83nt0nJune 27, 2020 at 20:3014300 views82 comments
What are your opinions on the issue of first philosophy? As in which branch of philosophy should be 'first'? Which branch do all the other branches depend on? Why?
I voted "other", but I was tempted by both logic and phenomenology.
On my account, logic is not properly a branch of philosophy, but a tool used by philosophy, and a topic investigated equally by philosophy, language, and mathematics, lying at the intersection of all three. Co-equal to it as a tool of philosophy is rhetoric, which lies at the intersection of philosophy, language, and the arts.
And on my account, phenomenology, or at least phenomenalism, is a core principle for how to properly do philosophy in general, along with principles I call criticism and liberalism (which together make up critical rationalism, which is closely related to logic, so there's that again), as well as objectivism. All of philosophy, rightly done, is about how to investigate our phenomenal experiences and the limits they converge toward (the "objects" of them) in a critical and open-minded ("liberal") way.
I group metaphysics and epistemology together as part of the same half of philosophy, and conversely divide ethics up into two separate questions analogous to those two. Both that descriptive (metaphysics and epistemology) side and the prescriptive (ethics) side are co-equally important. Other important philosophical questions generally fall into one side of the other of that: philosophy of mind with the descriptive stuff, philosophy of will with the prescriptive stuff, philosophy of religion and education (which I kinda treat together) with the descriptive stuff, and political philosophy with the prescriptive stuff.
The only things I wouldn't put on one side or the other of that divide, since they span both, are philosophy of language, and the field I don't know a name for that asks questions like "what is the meaning of life?" In different senses, either of those could be considered a "first philosophy": the linguistic meaning-of-words stuff is logically prior, needing answering to make sense of the rest, but the practical meaning-of-life stuff is pragmatically prior, being the reason why any of the other questions matter.
Logic is the most fundamental branch of philosophy, as it is applied to all the other branches. Without logic, you can't make reasonable or sensible arguments in the other branches. You wouldn't even be able to make viable distinctions between the other branches.
BitconnectCarlosJune 29, 2020 at 13:12#4297080 likes
Metaphysics. The question of whether there is a God - and if so, what is his nature - or not, and one's views on ontology (the nature of being) and our relationship to the universe I think is most fundamental. I place primary on one's fundamental attitude towards being (i.e. our relationship to it), then we can start with the thinking (epistemology, logic, and ethics is much dependent on epistemology.)
Ethics. Metaphysics is presupposed by ethics rather than ethics derived from metaphysics. Or should be; I read them in reverse, I guess, like how I read detective "whodunit" stories. I squeeze more lemonaid out of the craft of plotting "mysteries" than I do out the plotty (ploddy) lemons themselves. (Reading Beckett lately; bear with me, or not.) Philosophers are, mostly, jargoneering pulp fictioniados hacking-out meta-"mysteries" for unread(able) journals & 'zines which seem to pay only by the semi-colon. Whatever; just not MetaEthics; anything, please, but that, that plotless
Logic is the most fundamental branch of philosophy, as it is applied to all the other branches. Without logic, you can't make reasonable or sensible arguments in the other branches. You wouldn't even be able to make viable distinctions between the other branches.
I thought about selecting Logic, but I settled on Phenomenology. For me, the experience of concepts comes before reasoning about whether a statement is true — somewhat how definitions precede axioms.
“...—a science containing the systematic presentation of the whole body of philosophical knowledge, true as well as illusory, given by pure reason—is called metaphysic...”
There is no first. Philosophy is reflexive, always secondary, always a questioning of whatever was first. Philosophy is always of something that it is parasitic on, and the question of the op, being a matter of the philosophy of philosophy, is not even secondary but tertiary a reflection on reflexivity.
I also voted for ethics. Of course it's easy to see that, from a straight up, superficially conventional perspective, ethics is not fundamental to metaphysics, epistemology, phenomenology or logic.
But if those and all other domains of philosophy are understood to be culturally, symbolically, linguistically conditioned and ethical ideas are fundamental to every aspect of culture. then we might come to a different, more subtle, conclusion.
BitconnectCarlosJuly 01, 2020 at 23:21#4307220 likes
We won't know if we have the correct answers - this is philosophy, after all. I believe the nature of truth itself depends on whether we adopt a theistic/pantheistic/atheistic framework.
In some religious traditions God is all knowing and all powerful, so you and I might see things one way but unless it matches God's view it can't be validated. I'm not saying I agree with this view I'm putting it out there as one way the existence of a God impacts truth.
So we don't have hope against defeating skepticism?
I didn't say that, I just said that I personally don't believe the existence (or non existence) of a God can be derived purely through the use of reason. That's just my own view.
This seems to be implying skepticism. I would agree with you that the existence or non existence of a god likely can't be derived through reason alone.
I put "other," for ontology. Metaphysics is fine too. Asking about what "is," about being and beings, is first philosophy. It's why it begins when Western philosophy begins, in Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus.
Logic is the most fundamental branch of philosophy, as it is applied to all the other branches. Without logic, you can't make reasonable or sensible arguments in the other branches. You wouldn't even be able to make viable distinctions between the other branches.
But what your describing sounds more like thinking generally, not necessarily the subject of the rules of thought as propositions, etc., which is what logic is. Then we have to ask -- what were philosophers doing before the "logic" was even put forth in Aristotle?
I think those who are voting "logic" are equating logic with thought. I don't see them as synonyms, however, any more than the rules of grammar is synonymous with language.
BitconnectCarlosJuly 02, 2020 at 00:23#4307550 likes
Thank you for your observation. I agree. If the logic of language is synonymous with the notion that philosophy lives in words, this seems very limited and dichotomous. But of course as William James has suggested, truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed that verbal formulation/that sense of logic.
Logic is the foundation of all philosophy,science and knowledge. By logic I mean informal logic and ordinary language logic. Logic is an expression of psychologism and is expressed through language,bodily motions and Intuition. The arbiter of logic Is the subjects coherent feelings. Logic is the science of successful Prediction.
I think that logic would be the center of philosophy, since all other sciences derived from philosophy and the logical insights (that is, their observations of the natural phenomenons and the causes for it) the hundred/thousands of philosophers have made before the inception of science as we know.
Philosophy, as opposed to the sciences, is pure thinking, and the purest pure thinking within philosophy is metaphysics.
Metaphysics does not have any empirical connections, whereas the other branches of philosophy at least make some reference to the physical or the empirical world.
(Logic (and math) is an empty category waiting to be filled with physical content.)
All science is knowledge about what is. Philosophy is about what is in the realm of pure thought.
Metaphysics is about being as such, being in itself, and therefore the philosophy of the rest of philosophy.
My question would be how do we know we have the correct system of logic? Wouldn't we have to do epistemology first?
Is there an incorrect system of logic? How would you know that you are thinking meaningfully or making useful statements about any topic - especially epistemology - without the logical rules of non-contradiction, identity, excluded middle, etc.?
But what your describing sounds more like thinking generally, not necessarily the subject of the rules of thought as propositions, etc., which is what logic is. Then we have to ask -- what were philosophers doing before the "logic" was even put forth in Aristotle?
This is like asking what were our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors doing when they learned about the animals in their environment, how to grow plants, etc. before "science" was even put forth in Galileo. Humans have done science and thought logically since our arrival on this planet, but not always.
I think those who are voting "logic" are equating logic with thought. I don't see them as synonyms, however, any more than the rules of grammar is synonymous with language.
No, we are equating logic with a particular type of thinking - correct thinking vs. incorrect thinking. Aristotle simply pointed out the differences in a formal way, and why one is better than the other when it comes to answering life's toughest questions.
The arbiter of logic Is the subjects coherent feelings. Logic is the science of successful Prediction.
The thesis:
The judgements of science are determined by how one feels about it.
The antithesis:
A subject’s feelings, generally, even if coherent, are always contingent, being sufficiently predicted on nothing but mere desire.
Anything contingent is susceptible to contradiction.
A successful prediction is necessary, or, which is the same thing, non-contradictory, insofar as some apodeictic consequent is given from antecedent conditions relative to it.
Therefore, feelings can never judge that which is a logically necessary conclusion.
The conditional:
There may be the case a successful prediction does follow from a desire, but such is accidental, and the accidental, in and of itself, is hardly amendable to a logical science.
A rational exception would be a successful prediction morally, for which a coherent feeling is fundamentally responsible. But that feeling is predicated on an obligation, not a mere desire, and is not a logically arbitrated judgement.
@Mww Any scientific theory or data is verified by the intellect the intuition which Is a feeling. Would a person claim a theory was correct if he didn't feel it was?
All truth and knowledge needs a subject an interpreter. And the proof is always the 'aha' moment.
Is there an incorrect system of logic? How would you know that you are thinking meaningfully or making useful statements about any topic - especially epistemology - without the logical rules of non-contradiction, identity, excluded middle, etc.?
There are several conflicting systems of logic. For example, dialetheism denies the law of non-contradiction. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dialetheism/ Even the axioms of logic are disputed. So how do we know which system to use?
No theory is verified, for they all operate under the principle of induction; they merely stand as unfalsified....until they are. That which is verified empirically are called facts, or we could use data if you like, and in addition, that which is verified rationally are called truths.
I can claim anything I want, “A-HA!!!” the bejesus out of it, no matter how I feel about it. And no matter whether I am right or wrong about it.
Agreed:
.....all truth and knowledge needs a subject to which each relates, and,
.....verification is by intellect alone.
@Mww Is induction a theory?
Is there really a difference between verifying empirically and rationally? The common verification method is the intellect yes. But the intellect and intuition are different words for a psychological expression a feeling. Human calculations and predictions are feelings. Human language is an expressed feeling. The reason computers cant verify real time phenomenon Is because they lack subjectivity AKA Feelings.
There is a theory of induction; the principle of induction conditions empirical theories, or theories the objects of which ascend from the particular to the general.
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Is there really a difference between verifying empirically and rationally?
Verifying empirically is a ambiguity, in that verifying empirical events is still a rational activity. Sticking voltmeter probes in the wall socket only indicates something, and still needs some rational judgement relating the subject’s extant knowledge to the indication.
————-
@Mww So all knowledge Is contingent until falsified?
How is it that facts and truths differ from verified theory?
You expressed your certainty that all bodies have extension in space. Certainty is a feeling.
May I ask how can one make Ethics first philosophy? I never understood this view but I'm sympathetic to it. How do you argue against general objections to ethics needing epistemology to justify it, or a metaphysics in which is sympathetic to moral properties existing, or needing a logic to make proper ethical inferences? Why a beginning/first principle in philosophy at all?
I can see why all these things wouldn't matter unless one had a value system, or a motivation to do them, but this isn't what you'd argue for, is it?
You expressed your certainty that all bodies have extension in space. Certainty is a feeling.
I expressed a cognition, a judgement in the form of a language proposition, which represents my knowledge of bodies. How, then, would you explain to me the absence of something, is also the feeling about it? In other words, if you say my certainty is itself a feeling, what would having no doubt, which is the same as being certain, feel like? What is the profit in saying I feel certain that I have no doubt? I don’t understand why I have to feel certain about that of which I already have no doubt. And I find it absurd to have a feeling about that of which I am not even in possession.
Why can’t certainty just be a rational state of affairs derived under the most stringent of conditions, rather than a feeling, which is just as often self-wrought as it is derived from mere inclination, neither of which is even conceivably derivable from necessity?
I understand what you’re saying, and it does hold some water in a ultra-modern, rapsidasical way; I just don’t see any good reason to accept it.
@Mww Feelings refer to language and vice versa. In fact language is just a different type of feeling. If you were to say you have no doubt about a theory that Is just using a different word to Express your certainty. These expressions are emphasising your feelings through language. There are also obviously degrees of uncertainty possibility which are also feelings.
There are several conflicting systems of logic. For example, dialetheism denies the law of non-contradiction. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dialetheism/ Even the axioms of logic are disputed. So how do we know which system to use?
So, you don't seem to be disagreeing with me that logic is a fundamental field of philosophy, rather you are disagreeing which form of logic is more fundamental?
You then mention dialetheism that, you say, denies the law of non-contradiction, yet is it true or not that dialetheism denies the law of non-contradiction? :gasp:
Did you not identify what dialetheism is and what it is not? It seems that you can't escape using the laws of non-contradiction, identity and exluded middle, even when distinguishing different types of logic and fields of philosophy.
This is like asking what were our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors doing when they learned about the animals in their environment, how to grow plants, etc. before "science" was even put forth in Galileo. Humans have done science and thought logically since our arrival on this planet, but not always.
Sure -- but it wasn't "science" or "logic" in the sense that was meant above. Hunter-gathers weren't conducting controlled experiments, nor were they doing syllogisms. Again, this is why I said the equating of "logic" to "thinking" is misleading. Thinking has gone on for millennia, just as language has. Logic and grammar are not that.
I think those who are voting "logic" are equating logic with thought. I don't see them as synonyms, however, any more than the rules of grammar is synonymous with language.
— Xtrix
No, we are equating logic with a particular type of thinking - correct thinking vs. incorrect thinking.
So "first philosophy" is such, and the basis for the others, when it's "correct thinking"?
If you're equating logic with correct/incorrect thinking, then that is in itself a rather narrow view of thought. Thinking happens all the time. To say thinking is "correct" because it conforms to the rules of logic just doesn't tell you much. Not all thought is logical, or mathematical, or even linguistic.
Sure -- but it wasn't "science" or "logic" in the sense that was meant above. Hunter-gathers weren't conducting controlled experiments, nor were they doing syllogisms. Again, this is why I said the equating of "logic" to "thinking" is misleading. Thinking has gone on for millennia, just as language has. Logic and grammar are not that.
Science has gone on since the first hominid began using tools. Looking under a rock is just as scientific as looking through a telescope. Philosophy has been going on ever since humans created art and buried their dead. And logical and illogical thinking have occured since thinking began, just as tyrannosaurus rexes and triceratops existed before they were identified and given names as such. I never said logic equates to all thinking - just a certain type of thinking.
Ever since we started thinking we've known that there are errors in our thinking. Aristotle simply laid out the various ways we can avoid those errors.
To say thinking is "correct" because it conforms to the rules of logic just doesn't tell you much.
Telling you that your thinking is error-free when it comes to understanding the concepts of the other fields of philosophy doesn't tell you much? Are you kidding?
So, you don't seem to be disagreeing with me that logic is a fundamental field of philosophy, rather you are disagreeing which form of logic is more fundamental?
Let's just say I don't necessarily agree that logic is first. It seems that if we want our logical system to be justified/true we will need to employ epistemology or ontology/metaphysics, otherwise we're in danger of arbitrarily picking axioms.
You then mention dialetheism that, you say, denies the law of non-contradiction, yet is it true or not that dialetheism denies the law of non-contradiction? :gasp:
This question is already assuming that the law of non-contradiction to be the case, so I'd imagine a dialetheist would answer by saying that the question is not well formed.
Did you not identify what dialetheism is and what it is not? It seems that you can't escape using the laws of non-contradiction, identity and exluded middle, even when distinguishing different types of logic and fields of philosophy.
Yes of course you can't escape the classical laws of logic if you assume the classical laws of logic. Just like if you wore red sunglasses you wouldn't be able to escape seeing everything as red until you take the glasses off. The reason why I personally find it hard to escape classical logic is probably because it is habitual.
May I ask how can one make Ethics first philosophy?
I suppose the same way one can make Logic or Aesthetics "first philosophy"? Or the same way one can start a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with this piece or that one. Any map of the same terrritory will suffice for relating, or framing, other subsequent maps palimpsest-like to one another. One starts from one's own 'ultimate concern' as a thinker (not as a "believer" (pace Tillich)).
Why a beginning/first principle in philosophy at all?
Why indeed. Ask the OP.
I never understood this view but I'm sympathetic to it.
Ethics is embodied; except for aesthetics, other philosophical concerns are expressed so abstractly that the embodiment of cognition and reflection is obscured (i.e. bracketed-away), or discounted. One's bodily exigencies-ecological conditions constitute ethics -
which (hopefully makes my meaning clearer) I understand as reflective inquiry into moral conduct (i.e. mores) that maximizes the well-being of the self by minimizing the misery of others and how they can fail to do so (like e.g. public health or sustainable-conservation practices)
- and given that philosophers, first and foremost, are natal mind-bodies, we are always already engaged in relationships with each other in which moral conduct is inescapably in question. Echoing Hegel (probably) Rimbaud confesses “Je est un autre” recognizing intuitively that each us is only a self via others.
How do you argue against general objections to ethics needing epistemology to justify it, or a metaphysics in which is sympathetic to moral properties existing, or needing a logic to make proper ethical inferences?
I don't recognize any grounds for assuming the ethics needs "epistemological justification" because I approach philosophy as a noncognitive performative exercise for proposing rigorously coherent criteria for conjecturing and methods for conjecture-testing, and not a cognitive theoretical practice for explaining (with 'testable conjectures') how nature (or even culture) works.
As I mention in my initial post (p.1), I think ethics presupposes metaphysics in the sense of conceptual & ontological commitments required to make sense of "moral properties". Take my paragraph at the top as an example (sketch): one finds oneself always already engaged in a web of nested relationships with others - these are what ethics necessarily presupposes - which can be 'generalized speculatively' about (an aspect of?) the real (i.e. ineluctable, subject/pov/discourse-invariant, nontotalizable whatever).
And I'm only aware of valid/invalid & sound inferences, so I can't speak on a chimera like "proper ethical inferences". Logic, in the broadest sense of discursivity, is a necessary condition for philosophizing, including logic in the narrow sense of 'tautology substitution rules', 'truth tables', 'conceptual analysis', etc. As far as I'm concerned, ethics presupposes discursivity - manifest language-games, grammar-logic, normativity - as a feature of 'the web of nested relationship with others' which is 'always already' social-public (à la "the private language argument").
I can see why all these things wouldn't matter unless one had a value system, or a motivation to do them, but this isn't what you'd argue for, is it?
I think "a value system" (such as this) is intended to function as a framework that enables - focuses - other philosophical concerns by constraining all of them (re: ontology, axiology [aesthetics, ethics & logic] & epistemology); that is, making explicit a direction, or horizon, of speculative/conceptual investigations but not a destination (i.e. ideology, dogma).
Let's just say I don't necessarily agree that logic is first. It seems that if we want our logical system to be justified/true we will need to employ epistemology or ontology/metaphysics, otherwise we're in danger of arbitrarily picking axioms.
So what useful assertions can be made in the fields of epistemology or ontology where the conclusion doesn't follow the premise, or that you don't need to provide reasons for your conclusion?
This question is already assuming that the law of non-contradiction to be the case, so I'd imagine a dialetheist would answer by saying that the question is not well formed.
Then dialetheism both denies and assumes the law of non-contradiction. How is that statement useful?
Yes of course you can't escape the classical laws of logic if you assume the classical laws of logic. Just like if you wore red sunglasses you wouldn't be able to escape seeing everything as red until you take the glasses off. The reason why I personally find it hard to escape classical logic is probably because it is habitual.
You mean it habitually works and provides useful information via deduction and induction.
So what useful assertions can be made in the fields of epistemology or ontology where the conclusion doesn't follow the premise, or that you don't need to provide reasons for your conclusion?
This is why I am not outright saying one of these fields should be first. It seems like metaphysics/epistemology depend on logic, but logic depends on metaphysics/epistemology. Analogous to the problem of the criterion.
Then dialetheism both denies and assumes the law of non-contradiction. How is that statement useful?
What do you mean by useful? If you mean how is it relevant to the discussion, well dialetheism goes to show that the foundations of logic are disputed, so how do we find a 'correct' logic? If we use logic to establish logic, this would be circular.
This is why I am not outright saying one of these fields should be first. It seems like metaphysics/epistemology depend on logic, but logic depends on metaphysics/epistemology. Analogous to the problem of the criterion.
Really? Which metaphysical and epistemological problems need to be solved prior to understanding, or being able to use, logic? Tell me how you answer that question without using logic.
What do you mean by useful? If you mean how is it relevant to the discussion, well dialetheism goes to show that the foundations of logic are disputed, so how do we find a 'correct' logic? If we use logic to establish logic, this would be circular.
Useful, as in which problems could dialetheism be applied and then solve? We aren't using logic to establish logic. We use logic to establish truth - truth about metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, etc. statements. How would you know that any metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, etc. statements are true without logic? And if you can't distinguish between different statements, then what use is even making any statements at all?
Is this statement about logic true? If logic isn't used to "establish logic", how do we "establish truth" about logic without "using logic"?
It seems obvious to me that we have errors in our thinking - where what we thought was true wasn't. And when we look closer at why it wasn't true, it was because we didn't apply all the rules of logic.
It is also the case that language itself needs to make sense - meaning it needs to follow logical rules - which means that it needs to be reconcilable with how we actually are capable of thinking. Why is a contradiction false? It's because actually picturing a square-circle in your mind is impossible.
[quote=Husserl]Thus far, the beginning philosopher has adopted the motivations of the scientist as such; these merely live on in him, since he was, after all, already a scientist previously. Fundamentally, he does not want to change anything whatsoever about this. As a philosopher, he wants to be nothing at all but a scientist, though of course a genuine, a radically genuine scientist. And like any other scientist, he is motivated by the love of wisdom, after which he is named and which at first is nothing but a scientific love of truth in the manner of a habitual devotion to the value-realm of truth, which is contained in the essence of the sphere of judgment. Through this love of truth, he too, therefore, allows himself to be defined by an abiding life decision aimed at what is greatest and best in this realm of truth, within the limits of what is practically possible.
And yet there is an essential difference here wherever we look. Undoubtedly, science and philosophy were originally one and the same, or rather, the special sciences were only living branches growing from the trunk of the whole, the one philosophy, as an indivisible living unity. But since then the two have become divided, and divided by nothing less than the ethos animating their entire working activity. The division has occurred because that spirit of radicalism has been lost which, under the title “philosophy,” wanted to go to the end in that which makes science science: that is, in the epistemological justification of cognition, and precisely thereby in the self-justification of the scientist in his entire cognitive accomplishing. [/quote] First Philosophy: Lectures 1923/24 and Related Texts from the Manuscripts (1920-1925). Translated by Sebastian Luft and Thane M. Naberhaus. Springer, 2019. Edmund Husserl.
Not so much 'What is first?' and more, 'Why, at this stage, do you seek to start again from the beginning?" Philosophy has no foundation, only, with luck, a keel.
Really? Which metaphysical and epistemological problems need to be solved prior to understanding, or being able to use, logic? Tell me how you answer that question without using logic.
Except during the winter. The tree analogy is not an infallible way of depicting how philosophy works. So how about instead of "branches" we say "subfields".
Which metaphysical and epistemological problems need to be solved prior to understanding, or being able to use, logic? Tell me how you answer that question without using logic.
All of them or any of them, when applicable. To my knowledge, none of them contradict any other one, except maybe dialetheism, but I am beginning to think that that is just psuedo-logic (see my other thread).
I think that depends on what you mean by some element of truth. Newtonian mechanics is wrong but useful.
How so?
An element of truth would be an axiom that some other statement depends on. If some system is helpful in making predictions in the future after being used hundreds or thousands of times, then there is something there. That doesn't always mean that the next time is going to work out just as you planned it, especially if there are other elements or variables that could work their way into the process you are trying to predict at any given time.
We are ignorant. We only have experience to go by. Logic tells us that experience isn't all you should go by, but here we are. We can become as objective as possible by exposing our hypotheses and theories to constant criticism and apply them to mass-produced technologies so every layman can test it as well. When a species can mold it's environment to the degree that humans have done, then there is something to be said about how accurate our understanding of the world is.
So while we only have our experience to go by, the experience of billions using the same theories and getting the same results is something to be said about the method by which we've been able to achieve this - science and logic.
With that said, we still have a long way to go, and that is what makes life, and science, interesting.
Does a tree have a 'most important' branch? — A SeagullIt's trunk.
Why?
The trunk cannot exist without the roots and leaves
The roots cannot exist without the trunk and leaves
The leaves cannot exist without the roots and trunk.
Reply to A Seagull "Most important" does not in any way ever entail ontologically independent or separate. Besides, when the trunk dies the whole tree dies. That not true of any particular leaf branch or root.
So while we only have our experience to go by, the experience of billions using the same theories and getting the same results is something to be said about the method by which we've been able to achieve this - science and logic.
I tend to agree with this. I just didn't know what you meant by element of truth.
I think that you are confusing a galaxy with a picture of a galaxy.
Let me rephase: As far as I am aware, the human mind is not currently capable of conceiving of an entire galaxy; it's too big for us to be able to picture the scale of it in our heads. Just because we can't conceive of something doesn't seem to imply it is impossible to actually exist.
It seems to me that you are engaging in epistemology/metaphysics in order to justify logic. To me it seems that in order to select the axioms of logic, we have to use epistemology/metaphysics to avoid being arbitrary. But it also seems that in order to make distinctions in epistemology/metaphysics we need a system of logic. Like I said before, this appears similar to the problem of the criterion.
The trunk cannot exist without the roots and leaves
The roots cannot exist without the trunk and leaves
The leaves cannot exist without the roots and trunk.
Philosophy has to be holistic or it is nothing.
Why do we keep coming back to the tree analogy?
If philosophy has to be holistic, then shouldn't it include a metaphilosophical theory that shows us where to start?
What is 'most important' and 'where to start' are two different questions. — A Seagull
The original question was which comes first, meaning where to start. I don't recall asking which branch is the most important.
It is in the heading : Most Fundamental Branch of Philosophy
Philosophy has been going on ever since humans created art and buried their dead. And logical and illogical thinking have occured since thinking began, just as tyrannosaurus rexes and triceratops existed before they were identified and given names as such. I never said logic equates to all thinking - just a certain type of thinking.
Ever since we started thinking we've known that there are errors in our thinking. Aristotle simply laid out the various ways we can avoid those errors.
No, this is completely wrong.
Logic is a branch of philosophy, which is what the above poster is talking about. Philosophy has not been going on since humans "created art" -- that's as meaningless as to say science was going on. All we know with high likelihood is that there was creativity present, that these early people (say 100,000 years ago) had language, and that thinking was going on.
To say this equates to "philosophy, science, and logic" is pure confusion.
No, it isn't. Looking under a rock is not science. If we define that as "science," then apes do science as well. It's an absurd definition.
Looking under a rock CAN be science. It isn't always science and it isn't always not science. The scientific method wasn't codified until recently, but I don't think you can invent something without doing science. It might be really primitive science, but the essence will still be there: hypothesis, experimentation, analysis, and conclusion. How would one develop, say a canoe, without doing all that?
No, this is completely wrong.
Logic is a branch of philosophy, which is what the above poster is talking about. Philosophy has not been going on since humans "created art" -- that's as meaningless as to say science was going on. All we know with high likelihood is that there was creativity present, that these early people (say 100,000 years ago) had language, and that thinking was going on.
To say this equates to "philosophy, science, and logic" is pure confusion.
I don't see any reason to assume the homo sapiens of any given time period were any less intelligent than we are. I'm sure, at the very least, they had metaphysical discussions about the nature of reality, religious discussions, and ethical dilemmas to sort out.
No, it isn't. Looking under a rock is not science. If we define that as "science," then apes do science as well. It's an absurd definition.
Looking under a rock CAN be science. It isn't always science and it isn't always not science. The scientific method wasn't codified until recently, but I don't think you can invent something without doing science. It might be really primitive science, but the essence will still be there: hypothesis, experimentation, analysis, and conclusion. How would one develop, say a canoe, without doing all that?
With trial and error, intuition, know-how, etc. We can call that "primitive science" if we want to, but that's so far from what is meant by "science" these days that it's very misleading. It makes nearly everything humans do "primitive science."
To say this equates to "philosophy, science, and logic" is pure confusion.
I don't see any reason to assume the homo sapiens of any given time period were any less intelligent than we are. I'm sure, at the very least, they had metaphysical discussions about the nature of reality, religious discussions, and ethical dilemmas to sort out.
I never said they were "less intelligent." But they were not doing philosophy, science, or logic any more than they were doing civil engineering or computer science. Sure, one way to look at it is that all of this comes out of the human mind and human creativity, it involves thought and language, etc. In that respect, we've been essentially the same species for 200,000 or so years. But again, to retroactively call tool-making and cave art "science" or animistic beliefs "religious discussion" is a just confusion. Let's not do that, for clarity's sake.
But again, to retroactively call tool-making and cave art "science" or animistic beliefs "religious discussion" is a just confusion.
Discussions of animistic beliefs aren't religious discussions? What an odd thing to claim.
That's hardly "religion." Again, maybe a kind of "primitive" religion, meaning a system of beliefs, but that's not at all the same as later, codified systems that appeared.
To claim people were sitting around having "religious discussions" is kind of ridiculous. It's simply what everyone believed.
Reply to Xtrix I think we're headed for a no true scotsman, where every example I give of religion and philosophy is going to elicit the same response from you: nope, not philosophy, not religion, not science. Until we get to whatever arbitrary definition you've come up with for these things. So, no thanks.
"There is ongoing disagreement (and no general consensus) as to whether animism is merely a singular, broadly encompassing religious belief[49] or a worldview in and of itself, comprising many diverse mythologies found worldwide in many diverse cultures."
Reply to Xtrix There's a simple distinction between science and religion. Religion is where you believe stuff without evidence Quoting Xtrix
No, it isn't. Looking under a rock is not science. If we define that as "science," then apes do science as well. It's an absurd definition.
Then apes do science. What's so absurd about that? Humans are apes. :nerd: Integrating observation and logic is what science is. Asserting something beyond what observation shows is religion. Hypothesizing and theorizing something beyond what observation shows is only the first step in science. You have to then perform experiments and have others perform the same experiments and get the same results. This is how apes gradually learned how to put sticks in termite holes to procure lunch.
Logic is a branch of philosophy, which is what the above poster is talking about. Philosophy has not been going on since humans "created art" -- that's as meaningless as to say science was going on. All we know with high likelihood is that there was creativity present, that these early people (say 100,000 years ago) had language, and that thinking was going on.
To say this equates to "philosophy, science, and logic" is pure confusion.
The art depicted humans and their relationship with the world and that is the essence of philosophy.
No, it isn't. Looking under a rock is not science. If we define that as "science," then apes do science as well. It's an absurd definition.
— Xtrix
Then apes do science.
Reply to 180 Proof I suppose the same way one can make Logic or Aesthetics "first philosophy"? Or the same way one can start a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with this piece or that one. Any map of the same terrritory will suffice for relating, or framing, other subsequent maps palimpsest-like to one another. One starts from one's own 'ultimate concern' as a thinker (not as a "believer" (pace Tillich)).[/quote]
But this seems to fail to distinguish between ontological or epistemic dependency with a form of psychological dependence for a starting point. The latter might be interesting in some psychological sense, but doesn't seem like the inquiry at stake.
I don't recognize any grounds for assuming the ethics needs "epistemological justification" because I approach philosophy as a noncognitive performative exercise for proposing rigorously coherent criteria for conjecturing and methods for conjecture-testing, and not a cognitive theoretical practice for explaining (with 'testable conjectures') how nature (or even culture) works.
It always seem very strange to me to start with a non-cognitive position. It'll provide a psychological/biological account of why we started somewhere but it doesn't provide any answers to the ordinary questions of how inquiry is possible, what it depends on epistemically, what could have created the propositional (cognitive) abilities in the first place that seem to have a disjunction from the noncognitive.
But this seems to fail to distinguish between ontological or epistemic dependency with a form of psychological dependence for a starting point.
I don't follow. What "psychological dependence"? You're seeing one where there isn't any.
It always seem very strange to me to start with a non-cognitive position.
Well I don't (if "position" = presupposed commitment), so I agree. I "start" with human facticity (i.e. embodiment (vide Arendt re: natality ... vide Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Zapffe, Nietzsche, Spinoza & Epicurus)). Philosophy, as I've pointed out previously, is Quoting 180 Proof
a noncognitive performative exercise for proposing rigorously coherent criteria for conjecturing and methods for conjecture-testing, and NOT a cognitive theoretical practice for explaining (with 'testable conjectures') how nature (or even culture) works.
Any philosophical topic taken as a starting point, therefore, will be, in my understanding, noncognitive (i.e. consists in proposals (or meta-statements), not propositions (or object-statements)).
Comments (82)
On my account, logic is not properly a branch of philosophy, but a tool used by philosophy, and a topic investigated equally by philosophy, language, and mathematics, lying at the intersection of all three. Co-equal to it as a tool of philosophy is rhetoric, which lies at the intersection of philosophy, language, and the arts.
And on my account, phenomenology, or at least phenomenalism, is a core principle for how to properly do philosophy in general, along with principles I call criticism and liberalism (which together make up critical rationalism, which is closely related to logic, so there's that again), as well as objectivism. All of philosophy, rightly done, is about how to investigate our phenomenal experiences and the limits they converge toward (the "objects" of them) in a critical and open-minded ("liberal") way.
I group metaphysics and epistemology together as part of the same half of philosophy, and conversely divide ethics up into two separate questions analogous to those two. Both that descriptive (metaphysics and epistemology) side and the prescriptive (ethics) side are co-equally important. Other important philosophical questions generally fall into one side of the other of that: philosophy of mind with the descriptive stuff, philosophy of will with the prescriptive stuff, philosophy of religion and education (which I kinda treat together) with the descriptive stuff, and political philosophy with the prescriptive stuff.
The only things I wouldn't put on one side or the other of that divide, since they span both, are philosophy of language, and the field I don't know a name for that asks questions like "what is the meaning of life?" In different senses, either of those could be considered a "first philosophy": the linguistic meaning-of-words stuff is logically prior, needing answering to make sense of the rest, but the practical meaning-of-life stuff is pragmatically prior, being the reason why any of the other questions matter.
:death: :flower:
I thought about selecting Logic, but I settled on Phenomenology. For me, the experience of concepts comes before reasoning about whether a statement is true — somewhat how definitions precede axioms.
Best start at the beginning, I would think.
I voted Logic. To be succinct, philosophy itself lives in the logic of words, and language.
My question would be how do we know we have the correct system of logic? Wouldn't we have to do epistemology first?
But how do we know that we have the correct answers? How do we go about investigating reality (epistemology)?
I also voted for ethics. Of course it's easy to see that, from a straight up, superficially conventional perspective, ethics is not fundamental to metaphysics, epistemology, phenomenology or logic.
But if those and all other domains of philosophy are understood to be culturally, symbolically, linguistically conditioned and ethical ideas are fundamental to every aspect of culture. then we might come to a different, more subtle, conclusion.
We won't know if we have the correct answers - this is philosophy, after all. I believe the nature of truth itself depends on whether we adopt a theistic/pantheistic/atheistic framework.
So we don't have hope against defeating skepticism?
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Interesting. Do you mind explaining?
Quoting 83nt0n
In some religious traditions God is all knowing and all powerful, so you and I might see things one way but unless it matches God's view it can't be validated. I'm not saying I agree with this view I'm putting it out there as one way the existence of a God impacts truth.
Quoting 83nt0n
I didn't say that, I just said that I personally don't believe the existence (or non existence) of a God can be derived purely through the use of reason. That's just my own view.
This seems to be implying skepticism. I would agree with you that the existence or non existence of a god likely can't be derived through reason alone.
I put "other," for ontology. Metaphysics is fine too. Asking about what "is," about being and beings, is first philosophy. It's why it begins when Western philosophy begins, in Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus.
But what your describing sounds more like thinking generally, not necessarily the subject of the rules of thought as propositions, etc., which is what logic is. Then we have to ask -- what were philosophers doing before the "logic" was even put forth in Aristotle?
I think those who are voting "logic" are equating logic with thought. I don't see them as synonyms, however, any more than the rules of grammar is synonymous with language.
I think ontology is a branch of metaphysics. Join the metaphysics club.
Thank you for your observation. I agree. If the logic of language is synonymous with the notion that philosophy lives in words, this seems very limited and dichotomous. But of course as William James has suggested, truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed that verbal formulation/that sense of logic.
Metaphysics does not have any empirical connections, whereas the other branches of philosophy at least make some reference to the physical or the empirical world.
(Logic (and math) is an empty category waiting to be filled with physical content.)
All science is knowledge about what is. Philosophy is about what is in the realm of pure thought.
Metaphysics is about being as such, being in itself, and therefore the philosophy of the rest of philosophy.
Quoting Xtrix
This is like asking what were our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors doing when they learned about the animals in their environment, how to grow plants, etc. before "science" was even put forth in Galileo. Humans have done science and thought logically since our arrival on this planet, but not always.
Quoting Xtrix
No, we are equating logic with a particular type of thinking - correct thinking vs. incorrect thinking. Aristotle simply pointed out the differences in a formal way, and why one is better than the other when it comes to answering life's toughest questions.
The thesis:
The judgements of science are determined by how one feels about it.
The antithesis:
A subject’s feelings, generally, even if coherent, are always contingent, being sufficiently predicted on nothing but mere desire.
Anything contingent is susceptible to contradiction.
A successful prediction is necessary, or, which is the same thing, non-contradictory, insofar as some apodeictic consequent is given from antecedent conditions relative to it.
Therefore, feelings can never judge that which is a logically necessary conclusion.
The conditional:
There may be the case a successful prediction does follow from a desire, but such is accidental, and the accidental, in and of itself, is hardly amendable to a logical science.
A rational exception would be a successful prediction morally, for which a coherent feeling is fundamentally responsible. But that feeling is predicated on an obligation, not a mere desire, and is not a logically arbitrated judgement.
All truth and knowledge needs a subject an interpreter. And the proof is always the 'aha' moment.
There are several conflicting systems of logic. For example, dialetheism denies the law of non-contradiction. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dialetheism/ Even the axioms of logic are disputed. So how do we know which system to use?
This is a philosophy forum. So naturally my next question is: why?
Pretty sure all the philosopher of the library talk politics all the time.
Intuitions are not feelings.
No theory is verified, for they all operate under the principle of induction; they merely stand as unfalsified....until they are. That which is verified empirically are called facts, or we could use data if you like, and in addition, that which is verified rationally are called truths.
I can claim anything I want, “A-HA!!!” the bejesus out of it, no matter how I feel about it. And no matter whether I am right or wrong about it.
Agreed:
.....all truth and knowledge needs a subject to which each relates, and,
.....verification is by intellect alone.
Is there really a difference between verifying empirically and rationally? The common verification method is the intellect yes. But the intellect and intuition are different words for a psychological expression a feeling. Human calculations and predictions are feelings. Human language is an expressed feeling. The reason computers cant verify real time phenomenon Is because they lack subjectivity AKA Feelings.
There is a theory of induction; the principle of induction conditions empirical theories, or theories the objects of which ascend from the particular to the general.
————-
Quoting Asif
Verifying empirically is a ambiguity, in that verifying empirical events is still a rational activity. Sticking voltmeter probes in the wall socket only indicates something, and still needs some rational judgement relating the subject’s extant knowledge to the indication.
————-
Quoting Asif
I reject that out of hand, but if you want to run with it, fine by me.
————-
Quoting Asif
All bodies are extended in space. What feeling did I express with that language?
How is it that facts and truths differ from verified theory?
You expressed your certainty that all bodies have extension in space. Certainty is a feeling.
May I ask how can one make Ethics first philosophy? I never understood this view but I'm sympathetic to it. How do you argue against general objections to ethics needing epistemology to justify it, or a metaphysics in which is sympathetic to moral properties existing, or needing a logic to make proper ethical inferences? Why a beginning/first principle in philosophy at all?
I can see why all these things wouldn't matter unless one had a value system, or a motivation to do them, but this isn't what you'd argue for, is it?
I expressed a cognition, a judgement in the form of a language proposition, which represents my knowledge of bodies. How, then, would you explain to me the absence of something, is also the feeling about it? In other words, if you say my certainty is itself a feeling, what would having no doubt, which is the same as being certain, feel like? What is the profit in saying I feel certain that I have no doubt? I don’t understand why I have to feel certain about that of which I already have no doubt. And I find it absurd to have a feeling about that of which I am not even in possession.
Why can’t certainty just be a rational state of affairs derived under the most stringent of conditions, rather than a feeling, which is just as often self-wrought as it is derived from mere inclination, neither of which is even conceivably derivable from necessity?
I understand what you’re saying, and it does hold some water in a ultra-modern, rapsidasical way; I just don’t see any good reason to accept it.
Ok.
Thanks.
So, you don't seem to be disagreeing with me that logic is a fundamental field of philosophy, rather you are disagreeing which form of logic is more fundamental?
You then mention dialetheism that, you say, denies the law of non-contradiction, yet is it true or not that dialetheism denies the law of non-contradiction? :gasp:
Did you not identify what dialetheism is and what it is not? It seems that you can't escape using the laws of non-contradiction, identity and exluded middle, even when distinguishing different types of logic and fields of philosophy.
Sure -- but it wasn't "science" or "logic" in the sense that was meant above. Hunter-gathers weren't conducting controlled experiments, nor were they doing syllogisms. Again, this is why I said the equating of "logic" to "thinking" is misleading. Thinking has gone on for millennia, just as language has. Logic and grammar are not that.
Quoting Harry Hindu
So "first philosophy" is such, and the basis for the others, when it's "correct thinking"?
If you're equating logic with correct/incorrect thinking, then that is in itself a rather narrow view of thought. Thinking happens all the time. To say thinking is "correct" because it conforms to the rules of logic just doesn't tell you much. Not all thought is logical, or mathematical, or even linguistic.
Science has gone on since the first hominid began using tools. Looking under a rock is just as scientific as looking through a telescope. Philosophy has been going on ever since humans created art and buried their dead. And logical and illogical thinking have occured since thinking began, just as tyrannosaurus rexes and triceratops existed before they were identified and given names as such. I never said logic equates to all thinking - just a certain type of thinking.
Ever since we started thinking we've known that there are errors in our thinking. Aristotle simply laid out the various ways we can avoid those errors.
Quoting Xtrix
Telling you that your thinking is error-free when it comes to understanding the concepts of the other fields of philosophy doesn't tell you much? Are you kidding?
Let's just say I don't necessarily agree that logic is first. It seems that if we want our logical system to be justified/true we will need to employ epistemology or ontology/metaphysics, otherwise we're in danger of arbitrarily picking axioms.
Quoting Harry Hindu
This question is already assuming that the law of non-contradiction to be the case, so I'd imagine a dialetheist would answer by saying that the question is not well formed.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Yes of course you can't escape the classical laws of logic if you assume the classical laws of logic. Just like if you wore red sunglasses you wouldn't be able to escape seeing everything as red until you take the glasses off. The reason why I personally find it hard to escape classical logic is probably because it is habitual.
I suppose the same way one can make Logic or Aesthetics "first philosophy"? Or the same way one can start a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with this piece or that one. Any map of the same terrritory will suffice for relating, or framing, other subsequent maps palimpsest-like to one another. One starts from one's own 'ultimate concern' as a thinker (not as a "believer" (pace Tillich)).
Why indeed. Ask the OP.
Ethics is embodied; except for aesthetics, other philosophical concerns are expressed so abstractly that the embodiment of cognition and reflection is obscured (i.e. bracketed-away), or discounted. One's bodily exigencies-ecological conditions constitute ethics -
which (hopefully makes my meaning clearer) I understand as reflective inquiry into moral conduct (i.e. mores) that maximizes the well-being of the self by minimizing the misery of others and how they can fail to do so (like e.g. public health or sustainable-conservation practices)
- and given that philosophers, first and foremost, are natal mind-bodies, we are always already engaged in relationships with each other in which moral conduct is inescapably in question. Echoing Hegel (probably) Rimbaud confesses “Je est un autre” recognizing intuitively that each us is only a self via others.
I don't recognize any grounds for assuming the ethics needs "epistemological justification" because I approach philosophy as a noncognitive performative exercise for proposing rigorously coherent criteria for conjecturing and methods for conjecture-testing, and not a cognitive theoretical practice for explaining (with 'testable conjectures') how nature (or even culture) works.
As I mention in my initial post (p.1), I think ethics presupposes metaphysics in the sense of conceptual & ontological commitments required to make sense of "moral properties". Take my paragraph at the top as an example (sketch): one finds oneself always already engaged in a web of nested relationships with others - these are what ethics necessarily presupposes - which can be 'generalized speculatively' about (an aspect of?) the real (i.e. ineluctable, subject/pov/discourse-invariant, nontotalizable whatever).
And I'm only aware of valid/invalid & sound inferences, so I can't speak on a chimera like "proper ethical inferences". Logic, in the broadest sense of discursivity, is a necessary condition for philosophizing, including logic in the narrow sense of 'tautology substitution rules', 'truth tables', 'conceptual analysis', etc. As far as I'm concerned, ethics presupposes discursivity - manifest language-games, grammar-logic, normativity - as a feature of 'the web of nested relationship with others' which is 'always already' social-public (à la "the private language argument").
I think "a value system" (such as this) is intended to function as a framework that enables - focuses - other philosophical concerns by constraining all of them (re: ontology, axiology [aesthetics, ethics & logic] & epistemology); that is, making explicit a direction, or horizon, of speculative/conceptual investigations but not a destination (i.e. ideology, dogma).
So what useful assertions can be made in the fields of epistemology or ontology where the conclusion doesn't follow the premise, or that you don't need to provide reasons for your conclusion?
Quoting 83nt0n
Then dialetheism both denies and assumes the law of non-contradiction. How is that statement useful?
Quoting 83nt0n
You mean it habitually works and provides useful information via deduction and induction.
This is why I am not outright saying one of these fields should be first. It seems like metaphysics/epistemology depend on logic, but logic depends on metaphysics/epistemology. Analogous to the problem of the criterion.
Quoting Harry Hindu
What do you mean by useful? If you mean how is it relevant to the discussion, well dialetheism goes to show that the foundations of logic are disputed, so how do we find a 'correct' logic? If we use logic to establish logic, this would be circular.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Are you implying that because something habitually works that it is true/correct?
Really? Which metaphysical and epistemological problems need to be solved prior to understanding, or being able to use, logic? Tell me how you answer that question without using logic.
Quoting 83nt0n
Useful, as in which problems could dialetheism be applied and then solve? We aren't using logic to establish logic. We use logic to establish truth - truth about metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, etc. statements. How would you know that any metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, etc. statements are true without logic? And if you can't distinguish between different statements, then what use is even making any statements at all?
Quoting 83nt0n
If something is useful then that implies that there is some element of truth.
Is this statement about logic true? If logic isn't used to "establish logic", how do we "establish truth" about logic without "using logic"?
It seems obvious to me that we have errors in our thinking - where what we thought was true wasn't. And when we look closer at why it wasn't true, it was because we didn't apply all the rules of logic.
It is also the case that language itself needs to make sense - meaning it needs to follow logical rules - which means that it needs to be reconcilable with how we actually are capable of thinking. Why is a contradiction false? It's because actually picturing a square-circle in your mind is impossible.
And yet there is an essential difference here wherever we look. Undoubtedly, science and philosophy were originally one and the same, or rather, the special sciences were only living branches growing from the trunk of the whole, the one philosophy, as an indivisible living unity. But since then the two have become divided, and divided by nothing less than the ethos animating their entire working activity. The division has occurred because that spirit of radicalism has been lost which, under the title “philosophy,” wanted to go to the end in that which makes science science: that is, in the epistemological justification of cognition, and precisely thereby in the self-justification of the scientist in his entire cognitive accomplishing. [/quote] First Philosophy: Lectures 1923/24 and Related Texts from the Manuscripts (1920-1925). Translated by Sebastian Luft and Thane M. Naberhaus. Springer, 2019. Edmund Husserl.
Not so much 'What is first?' and more, 'Why, at this stage, do you seek to start again from the beginning?" Philosophy has no foundation, only, with luck, a keel.
Which logical axioms should we accept?
Quoting Harry Hindu
I think that depends on what you mean by some element of truth. Newtonian mechanics is wrong but useful.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Picturing an entire galaxy in your mind is impossible.
Not with practice.
Does a tree have a 'most important' branch?
Maybe not, but it needs roots. Let's not take the tree analogy too far though.
It needs leaves too.
Except during the winter. The tree analogy is not an infallible way of depicting how philosophy works. So how about instead of "branches" we say "subfields".
It's trunk.
Quoting 83nt0n
All of them or any of them, when applicable. To my knowledge, none of them contradict any other one, except maybe dialetheism, but I am beginning to think that that is just psuedo-logic (see my other thread).
Quoting 83nt0n
How so?
An element of truth would be an axiom that some other statement depends on. If some system is helpful in making predictions in the future after being used hundreds or thousands of times, then there is something there. That doesn't always mean that the next time is going to work out just as you planned it, especially if there are other elements or variables that could work their way into the process you are trying to predict at any given time.
We are ignorant. We only have experience to go by. Logic tells us that experience isn't all you should go by, but here we are. We can become as objective as possible by exposing our hypotheses and theories to constant criticism and apply them to mass-produced technologies so every layman can test it as well. When a species can mold it's environment to the degree that humans have done, then there is something to be said about how accurate our understanding of the world is.
So while we only have our experience to go by, the experience of billions using the same theories and getting the same results is something to be said about the method by which we've been able to achieve this - science and logic.
With that said, we still have a long way to go, and that is what makes life, and science, interesting.
Quoting 83nt0n
I think that you are confusing a galaxy with a picture of a galaxy.
Why?
The trunk cannot exist without the roots and leaves
The roots cannot exist without the trunk and leaves
The leaves cannot exist without the roots and trunk.
Philosophy has to be holistic or it is nothing.
Well there is the family of liar paradoxes, which some would say shows a "contradiction" in the classical laws of logic.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I tend to agree with this. I just didn't know what you meant by element of truth.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Let me rephase: As far as I am aware, the human mind is not currently capable of conceiving of an entire galaxy; it's too big for us to be able to picture the scale of it in our heads. Just because we can't conceive of something doesn't seem to imply it is impossible to actually exist.
It seems to me that you are engaging in epistemology/metaphysics in order to justify logic. To me it seems that in order to select the axioms of logic, we have to use epistemology/metaphysics to avoid being arbitrary. But it also seems that in order to make distinctions in epistemology/metaphysics we need a system of logic. Like I said before, this appears similar to the problem of the criterion.
Why do we keep coming back to the tree analogy?
If philosophy has to be holistic, then shouldn't it include a metaphilosophical theory that shows us where to start?
Because it is appropriate.Quoting 83nt0n
What is 'most important' and 'where to start' are two different questions.
But if all the leaves die or all the roots die....
The original question was which comes first, meaning where to start. I don't recall asking which branch is the most important.
It is in the heading : Most Fundamental Branch of Philosophy
By most fundamental I mean which comes first; which one is the bedrock.
No, it isn't. Looking under a rock is not science. If we define that as "science," then apes do science as well. It's an absurd definition.
Quoting Harry Hindu
No, this is completely wrong.
Logic is a branch of philosophy, which is what the above poster is talking about. Philosophy has not been going on since humans "created art" -- that's as meaningless as to say science was going on. All we know with high likelihood is that there was creativity present, that these early people (say 100,000 years ago) had language, and that thinking was going on.
To say this equates to "philosophy, science, and logic" is pure confusion.
Looking under a rock CAN be science. It isn't always science and it isn't always not science. The scientific method wasn't codified until recently, but I don't think you can invent something without doing science. It might be really primitive science, but the essence will still be there: hypothesis, experimentation, analysis, and conclusion. How would one develop, say a canoe, without doing all that?
I don't see any reason to assume the homo sapiens of any given time period were any less intelligent than we are. I'm sure, at the very least, they had metaphysical discussions about the nature of reality, religious discussions, and ethical dilemmas to sort out.
With trial and error, intuition, know-how, etc. We can call that "primitive science" if we want to, but that's so far from what is meant by "science" these days that it's very misleading. It makes nearly everything humans do "primitive science."
Quoting RogueAI
I never said they were "less intelligent." But they were not doing philosophy, science, or logic any more than they were doing civil engineering or computer science. Sure, one way to look at it is that all of this comes out of the human mind and human creativity, it involves thought and language, etc. In that respect, we've been essentially the same species for 200,000 or so years. But again, to retroactively call tool-making and cave art "science" or animistic beliefs "religious discussion" is a just confusion. Let's not do that, for clarity's sake.
Discussions of animistic beliefs aren't religious discussions? What an odd thing to claim.
That's hardly "religion." Again, maybe a kind of "primitive" religion, meaning a system of beliefs, but that's not at all the same as later, codified systems that appeared.
To claim people were sitting around having "religious discussions" is kind of ridiculous. It's simply what everyone believed.
Not arbitrary at all -- ordinary usage.
"There is ongoing disagreement (and no general consensus) as to whether animism is merely a singular, broadly encompassing religious belief[49] or a worldview in and of itself, comprising many diverse mythologies found worldwide in many diverse cultures."
I think the latter is clearly the case.
Quoting Xtrix
The art depicted humans and their relationship with the world and that is the essence of philosophy.
OK! Would you excuse me for a minute...
But this seems to fail to distinguish between ontological or epistemic dependency with a form of psychological dependence for a starting point. The latter might be interesting in some psychological sense, but doesn't seem like the inquiry at stake.
It always seem very strange to me to start with a non-cognitive position. It'll provide a psychological/biological account of why we started somewhere but it doesn't provide any answers to the ordinary questions of how inquiry is possible, what it depends on epistemically, what could have created the propositional (cognitive) abilities in the first place that seem to have a disjunction from the noncognitive.
I don't follow. What "psychological dependence"? You're seeing one where there isn't any.
Well I don't (if "position" = presupposed commitment), so I agree. I "start" with human facticity (i.e. embodiment (vide Arendt re: natality ... vide Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Zapffe, Nietzsche, Spinoza & Epicurus)). Philosophy, as I've pointed out previously, is
Quoting 180 Proof
Any philosophical topic taken as a starting point, therefore, will be, in my understanding, noncognitive (i.e. consists in proposals (or meta-statements), not propositions (or object-statements)).