Agreed. "Ugly, convoluted, and ramshackle" need some specific instances. I've sometimes wondered whether aesthetic criteria are more like correlations...
That's a good way of highlighting the shortcomings of evolutionary explanations of morality. We're being asked to see morality as a kind of trick on u...
What you say is clear enough, but I'm still missing the warrant for "genuine philosophy." I appreciate questions about grounding very much, and consid...
OK, I'll be the one to ask the obvious question: The idea that there is something that "philosophy should genuinely be concerned with" -- how does tha...
You're right that I'm having trouble seeing what you're saying. We may well be saying a lot of the same things. Not at all. The fact that I'm having t...
I agree with all of this, as it relates to what we generally mean today by "good will." Kind of like "they mean well" or "good intentions." We give pe...
No, that's good, and it can extend to Kant as well. His "good will" is very much a "how" thing, at least on my reading. Kant did think we needed to kn...
Good discussion. It occurs to me that maybe the best way to do this is for you to say why Methodical Doubt is a "wrong idea." That way I could try to ...
Help! Can't follow this, sorry. Again, I'm not sure what's at stake with the "neighbor" analogy. If you're asking me, "When you say 'language about la...
It could. Like "convergence," there are a lot of ways people can exhibit "divergence." To pick one of my examples, if there's no agreement on what the...
It's worth noting that this paper was delivered at a conference on realism and truth. That likely accounts for why Williamson spends so much time on t...
This may be way out of left field, but it reminds me of Kant. Chuang Tzu is saying, What you do is morally irrelevant, or at least secondary. What mat...
I'm getting vague on what the "neighborhood" analogy was for. I think it was about whether linguistic/semantic philosophy can be likened to the most r...
And we could find many other examples that illustrate how variously "philosophy" has been understood. I like keeping the umbrella open wide. @"Joshs" ...
Absolutely right. So I read you as saying, "There is only one good purpose to which doubt can be put -- its usual context -- and because Descartes is ...
Yes, these are the right questions to pose. If you think they're legitimate in any given case, I'll take that to mean that you agree with Williamson t...
Yes, I thought that might be what you meant, but since physics is science par excellence, I wasn't sure I understood you. Actually, it raises an inter...
@"Banno" will have to speak for himself. I don't think so. I looked back to try to see where you got "scientific" from and couldn't find it. Could you...
OK, I see that. I hope our moral understanding can support that difference. A good, interesting discussion, which helps lay bare just how far down the...
Yes, I think so too. So what we're asking is, Is that "difference" also something that can be subsumed under the same scientific explanation from whic...
Yes, very good. The "maybe I'm in a simulation" thought experiment can never deliver us out of it. This is where the whole thing gets too vague for me...
Yes, and notice how this paragraph begins: "Of course, we are often unable to answer an important philosophical question by rigorous argument, or even...
I'm not sure; it's more complicated than it looks. Descartes doesn't start with, "The LNC is true; therefore . . . " He seems to place relatively litt...
I could do several riffs on that, but I'll spare everyone! Seriously, is that a problem? No one has ever mentioned it to me. I don't mind changing my ...
Oh, as philosophers. The scientific questions are important and interesting, but best left to the appropriate specialists. Yes, this is the key questi...
The ones who like evolutionary explanations of morality, but also hold out for the traditional meanings, do want to have it both ways, yes. That's one...
Sure, that's reasonable. As you know, I think philosophical disagreement is all too often only a wrangle over terminology, which is probably similar t...
This puts an interesting light on it. Because how would it be demonstrated, exactly? One of the reasons people give for finding this whole line of spe...
Excellent response, and I add my expression of interest, and hope @"Joshs" has time to respond about the creativity question. He knows that I value hi...
Yes, this analogy is made very clear in David Chalmers' book about all this, Reality +. What is the difference between a creation and a simulation? Yo...
Yes. And if one is content to say that morality "just means" whatever evolution equipped us with in terms of group behaviors, there'd be no argument; ...
Not at all. This moment in Western philosophy deserves the most careful scrutiny. And your reading is not uncharitable in the sense that you're determ...
Let's do that. We could disagree with some of Williamson's example without disputing his overall point: Within analytical philosophy, there is better ...
I think you're suggesting that "cooperation strategies" is how we ought to fill in "universal function," above. The point of the evolutionary work is ...
I see this as a well-considered version of an evolutionary explanation for morality. As such, I think we need to pose the usual objection: If morality...
Yes, it is, and reading ahead, I notice that Williamson faults the paper for "exhibiting hardly any of the virtues that it recommends"! So I put brack...
True. I'll hold off until you walk us through the entire paper. But just as an example of a question that isn't an "everything" question, while at the...
Very good, Oscar. :wink: It does mean doubt, but applied in a special way. I think Cartesian methodical doubt has two negative characteristics: It is ...
Would you go so far as to say that philosophy also suggests which aspects of the world need to be better understood? Or is that pretty much up to each...
I've read about this far with you. Williamson is touching on a favorite topic of mine, the lack of progress in answering traditional philosophical que...
I think you know quite well that this is not "constructive criticism," or a disinterested diagnosis of "insecurity": It's meant to be hurtful and disp...
Exactly. So the response to such a question is abuse? I don't get it. If the thread were in the Lounge, would that make it OK to be sarcastic and disr...
I'll respect your wish not to engage with Descartes at the moment, though I'd enjoy that conversation. Suffice it to say, both your questions deserve ...
Thanks for that. I agree, though not necessarily about the erudition; many people on TPF are indeed erudite about specific philosophers, no posturing....
You're welcome. FWIW, I was going for an understanding of "common-sense reality," not "reality" as such, which is very hard to use effectively at all....
I sympathize. But I'm a huge fan of science and it constantly surprises me. Going way out on a limb here . . . In the year 3025, humans will look back...
Hmm. So you're saying that a "self-replicating molecule" is much less mysterious than a "conscious entity"? If we're invoking a "vanishingly remote ch...
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