Janus

An empirical possibility is something that it is really possible could be an empirical actuality. Think of any set of coordinates on the earth. It is ...

:s Well, I think you have not properly earned your hearty laugh, because I did not ask whether France "could have had" another capital, but whether it...

See, here you are talking about modal possibility, not empirical actuality. Paris is the capital of France because we designate it as such. Tomorrow, ...

Explain, then how that would be empirically, as opposed to merely modally, possible. I 'm not denying that it is a logical possibility that France cou...

Even if it were a modal possibility it certainly doesn't seem to be an empirical possibility that Paris is not the capital of France, and that is why ...

Are you seriously suggesting that France could have a capital other Paris?

Great, so how would you imagine it could be falsifiable, as all the other "plain old empirical propositions" such as "the sun is shining here and now"...

I think it is more correct to see ancient philosophies including Stoicism as sets of spiritual exercises designed to bring about genuine transformatio...

(Y)

Maybe you're just a bit out of practice. I have been writing poetry for abot (I left this genuinely accidental typo on purpose because it seems so apt...

Interesting cases, along the kind of lines you seem to be indicating, of fact that are at least quasi-analytic is exampled by "Paris is the capital of...

Bachelor = unmarried: analytic because true in virtue of the meanings of the words. 7+5 = 12: not analytic because '7+5' does not mean '12'. Synthetic...

I checked out the 'bot or not' website, voted on about fifty poems and got two wrong. For me the clue is that the human poems always embody some threa...

Well no, I was saying that moral facts are determined by general facts about human beings. Would you really want to deny that most people would wish t...

I certainly acknowledge your point that people's desires are not always good. People are very often "fucked up" as I think any reasonably intelligent ...

I'm not sure what you are referring to here. Could you state which premises are "logically problematic", and why you think they are?

Yes, you can live in harmony with others by exploiting them, lying to them, robbing them, raping them and their children, killing their friends and lo...

I think it is fair to say that most people basically want to live in harmony with others, but very often, due to various psychological issues, difficu...

This raises several associated questions for me: Is there any way of coherently distinguishing between "instrumental oughts" and moral oughts? Is ther...

I think this is just the right kind of approach. The moral or ethical fact or facts is/ are based on the psychological or empirical fact or facts abou...

I don't think I entirely get MU's arguments most of the time either. :-}

True, but we cannot make predictions on lack of tendency. All I was saying was that it is the tendencies themselves that are used to create predictive...

For you it apparently is... ;)

I would say that tendencies are unquestionably observed; I don't really see how the question of whether they are intended or not could have any bearin...

Yes, I agree, I don't think nature is intentional in the sense that it plans particular outcomes, but perhaps it can be thought to be intentional in t...

If intensional is thought of as intending; would intending then be thought of as knowing you are intending?

They 'know' how to behave apparently, but it is implausible that they could know that they know. But, this is also true, it is commonly thought, of mo...

I was never convinced that utilitarianism could provide a comprehensive basis for moral philosophy, although elements of it are worthy of incorporatio...

A purported fact is something which is posited as being the case. But as I noted before, there are both ostensive and discursive facts and they are no...

But the present does contain elements of both the already-established (past) and the to-be-established (future). By thinking of the present as a "divi...

Or, we can think that the present moment contains, or better, encompasses, both past and future; that it is 'stretched' so to speak and not a dimensio...

I also want to add that, as I think I already said, mathematical theorems can certainly be falsified. But it seems to be true that simple counting can...

There may be facts about what is universally approved and disapproved of by humans; well, at least by those humans that are motivated by social consid...

Perhaps Hume's reasoning for claiming that reason is and ought to be slave to the passions is that he thinks there is no way that pure reason can just...

I guess so, since I don't see how math could be falsifiable. Of course particular theorems are falsifiable; but that is an entirely different matter. ...

No, it agrees with our observations and how we define them. If I place two objects, and then add another two objects; what other possible outcome coul...

Willow, nothing you are saying seems relevant to anything I have said, so I am afraid I am giving up on this exchange.

You're making the mistake of thinking your cultivated nature is some determinate thing that you could conceptualize. It isn't, and you can't; all you ...

You keep making the same mistake of thinking I am talking about looking at nature as a concept, and using that concept to justify some action. I am sa...

I said all states have a nature - or form, if you prefer; I haven't said their natures may be adequately characterized by truisms or cliches. You cont...

But do you love, love, love it?

I've tried to read what you write; but to be honest I can't make head nor tail of most it. You seem to be constantly contradicting yourself and disagr...

On the contrary, I would say all states have a nature.

No, I don't admit this at all. Our experience of the world is not the world. Properly speaking we don't experience the world at all, but things, peopl...

I disagree; the former is a word that stands for the concept of the world, or better, stands for the word that stands for the world and the latter is ...

So, if the world and nature have the same status according to you, then just as there may be states of the world which do not consist in thought, why ...

Well, I haven't actually claimed that it is falsifiable, but that it is, within the limits of our definitions, (and what else do we have to work with?...

So all you're saying basically is that 'the world' is an idea but the world is not. So, why, according to you, does the same not apply to nature. :-}

Is the world an idea then?

I agree, I think that in the final analysis, both math and logic must be intuitive. So, the whole project of reducing either to a set of fundamental a...