowledge claims before they are taken up as empirical claims.
If you take up the question of the nature of a knowledge claim, you are thrown into a problem that is unique, for anything you can say is itself the problem, that is, it too presupposes knowledge claims. To think at all presupposes what is inherently part of its own problematic.
Now this is NOT an invented issue. So all that you want to put out there in favor of what science has to say is not even on the table, because, of you will, the putting anything on the table at all is included in the problematic.
Look, at this point, any reasonable person has to see this. So, I don't take issue AT ALL with anything science has to say, any more than science would reasonably take issue itself. So spare me all this endless droning on about what science has to say. Try to put it aside, because after reading your comments, I am truly beginning to suspect you might have a problem, one very unbecoming of a scientist: dogmatism. Consider philosophy a paradigmatic challenge, and you have to switch the mode of your analytical approach. The question presents itself whether or not a knowledge claim
So, sorry for not going tit for tat with you in all you said. It would be pointless. I mean, I read it, but you have to make that fundamental shift away from what an empirical argument would look like; or better: Remember entirely what empirical arguments look like, but ask a question about them, which goes to their basic epidemic indeterminacy. You are invited then to analyze the structure of the epistemic relations, and this is inevitably gogin to be just as question begging as empirical science, but at least here, in the Husserl, Heidegger, and so many others, here one has brought the natter to its most basic analysis, because the work here done is specifically about the revealed features of the knowledge relationship, and this is as far as inquiry can go.
It is because philosophy takes things to this level that you find it disturbingly without content. But this IS the foundation of being human. Underneath the assumptions of all science there are all questions, nothing definitive.
You like to call this an argument from ignorance, but then, all science goes this way! Before there were theories about stellar composition based on spectral analysis, there were questions about what stars were that were unanswered, I.e., ignorance.
No one has mentioned "god" claims. This is your doing.
Sorry Nickolasgaspar. I mean no disrespect, but you are starting to sound like a nitwit.
never did....I have pointed out that I only used his name to highlight the issue of a fallacy (argument from false authority).
You seem to be unable to follow this conversation.
:rofl:
Won’t happen. Because he’s never read a word of Kant. Just like he’s never read a word of Kuhn. He’s just a liar who wants to posture. Who knows why. I assume he’s a teenager or young adult.
It’s glaringly obvious when someone is just bullshitting. No specifics, no citations — just vague generalizations about “metaphysics” and “objectivity.”
It’s psychologically interesting— so I guess there’s some value to it.
:rage: I used to positively hate emojis. Now I see their value.
I only accept what Aristotle understood to be important. Empirical investigation(physika/science) should always inform our metaphysics...but yes, you get the point.
Emojis are about all that some people are worth.
Quite apart from a narrow view of academic tenure and professionalism — one more division of labor — this broader view affords me the ability to take equally seriously what’s often claimed as “separate” — religion, art, science, etc. Which has been very useful in my general learning and practical engagement with people in the real world.
Isn't by "consciousness" not necessarily my deepest thoughts? Because you're right. But rather, a reflection on that thing, consciousness, and the whats of it ?
Ok, yah, that. Sorry.
Actually, I did. And I was content to stay there. I think you were right, philosophy is not "ones philosophy." I think (I'll carry on as though I'm sure, but I'm just projecting thoughts) the latter's use is casual, it could mean one's disposition, rules one lives by, worldview, morality, etc.
But as for what is philosophy? I hope we stay at "saying it is the act of questioning the inherent views, conclusions, mechanisms, or observations of ones consciousness in a way that can be logically expressed" At least that expresses an aspect of philosophy proper. For me, at least, an impactful and "foundational" part.
Quoting Pfhorrest
I agree with that. Would you entertain this read of that? Maybe it is implied in that, I don't want to presume either way. Feel free to shift your read of what follows into metaphor if it is easier to work with.
And now my offer:
Would you agree that both so called wisdom, and its pursuit move about in the "world" projected by/within uniquely human mind(s). Any "appearance" of pursuit even, let alone uncovering/possession of Reality or Truth, is just that, a re-presentation of something (no longer) accessible (or only accessible in the being (of) it, in the present; only knowable (objects of pursuit) as representation in the moving about of time).
And how that relates to what is philosophy, is that--and now it is a metaphor--philosophy is an almost infinitely complex/layered literary analysis of what human Consciousness has and continues to project in time or History. "discern[ing] the true from the false, the good from the bad... the ability, in short, to discern superior answers from inferior answers to any given
question"
Yah. I think you're right. But dont tell anybody, or it's over (the way I'm reading it--for what is the brain, but us?).
I agree with you that that is what it is, and I fully agree with and cannot argue against the functionality of it.
But tragically, a thing all of humanity can turn to for clarity in a complex universe of constructed and competing Narratives, is just another closed institution. It must. I know. But is there no refuge from prejudice? No "place" where we can judge the institutions?
And if you say, that's why you have freedom of choice. You judge which philosophy is reasonable to you. Well, still I must confine myself...and If you say, you judge all philosophies, judge philosophy etc. Yes, but it is already implied, built in, I, a pseudophilisopher* am necessarily wrong.
*I am not "sulking" I'm being honest.
Quoting David Mo
Ok. But I still agree that philosophy proper must adhere to the methods and conform with at least a reasonable finding accepted by academic philosophy.
We think we're ok with personal reason, but, without judgement, I've seen personal reason attacked often for not adhering to accepted methods of academic philosophy. Is that qualifier just implied?
Philosophy is academic philosophy. The rest of us are adults playing cops and robbers. (honestly).
I honestly liked the rest of your observations. I didn't want to reiterate for each, the obvious qualifier, "within the institutional confines."
The happy note, which I can already tell you have similarly implied, is the unqualified can benefit both by reading and discussing within the confines, provided they are careful not to pass themselves off as philosophers; and, by crossing the bounds (a thing which an ordained member of the institution cannot do for risk of excommunication) and exploring things so called pseudo.
(2021)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/600633
(2023)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/853311
Think about what philosophy does, i.e., the branches of philosophy (epistemology, ethics, mind, religion, logic, metaphysics, etc.), it's about analyzing beliefs and belief systems. The analysis of belief systems is about creating better systems of belief. So, in a very general way, it's about what we believe. The only question is whether we do it well.
Can be. Sounds too epistemological to me though.
A kind of meta-psychotherapy?
A sharpening not of the narrative(s) of the mind for improved functionality of the individual narrative in history (which might be what psychoanalysis/psychotherapy is); but, rather, a sharpening of the what of, and the way mind writes/understands its narratives, and further, the "world" thereby constructed (for improved functionality of each of the individual narrative, the narrative in history, and, ultimately, for the improved functionality of history (and all of them, also, ultimately, holistically and "globally")?
That's why epistemology is so important. We like to think as philosophers that our beliefs are more than opinions, we like to think they are justified and true.
If you say so ... sorry I can't follow the rest of your post.
Quoting Sam26
Superficially maybe. I'd rather put it this way: philosophy consists in reflective questioning of the assumptions and implications of "what we believe" (i.e. logic-grammar-dialectics preceeds epist?m?).
It's not superficial at all. We use deductive and inductive reasoning to analyze what we believe and what others believe. What do you think logic is about? It's about reasoning to a correct conclusion. I'm checking what I believe or what others believe using logic. Making sure my assumptions (my beliefs) are properly reasoned through. If we analyze what others believe using philosophical tools, we are checking systems of belief. The dialectic is a way of analyzing beliefs.
Depends on what we mean by belief. But similar claims can be made about beings, as well. Or experience. Or thinking. Or awareness. Or meaning. I probably couldn’t give examples of where philosophy doesn’t in some way deal with any of those things either. No reason to prioritize epistemology — that seems more a choice based on tradition.
We really don’t. Not most of the time.
The emphasis of thinking (in terms of logic), epistemology, etc — again, seems to me just a residue of tradition. Why start there? Why not start with phusis? Or what is not thought? Instinct? Habit? The unconscious.
The very idea that we walk around reasoning in a structured way, taking things in and “analyzing” beliefs— that whole story is unconvincing.
Take any proposition/statement that you think is true, even if it is just an opinion lacking a strong justification or no justification. Examples are plentiful, "God exists," "God doesn't exist," "AI will destroy us," "Lying is morally wrong," "Consciousness is an illusion," etc, etc. Again, it's any proposition you think is true. Philosophy is constantly analyzing such beliefs. There may be exceptions, but this I think is generally true.
My question:
Would it be a good definition of philosophy to say that the main thrust of philosophy is the examination of beliefs, systems of belief, and potential beliefs?
ChatGPT 4.0
"Yes, that is a solid definition. The main thrust of philosophy can indeed be described as the examination of beliefs, systems of belief, and potential beliefs. This definition captures the essence of philosophical inquiry, which involves:
"Critical Examination: Analyzing and questioning the nature, validity, and implications of beliefs.
"Systematic Exploration: Investigating how individual beliefs form coherent systems and frameworks.
"Hypothetical Consideration: Exploring potential beliefs and their consequences through thought experiments and logical analysis.
"By focusing on these aspects, philosophy aims to deepen our understanding of fundamental concepts and issues, such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language."
We're buddies now that it agreed with me. :grin:
Quoting Mikie
I guess it's inevitable. One day, perhaps in distant future generations, we'll add to our current amnesia about the nature and structure of our experiences, amnesia about the nature and structure of AI.
As for your definition of philosophy. I like it. Whats not to like? It seems uncontroversially "accurate." But it doesn't rule out variations or alternatives. And yes, most likely, no definition can.
Hence, philosophy.
Silly and random, but good I guess.