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SophistiCat

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Sure. When we are looking for a scientific explanation of an observation, we try to fit it within established theories, preferring more secure theorie...
February 23, 2021 at 20:29
I'd like to see that! (But you may want to make a new thread for that. I suspect that few folks are looking at Gregory threads. I only looked because ...
February 23, 2021 at 19:55
When scientists work out the implications (predictions) of a theory, this is akin to foundationalism in that they are taking the theory's postulates a...
February 23, 2021 at 08:24
I thought you were talking about the structure of space (whatever you think that means). But if you don't mind, I would like to change my vote from el...
February 22, 2021 at 20:27
Original and significant female philosophers? Are There Female Philosophers? These past topics should have popped up when you were typing in the title...
February 22, 2021 at 08:56
Uses of causation are varied and messy. People have proposed theories of causation, but at most they succeed in some special domains, or capture some ...
February 22, 2021 at 08:34
I see what you did here
February 22, 2021 at 08:10
There are different ways to understand and talk about causation in ordinary language, specialist language and philosophy. Janus leans more on ordinary...
February 22, 2021 at 07:58
Why? Why not tiny elephants instead? What feeds your intuition? Is it anything to warrant a second thought? I don't think you and I understand "theore...
February 21, 2021 at 20:42
The linked article is about a "geometrical model of the atomic nucleus for the periodic table and the arrangement of extranuclear electrons." It doesn...
February 21, 2021 at 06:51
By "any amount" I do not mean zero, of course - I thought that would be obvious.
February 20, 2021 at 19:47
Not if you are moving infinitely fast. If your speed is infinite over any amount of time, then you will have moved an infinite distance. Which is allo...
February 20, 2021 at 11:28
Frankly, the only reason I responded is that I saw your posts before and you didn't strike me as a fool. So I wonder what's going on. Is this thread s...
February 19, 2021 at 20:49
No, thanks. I have my share of unpleasantness in my own life, as do we all. Get over yourself.
February 19, 2021 at 20:39
Frankly, this is such a dumb non sequitur, I wonder why anyone would bother. You make a sweeping, simplistic statement about a complex issue that has ...
February 19, 2021 at 20:29
If you only care about that which can be put into words, then of course you have no place for anything else. This is a rather facile conclusion though...
February 16, 2021 at 08:52
Facts are what prompts and couches our moral responses. In my experience, most people don't care about the alleged gap between the two, because in the...
February 14, 2021 at 20:36
The character of William in Eco's novel is said to be based on or inspired by William of Occam, "the father of nominalism," so it makes sense that he ...
February 14, 2021 at 17:56
That's what you think you were doing? OK.
February 13, 2021 at 19:49
Uh, maybe try this again when you are sober? Otherwise I think we are done here.
February 13, 2021 at 08:05
Can you explain? The way it sounds to me is that every individual always seeks to accommodate everyone else around them to the best of their understan...
February 12, 2021 at 21:02
You are kidding, right? No, let's not. I see you aren't really interested in the conversation. That's fine, the thread has been derailed anyway.
February 09, 2021 at 06:31
Oughts provide motivation for action - for carrying out their imperatives. Either you have moral beliefs and thus have these motivations, or you are a...
February 08, 2021 at 07:59
In English-language literature a good keyword to search for would be pluralism. I don't know if there is an all-encompassing meta-meta theory of the s...
February 08, 2021 at 07:14
Gravitating many-body systems are chaotic in the technical sense.
February 07, 2021 at 07:57
Gravity is chaotic!
February 06, 2021 at 20:09
Getting back to the topic, it's interesting to note that the constructionist, according to Gergen, is an objectivist despite herself, inasmuch as she ...
February 06, 2021 at 18:13
Because they don't disagree with me. Look, this is a silly argument and it doesn't have much to do with the topic, as far as I can see.
February 06, 2021 at 16:08
No.
February 06, 2021 at 09:37
This is a classic naturalistic fallacy, an instance of is/ought confusion. The natural origin of morality is not the same as the grounding for moral c...
February 06, 2021 at 08:08
You are confused. Of course I do - how could I not? Assuming, of course, that they are assessments of the same thing.
February 06, 2021 at 07:59
This example is a red herring. The contrast here is between moral and amoral (morally neutral) actions, not between moral simpliciter and objectively/...
February 05, 2021 at 19:55
I will humor you with an example, if you insist. Someone I know was beaten and robbed in the street. That person suffered a concussion and a broken bo...
February 04, 2021 at 07:14
I don't want to digress into philosophy of science and falsificationism. I think you made your point clearly as it is. What I don't understand is why ...
February 02, 2021 at 20:59
Well, of course, if you search far and wide you'll find some luck being involved in some way in anything that ever happened in your life, but when peo...
February 02, 2021 at 07:01
Wouldn't have this problem if someone didn't unban this idiot.
February 01, 2021 at 22:14
Gettier Problems
February 01, 2021 at 21:50
Is it really? You disclaimed that you are not a social constructionist; I understood your post as an invitation to comment on a specific thesis that y...
February 01, 2021 at 20:47
Historically, Law nomenclature has been used to refer to important regularities that can be formulated in a single statement or equation. You will fin...
February 01, 2021 at 18:58
Well, one can be a social constructionist about some specific area of human life, such as morality; it doesn't have to be a slippery slope. Being a co...
February 01, 2021 at 07:57
Blame is tightly linked to moral judgement, and this is not at all specific to identity politics. For the purposes of making a distinction, we can ide...
February 01, 2021 at 07:50
To be honest, your post is rife with misconceptions. Right from the start: One can perhaps get such an impression from high school science classes, bu...
January 31, 2021 at 16:50
A quick Google found me this: Gender Distribution of Degrees in Philosophy: "In 2014, 31% of philosophy degree completers at the bachelors and doctora...
January 31, 2021 at 07:31
The population that posts on an internet forum is not representative of the global population in a number of ways, including gender. Besides, a dozen ...
January 30, 2021 at 20:10
I am OK with the idea that time is immanent in the physical world, whether we think of it as fundamental or (as some hypothesize) emergent. But that d...
January 27, 2021 at 18:55
You are misusing both words. "Ps are Qs" is a definition, it is not a tautology (it isn't true by definition), and it is not circular (it does not rel...
January 27, 2021 at 11:30
Given your subsequent elaboration, I guess what this horrible mess is trying to get at is a notion of a clock, in its most general sense. In other wor...
January 27, 2021 at 06:45
Yeah no, it's totally appropriate. Here is cumulative COVID death rate in Sweden and its neighbors: Sweden: 1:942 Finland: 1:8734 Norway: 1:9835 Denma...
January 24, 2021 at 15:40
The shit-stain is lying through his teeth. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/ https://o...
January 24, 2021 at 12:52