The reverse is not true. — T Clark

I'm skeptical.

Especially now that these two disciplines are interwoven and so have reciprocal support for one another. I don't think there's a "most basic level" as much as there's a wild web of knowledge loosely interwoven, and which concepts get priority at what times has more to do with the experimental apparatus and question we're exploring than general emergent properties of the respective knowledges, such as a hierarchy conditions.

Further -- the big conflict here, with respect to interpreting the sciences in a philosophical manner, is on different notions of causation. The SEP has a lovely page on Teleological Notions in Biology, which you won't find in chemistry except as metaphor. The intersection between physics and biology is interesting specifically because it's where we might be able to understand the relationship between our traditional notion of causation in science (not quite billiard-ball, anymore, but still), and the frequent use of teleology in understanding living systems. That is -- putting biology first isn't so crazy as it sounds because we're not modeling the world off of natural selection, but instead questioning what sort of causation is truly fundamental.

Or, if we are dedicated Humeans, we'll note that neither is fundamental at all, that there is no most basic kind of causation that everything can be reduced to, that it's a mere habit of the mind.

Darwin didn't write his book in those terms, at least. Later on it was confirmed that biology and chemistry get along, but that's not where he started. And I'd say there's still some questions with respect to natural selection and physical science that aren't answered because we're still mapping the proteome (of humans, of various eucary, archaea, and bacteria) , we're still figuring out how the physical and the biological interact -- even in the most practical applications like medicine, but also with respect to basic research.

To understand biology you need to study biology. To understand chemistry you need study chemistry, and all the same for the other subjects. The intersection between these fields isn't so clean as you present.

I'd be happy to hear from them if they're willing to speak.

I'm not a biophysicist, but I sometimes annoy my coworkers in my insistence on attempting to reduce our experiments to the physical sciences :D. But, that also provides some motivation to reject the reduction -- the working molecular biologists I'm around, who know way more than me about their subject, are perfectly able and I'm still learning concepts from them. Not all the relationships are mathematical. They're linguistic, even in a fairly plain-language sense while occasionally introducing some technical terms, and yet seem to be true.

Then I think about the plots of climate science and how I believe in global warming. There's a lot of supporting ideas, but if I were to look at the math alone then the uncertainty would dissuade me if I didn't know about the reality of the system being studied.

I guess that leaves room open, in my judgment at least, that biology's messiness is actually a virtue with respect to truth.

Cool. Glad to have you along thinking with.

That's basically what I think. I love the German scientists because they were educated in philosophy and so were willing to explore interesting questions that were just their curious thoughts, and I think it was obvious that these curious thoughts lead to some advances in the sciences.

But I'm skeptical of the implications. The first thing I think of is, why not biology as a first science rather than physics? Maybe the results in physics, at certain times at least, aren't fundamental but specific to the system they're studying, and the aggregates of the physical world don't follow the same rules. Not in a superfluous way, where we're just approximating the quantum level, but rather that The Origen of the Species The Origin Of the Species* sets out a wholly different way to interpret the physical world that can be semi-bridged through the genome, but even as we dig into the mechanics of life there are differences that are only half-way related to QM (like proton pumps) or not related at all (like "uh, the cells just changed based on the measurement, but I'm not sure why").

*The Origen of the species would be the end of the species, since he castrated himself. I done did the mispelling thing and so am correcting myself here.

Or -- the Copenhagen interpretation encouraged shut up and calculate, because that's where the literal truth was thought to be.

How can 'something' be 'literally' two completely different kinds? — Wayfarer

By being both a particle and a wave. "particle" refers to matrix mechanics, and "wave" refers to wave mechanics, and it turns out they were mathematically equivalent. It was an old science fight between Schrodinger and Heisenberg which turned out to not matter because they both predicted the same outcomes. So I interpret that as "particle" and "wave" as being inadequate to the task at hand, where the math is adequate even though we still puzzle over what it means.

When we start measuring small stuff it behaves differently than when we measure big stuff. And you can even apply QM to macroscopic objects, like the moon, and you'll see that how small the difference is basically gets erased at the level of the moon. Neither the moon nor the electron cease to exist if the experimenter is not experimenting. It's being measured by all the other electrons, etc, around it.

Eh. I definitely disagree with that. Just because uncertainty is a physical truth doesn't mean that the electron doesn't exist. It just means that there's a relationship between position and momentum, or time and energy, such that an increase in a measurement of position results in a decrease in a measurement of precision for momentum, and further that this is a result of the physical system rather than the various objections Einstein made to it.

The Copenhagen interpretation's fault is not metaphor, but literality. The form of the math expresses the physical reality, rather than represents it. The electron, whatever it might mean, is literally a point and a wave.

In ways this mimics Hegel's dialectic, because these concepts are not Boolean contradictions of the form "A ^ ~A", but rather were two concepts thought to be contradictory. My thought on the Copenhagen interpretation, with respect to dialectics, is that the assertion of point/wave started a dialectic, and the sublation was in the mathematical equivalence between wave and matrix mechanics.

Not that I am at all an advocate for "consciousness causes collapse," but sometimes exploring theories you don't like tells you important things about the ones you do like. In any event, in comparison to infinite parallel universes and infinite copies of ourselves, it doesn't
seem that wild. If the Fine Tuning Problem is bad enough to make people embrace multiple worlds, maybe consciousness causes collapse is due for a resurgence? — Count Timothy von Icarus

More on topic, though --

I'm pretty skeptical of the fine tuning problem. I'd probably count as a deflationist on the question because I'm not so sure that the "physical constants being just this way" is really that surprising. They're constants. That's what they do, and we throw them into equations all the time just to make it work. (ever notice how Hooke's Law isn't so much a law as an approximation with wiggle room that works for springs? There turns out to be a point where it's no longer applicable)

Basically I'm not sure the notion that physical constants are worth taking seriously as ontological assertions. Sure if by the notion that the physical constants are ontological entities than there's a question to explore. But if they're just constants, like Hooke's law or coefficients of friction, which we use for certain circumstances, then there's no mystery there. It's just us making the balance sheet work out right and throwing a constant in to keep our math working while we describe this physical phenomena with it.

That being said, I'm not sure that consciousness can be explained through wave-function collapse, as if our actions are always measuring wave-functions and collapsing them and so these constants come out of that interaction. The two subjects seem so incredibly disparate to me that I usually think it's foolish to combine the two. The problem of consciousness requires picking apart the supervenience relationship, and quantum wave collapse requires the Hamiltonian operator which generally operates on partial differential equations.

They're both so heady and conceptual that I usually feel like solutions that propose both are a bit hand wavey in saying "Look, there's two complex things going on and maybe we can get two birds with one stone", but to me it just looks even more confusing.

The problem is that for some reason I thought the Logic was notoriously dense but at least shorter than the Phenomenology. Then the book arrives and it's like 1,000 damn pages. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:D

The Science of Logic is something I need to revisit eventually if I ever hope to be able to offer a formalization of sublation, but it's so hard to get through.

If p, then q
Not q
Therefore, not p

you said that is a non-sequitur...did you mean appears like a non-sequitur? — KantDane21

Heh sorry. That's the second version I offered, put into plainer language, and I agree that it's in the form of a modus tollens. The first one I offered would be a way of rendering the argument into a non-sequitur.

But there's another complaint you could make that "Anything" is too vague. Sure it includes "Action" but it also includes "A is A", or "Unicorns" or "The present King of France" or "A and not A" (Contradictions are surely a part of the vast set "Anything")

Trying to parse into sentential logic:

p = "anything is an appearance"
q = "it is known mediately"
r = "he(or she) acts not-mediately"
K(x) = "A person knows that x", where x is a variable.

p -> q
K(r)
Therefore, action cannot be an appearance.


I think Allison might be rendering the argument like that so that it's basically a non-sequiter. We could, however, read more charitably and attempt to render it in a logical form, something like what you suggest. But the natural language makes it difficult to assign the same variables if we're going to use the words exactly as written. I might render P2 as:

Action is known non-mediately.

Then we could render

p = "anything is an appearance"
q = "it is known mediately"

p -> q
~ q
Therefore, ~ p

as you indicate, a modus tollens. Though there's something funny about counting action as an "anything". "Anything" is a remarkably vague category! That might also be what Allison is getting at -- we started with "Anything", and didn't draw out the deduction that "Action" is an anything.

$\left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right|$

Put the following code in between a bracketed math, then the code, then a bracketed \math

\left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right|

It took me a second to get the syntax but I read this as: Start at the left. Use the function "overline". Within the squiggly brackets the first "\," can be read as "start expression underneath the overline" and the "\," on the right hand side still inside the squiggly bracket can be read as "end expression underneath the overline", then we close what's underneath the overline with a closing squiggly, then we close the function we called "overline" with the second squiggly, and then "\!" can be read as "This is the end of the expression which started from the left", and then \right starts the ability to write on the right hand side, and we place "|", the alternate character on the "\" key, so that there's a long line written on the right hand side.

Reading it from the middle upward through the crosses:

1. \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right|
2. \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right|
3. \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right|
4. \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right|

And the others, while it's easy to get lost in the syntax as I did in my first attempt, are expansions upon this first function such that we put our single overline function with a right bracket into another version of itself, and on and on. I'll just post the code I used, though, because I think the above probably serves as a good enough users guide for copy-pasting the code.

$\left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right|$

The code used within the math brackets:
\left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right|

$\left. {\overline {\, \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right| \,}}\! \right|$

The code used within the math brackets:
\left. {\overline {\, \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right| \,}}\! \right|

$\left. {\overline {\, \left. {\overline {\, \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right| \,}}\! \right| \,}}\! \right|$

The code used within the math brackets:
\left. {\overline {\, \left. {\overline {\, \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right| \,}}\! \right| \,}}\! \right|

And to construct the crosses in the Fourth Canon in chapter 3:

$\left. {\overline {\, \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right| \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right| \,}}\! \right|$ $\left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right|$

Which I did by copying the first code with a single cross, and then in place of the "*" I put the copy of the original code twice right where the original "*" was in the first code with a single cross. Then I just copied the code again in a separate Math bracket to have it sit alongside

EDIT: Or the code --

\left. {\overline {\, \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right| \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right| \,}}\! \right|[/math] $\left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right|$

I'd be happy if these considerations induce a small doubt as to the ubiquity of pragmatic epistemology. — Banno

I agree.

With your bolded bits too. But that should not be a surprise.

Mostly using this as an opportunity to say that in spite of my various misgivings I'm not a pragmatist, and not even tempted by it.

...the dialogic nature of philosophy means that one should... remain open to what they might teach us, and to the possibility that there may be questions without answers and problems without solutions. — Fooloso4

Please forgive the requote, but I think this a sound bit of advice worth highlighting. "Remaining open" is key!

but perhaps the way to understand is to read through first, and then go back and worry at the terms when you have a grasp of the 'idea of the game'. and all this 's' and 'c' is just a way of talking about


The idea of the game, at first, anyway, is that the stop light is on when the train is in the tunnel and off when the train is not in the tunnel. Mark, or no mark. And that game is what comes next. — unenlightened

Yeah that makes sense, given how chapter 1 didn't even begin to make sense without chapter 2. I'll keep along. I'm still figuring out the accounting, and how to make the crosses pretty.

$\left. {\overline {\, \left. {\overline {\, \left. {\overline {\, a+b \,}}\! \right| \,}}\! \right| \,}}\! \right|$

$\left. {\overline {\, a \,}}\! \right|$



$\left. {\overline {\, \left. {\overline {\, * \,}}\! \right| \,}}\! \right|$

*Been messing with it to try and figure out how it works, but updating the quote to reflect the code I'm using -- right now I'm uncertain why there's a gap between the top line and the cross-line in the embedded cross I Think I got it now.I'm going to respond to this post to make it appear more user friendly though. See the post below for better instructions.

I notice that if I do not put anything but a space where the "*" presently is that I get a negative symbol popping up, and also I'm still uncertain where that gap is. My hope, in the long run, is to offer strings which people can simply copy-paste with clear delineations for plug-and-play. If I'm running across a limitation rather than just messing up then perhaps "*" could serve as a blank space? But that kind of ruins the effect too.

Cool! I think I'm actually following so far then from what lookedlooks* like a very intimidating book.

*EDIT: I shouldn't get cocky, I just started.

Some more on chapter 2 --

For 2 I think we could use brackets, thus:

[ ], [[ ]], [[ ] [ ]], [a], [[[a] [[b] [c]] [ ]] Not very clear, and it might be better to alternate square and curly by depth, thus:

[{ } { }], [{[a] [{b} {c}] { }] — unenlightened

So, following along with the axioms in chapter 2...

[][] = []

and axiom 2

[{}] = .

?

I tried messing with 's bit of code and looking for tutorials but got lost in the information web. If there's a easy link to figuring out how to embed multiple crosses, @jgill, I'd be happy if you could pass it along because it does look prettier, and if I can figure out the syntax it's probably not that hard to embed multiple crosses.

Part of me is wondering if we can read Axiom 1 as the line above, and axiom 2 as the crossing of the line above. So when we, while using the form of the meta-language to parse order, draw a segment from left to right that is the law of calling. And when we draw a segment perpendicular to the calling that is a crossing. So if we cross again we negate, but it's easier to see that when we embed the original cross within a series of crosses rather than a series of lines coming off of the original calling.

This makes sense at a purely formal level because they complement one another -- the calling and the crossing are perpendicular but simultaneously need one another in order to be a calling or a crossing. In a sense the perpendicularity of the crossing removes some of the form of space of the meta-language, but not quite because the space of this formal system is defined by the cross rather than by a set of axioms describing space. Perpendicularity can be defined by reference to the cross, rather than the other way about, and from that we can name the space "Cartesian" if we take space to have an infinite series of crosses. (not Euclidean, that would be harder, or at least different, I think) (a bit speculative here.... just trying to think through the ideas towards something familiar) ((Also -- it'd probably have to be two orthogonal and infinite cross-spaces to define the Cartesian plane))

Then Chapter 2 is the use of the axioms to draw a distinction -- a form taken out of the original form of calling-crossing. Which, from chapter 1, is perfect continence.

Is it right to read "construction" as what's happening in the rest of the chapter? That's the impression I get -- if distinction is perfect continence then drawing a distinction will accord with what is given -- distinction and indication. (interestingly, comparing 1 and 2, we can interpret the cross as a kind of circle, but with the space-properties of this formal, rather than a geometric, system)

But what we get is the space cloven by the first distinction is* the form, and that all others are following this form. The space is cleaved by a cross indicating/distinguishing, but distinction is the form by which we can indicate an inside or an outside. In a way we could look at the cross as a mere mark rather than an intent. It would have content but it would not be a* used signal.

The notion of "value" is really interesting to me. The value is marked/unmarked, at the most simple. The name indicates the state, and the state is its value insofar that an expression indicates it. And then with equivalence we are able to compare states through the axioms. At this point I think we can only hold equivalence between the basic axioms, which turns out to have an inside and an outside, and gives a rule for "condensation" and "cancellation". So in a way the value is just what is named at this point, but there's still a distinction to be had between marked and unmarked due to the law of crossing canceling rather than reducing to the original name.

Then the end of the chapter is what follows from everything before. "The end" as I'm reading it starts at "Operation" -- this is where we can now draw a distinction, having constructed everything prior, and it entails some properties about the system being built such as depth, shallowness, and a need to define space in relation to the cross.

*added in as an edit, was confusing upon a re-read

Re-reading Depth I think I'm getting it this time. (I'm doing this in bits -- in the morning I like philosophy to wake up my mind, and in the afternoon I like philosophy to take a little mental break to something totally different)

This is talking about the

$\left. {\overline {\, a \,}}\! \right|$

So s(sub"0") is the blank page surrounded by an unwritten cross. So in this example there are 2 crosses which pervade a which is then named c. In this case that would be the pervading space.

'Let' is a command from on High. This how it shall be henceforth. 'Let x be the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. 'Let' happens outside the formal system to create it. 'Call' is an action that happens inside the the system. You can call the distinction into being by making the distinction, that is by writing the sign. and If you write it twice in a row you call and recall. — unenlightened

Alright, that helps. So we have our meta-language which we're speaking now, and that differs from the formal system being created with the use of the meta-language.

Reading Chapter 1-2 (for some reason I'm finding them linked as I read this the first time -- like I can't talk about chapter 1 without chapter 2, and vice versa) again I can see the opening of 2 as a re-expression of Chapter 1, like The Form needed to be explicated before talking about forms out of the form, and the form takes as given distinction and indication which it also folds together as complementary to one another.

But then I get stuck right after "Operation" is introduced. "Cross" is a name for an instruction. Instruction, from just a bit before, leads to the form of cancellation. But what is the connection between states and instructions? Reading "Operation" again I'm reminded of the First canon "what is no allowed is forbidden". The name operates already as an instruction.

And then I get stuck on "continence", even though that was part of the opening. "Continence" is the name of the only relation between crosses, and that relationship is such that the cross contains what's inside, and does not contain what is not inside of it.

But this is where I really got lost entirely: What is going on from "Depth" to "Pervasive space", or are these concepts that, like the first chapter, will become elucidated by reading chapter 3? Like a puzzle unfolding?

The anarchist in me is determined :D.

Which I hadn't thought about until now -- but the question "How to learn philosophy at all?" is not innocent specifically because Plato continued the project of Socrates to corrupt the youth by the powers of reason, but more safely than him. So teaching has kind of always been a part of philosophy's practice.

I have to suggest that silence might at least be as good as declarations of not needing to convince, and so on, back and forth, and that this application might go some way to explaining the frustration that is commonly the result of enquiries into the nature and definition of philosophy. — unenlightened

Fair point. You hooked me with your application of the book to this problem ;)

And yup I don't think we're disagreeing. Maybe that's what's hard about distinguishing philosophy, too -- we're so used to the engine being disagreement that continual agreement upon things that look disparate seems to run counter to what we usually call philosophy, and it may just be a case of the snake eating its own tail and becoming incoherent.

I'd say any of the offered lists here, and even the reactions to the lists, could be considered methods of the sort I'm thinking. There are philosophical methods, like the Socratic and the Phenomenological method, but I was thinking more pedagogically -- how to learn philosophy at all?

Interesting use of the first chapters.

Something I'm stuck on, from a first reading of the first two chapters, is the distinction between letting and calling. I think I have to read "Let" as "Call a function" or something like that. It's naming an instruction rather than naming a distinction.

EDIT: Actually, thinking that through -- calling a function, more generally, a relation, would just be a distinction with a map.

The art -- also betrays some of what I think of philosophy, that it is more an art than a science. Which is why I think it's a social activity found with others. The art is made between artist and audience, and in theatre this is particularly so as even having the same actors and the same audience on a different night gives a different performance.

I think of philosophy as a kind of art, though it's a unique one worth distinguishing.

One of the advantages of method is that it's something written down which allows others to test it. And then the method can be refined by others. In a sense what a method does is de-personalize the philosophy so that anyone can run with it -- it's a work on the self, but the self is not isolated.

If philosophy is a knowledge of the self, and a work on the self, and further the self is not an isolated, simple subject but is instead found in others', and further that this self cannot be elucidated by the modern methods of psychology (the self doesn't exist there), then acting theory is the most worked out theory of self-generation that I know of. Which is why I keep going back to Stanislavski as a kind of guide. Further he's even more appropriate for philosophy because Stanislavski wrote dialogues with the express intent that he didn't want to become the law giver of acting, but wanted to write some things that would help actors learn, reflect, and grow -- and in turn to add to what was written. That is he was a kind of philosopher of the theatre, and a natural teacher.

Though mentorship is naturally built into the theatre. It's impossible to do theatre without others, though you certainly practice your lines at home.

One of the downsides of mentorship, though it may just be a necessary downside, is that it makes the art more exclusive. Much of the time the arts of various kinds have been reserved for the children of the well-to-do, just like philosophy. Mentorship is possible within an institution supported, but many of the masses don't have that opportunity. I myself really just lucked out in meeting up with a mentor who was kind enough to help me in spite of not being a part of his institutional program (and, for all that, it's still coming under attack by the powers that be...). But I wonder to what extent is it possible to spread out the wisdom of philosophy to people who aren't so lucky?

So I land back on method in spite of myself.

There are percentage of certainty attainable in accurate maths value if the data was available. — Corvus

And what would the data for certainty be?

Cool :). Then I think I know what you mean, and I've answered the question with that thought in mind. It seems that if you follow what I've said, then, we can be 100%99.99%* certain of a lot of things, but that this doesn't have a relationship to our knowledge of whether or not our beliefs are infallible. Which on the face of things shouldn't be that surprising given that "infallible" is a pretty hard standard to reach, but we are certain of much more than what we are infallible about.

*I would say 100% certain, but the terms laid out made that the wrong expression.

Seriously, I'l start with a point of clarification: by cultivate I mean manage, that is, not allow it to grow or increase uncontrolled. — Fooloso4

Ah OK. I thought, because you had said your nature that you were affirming it as a positive thing, which would certainly not get along with any sort of methodical approach (at least, a method which sets out step-wise, even loose steps, what to do). Whereas you're saying that it can be worked with, though the goal to ensure that it grows in a managed manner, is cultivated towards what is good. (Also, I want to note that I read "anarchy" in a positive light at first, furthing the confusion)

Which brings my mind around to the other way to counter method -- mentorship. Which @Tobias mentioned as well, and would get along with your closing. At least this is where my mind goes, but now I want to ask, since my first guess was wrong and so this one could be as well: Can one learn philosophy at all? And if so do you care to say more about that?

You always get percentage of certainty. Some certainties are more certain than other certainties.
Therefore I suggested "All life on the earth will die eventually." was one of the 100% certainty. Because it is a conclusion derived by billions and billions of examples in millions of years of historic records, the biological facts of lives + the on-going processes happening right now. There maybe other 100% certainty cases, I am sure. — Corvus

I can understand what people mean by "100% certain" vs "99.99% certain" -- the former means they know it to be true and it's impossible to be wrong, and the latter means that the believer understands that their feeling of certitude is the same as in the former case but they have a reason to believe that the belief's false value could be wrong (though they don't believe that).

But notice how this is just a binary between two kinds of certainty: one which is infallible, and the other which feels just as good but is not infallible, or at least we have a reason to believe that it's not infallible. Rather than a percentage of cases we're just using two different meanings of certitude, and the percentage is there more as an adjective than a mathematical relationship.

After all what could the domain even be for percent certainty when we're being as vague as all our knowledge or all our beliefs? Those aren't exactly easy to count sets, which is what you'd need to be able to do to set up a percentage -- something like the ratio between certain beliefs and all beliefs held.

In the long run I tend to believe that methods are for training, and not for production. There's no method for making methods, right? So someone has to be the method-maker, if methods are applicable at all, and that person will simply be doing creative exploration as to what's best rather than following a method to generate methods. (or, if we're incredibly method-phillic, the buck will stop somewhere with the original method writer who wrote the method on writing methods on method writing :D)

And you're right to point out that we must begin somewhere, and sometimes that somewhere is rebellious, anarchic, or anti-methodical. In which case offering methods would preclude a kind of philosophy from the outset, and that kind of philosophy would be perfect for those of a rebellious, anarchic, or anti-methodical spirit given that philosophy deals with knowledge of the self. (more or less you'd be turning away the openly inquisitive from the outset by insisting upon methods as discipline)

How would you answer your own question? How best to work with and cultivate a rebellious, anarchic, and anti-methodical temperament?

I'm not so sure. For instance what if the belief was truly certain and it only turned up false because the world changed?

I am certain that my fridge has pickles in it. I open the fridge to find there are no pickles -- someone must have eaten them in between, and so what I was truly certain of turned out that I could no longer be certain of. But I was certainly justified, even epistemically, in my belief since I put the pickles in the fridge.

A lot of the time I think our desire for certainty falls to this -- we're certain of things, but things are subject to change. And so the desire for certainty is to somehow overcome change so that no matter what happens I'll know what I believe is true and infallible. But this is an entirely different kind of certainty to the more mundane one I presented: it's changing what's required of certainty not just so that we're certain, but so that we'll always be certain.

In my opinion the attempt to start with a method is antithetical to philosophy. It raises a whole host of questions, including - Why a method? Why this method and not some other? If a method guides and shapes the inquiry then how confident should we be that this method does not occlude free and open inquiry? — Fooloso4

There we go! That's the stuff. I had Against Method in the back of my mind in writing this, and began to wonder about the place of method in science (as pedagogical tool, as research program), and especially as pedagogy I think method has a place. Not The Method, but A Method among methods among non-methods. And in that looser sense I began to wonder about a method in philosophy, more along the lines of Stanislavski's method than an algorithmic or programmatic method.

Your final question is why I appended "Add a rule" -- because eventually one can add the rule that methods aren't everything, and let go of method entirely -- thereby building into the method an ability to let go of it when the training wheels are no longer needed.

In that case I'd say I'm completely certain of many things. But importantly, I've been completely certain of beliefs which have turned up false. So I'd draw a distinction between certainty and knowing that my knowledge is true and infallible.

If it is possible to be 100% certain of anything then it must be the case that we can be 100% of something.

If it is possible to be 100% certain of something then we must know what "100% certain" means.

I do not know what "100% certain" means.

Therefore it is not possible to be 100% certain of something, and therefore it is not possible to be 100% certain of anything.

Yup. Though I'll re-iterate that being a master of philosophy isn't the point so much -- learning how to paint is a good thing even if you don't become a Picasso.

Normal human beings though need introduction to the practice just like they need introduction to the practice of law and of scientific enquiry. That was what the OP asked for, a method to do philosophy. Is sitting in your cave all by yourself adequate? No, unless you are the philosopher Hercules. — Tobias

Exactly!

I hadn't expected the "What is philosophy?" question in setting out my method. I was hoping to avoid categorical questions in favor of something which is a little more helpful for people who are interested, but might benefit from some program or something like that. Not algorithmically, but just some guidance that sets someone on the right path to actually doing philosophy rather than things that look like philosophy but are not.

Philosophy is a social activity, but who do you keep company with? Even keeping company with books can be a social activity. More often than not, an author writes in order to be read, even if they are selective with regard to who the intended audience is. The dialogic nature of philosophical writing is not always apparent. Even if the author is not able to respond, a text can be interrogated, and the best philosophers often anticipate our questions and objections. The circle extends to other readers as well, and takes different forms including teacher/student relations, secondary literature, and more recently online forums. — Fooloso4

True. I mean I consider what we do here to be a kind of relaxed philosophy, so even sharing here makes it "count" as philosophy in my way of thinking. It's not the venue as much as that it's shared at all.

As to the question of whether books are necessary, I know of no prominent philosopher at any time who did not read or hear the work of other philosophers. They do not simply read in order to know what others think but in order to think along with and against what they read.

That's a good point -- so there's at least two ways we might read a text: one in which we're reading it as a historical document, and the other in which we are reading it as a philosophy text to be thought through.

Gregor Mendel's studies on genetics were never published until after he died. Would you say he was not a scientist? Emily Dickenson's poems were never published while she was alive. Would you say she was not a poet? — T Clark

Now you're getting it! :D

I'm not sure what you mean by "spirituality." Is Taoism spiritualism? I'm willing to say it includes mysticism -The belief that direct knowledge of ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (such as self-awareness, intuition, or insight). It's fine if you decide that kind of philosophy is not your cup of tea, but it's unreasonable for you to claim it is not tea at all. — T Clark

In its religious form, yes. Though you seemed to indicate that there's a philosophic form to Taoism which wouldn't. I'm not putting out necessary/sufficient conditions here because both categories are vague categories which require some amount of judgment to the particulars, and noticing that there are times when there's some amount of overlap between both. I stuck to Augustine and Martin Luther because I'm more familiar with them, and I'm more comfortable with dissecting my own religious tradition than others'. Taoism is something I really only know in passing, so it's easy to make mistakes with respect to how to categorize.

But surely you can see that just because the categories are vague that doesn't mean they are the same, yes?


I'm guessing that we could probably, just to make things even more confusing, even take what's considered a philosophical text and treat it in a spiritual manner. We could hold to the text as a truth because we find something deeply fulfilling about the text's relationship to our own life. That is we would no longer be doing philosophy then, either, though pinning down when is what will be a matter of judgment and some amount of drawing lines in the sand.

“You are describing dialogue and calling it philosophy as an argument that philosophy is defined by dialogue.
THAT is logically unsound.” — DingoJones

Obviously it's unpersuasive, given your response.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's logically unsound. Where the form of argument ends and the example or explication begins isn't easy most of the time. I'll go back to the differences between Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to make the case for the publicity of philosophy. Socrates invented philosophy as we know it, Plato invented it as an academic discipline to corrupt the youth in the long term, and Aristotle realized how good a life being an academic is and dived into justifying his position through Reason alone. (a clear fable that ought be perfected, but I hope that it makes sense)

Dialogue is a part of philosophy because there's always been this call and response, or back and forth, between those we consider philosophers.

I just fall asleep at the fire and wake up cold and sore before going to a proper bed ;)

But that says more about me than your notion of philosophy.

Staring at fire in the dark is a good source of calm and inspirational thoughts.

I suppose in making my distinction between the mystical or the spiritual versus the philosophical I'd say that this method won't quite do. But then you're something of a counter-example, because you think about the thoughts and express them with others and such without actually expressing a Gnostic spirituality -- you stick to the philosophy.

Is that how you began?