Janus

I don't believe Wittgenstein held any otherworldly metaphysical beliefs, He tried to determine the limits of what can sensibly be said. Judging form h...

You seem to be conflating knowledge with truth. I say that any claim to propositional knowledge from religious experience is unsupported. Say someone ...

I have watched enough of Kastrup's videos to know that I think he is a purveyor of nonsense. I think it is simply unsupportable...totally implausible....

Right, but Wittgenstein would agree with the positivists that traditional metaphysics, is meaningless in the sense that it has no referent. From the T...

I believe the above post is actually off-topic, but since I think it so egregiously misrepresents Wittgenstein's views on metaphysics I thought it req...

You can demonstrate that people see red by showing them something red and asking them what colour it is. We tend to think we can tell when someone is ...

:cool: Not "superior" but just more reliable. In the context of epistemology, we are discussing what we can be justified in saying we know. That means...

The two are different, though, insofar as everyone sees the apple but no one sees god..

Faith or intuition are valid ways of knowing—simply because inhabiting a faith or intution is a knowing. It is a knowing of a certain kind of experien...

This seems exactly right to me. It's basically what I've been arguing on these forums for years. Experiences of any kind which are not simply observat...

Nice analysis! We see a similar thing in the international arena. If a country's leaders defy international law, even commit what are considered to be...

Claims are verifiable by observational evidence or logic (self-evidence). I cannot see how Buddhist claims can be definitively verified, just as claim...

Yes, thanks for pointing that out—the "can" should have been a "cannot". I haven't addressed anything as silly as verufying Buddhist claims with a mic...

The point has nothing to do with humility. Anyone of intelligence can learn to think critically—if their excessive biases of thought don't preclude th...

You are wrong about that...look it up. Judging from Plato's reports of Socrates, I'm just as capable as he was as he was of critical thought It's a pi...

:up: Nicely articulated!

That's right. It's like aesthetic quality in that sense. We experience the beauty and profundity of works, but we have no way of confirming that those...

I have no idea whether that is well-documented or not. I have already told you I am not concerned about claims that could be verified by observation. ...

I'm limiting valid knowledge claims to claims that can be rigorously tested. If someone says that rebirth is a fact, or Karma is real, or the existenc...

What irritates me is that you present your beliefs as if they are Truth, I make what I honestly believe are valid objections to your apparent belief t...

Your claim that I want to claim that there is only one kind of knowledge is false, and you should know better if you ever read what I write on these f...

I don't believe there is any "philosophy proper"—philosophy is a multifarious thing. We have the diverse field of traditional metaphysics, we have pos...

The claim that some techniques work to change consciousness is not in dispute. I know this from personal experience both with meditation, art practice...

If someone could make, not just one or two accurate predictions, but could consistently make accurate predictions that were not based on observation a...

I would not be saying that if it was demonstrated that someone was able to reliably predict eclipses. If they were using observation and calculation a...

So you believe that the ancient philosophers ability to predict eclipses was based, not on observation and calculation, but on some direct insight int...

The kind oif direct knowledge I have in mind is the supposed knowledge of the sage into the true nature of reality, not foreknowledge of temporal even...

Yes, but that is empirical knowledge. We were discussing the confirmability of so-called "direct knowledge" or intellectual intuition I thought.

If those "theses" cannot be confirmed by logical or emprical evidence, then how will they be confirmed? Have such theses been justified in the past? C...

What do you mean "no emotion to experience the resulting tranquility"? Who says there is no emotion for the Stoic? For example, say you love nature, a...

Suck it up—where the world is going is not nice.

It is not the business of science to study the lived experience of subjects. That is the province of phenomenology, leaving aside the question of whet...

That's right, any well-schooled undergraduate should be able to spot the faulty reasoning, the unjustified conclusions in these kinds of arguments. Th...

Presumably that argument is based on the understanding of evolution of species which is in turn based on the assumption that the fossil evidence is gi...

The argument that we all operate with similar mental structures cannot explain more than the common ways in which we perceive and experience, it canno...

Wayfarer's account does not consist in cogent argument, so in the context of discussion I have no sympathy for it. His account says that he understand...

No, it has nothing to do with "limits of understanding". That's just a ploy you're using to try to justify your nonsense. You're saying something inco...

The same error. Proposing that nothing can be said and then saying something for which there can be no warrant.

Nice :lol: I can almost guarantee he won't get it. Yes, this is indeed the "step too far"—saying that we cannot know anything about anything without t...

I presume you meant 'participate'...anyway I haven't anywhere said the world is a static frame with objects. It becomes that in the discursive telling...

:up: Yes, it's "us and them" and "doubling down" seemingly all the way down and more and more. It's very disturbing to see its playing out intensifyin...

Science attempts to explain how and why what we all observe is the way it is. It is unquestionable that we, and the other animals live in and experien...

:roll: Now you presume to speak for everyone else—just how low can you sink?

It may be a different matter, or perhaps not. "What it's like to be conscious'—is that not a manifold of perceptions and bodily feelings? Surely anima...

I can't but agree. It would be better if OPs had to meet certain standards. In my view you lack humility and have a deluded sense of your own abilitie...

I can't see how science can deal with the non-physical. And I also can't see how it can factor into any of our thinking, although I suppose it depends...

:roll: Well you're wrong. What I write on here are not "emotional writings", not emotional apart from impatience and annoyance when people distort wha...

:up:

Not at all. I'm claiming that theories cannot be demonstrated to be true, they can only be provisionally accepted on the basis that what they predict ...

It seems I'm talking about science, and you are talking about philosophy. I haven't claimed that philosophy can ever become an entirely objective ende...