PossibleAaran

I don't think its the first time. Aquianas synthesized the ancient Greek Platonic and Aristotelean metaphysics with Christianity and his views became ...

Maybe it will be helpful to start over like you suggest. Let me just try to clarify your distinction by asking some questions. When you say that there...

I am starting to wonder whether we have spoken past one another slightly. When I spoke about answering "why" questions, I was referring to the Regress...

I am new here, relatively speaking. I can't help but wonder whether there is something controversial being built into the notion of "rationally establ...

as I understand it, you find VERI useful because its a conversation stopper. It stops people talking on and on about things where they will never agre...

The best definition you have given of "justified" so far is "sound". As I understand it, soundness is a logical property of arguments. An argument is ...

Here you are using a definition of "justified" which is not the definition I used. I defined it in terms of being responsible in belief. But I can be ...

Well, I can't say that I'm sure what the position really is yet, so it would be unwise at this stage for me to throw around pejoratives. I thought ini...

Well here is a very plain example. See if you agree with this one and then we can move to others which are more complex. Think of the notio of "justif...

You are right in that one instance, but the other definitions I used still work when it is you believing that X is both justified and false.

I hadn't followed the entire thread, and this is the first time I've spoken with Pseudo. I don't intend to ban your view from Philosophy. It seems to ...

Take any definition which I gave you of "justified" and you will see how it is so. If "justified" means "responsible in believing" then you might thin...

What has this thread become? Maybe it should be called "whose a troll, whose an idiot and whose worth taking seriously?". Various people can defend th...

I suppose it depends what is being built into the notion of being "justified" here. Normally, if I say someone is justified in believing something, I ...

Not anybody who is actually trained in Philosophy, no. Lawrence Krauss does say it in some of his debates, but he isn't a Philosopher- he's a Physicis...

I think perhaps you are looking for something which doesn't exist. You ask for a neutral, non-polemical definition of Scientism. I don't think there a...

Well he was a Verificationist and thoroughly disliked metaphysics. So in a way yes, he was scientism incarnate. But, contrary to his own protestations...

7 You distanced yourself from Verificationism in your post, but then you accepted VERI. VERI it seems to me is incredibly close to Verificationism, bu...

Thanks for the detailed reply. One thing that comes out in your discussion is your commitment to a certain kind of Verificationism - although perhaps ...

It depends what is being built into the concept of "objective reality" here, but I fear we are straying from the metaphilosophical topic. I would not ...

Do you hold that there is no such thing as objective reality or do you hold that there is no fact of the matter whether there is such a thing or not? ...

Hi, Most of these theses would be classified as metaphysical ones by tradition. The idea of an objective reality is usually called Realism. The idea o...

It seems to me that this is one of the greatest flaws of large swathes of philosophy, academic and otherwise.

I am still not sure that you understand what I am trying to ask. It is usual to distinguish between beliefs which are, in some sense credible, and bel...

Hi Thanks for the interesting thoughts. I began by trying to distinguish mere guess work type beliefs from credible beliefs. Contrast the belief that ...

The "tool" I am looking for is one which distinguishes mere guess work from credible belief. A credible belief is one which is probably true, but in w...

If only to combat bad philosophy, we need philosophy. People act and judge others on the basis of philosophical ideas. It is best to think about those...

In a way both. If you want to know what the usual meaning of "knowledge" is then go out and ask people. Do some surveys. Don't just consider thought-e...

It isn't circular. What Gettier does is describe a number of thought-experiments in which the person has justified, true belief. But Gettier is inclin...

This wasn't quite what I wanted. I understand that you think that one can use a track-record argument for the claim that sense perception is reliable....

When does an argument beg the question? It can't be just when the premise entails the conclusion, for then every deductive argument will be question b...

Hi, . Nice to meet you. I did not intend to say that I am ever directly acquainted with consciousness (I think that I am, but it isn't part of my argu...

You are directly aquainted with the fact that you are thinking. It is right there before your mind, and when something is before the mind in this way,...

When it is usually asked what evidence there is that there is a God, noone ever says what sort of thing would satisfy them. I could offer the fact tha...

This reminds me of Falsificationism. Make a hypothesis, deduce certain predictions. See if the predictions obtain by appeal to experience. If they do,...

Excellent stuff. I was tempted by this thought, and I did write a response explaining why I thought the argument was circular, but I don't think that'...

In one sense philosophy does consist in words. Philosophical doctrines are always expressed in words. But then, any doctrine is a doctrine expressed i...

Thanks for the reply guru. It seems we are slowly isolating the key disagreements between us. Here is one of them. You think that what Descartes does ...

I should say my piece in favour of Descartes' method. I think it's right to say that Descartes was looking for indubitable truths to serve as foundati...

Did you ignore the rest of my post intentionally? All of the substantive questions I asked were avoided. I think philosophers in general ought to be m...

But that's just a matter of words, isn't it? I am not particularly bothered whether it is not a "normal" use of the word tree to suppose that somethin...

What is it, exactly that you want here? When you ask "what is a belief?", I am tempted to read the question semantically as a question about what the ...

You understand what it is I am doing when I use words like "white". I am using them to label certain features of my field of awareness: What's wrong w...

Of course I can say that the thing which I am aware of is a piece of paper. I am aware of something, and that thing is what I call a "paper". If you d...

I see that I have spelt perceived several times woth an extra e. Replying on a phone is maybe not ideal.

I see you have continued to stress that the ordinary meaning of "perceived" entails that what is perceived exists when unperceived. I say again that I...

I share the opinion that Descartes had - that if you doubt whatever cannot be justified non-circularly, you will see that you can use those doubts to ...

Ah yes, I remember you saying this before. I find that an interesting idea, but there are some issues. Stick with the paper example. Let's agree that ...

I didn't ask for a justification, if that means some proof from premises which I accept. I asked for someone to tell me a story such that, if true, th...

I do take the scientific method to be reliable (dropping issues about "the" scientific method). But it seems to me perfectly possible to interpret the...