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The Great Whatever

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suspending one's judgment and deciding beforehand that any evidence to the contrary of it will be met with a response of 'that can't be true' are not ...
August 19, 2017 at 07:45
nb: it's fine to feel like smthn's wrong, but i just ask u don't pretend to do philosophy on that pretense, what u feel is irrelevant, so leave it out...
August 19, 2017 at 00:09
it's on-topic in that yr. deflecting criticism of a position u hold by falling back on false claims abt. yr. own open-mindedness. u've already obstruc...
August 19, 2017 at 00:08
in other words that there is room for debate is a sign of philosophy's lack of method + subject matter, not yr. open-mindedness.
August 19, 2017 at 00:00
there is always room for debate in philosophy, because one can always say 'nuh uh' or pull a new distinction out of thin air. u have no criteria for w...
August 18, 2017 at 23:58
but u just said the opposite? a hurdle that u set the standards for, and so will never abandon. the fitch argument is super duper simple, it's hard to...
August 18, 2017 at 23:20
why do philosophy if you've decided a priori that whatever prejudices you currently have are sufficient to refute any argument? i mean i don't think t...
August 18, 2017 at 23:08
also i should note that in general a bad rhetorical move is: *asserts implausible opinon * 'ah but here's a bad consequence of that' 'yeah but you did...
August 18, 2017 at 21:09
yr. post was regarding yr. own opinions & that was what i was responding to. 'I am far form alone in feeling...' and in the previous: '...I don't find...
August 18, 2017 at 21:05
i'm talking about your post, not dummett (idc what michael dummett thinks abt. anything)
August 18, 2017 at 20:33
what you feel is simply not relevant. the conclusion that knowers are collectively omniscient, i.e. that there are no truths that aren't known. i thin...
August 18, 2017 at 19:43
there's no persuasion to be done, it's a proof. so you must either disagree with the premises or find some flaw in the logic. i don't care what the ex...
August 18, 2017 at 18:39
sounds plausible, but controversial opinions about such matters aren't relevant to the point. just imagine any situation where you can't know somethin...
August 18, 2017 at 18:22
if that is the question (i don't think it is: i think michael is interested in tools to prop up anti-realism, & is essentially debating verificationis...
August 18, 2017 at 18:09
construct the example such that there's no way for you to know
August 18, 2017 at 18:08
truth conditions have nothing to do with representation or 'viewpoints.' they have to do with whether sentences are true, i.e. whether certain things ...
August 18, 2017 at 08:41
say gold is god's favorite metal, but we could never figure that out. then someone says, 'gold is god's favorite metal!' maybe they were guessing, or ...
August 18, 2017 at 02:46
it doesn't matter what people use to teach others. if they just teach by demonstrating, in learning how to use the term they will have learned how to ...
August 18, 2017 at 00:49
in other words michael the above argument has seemed to reduce to yr. doubling down on 6) and 4), respectively, & this doubling down in the face of my...
August 17, 2017 at 16:24
i just want to know whether this is 'actually' a thread abt. verificationism, as it seems to be. note that verificationism abt. truth results in the p...
August 17, 2017 at 16:19
or if you like just say those temperatures are possible & gold actually melts, but for whatever reason, doesn't matter, they can't figure this out. no...
August 17, 2017 at 16:01
replace the scenario with any sort of fact abt. gold they aren't in a position to discover, it doesn't matter, their utterances abt. gold are still t/...
August 17, 2017 at 16:00
so you think that in such a scenario, gold would have no melting pt., just because no one can show that it has a certain melting pt.? this seems reall...
August 17, 2017 at 15:56
idk i see no reason to believe 4) and have made my reasons why perfectly clear, respond to those
August 17, 2017 at 11:21
confuses knowing how w/ knowing that, cf. above here's a practical ability one has: to refer to a metal with a melting pt. of 1948 f, but this is the ...
August 17, 2017 at 10:30
Michael, the argument conflates "knowing how" and "knowing that." that we know how to use a word doesn't mean that we know everything about its use. -...
August 17, 2017 at 10:01
Yes, but you do so by recognizing, for example, when it's raining. "It's raining" is correctly used to speak a truth when it's raining. That's it. You...
August 17, 2017 at 09:16
Why? Don't assume this position; convince me of it.
August 17, 2017 at 09:06
it's raining to be that you say it truly when it's raining, not that you say it when you recognize some thing other than it raining. you might use it ...
August 17, 2017 at 09:02
The use of it's raining has to do with whether or not it's raining – one uses it roughly to correctly describe a situation in which water falls from t...
August 17, 2017 at 08:59
Then there's a fork, and a lot of ambiguity. Early on, it might be reasonable to say that they all start saying false things w/o realizing it (and ind...
August 17, 2017 at 08:48
August 17, 2017 at 08:43
I'm not sure I follow. If the people grow up using the language in the simulation, then indeed the use of their language will result in its truth cond...
August 17, 2017 at 08:41
Why should we think that something's truth or falsity should always be recognizable? Surely there are things we get wrong without knowing it?
August 17, 2017 at 08:31
This, if taken seriously, is tautological: swapping in the definitions for each other, we get: "language use has nothing to do with things that have n...
August 17, 2017 at 08:22
What is a recognition-transcendent thing? What is a recognition-transcendent condition? Is a recognition-transcendent condition a recognition-transcen...
August 17, 2017 at 08:15
This seems to say no more than that we might say things that are false and not realize it. So what?
August 17, 2017 at 02:18
I'm not quite sure what's being said, but it seems wrong. The idea that the use of words has nothing to do with the world is ridiculous on its face. W...
August 17, 2017 at 02:17
The poll here asked which philosopher was most important, not which one the taker most identified with.
June 09, 2017 at 18:50
As I understand it, on the standard set-theoretic construction of the integers, it's both. The cardinality of a set is n just in case the set is equiv...
June 08, 2017 at 02:54
2029? Seriously? 2029?
June 07, 2017 at 15:15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eQTLQm8mIQ
May 30, 2017 at 02:09
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-wT6fkDg8k
May 28, 2017 at 04:59
They're right.
May 23, 2017 at 19:34
Freedom from, freedom from – again, negative definitions. As far as positive democratic notions, I'm not sure what they have to do with religion.
May 21, 2017 at 21:34
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2seHOU2vmZQ
May 21, 2017 at 06:12
I never said anything about belief. It has no content of any other sort, either. Really? Might there not be another reason he begins with that?
May 21, 2017 at 03:58
Again, you just described negative things and lack of belief.
May 21, 2017 at 03:05
The Unitarian Church is an older entity than the UU Church. The latter has no commitment either to the existence or non-existence of a deity or deitie...
May 21, 2017 at 03:03
What you just described was purely a lack of content.
May 21, 2017 at 02:49