On rejecting unanswerable questions
I was reading the website of a person (let's call him Bill) laying out what he called his general philosophy. after some preamble in which Bill explained the purpose of philosophy he said this: My general philosophy could be most succinctly summed up as the rejection of both unquestionable answers (answers that are not to be questioned), and unanswerable questions (questions that cannot be answered).
I don't personally understand how it is possible to reject unanswerable questions.
to arrive at the determination that a question is unanswerable you would first have to:
a. read it
b. fail to find an answer
having done both of those you cannot then claim to have rejected it because you actually tried to answer it. rejection at that point would amount to pretending you couldn't answer it.
it is possibly worth bearing in mind that the next line of Bill's general philosophy says: In other words, I hold that there is such a thing as a correct opinion, in a sense beyond mere subjective agreement.
which would imply that each question can only have one correct answer, and that questions to which the answer is "I don't know" would have to be rejected as unanswerable. whereas to me, admitting that there are limits to what we can know is a large part of what philosophy is for, and questions that cannot be answered distinctly are often the most interesting.
can someone please explain which part of what Bill said I have misunderstood?
Kaarlo Tuomi
I don't personally understand how it is possible to reject unanswerable questions.
to arrive at the determination that a question is unanswerable you would first have to:
a. read it
b. fail to find an answer
having done both of those you cannot then claim to have rejected it because you actually tried to answer it. rejection at that point would amount to pretending you couldn't answer it.
it is possibly worth bearing in mind that the next line of Bill's general philosophy says: In other words, I hold that there is such a thing as a correct opinion, in a sense beyond mere subjective agreement.
which would imply that each question can only have one correct answer, and that questions to which the answer is "I don't know" would have to be rejected as unanswerable. whereas to me, admitting that there are limits to what we can know is a large part of what philosophy is for, and questions that cannot be answered distinctly are often the most interesting.
can someone please explain which part of what Bill said I have misunderstood?
Kaarlo Tuomi
Comments (99)
A question to which the answer is ‘I don’t know’ is not unanswerable - it has been answered, and that answer remains questionable, regardless of how ‘correct’ it may be at present.
I further suspect its "intellectual sound" was the reason it was created.
So...if the guy could explain what he was aiming at, he might be able to convince me he was on to something. But I'd need to speak with him.
thank you. I thought I understood that, but that you thought it necessary to say so makes me wonder.
Possibility said: ...he believes all questions have a correct answer (whether we are currently capable of answering it correctly or not), and that all answers can be questioned...
you may be right. but I don't understand how this sheds any light on unanswerable questions. if, as you say, be thinks that all questions have a correct answer, then why does he mention unanswerable questions?
okay, you mean he denies the existence of unanswerable questions. he doesn't reject individual questions if they prove to be unanswerable, he rejects the notion that a question can be unanswerable.
so that when confronted with a question of the form, "at what age do angels learn to fly," he can supply the answer "I don't know" and that satisifies his conditions.
that's very interesting.
thank you.
Kaarlo Tuomi
I think the first part he got right, the second part, not so much. If he's a philosopher, why wouldn't he want to question most everything(?).
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
I would seek clarification as to what comprises a "'correct opinion beyond subjective agreement".
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
Indeed! As an aside, in a pragmatic sense, just think about what our lives would look like if there weren't those who questioned things. Whether it's building engineering, aerospace technology, cognitive science, so on and so forth; asking questions (even to oneself) yields much revelation... .
"Subjectively", ask him why we should not wonder about things. (Is Subjectivity a bad thing?)
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
That’s pretty much it.
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
Not quite. If there were such a thing as angels, “I don’t know” wouldn’t be the answer to that question, though it might be somebody’s honest response to it. My principle against unanswerable questions would just say that there is some correct answer to that question, even if we don’t know it yet.
But since there aren’t any angels, the question is problematic in the same way that “how long is the king of France’s hair?” is problematic. There is no king of France to have hair of any length. I suppose that preceding sentence is the correct answer to that question, though I admit that that is in a sense a question that doesn’t have an answer. Just not in the sense that I was thinking of.
So perhaps I should think about rephrasing that. The gist I was going for is that whatever state of affairs you’re inquiring about, some response will correctly convey what it is. If you ask something about angels and there are no angels, saying so is the answer to the question; if there are any angels, then something else is the answer. “I don’t know” is always an acceptable response, but “we can never know” never is.
What is the digital representation of pi? What is the position of all the atoms in the atmosphere?..
Knowing something involves encoding that information somehow in a human brain, which is a finite device. Surely such finitude necessitates “we can never know” as an answer to some questions?
I deliberately avoided making it personal, I wanted it to be about the philosophy not the person. and I will return there and read a lot more and will almost certainly have many more questions but I would like to say thank you for having written it and made it accessible to all.
thank you
Kaarlo Tuomi
I'm sympathetic to this Bill whoever s/he is.
Firstly, to reject unquestionable answers is to be wary of what has been a grave issue for much of human history, to wit the infallible authority. This danger is absent or mitigated, much to my relief, when the the authority that can never make an error is non-human, like logic for example. When logic is employed perfectly any answer that follows is, perforce, an unquestionable answer and the best part is logic can't/doesn't have a "personal" agenda.
Secondly, to refuse to occupy one's time with unanswerable questions is a good move if to answer some questions that are included in this category require the impossible. Off the top of my head, one such question is, "how many olives did Aristotle eat on his 24th birthday?" To answer this question we need information that is impossible to gain and thus is a waste of time if nothing else.
I think Bill is what is known as a skeptic, philosophically. They look at a philosophical question carefully, but once they find out that it's "unanswerable", they simply suspend judgment. they then go into a stage of calm and tranquility, a sense of freedom from the anxiety that they had from not being able to answer the question.
Hope this helps! Let me know what you think!
Pardon the interruption! But, I think that's called being in denial :chin: It's probably a Freudian thing.
Skeptics are usually stubborn and have tunnel vision. Some, not all, even use skepticism aa a sense of empowerment whereby they somehow feel important when they complain and/or argue.
Otherwise, consider that ignorance is bliss.
Is there a GOD or are there no gods, for instance, is a philosophical question that has been bandied about in philosophical discussions from the very beginning...and IT IS UNANSWERABLE (other than "I do not know and cannot make a reasonable guess).
Do away with unanswerable questions...and you essentially do away with philosophy.
hahahah, that's a really good point. When I first read this post, my first thought was that "Bill" was in denial, but I wasn't sure if that was an accurate enough description, so I did some research and thought that skepticism was the closest match to his philosophy.
I suppose the fact that "Bill" rejects unanswerable questions just sounds a bit like denial to me, but it could be because I misread him or whatever. I consider myself kind of a skeptic, but sometimes even I think it's a little too negative and somewhat arrogant kind of view.
I don't know enough about philosophy generally to know which particular school of thought Bill belongs to; I couldn't even tell you where I fit much less anyone else. but having read considerably more of Bill's philosophy than the excerpt given in this thread I think that he has probably not thought very long or hard about why anyone might disagree with him.
I tend to the view that we are each entitled to our own opinion but that opinions are not either right or wrong, they are just opinions. just because we disagree about something doesn't mean that either one of us has to necessarily be wrong. but Bill's philosophy doesn't seem to be able to accommodate this view and to him each opinion has to be either the correct one or else it's wrong. and he obviously holds all the correct opinions.
but he has at least got a degree in this, which means he has read a lot more philosophy than I have so I persevere in the hope that I might learn something.
Kaarlo Tuomi
:up: :up:
Just as an aside, in paraphrase, it was Aristotle who said the greatest gift that we can give to ourselves (and each other) is to 'know thyself'.
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
Some say that only viz human sentience; feelings are neither right or wrong, they're just feelings.
The trick is to see what is behind those feelings. Usually there is some concept of truth (their truth) that is being projected. Philosophically, one could start with the simple parsing of objective v. subjective truth's. Truth can be quite an equivocating exercise to make sense of... .
It’s the “no unquestionable answers” part that is meant to convey a kind of skepticism. The “no unanswerable questions” part is there to guard against skepticism going too far into nihilism. It’s saying to not give up just because you haven’t answered a question yet. Assume there is some answer that you just haven’t found yet. And consequently give any possible answer a chance. But then (because no unquestionable answers either) test each of those possibilities and reject the ones that fail, and consequently discard any supposed possibilities that could not in principle ever be tested as meaningless, not even saying anything.
I am curious to know what gives you that impression, as I have been through many different philosophical views myself that I now find fault with, and so understand quite well why people would be of those opinions—I just also understand why I couldn’t remain of those opinions (which are then reasons for others not to either).
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
I wonder if perhaps you mean something different by “opinion” than I do. That’s the only way I can make sense of this.
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
I appreciate that.
I believe that I do know myself, or at least that I am getting better at it, I just don't know how philosophy would categorize that.
Kaarlo Tuomi
I tend to do folk the courtesy of believing what they say, and you'd be surprised how often that backfires. if you say "correct opinion" then I take you to have the regular everyday definition of opinion in mind, unless you specifically say otherwise, as you did with "liberalism" and various other words. the definition of opinion I tend to use is: a view or judgement not based on fact or knowledge.
in one of my dictionaries there is a sample phrase: "a matter of opinion," something not capable of being proven either way.
Kaarlo Tuomi
Sure! Usually political/social/ethical philosophy are the domain's. Thomas Hobbes, Aristotle, etc..
Couple of interesting bullet points:
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom- Aristotle
Hobbes commentary: .... [Hobbes] was responding to a popular philosophy at the time that you can learn more by studying others than you can from reading books. He asserts that one learns more by studying oneself: particularly the feelings that influence our thoughts and motivate our actions. As Hobbes states, "but to teach us that for the similitude of the thoughts and passions of one man, to the thoughts and passions of another, whosoever looketh into himself and considereth what he doth when he does think, opine, reason, hope, fear, etc., and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like occasions.
The irony is that as humans, we are consistently changing both physically and mentally, so of course it's an ongoing process to 'know thyself'. Whether it's studying others, oneself, or other philosophical and/or cognitive theories, it's just a means to an end. Wisdom or revelation may appear in the most unlikely places (i.e. pursuing an unrelated hobby or interest).
Anyway, back to your OP/concern...
I disagree with this. why does either one of them necessarily have to be "right" ?
Quoting Pfhorrest
I also disagree with this. you are not wrong just because I disagree with you.
Quoting Pfhorrest
and I also disagree with this.
I believe that it should be entirely possible to notice that there is a difference between two things without having to make a judgement about that difference. and I apply this in all aspects of my life, not just philosophy. there is, for example, a difference between the novels of Stephen King and Charles Dickens, but I don't feel compelled to say that one is "better" than the other, they are just different, that's all.
but you seem to think that any difference needs to be resolved in some way. which means that every single person who does not subscribe to your philosophy is wrong in your eyes, and I'm afraid I just could not go through life thinking that everybody else was wrong just because they are different from me.
is a man wrong if he has a different job from you, or drives a different car from you, or goes on holiday to France instead of Mexico? what about the people who choose to live in a house that's not yours, are they wrong because their opinion is different to yours? is a man wrong if you don't think his wife is attractive, where exactly does this all end?
Kaarlo Tuomi
In their fundamental essence, questions can be considered as communications. Often they will incorporate a request for information or an explanation. Such information or explanation may not always be available or even possible (especially if the question makes implicit assumptions.)
It's not that one of them has to be right, it's that (if they're contradictory) they can't both be right. That parenthetical part, "if they're contradictory", is very important as I'm about to say...
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
Most if not all of those are examples of opinions that are not contradictory. Many of them are mere preferences, which is what I suspected you might have meant by "opinion". Preferences, being explicitly subjective, don't contradict with each other. If I like chocolate ice cream and you like strawberry, those aren't in contradiction, so it's not the case that at least one of us must be wrong. (And if was an objective claim in question, like which is the most popular ice cream flavor, we might still both be wrong; maybe it's vanilla).
But if I think the capital of France is London and you think it's Moscow, at least one of us is wrong, because it's can't possibly be both at the same time. And as it turns out, we'd both be wrong, because it's actually Paris.
If anyone thinks [insert some claim that something objectively is or ought to be some way] and someone else thinks [insert another claim that that thing objectively is or ought to be a different way], since those two things can't both be right, at least one of those opinions is wrong. Possibly both. Maybe we don't know which. But if they're contradictory, they can't both be right; that's just what contradictory means.
Back to the topic of the OP, in saying that no question is unanswerable, I just mean that there's always some possible answer that would be the right one, even if nobody yet holds it, or we can't yet figure out which one it is. Whoever disagrees with whatever that right answer is, they're wrong, but perhaps we don't know it yet.
I'd think you'd like my principle of liberalism which follows directly from the principle of objectivism that is the encapsulation of the "no unanswerable questions" principle. Liberalism (as I mean it) says to give every opinion the benefit of the doubt until it can be shown wrong. And the complementary principle of criticism says that every opinion might always be shown wrong. Together those mean that I don't (and don't advocate that others) go around thinking that everybody who doesn't think like me is definitely wrong. Of course I think I'm right, otherwise I wouldn't think what I do; if I thought I was wrong I would change my mind, so would anyone. But I'm not certain in that beyond question, and I'm explicitly against anyone (myself included) being certain beyond question about pretty much anything.
so how do you discriminate between an opinion and a preference?
if I understand you correctly, you are just using "preference" to mean the answer to a question that does not have an objectively true answer.
that would seem to require that you first consider whether or not the question has an objectively true answer. those questions that have objectively true answers go in one box where your philosophy deals with them, and answers that do not have objectively true answers go in the discard pile. correct me if I'm wrong.
however, what happens if I disagree with you on that single point, that the question has an objectively true answer. is my answer an opinion or a preference?
suppose, for example, I do not believe there is such a thing as objective reality. in that case EVERYTHING would be conditional and subjective. in this case it would not be objectively true that Paris is the capital of France because it isn't even objectively true that France exists.
and, bear in mind, that at the end of your post you contradict yourself...
Quoting Pfhorrest
this claims that there is ALWAYS a right answer. and that cannot be true if some answers are only preferences.
truth, as a previous poster pointed out, is a very slippery concept.
Kaarlo Tuomi
A preference is a kind of opinion, which is about yourself. "I prefer chocolate" is a statement about yourself. "Bob prefers strawberry" doesn't contradict that, because it's about Bob, not me. Someone could contradict a statement of my preferences: "no, you prefer vanilla". At least one of those statements about my preferences is wrong. Since I know a lot more about what's going on in my own head than anyone else, it's probably not mine.
It's like "I hear a ringing sound". But then Alice says "I don't." Those aren't contradictory. "There is a bell ringing nearby" and "no there isn't" are contradictory, and at least one of those is wrong. But statements about our own perceptions, sensations, desires (i.e. preferences), appetites, etc, don't contradict just because one person has one and someone else has a different one.
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
No, because it's still objectively true that I prefer this and you prefer that, but those two objective truths are not contradictory. It's only contradictory to claim both that this is better than that, and that that is better than this, in the same way, in the same contexts, etc. Because that's a claim that's not about someone, it's a claim about the world, and there's only the one world*, while there are many someones, who may differ from each other without contradiction.
(*Leaving aside modal realism, which is a big can of worms it would be counterproductive to open right now).
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
My principle of objectivism is that every question has an objectively true answer. No questions ever go in the discard pile. That's the whole point of it. (Since most people easily and casually accept objectivism about reality, the main function of this in practice is to say "don't discard questions about morality").
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
Preferences are a kind of opinion, so it's an opinion either way, but it's not just a preference, unless you're just saying "I like it when questions don't have objectively true answers", or "I wish some questions didn't have objectively true answers". That would be a preference... for something that I think can't possibly be. Me thinking that is an opinion, one about the world, not about myself. You thinking otherwise is a contrary opinion about the world, not yourself. The world has to be at most one of those ways, it can't be both, so at least one of us is wrong. Of course I think it's not me, and you think it's not you; otherwise we'd change our opinions.
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
If your belief that there is no such thing as objective reality was true, then it wouldn't be objectively true that Paris is the capital of France, sure. But I think that that antecedent belief is false, and so the consequent is not entailed.
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
See above.
I'm afraid this directly contradicts what you said earlier.
Quoting Pfhorrest
which means that you consider your subjective preference to be objectively true.
please forgive me if I find that a little hard to digest.
Kaarlo Tuomi
It is objectively true (or false) that a given subject is in a given such state.
A different subject being in a different such state doesn't contradict that. They can both be objectively true.
But the same subject being in a different state, in the same way in the same context, as themselves, is contradictory, so at least one of those claims must be wrong.
it seems to me that if subjective really is "the state of a subject," then "Paris is the capital of France" is the state of a subject and therefore subjective. but you also said that "Paris is the capital of France" is objectively true. which suggests to me that there is no discernible distinction between subjective and objective.
so if subjective is simply the state of a subject, what does objective mean?
Kaarlo Tuomi
I suppose we could consider the social fact of capital-dom to be a state of opinion of the people of France, who we might call "France" collectively, in which case Paris being the capital of France is a subjective preference of "France" as in the French, just like chocolate being my favorite flavor of ice cream is a preference of mine. It's still objectively true that the French consider Paris their capital and that I consider chocolate my favorite flavor of ice cream, but those objective truths are about subjective states: about what the French or I, respectively, think or feel.
Someone else thinking or feeling differently doesn't contradict that, but our thoughts or feelings being different than our own thoughts and feelings does, so one or the other claim about that must be wrong. I can prefer one flavor of ice cream that's different from what another person prefers, and France can have a different capital than England, but my favorite flavor of ice cream can't simultaneously be two contradictory things, and France can't simultaneously have two contradictory capitals; at least, not unless we mean in different contexts (e.g. at different times) or in different ways (one is the religious capital, one is the military capital, etc).
if you genuinely believe this and are not just jesting with me, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to bow out of this conversation because I am not clever enough, wise enough or sufficiently well-read or intellectually gymnastic to accommodate the idea that a subjective statement can be objectively true.
it is literally impossible for me to imagine what such a statement might mean. to the extent that I struggle to understand how a person capable of saying such a thing could have gone to a university and got a degree in any topic at all. that this is your core topic, that you have a degree in this subject is just utterly mind-expanding.
in the world I inhabit, my favourite flavour of ice cream is strawberry, and that is my subjective opinion, and it can only ever be subjectively true. it is neither right nor wrong, neither true nor false, it is just my opinion. you could, if you really want to stretch things, say that it is objectively true that I said it, because my words are objectively there for anyone to read. but the statement that my favourite flavour of ice cream is strawberry can only ever be subjectively true.
Kaarlo Tuomi
:up:
I agree with you. I encountered a similar remark in another thread.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Which overlooks the fact that 'being a subject' is only ever known in the first person. In other words, there is no object that corresponds with the first person.
It is persons are subjects of experience that they are designated 'beings'. And I maintain, beings are not 'objects' except for a metaphorical sense ('she became an object of obsession to him'.)
But designating 'beings' as 'conscious objects' is a disservice to both language and philosophy.
I suppose one would have to concede that 'your preference for icecream' is an objective fact about you, but only when it is considered as a fact about you, which means, it again is a third-person matter, and not a matter of personal preference.
However, above I make no distinction between questions that are unanswerable and questions that don't have a correct answer.
I don't think I could have put quite as well as you did but I do both agree and thank you. it is reassuring to know that I was not just being obtuse.
as far as I know, object has a number of different definitions according to the arena of thought (trying to avoid using the word subject) in which the discussion takes place. in philosophy it generally means: a thing external to the thinking mind, which equates to third person view, whereas the thinking mind itself, first person view, is the subject. and for anyone not overly familiar with the rule, it goes: I am first person, you are second person, and everyone else is third person.
Kaarlo Tuomi
Ok, I agree, but the fact that he rejects answering unanswerable questions raises another question for me. How does he define whether a question is unanswerable? By searching his brain, and if the answer is "I don't know", the question is unanswerable?
Quoting Pfhorrest
I'm not sure that I really understand what you mean here. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I take it that you're trying to say that Bill thinks we should try our best to answer all questions and never take "I don't know" as an answer?
If I told you that your favorite flavor of ice cream was pistachio, would I not be wrong?
It’s not that I reject answering certain kinds of questions I deem “unanswerable”, it that I reject ever deeming a question “unanswerable”. It’s a principle to never give up in principle, even though in practice you will of course sometime have to take a break. Taking a break is just saying “I don’t know yet”, but giving up is saying “it can’t be known”.
Ahhhhh, ok, now I get it. Thanks for the explanation! I have to say this is a very positive and optimistic view :up:
Not to digress, but that's a great point that almost deserves another thread. Consider that Beings are in fact material aesthetic objects (Classic Greek Eros/objects of desire). I don't think that appreciating Eros is necessarily a 'disservice' in the original classic sense (not in the Platonic sense).
As it relates to English, it is not all that straight forward either. In English, the subject is usually before the verb. That implies subordination to the object, which in turn supports your notion that being the subject is only known in the first person. However, saying "John seemed tired." (the subject is 'John') and "I love Chocolate" ( the subject is "I" ), still subordinates the objects from the first person who perceives the actual object itself (in the first place).
That begs other questions like what does it mean to be a Being (?) and what is the nature of same. And as it relates to the primacy of subjective truth in this thread, is it Kierkegaard and Berkley who are ruling the day here LOL.
We are trapped in a subjective-objective reality.
if I told you that my favourite flavour of ice cream was strawberry, would you have any means by which you could determine, independently of me, whether or not the statement is true?
the answer is no, you could not.
you have no way of knowing whether I have ever eaten ice cream, or whether I am in fact a being that is able to eat ice cream. the list of things you know, with any certainty, is extremely short. it consists of the single subjective statement by me that my favourite flavour of ice cream is strawberry. this statement is neither true nor false, it just is. but that's all you have.
therefore, the only option available to you is to believe what I said. or not.
when you respond that my favourite flavour is actually pistachio, even if you are trying to deliberately contradict what I said, even you have no way of knowing whether what you said is true. you do not know the truth value of your own statement. you are operating in an information void. therefore, your statement that my favourite flavour is pistachio is neither right nor wrong. it just is.
Kaarlo Tuomi
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
No, but you do. And if I tell you otherwise, you know whether I’m wrong or not.
There being a correct answer is not the same thing as anyone knowing what it is.
You can hide an object in a closed box and ask me to guess what’s in it, and even though I have no way of knowing, my guess is either right or wrong because there’s something or another in that box (unless it’s actually empty, in which case all guesses are wrong—but still objectively wrong).
well, actually, I don't. and the reason is to be found in an earlier post in this thread but you dismissed it in a very superficial way so I'm not sure you even really took it in or thought about it.
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
which you dismissed with this...
Quoting Pfhorrest
since we are no longer discussing your philosophy, but mine, I think I should declare that I don't actually have a favourite flavour of ice cream. I don't understand what folk mean when they say, "my favourite [insert appropriate noun]." the expression is essentially gibberish to me, and when I say those words it is as though I were reading a story written in a foreign language, I suspect my audience might understand but I do not personally have a clue what it means.
having got that out of the way, since I do not believe in an objective reality, everything really is conditional on some prior assumption or other, and usually on a whole pile of them that, for the most part, folk don't even realise they are making. and before you are tempted to dismiss this as glibly as you did last time I will just point out that you cannot even prove something as basic and fundamental as your own date of birth so ideas of "objectivity" are tenuous at best.
Kaarlo Tuomi
In that case, every statement that something is your favorite flavor of ice cream is objectively false. Like every guess about the contents of an empty box (besides “it’s empty”) is objectively false. If I say your favorite flavor of ice cream is pistachio, and you know you have no favorite flavor of ice cream, then you know my claim is false. And the answer to the question of what is your favorite flavor of ice cream is “you have no favorite flavor of ice cream”, and if indeed you don’t, as you say, then that answer is objectively true, even if I don’t know whether it’s objectively true or not. (You might be lying to me and I can’t read your mind).
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
This is an epistemic claim, about what is known, not an ontological claim, about what is real. It’s important to distinguish them from each other. I never claimed that anything is ever known with complete certainty—quite the opposite actually.
It doesn’t follow from “everything is uncertain” to “nothing is true”, and vice versa saying “some things are true” doesn’t mean anything is certain.
Hi Forrest!
In what context are you referring? In other words, are you suggesting there is an objective standard that precludes mystery, arbitrariness, subjectivity, and/or the unknown? Examples that are too numerous to mention include but are not limited to: paradox of time and self-reference, conscious existence, cosmological existence, Love, metaphysical will, ad nauseum.
Quoting Pfhorrest
But if it is subjectively true that one person does not like ice cream in general, how do you reconcile or preclude the arbitrariness behind the subjective truth with the objective truth of the statement? And even if one did like ice cream, how could you objectively account for the feelings that person has about his love for ice cream?
demonstrating quite clearly that you still do not appreciate the difference between subjective and objective. it is literally impossible for any statement I make about my preference to be "objectively false".
Kaarlo Tuomi
I don’t know what some of those are, but the ones I do understand I would say are perfectly compatible with my principles here.
Quoting 3017amen
I can’t understand this question.
Quoting 3017amen
If you mean an explanation of why they have those feelings, that would be a complex psychological question, and you’d have to ask an expert on that exactly how, but it would involve some kind of empirical observation like all scientific questions do.
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
It is if you’re lying. If you say your favorite flavor is strawberry but you actually have no favorite flavor, you have said something objectively false. That’s what lying is.
I suspect what you mean is that I can’t ordinarily (without some kind of mind-reading technology) check whether or not you’re lying, but that just shows that you‘re confusing epistemology with ontology again. Just because nobody knows someone doesn’t mean there is no truth about it.
How so?
Quoting Pfhorrest
What is it about my love of ice cream that makes it a correct opinion?
Quoting Pfhorrest
Does that qualify as an unanswerable question? If not please provide an objective explanation for the feelings I have for the love of ice cream.
It is a correct opinion that you love ice cream (assuming you actually do). Whether you love it or not is an objective fact.
Your love of it inasmuch as that means an intention to eat it is in and of itself only correct or incorrect in some ethical sense, but that is something that is objectively correct or not too. In any given instance, you eating a particular ice cream is either the right thing to do then or not. It's impractical to figure out whether it is, just like it's impractical to figure out all the positions of all the particles that make up your ice cream, but there's some truth of the matter anyway.
But in this case, keeping in mind modal truths is important. Much more practically, we can say what is possible good or necessarily bad, which is to say, permissible or forbidden. And unless there's some extenuating circumstances I don't know about, it's probably usually permissible (not necessarily bad, i.e. not forbidden) for you to eat ice cream. Objectively permissible, because modal claims are still objective claims.
Quoting 3017amen
Just because I don't know the answer doesn't mean there isn't one. That's the whole point of the principle this thread is about: never assume there is no answer, just because you don't know it yet.
But that would qualify as a subjective opinion that extends to arbitrary feelings of Love. If it wasn't it would mean the all people either like or dislike ice cream. Objectively correct opinions assume either right or wrong. You can't think of sensory perception as black or white like a priori logic and mathematics.
In other words what if I only loved ice cream a little bit. How would you quantify a little bit?
Quoting Pfhorrest
But if I'm understanding that correctly you would reject unanswerable questions as a temporary state of existing. Alternatively, using modal logic or what are you thinking that might unlock the door to that unknown/mystery?
In other words what domain is appropriate for the philosopher to study here? Is it some sort of synthetic a priori knowledge?
Not at all. I am 72 inches tall. That is an objective fact about me. It being an objective fact about me doesn’t mean that everybody is and always has been 72 inches tall. It just means that anyone who says I am a different height is wrong .
Objectivists means that whether an opinion is right or wrong doesn’t depend on who you ask. It absolutely can and must depend on who or what (and what time and place etc) you’re asking about.
Quoting 3017amen
Objective facts don’t have to be about boolean properties. Am I tall? Kinda. I’m a little tall, but not like pro basketball tall. I can tell you exactly how tall I am: 72 inches. And in principle one could say on some scale just how much you love ice cream. And that would be an objective fact that you love i e cream just that much, just as it’s an objective fact that I am just this tall.
Quoting 3017amen
I would not call something that is only temporarily unanswered “unanswerable”, just unanswered. We can never know for sure if an unanswered question will ever be answered until it is, but my principle says to always proceed on the assumption that some day it can be.
Quoting 3017amen
This sounds like a non-sequitur. The domain of philosophy isn’t “the unknown” or “the mysterious”. Science investigates lots of unknowns too.
The domain of philosophy was broader in the past, incorporating things like science too, but today I would say it is the investigation of how to go about answering various kinds of questions and why to do it that way instead of some other way. What are we even asking, what kind of thing would count as an answer, how do we apply those criteria, who is to do so, what does it take for them to do it, why bother, etc.
I'm afraid you're comparing apples and oranges as it were. Of course that's an objective fact about your material physical existence. How is that germane to the question about my love of ice cream?
Quoting Pfhorrest
That's another reason why it's not germane to the topic, yes?
Quoting Pfhorrest
How is it an objective fact that I love ice cream just a little bit? Quantify my partial love of ice cream objectively.
Quoting Pfhorrest
But I thought I understood you to say you reject unanswerable questions? What does that really mean,?Quoting Pfhorrest
Really? All events must have a cause. Is that true or false? And whether it's true or false or unknown, what kind of logic and knowledge is that?
The only thing subjective about your love of ice cream is that it’s about you. My height is about me. Both of those can be objective without everyone else having to be the same in that regard, which is what you said that I was replying to.
Quoting 3017amen
That we haven’t invented a scale to measure it by doesn’t mean that there’s no particular amount that you love it.
Quoting 3017amen
What I just said.
Quoting 3017amen
This is the problem. “Unknown” isn’t an alternative to “true” and “false”. Something can be true but not known. Unknown isn’t UNKNOWABLE or NO-TRUTH-VALUE.
Does that qualify as an unanswerable question? It kind of seems so... Yet you would reject such a question. I'm confused. I thought you said objectivity solves everything,?
Quoting Pfhorrest
Could that mean that it's metaphysical?
Objectivity means always proceeding on the assumption that things can be solved.
It doesn't mean that you already know how to solve it.
I don't know how many times I have to repeat that.
Quoting 3017amen
What does that even mean?
Things are either true or false.
Orthogonal to that, they're either known or unknown.
So they can be known true, known false, true but unknown, or false but unknown.
Whether you know it or not has no bearing on whether it's true or false.
When you report your (sincere) love of ice cream, you're reporting your brain state (attitude). Brain states are commonly regarded as having material physical existence.
Claims about one's height and claims about one's love of ice cream are both claims about aspects of one's own material physical existence.
You might be interested to know that there is a history of 'undetermined questions' in Buddhism. These mainly concern what we could translate as metaphysical questions. In the context of the early Buddhist texts, they were generally asked by the figure of Vachagotta, a wandering ascetic, who frequently inquired of the Buddha whether the self existed or not, whether the world had a beginning or not, and so on.
The formalised list from the Pali canon are these:
When asked such questions, the Buddha generally declined to answer, instead maintaining what is traditionally called 'a noble silence' (per this example.)
When asked why these questions were inadmissable, the Buddha answered with the 'simile of the poison arrow':
The moral is, don't waste time on speculation about such questions.
That would be incorrect Forrest. The synthetic a priori is the closest you can get to assumptions yet to be solved.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Really? So life is all objectively logical? Surely you don't believe that do you?
Again, if you can answer that 'all events must have a cause 'successfully, then your argument becomes more persuasive. Or, in the alternative, if you can explain the metaphysical features of your own existence, you would even win a prize :snicker:
Point is, unanswerable questions can be rejected logically, but if those questions are about the nature of your existence (or any existence), they become unanswerable metaphysical questions. Therefore, why should you reject them, when they lead to other discoveries?
As such, if that were the case there would be no discoveries in physics, engineering, cognitive science, etc. etc. So your premise seems untenable at best. Actually, with all due respect, it's a bit ignorant.
Perhaps your still stewing over the failure of logical positivism, who knows...
thank you for engaging, I appreciate it, and can't help thinking that the poison could not have been very potent if he managed to ask all those questions before he died.
you may not have read the rest of the thread so it is possibly worth pointing out that when I started it I was under the impression that Bill was rejecting individual questions if they proved unanswerable. but it turns out he was actually rejecting the notion that a question could be unanswerable.
later in the thread someone else pointed out that, according them, there were three types of questions, which caused me to consider that, and my own list currently has seven types of questions and I am not yet finished.
I currently have two types of unanswerable questions. there are those where the answer theoretically exists, but is not knowable. an example of this would be: "how many molecules are there in Japan?" we know what molecules are, we even have a way of counting them, and we know (in a merely 2-dimensional sense) what Japan is, so the number of molecules in Japan theoretically exists but we don't have any way of combining those knowns to answer the question. the other type are where the answer is not knowable by any means. an example of this would be: "what did Edgar Davis have for breakfast on his tenth birthday."
I think of philosophy as a way of answering questions, in the same way that I think of science as a way to answer questions. so that there are questions we cannot answer with this method is obviously of some relevance, and I think categorising them helps us understand why we cannot answer them which helps us understand the limits of our method. so I currently think that unanswerable questions have value as research material and tool sharpeners even if the specific answers are not of any value.
whereas religion is not a way to answer questions, it is a guide to how to live your life, so religious advice to stop wasting time with such questions makes sense if you should be growing rice or pruning cherry trees or combing your daughter's hair or something but I don't think it really applies to philosophy which is specifically about answering questions.
however, questions about supernatural entities present me with problems I don't feel qualified to solve. I don't personally believe in god so a question like: "who was the first angel to reach Earth," is incomprehensible to me but many other folk will be certain they know the definitive answer. so the question here is: how should a philosophy deal with matters that some consider to be fairy stories, some think of as a matter of belief, and some think of as a matter of recorded history?
I guess this boils down to: what does "know" mean?
Kaarlo Tuomi
Chris, welcome!
Nice. Let's take a look at that. In my consciousness exists both material an immaterial things. Using your concept "attitude" and "sincerity" along with my concept "love" how do we reconcile materialism with those concepts from conscious/physical existence?
Hence:
Attitude is what materially and/or physically?
Love is what materially and/or physically?
Sincere is what materially and/or physically?
At random, some possible answers and/or related concepts include EM fields of consciousness, Eros, Sentience, the Will , etc..
In the end, if these questions about concepts are unanswerable, why should one reject them when they are required for conscious existence (the human experience)?
I don’t see how this is relevant to what you’re responding to.
Quoting 3017amen
In a sense, sure, but honestly I’m not sure I can make any sense of most of what you’re saying.
Quoting 3017amen
I think you’re still completely misunderstanding the principle in question here.
I’m not saying to reject certain questions became those questions are unanswerable.
I’m saying to reject the notion that any question is unanswerable to begin with.
Quoting Pfhorrest
So, what if it is discovered that the questions (questions about your own existence which you can't answer) are unanswerable because once we dive into them, we find we can never know the answers, what then?
Can your sense of objective truth be the means and method of enlightenment?
How would we possibly find that, rather than just finding that we haven’t been able to answer them YET?
Because your sense of objective truth has limited your understanding. Otherwise please share how objectivity can provide for enlightenment?
An individual who reports a specific attitude, professes sincerity, or claims to be in love is reporting their own feelings. Feelings are mental states. Mental states are brain states. Brains are physical.
Let's see, I'm not sure that captures the explanation of consciousness, or does it? Please provide your explanation of mental states from sensory perception in a materialistic way:
What method can best explain the reason I choose to love or not love?
What method can best explain the nature of my sense of wonder ?
What method can best explain the nature of causation ? (Why should we believe that all events must have a cause.)
What method can best explain the nature of my reaction to seeing the color red, and/or my reaction to music that I love?
Take one at a time if you like, and we can parse which means and method is most suitable in trying to explain the nature of those things-in-themselves.
I must admit, I am having difficulty making your leap of faith, from feelings about love, attitude, sincerity, the will, etc. to pieces of wood, concrete, and other material agencies. Maybe those examples will allow you to be more specific?
Depends on what you mean by “dying”. Is someone dying of a terminal disease that later gets successfully treated “not really dying”?
You’re not even making the littlest sense anymore. Everything is a non-sequitur. I’m out.
Forrest! Don't hide behind ad hominem. If your scared say your scared. Otherwise, does your silence indicates acquiescence to the inability of supporting your arguments about objectivity (your sense of objective truth)?
Gee, you are like a boxer who throws in the towel due to lack of training !!
Be well!
I don't think this is leading anywhere. Thanks anyway.
Just trying to get you to support your claim that's all. Perhaps you and florrest should get together and eat some humble pie LOL
But when you ask 'what does it mean 'to know'?', you're not trying to elicit information. You're contemplating the nature of knowing, the nature of being. Many questions in philosophy are like that - they're open-ended, and many may not even have a definite answer.
Consider in science, there is an emphasis on testability. Basically this is getting at the idea that you're concerned with propositions that have some empirical correlate. On the one hand, you're looking for the most general principles - which are natural laws - but on the other, you want to make predictions which can be validated against evidence and observation, against data. That narrows the scope of science to what is knowable in a very particular sense - and this isn't a bad thing, it's very much why science is successful. However it also needs to be understood that that form of knowing is not all-knowing (or omniscient) as a matter of principle.
But, as I say, philosophy is far more open-ended. Consider famous philosophical aphorisms such as 'man, know thyself' or 'I think, therefore I am'. They're not really concerned with conveying specific facts, but with imparting a certain attitude or approach to life. The figure of Plato's Socrates is an ideal exemplar of that attitude.
But then, ethics - how to live - ought to have some connection with facts. I think an issue in modern culture is that because of the prominence of science, this connection is rather difficult to maintain, as science is exclusively concerned with the measurable. And philosophical principles may not be intelligible in that sense. But it doesn't mean they're not factual on a different level.
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi
There's a philosophical discipline called 'hermeneutics' which is the art of interpretation especially of classical and religious literature. That is part of it. Another is the history of ideas - that requires a grasp on the interplay between culture, society and history. There's a lot of very interesting reading in that domain about these questions; Joseph Campbell, author of the well-known Hero with a Thousand Faces, is one example. Cultural anthropology provides others.
One issue Western culture has in particular is the presumed dichotomy between religion and science. The extremes tend to manifest as religious dogmatism, on one side (like American fundamentalism/creationism) and scientific materialism on the other (like Richard Dawkins). But there are very many cultural forms that can combine both religious and scientific sensibilities. The discoverer of the Big Bang hypothesis was a Jesuit priest - but then Jesuits are hardly fundamentalists. For another Jesuit analysis, check out Retelling the Story of Science, Richard M. Barr.
Speaking of Campbell, he has a great quote on just this issue:
[quote=Joseph Campbell]Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.[/quote]
A lot of philosophy might be about opening up new ways of thinking about something rather than as a definitive solution to a problem. That means that what you might construe as an "answer" is actually just a call for a different way to look at the problem itself.
For example, in ethics, there may not be a definitive answer to something. However, you have plenty of ways to look at the problem.
Explain please.
...just opening up new ways of thinking about your question rather than providing a definitive solution to a problem.
Ok, so you are demonstrating a poor example of what I am talking about and that is demonstrating what?
Not changing the subject. Changing the parameters for which something can be answered.
Example:
Person 1: X problem can only be answered using 1, 2, 3 types of solution.
Person 2: But if you look at X problem, it can be answered using I, II, III types of solutions as well.
That's not changing the subject. That's changing the types of answers that can solve the problem, which is essentially what new applications and constructions of logic, ethical reasoning, metaphysics,and epistemology does.
I think you have to keep repeating it because folk cannot understand what it says, because it is itself a contradiction.
if you have to assume it, then it isn't objective.
in philosophy, for most folk, objective literally means not inside your head.
your assumption cannot be objectively true precisely because it only exists inside your head. any thing that exists only inside your head is subjective. any statement you make about a thing that exists only inside your head, is subjective.
any assumptions you make, are, by definition, subjective.
which means that your whole philosophy appears to be based on the precarious notion that objectivity means be subjective. and I think that's why folk are having some difficulty understanding you.
Kaarlo Tuomi
Which is nonsense, because your reasoning here is nonsense. Thinking something, even assuming something, doesn't make that thing subjective, especially when the thing being thought or assumed is "there is an objective answer to everything".
In any case, this is another non-sequitur just like Amen's. The point of the quoted bit is that there being a solution in principle is not the same thing as you having the solution in practice. Just because you don't know something doesn't mean it's not knowable.
have a nice life.
I don't think you misunderstood anything it's just called reading some dude's opinion and finding it to not make much sense. lol.
Let's try to answer the premise though. Let's name some unquestionable answers and unanswerable questions, if you may. Some I would say are...
What happens if your heart stops? Your body dies.
What happens when an ignitable substance is introduced to a flame or spark? It ignites.
Etc...
Compared to unanswerable questions.
Is there life after death in a realm that is undetectable to us here and now?
What is the item in a box that someone placed there that we cannot see or open?
Unanswered vs. unanswerable is something to factor in.
That is THE big thing to factor in, and the problem that gave rise to this whole thread. Not having an answer yet isn't the same thing as there being no answer at all.
Those two questions you gave at the end are answerable in principle. If something weird happens when you die, you'll find out when you die. If there's something inside a box, then there is some way in principle to tell what, even if in practice it's really hard.
I'm not sure if the other two questions (the heart and the ignition ones) were meant to be "unquestionable", but those are totally questionable. You don't have to take anybody's word on it. You can doubt all you want and go check for yourself. I agree that those are the correct answers, and anyone who checks them will find that they are correct, but that's different from them being unquestionable, i.e. you just have to take someone's word for them without question.
Would it clear everything up for everyone if I said instead that I am "opposed to not questioning answers and to not answering questions", rather than that I "reject unquestionable answers and unanswerable questions"? I mean the former -- don't take any answer as unquestionable, try to question them all; don't take any question as unanswerble, try to answer them all.