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Metaphysician Undercover

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I would argue that Wittgenstein' characterization of logic at 89 is completely backward. Logic does not seek to see the bottom of things. It relies on...
March 07, 2019 at 13:59
It seems you still haven't read 88. His reference to doubt at 87 is in the context of understanding, and his reference to inexact at 88, is likewise i...
March 07, 2019 at 13:33
No, that's your phrase, not mine, that's why I said to you, I don't know what you would mean by "exact understanding".. Did you not read 88 yet? Exact...
March 07, 2019 at 04:04
It is a statement. If you want to describe statements as "acting as if...", I have no problem with that. But then all ontological statements are "acti...
March 06, 2019 at 14:31
OK, now you have the same ratio, but you've changed things. You have a repeating digit in each case now, as the fundamental unit. It doesn't matter if...
March 06, 2019 at 14:00
Read Wittgenstein's example of time at 88. We settle on the degree of precision required for our goals. To talk about exact understanding does not mak...
March 06, 2019 at 13:32
This is the statement I disagree with. Doubt is not an all or nothing proposition, it exists by degree, because it is based in the possibility of erro...
March 06, 2019 at 04:11
I'm with you there. Now the question I've been asking is why does Wittgenstein appear to persist in this misguided objective, to find the principles w...
March 05, 2019 at 15:15
Your examples are not the same, because you cannot represent the Fibonacci series in a partial way, starting in the middle. It has a unique starting p...
March 05, 2019 at 13:52
They are not imagined possibilities, they are what Wittgenstein describes. I believe what he describes, but if you think his description is imaginary,...
March 05, 2019 at 13:16
Yes. The so-called interlocutor's concern is a concern which Wittgenstein had about his description of rules, or else he would not have brought it up ...
March 05, 2019 at 03:14
[ Could have been partly that, but I think that the buffalo's land was wanted for cattle, competition for the grass. The best way to take their land i...
March 05, 2019 at 02:07
Is the naturally occurring pattern a different pattern from the intentionally produced pattern then?
March 05, 2019 at 01:50
If these sign-posts (rules) do not need further explanation, then they are foundational. You are simply calling them "surface level". Anyway, whether ...
March 05, 2019 at 01:42
That's what I asked you, don't turn the question back on me. I don't use your system of classification, so I'm asking you, how you would class the Fib...
March 04, 2019 at 22:58
Hi Banno, I welcome your contribution to this little problem which seems to be mine only. Getting bored elsewhere? Right, that's the point. To prevent...
March 04, 2019 at 22:49
The Cartesian division, body and mind is a step backward from Aristotle. That's the division, along with its problems, that Plato dealt with. The prob...
March 04, 2019 at 13:39
How would you class the Fibonacci sequence? Is it a naturally occurring pattern, void of semantic meaning, or is it intentionally produced?
March 04, 2019 at 13:17
To remove doubt, we seek an explanation. But then the explanation requires an explanation, and unless it's the final one, it's as if the explanation i...
March 04, 2019 at 13:04
In relation to what is said at 87, this statement is questionable. I agree, but despite his claims that doubt can sometimes be excluded, he hasn't sho...
March 04, 2019 at 03:46
I suggest you reread 85-87. It is all philosophical thinking, regardless of whether Wittgenstein says otherwise. 85: "the sign-post does after all lea...
March 04, 2019 at 00:21
You've almost got it, but "phrase" is different from "tasty sausage", so that's not quite it. Every time someone says "phrase", they mean to say "phra...
March 03, 2019 at 20:47
What I said, or at least meant to say is that my certainty of whether or not there is "a green growing thing that I can see through my window", is dep...
March 03, 2019 at 17:09
I am not the one muddying the waters, nomenclature is what is at issue here. The rule stands like a sign-post. The words, as sign-posts, are themselve...
March 03, 2019 at 15:03
The truth is, I've had more than one course on Aristotle, and have written numerous papers on his work. There's a heck of a lot there to study. It's n...
March 03, 2019 at 03:44
To justify this assertion, you ought to address this section of the text, and show me where I've been mislead by Wittgenstein's words. Good, this supp...
March 02, 2019 at 14:39
I don't see how you can make a valid argument here. I'm doubting the location of my cup. But at the same time I might also be doubting if I even had a...
March 02, 2019 at 01:13
Aristotle is more famous for his principles of logic than anything else. Long after his observational works were replaced by the modern sciences of ph...
March 01, 2019 at 13:36
I noticed you haven't participated in our discussion of this section of the book where doubt is discussed, so that claim is rather hollow. Speak for y...
March 01, 2019 at 04:03
I consider this to be contradictory. If certainty is not indubitable, necessary, or infallible, then how is it "certainty"? What is the point in sayin...
February 28, 2019 at 22:52
Matter cannot be eternal, Aristotle demonstrates this with the cosmological argument. Matter is placed in the category of potential, as being the pote...
February 28, 2019 at 15:02
I cannot understand this. I've seen similar statements, by many different people, and no one has been able to justify this claim for me. Why must ther...
February 28, 2019 at 14:43
I really can't recommend anything to you here, because I see so much variance in interpretation. The best is to read Aristotle yourself, but there is ...
February 28, 2019 at 05:03
This is an interesting thought experiment. Let's say that we "see" space-time with our minds, in the sense that we apprehended it only with the mind. ...
February 28, 2019 at 04:06
Consider that in Aristotle`s physics, matter is the aspect of a thing which does not change when change occurs to a thing. It is therefore the princip...
February 28, 2019 at 03:13
Sure, I agreed with Janus on this point. But not all cases of behavioural patterns are cases of rule following. So the premise "if there is behavioura...
February 28, 2019 at 02:38
I suppose that if you could exclude all doubt from your mind, you would have absolute certainty. I do not think that this is humanly possible. You men...
February 28, 2019 at 01:37
I like this. I think that a principle is something particular, we might say that it's an object, but an interest is more general, directing one's atte...
February 27, 2019 at 15:57
Right, "convention" is a rather broad term. In one sense "convention" may refer to a rule, but in another sense it might refer to a custom which is no...
February 27, 2019 at 14:59
I don't know what you would mean by "absolute doubt". To me, an absolute is an ideal, and the ideal is "certainty", and certainty excludes doubt. So "...
February 27, 2019 at 14:53
That's not true. There are many conventionally established patterns of behaviour which are not rules. Are you familiar with "customs", and "mores"? "R...
February 27, 2019 at 14:26
I make lots of mistakes, that's not really relevant except to show that doubt is always called for. The point is that Wittgenstein's epistemology is i...
February 27, 2019 at 13:20
As I said in my post that you rejected as "empty tendentious assertions", we can learn habits from others. This is not an empty assertion, it has been...
February 27, 2019 at 03:52
Would you say then, that "playing" is a validly ethical activity if the man is interested only in one night stands? The way you describe it, playing o...
February 27, 2019 at 00:57
OK. I'll give it another go then. This is simply false. It may be the case, that people were using language in identifiable ways or patterns, prior to...
February 27, 2019 at 00:42
This is clearly not the case. Our natural approach to all circumstances is to consider possibilities. And, the nature of possibility makes doubt natur...
February 26, 2019 at 22:59
Well that's not the case, a lot of things are unrelated and some are incidental. We are looking for a causal chain for the existence of the baby, exam...
February 26, 2019 at 19:12
Wow, your (dim) wit never ceases to amaze me. It would be unreasonable for me to expect you to do anything else. But that something else is what is re...
February 26, 2019 at 18:45
As you honestly don't seem to understand, I've thought of an example to elucidate. Every morning when I leave the house I have a little routine of cho...
February 26, 2019 at 18:23
It makes sense to me. Every moment I live from day to day is different from the last. How would I say that the circumstances at one moment are normal,...
February 26, 2019 at 15:03