A thought I had today: What if scientism is more how one comes to believe a scientific proposition? Rather than just classifying what is or isn't science with a criterion, or stating something about one's character -- we could say scientism is coming to believe a scientific proposition by poor means, like "Scientist so and so said this is true, therefore it is true"?

So we could have the same belief -- that evolution is true -- but one person does so simply because a scientist said it was so, and another does so because they had a look at the argument and found it persuasive?

In "X is true" there is implicit idea that X is infaillible, that it cannot possibly be false, that it is something that applies to everyone even if they don't believe in it, whereas in "I believe X is true" one at least acknowledges a belief and presumably the idea that X is possibly faillible. — leo

Alright so you're just saying if someone states that a scientific theory is infallible then that is an example of scientism.

I don't think Dawkins made that claim about evolution in your quote. Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins, but he's talking about how evolution is very well supported -- not that it's proven and infallible. And it is very well supported. So well supported that calling it a fact is warranted.

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust. It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips…continue the list as long as desired. That didn’t have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, obviously true, and there was a time when most people, even educated people, thought it wasn’t. It didn’t have to be true, but it is. We know this because a rising flood of evidence supports it. Evolution is a fact, and this book will demonstrate it. — leo

Here he is talking about common descent, one of the novel predictions of evolution. Now it could be the case that we discover, say, two or three or five or whatever common ancestors -- that the tree of life does not come down to a single point. That would be a modification to the original prediction, but we'd still be related to chimpanzees. And it would be a fact. This would be a warranted statement because of the evidence we have now to make that inference.

Now, in accord with the problems of induction, naturally we could be wrong about all this. Science is fallabalistic, by my lights, always open to revision -- does Dawkins believe that? I don't know. He honestly doesn't say in these quotes, though it would surprise me if he, when pressed, said that evolution is infallible. Biology gets a lot more blowback than, say, chemistry and its theory of the atom, so I can understand frustration when others are given respect but you're always in the spotlight. But, then again, I think that biology is better for it -- I can just understand feeling frustrated.

OK, I understand you better now.

What does this notion of testability do for our understanding of scientism? Or is it more a matter of evaluating the truth of theories? Or what?

No I wouldn't say that. However if you start saying that a scientific theory is true because the evidence is convincing, or you start saying that the evidence only supports that theory, or that if it's not scientific then it can't be true or real, or that a scientific consensus is truth or the closest thing to truth, or that something is true because scientists say it, or that if scientists have refuted or falsified something then it's false, or that knowledge can only be gained through the scientific method, or that there are no beliefs in science, I would say it's scientism. — leo

Those all seem very different to me. I would agree that if we say something is true just because a scientist says it's true that that seems to be a solid example of scientism in the pejorative sense, as something to be avoided. But I don't see how saying that a scientific theory is true because the evidence is convincing is an example -- I also don't see what removing "belief" from the statement changes. In the sentence I gave I am referring to my relationship to a statement, but if I do believe such and such a statement it's not like I have a problem simply stating that the statement is true too.

So I believe my keys are on the desk. "My keys are on the desk" is true.

I believe evolution is true. Evolution is true.

What's the difference?

Well it's definitely different from say chemistry or physics. There isn't a lab where we isolate variables or some such. But I'd say that evolution makes novel predictions about the sort of evidence we'd expect to see in the world, and that this evidence has been found. There are similar predictions in other sciences like geology -- it's not a controlled experiment, but there are facts you'd expect to find if a proposition is true, and many of said facts have been discovered and explained by the theory, such as the theory of plate tectonics.

It's not a lab, but it's still science. It's just a different kind of science than many of the physical sciences.

A physical science that kind of mirrors this approach is actually astronomy, now that I think of it -- not that I know much of astronomy. But they don't exactly perform experiments in a lab either.

What would it mean to say that a scientific theory is true? That its predictions are confirmed by observation or something more than that? — Janus

It would mean that the propositions of a theory are true. I'd also qualify that any proposition could actually be false. That's part of the whole kit and caboodle. So at some later point, with more evidence, it may be shown that the propositions of evolution are not true -- but it's warranted to believe they are true given what we know at the moment.

True, but with fallabalism "Baked in" so to speak.

The way I read you was with an emphasis on proof rather than truth.

I think I'd say I believe "X" because there is evidence that supports it implies that the evidence supports "X" is true.

But then I'd ask again: Is it scientism to believe that a scientific theory is true because the evidence is convincing?

So they don't believe in science, they believe in the evidence for science. Dawkins says evolution is true because there is evidence that supports it, so he believes that evidence proves scientific theories are true. Which is scientism in disguise. — leo

That doesn't follow at all. I believe "X" because there is evidence that supports it does not imply that evidence proves "X" is true.

Is it scientism to believe that a scientific theory is true because the evidence is convincing?

Let's check what the top search results are for e.g. "I believe in science". — alcontali

Is the answer just a google search away? That seems odd to me. At least it's unconvincing for myself because, supposing a google search finds me an example of scientism this would not then support the inference that scientism is widespread. It would just be an example of scientism.

But let's take your notion of scientism -- that there is only one knowledge-justification method -- and look at these examples.

Why I Don’t “Believe” in “Science”. or some years now, one of the left’s favorite tropes has been the phrase “I believe in science.” Elizabeth Warren stated it recently in a pretty typical form: “I believe in science." So what Warren really means by saying “I believe in science” is “I believe in global warming.” They use it as a way of declaring belief in a proposition which is outside their knowledge and which they do not understand. It is meant to use the reputation of “science” in general to give authority to one specific scientific claim in particular, shielding it from questioning or skepticism. In support of one particular political solution: massive government regulations. — alcontali

Believing in science, or as this person puts it, believing that global warming is a real phenomena is not the same thing as believing that there is only one knowledge-justification method. I believe that anthropocentric caused global warming is real. I also believe that there is more than one knowledge-justification method. This isn't inconsistent. So it is possible to believe a scientific thesis while at the same time not subscribing to scientism, and therefore simply stating "I believe in science" to mean "I believe global warming is real" is not evidence of scientism.

“I Believe in Science!” – Something No One Should Say. “I believe in science,” said Hillary Clinton. “We should not have people in office who do not believe in facts and truths and modern science,” said Leonardo DiCaprio.

The same analysis applies here, though with other scientific theories. These come closer to your notion of scientism because they don't express just one proposition with the phrase, but at the same time both of these persons exhibit a belief that there are more ways of knowing than science only. They are also a politician and an actor, and know how to go about their profession in those fields -- they have a knowledge of their field which is not-scientific. So I don't think that these qualify as scientism as you describe it.

What these two have in common with the general public is their misunderstanding of the nature of science. The physical sciences are not, cannot possibly be the only means of gaining knowledge. The view that science (physical sciences) is the only means of gaining knowledge about reality is called scientism – a patently false proposition. It’s an unsettling sign of an imminent idiocracy – incredibly naive statements made by public officials and laymen who increasingly believe that science is the new god – the new idol of worship and infallibility. It is a sad day when science becomes an idol of worship – a compulsory belief system with its own initiations, rites, and hymns.
I Believe in Science. It implies that I can’t be a believer in science and also believe in God. In other words, science has disproven God. Or science and God don’t go together, or science and religion are mutually exclusive. It’s strange in part because science is tasked with studying the way the natural world works and is thus not even capable of disproving something beyond its scope. So why is this such a popular view in today’s society? There are certainly also many in the scientific and academic community who propagate this view as well.

That's just a bias of the authors. "I believe in science" does not imply that the author cannot be a believer in God, even in the examples cited.

There are undoubtedly other search terms that can shed light on the world of that fake scientist religion, its media-clergy, and how the manipulative political class seeks to handsomely benefit from further deceiving the already delusional unwashed masses.

So, yes, the fake religion of scientism is incredibly widespread.

I'd say "widespread" is a large chunk of the population. It doesn't have to be a majority, but let's just say 20% of people believe in scientism is the benchmark for widespread. We can restrict our claim to, say, Europe, North America, and Australia because that's where a lot of us come from and that's the sort of culture we're trying to analyze. Now a google search might supply examples of scientism, but it does not demonstrate that 20% of the people believe that science is the only knowledge-justification method.

So how do you get from some examples of scientism to widespread?

This applies to your gathering of more search terms as well, and is a response to this:

So, yes, the fake scientism religion is literally everywhere. Wherever you find the delusional, unwashed masses, you will be able to admire the artifacts, ceremonials, and rituals of scientism. They simply believe it. They don't care that they shouldn't, because they find solace in the false promise of the omnipotence of science — alcontali

Even the quotes you supply don't say scientism religion is literally everywhere. They qualify that there are "strands of thought", or "good many scientists and some philosophers" or something along those lines. They certainly don't make claims about the "delusional, unwashed masses" -- a phrase that I don't particularly like, but hey, we all have to be the target of insults sometimes. ;)

Also I'd say that your second post is more in line with what @Metaphysician Undercover is calling scientism, which is different from what you started out calling scientism. Would you agree with him in saying there are at least two kinds of scientism?

Sure. We're in agreement about the value of things which are not-science, then.

But I would at least say that while of course you can double down on your theory, you are in the curious position of calling canonical papers in the history of science as being something other than science. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing -- my own position has its faults, in particular it doesn't really give a definition of science as much as rely upon our intuitions of what counts as a scientist and encourages people to look at what those people are doing to get a feel for it.

But for me, at least, calling that paper philosophy rather than science isn't a bullet I can bite.

In that case, mathematics is also not valuable, because it is also not-scientific, and staunchly so.

This kind of fake morality ("not-scientific knowledge is not-valuable") is a mainstay in the vulgarizing and ultimately also vulgar, pseudo-scientific mainstream press. You will see CNN journalists displaying their amazing ineptitude -- the blind leading the blind -- when they further mislead the already delusional unwashed masses.

As long as it has the trappings and superficial appearance of science, the delusional populace will swallow it all. Of course, they will never ask to repeat any inexistent experimental tests, because they do not even understand the nature of their own fake religion.

Scientism is a mental disease. Seriously. — alcontali

I think you missed a "not" my statement. I said the opposite of what you're responding to here. Granted it was a confusing way of wording things, but we are in agreement -- not-scientific knowledge is valuable.

Scientism is so incredibly widespread, and its fake morality so prevalent with the unwashed masses, especially in the West, that it cannot merely be a character trait. There is an entire, organized media-clergy preaching its heresies. The political class loves it too. The political manipulators happily subscribe to it, because it increases their power. Scientism is a fake religion that comes with its own fake morality. It is simply obnoxious. — alcontali

How do you know it is widespread?

So yes, plumbers, machine operators, lighting technicians, cooks know a lot of things that were never systematized scientifically. They may have stumbled upon them through sheer serendipity, through trial and error, and possible also by experimentally testing them. These things have never been documented or otherwise formalized into science or engineering, because nobody has ever bothered to do so. I personally suspect that the entire industry would collapse if this knowledge does not get transmitted from one generation of workers to the next. — alcontali

Of course. To say that their knowledge is not-scientific is not the same as to say that their knowledge is not-valuable. In fact, in terms of our day-to-day lives, such knowledge is more valuable than systematic theories about how the world works -- at least I believe so.

But do you see how, if we admit that these professions have knowledge that is not-scientific, the point you were trying to make originally is simple to make? That not all knowledge is scientific after all?

In which case the kind of scientism you are arguing against would be unjustified.

Though I don't know if anyone would agree to that belief, as @S states above. Still a worthwhile point of reference in situating ourselves, I suppose. What do you think of my notion that scientism is not a set of beliefs as much as it is a character trait -- the trait of feeling too strongly about science?

So, to yourself, science is knowledge plus the beliefs which could become knowledge should they withstand the test of falsifiability -- and if something is not falsifiable at all then it can't count as science of either kind.

I don't think that science is getting blurry "these days", but that it's always been at least a little blurry -- when we put the question of demarcating science from not-science up, at least. And whence the importance of such a question? What does the charge of scientism denote?

To myself, at least, philosophy seems to be a kind of cure to scientism -- which I think of in a more relational manner. Rather than making an epistemic mistake of saying that science is the one and only knowledge, I think scientism is more about how an individual feels about science -- and given that the word is a pejorative the person in question feels too strongly that science gives us the best answers to questions.

So it's kind of a charge against one's character, really, rather than a fallacy. At least as I construe these things. And philosophy (of science) is a cure because I think that philosophy is just doing what philosophy does best -- making us all a little less confident in what we thought was certain and beyond needing explanation.

Well we can set aside our disagreement on Popper for the moment, I think. Another time perhaps.

Would you say that the methods of a plumber, a machine operator, a lighting technician, or a cook are based on his criterion? I wouldn't.

As long as we clearly distinguish between hypothesis/conjecture (no experimental test available) and theory (experimentally testable), I am ok with the hypothetical-theoretical discussions.

We need to be able to black-swan a scientific theory, i.e. search for a counterexample, otherwise it is not a scientific theory.

Since all scientific theories obviously start their life cycle as mere conjectures, I am certainly not against the activity of conjecturing. So, yes, it is "pre-science". Conjectures are the staging area for science. They are therefore necessary. — alcontali

Hrm. Pre-science? Alright. I guess I would just call it science, but that's OK. So to you "science" is knowledge specifically, it seems. Yes?

First I just want to say that what you're replying to was directed at @Terrapin Station -- not that you aren't welcome to answer the question, but there is a flow to the conversation that I'm following with him that would be different in your case -- because you two both clearly have very different beliefs about science.

Let's put this to you, then: You wouldn't call theoretical discussions scientific knowledge. But would you still count theoretical publications in physics as doing science? It is still science, even if it is not knowledge, right?

I'm afraid I do not believe what Karl Popper believed about science. And if that be the case then whether or not mathematics is grouped with science depends on our beliefs about what science is, rather than on what Karl Popper thought was proper.

I group math with science because they have the similar resonances to one another. Mathematicians create knowledge by publishing and having peers review their work. Scientists are similar. I don't think that the emphasis on reasoning vs. empirical matters much in treating it as something different because all knowledge requires us to reason as well as sense. It's just the way our mind works.

A lack of making observations, formulating and testing hypotheses, and then revising beliefs and hypotheses in response to evidence. — Terrapin Station

I'm guessing the reverse would be that having these qualities makes something science, in the broad sense you espouse.

But I'd say the emphasis on observe-hypothesize-test-revise misses out what's going on in theoretical discussions. The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies doesn't have observations and tests and so forth. It is largely an argument from the basis of what difficulties are resolved -- towards a more coherent theory.

Surely you'd include this in your notion of science. But then there must be more to science than just these qualities. And if there be more to science than just these qualities I'd wonder -- how would you differentiate theoretical discussions on the existence of the ether from, say, discussions on the existence of God?

For my reasoning --

The examples you provide aren't the sorts of things that scientists research. So if science is what scientists do then clearly personal intuitions, delusions, or theological claims aren't the stuff of science. Though in some far-fetched sense I suppose they could be, if scientists began research programs around such stuff.

I take a pretty hard historicist stance on science. I believe that such an approach allows us to, through familiarity with the history, begin to gain an understanding of what science is without boiling it down to a programatic methodology or set of allowed inferences based on rules. It allows us to discover what this thing called science consists of while leaving breathing room for the creative aspect which goes into scientific work.

The counter-part to that, however, is that machine operators, lighting technicians, and cooks are not scientists, and therefore they are not doing science. Same goes for plumbers.

But then I don't think that science can be characterized along methodological lines. Even broad ones will come across exceptions simply because science isn't static, it grows and changes with the people that do it. I suspect that those who wish to demarcate science wish to do so along either methodological lines, or possibly other ways too -- like natural vs. supernatural or something like that; something which is metaphysical.

But to pronounce methodologies as science leads one to absurdities, on the whole -- unless construed along historicist lines which observe tendencies while keeping room open for new methodologies. And to put up metaphysical barriers on science seems to poison the well from the get-go. Either science answers questions about metaphysical things or it does not -- we can't go about prescribing to scientists what it is they should discover. And if it doesn't answer metaphysical questions at all then there is no reason for a metaphysical demarcation ala natural/supernatural.

What is it that makes these activities not-scientific, in your view?

I agree with the examples, but I suspect our disagreement is the reasoning behind them.

Cool. I pretty much agree with him.

But perhaps it is the example that's in the way. Let me try this question out -- is there any practiced field, like plumbing but something else, where you would say the person is both employing empirical methods and is not doing science?

Some examples that come to mind for me: A machine operator. A lighting technician. A cook.

If those don't seem to "ring true" for you, are there any that do?

This by way of getting to the heart of the question of how you and I understand science and what you and I understand science to be.

Generally mathematics is grouped in with the sciences. But your point can be made at a less abstract level. Check out Massimo Pigliucci's Why Plumbing Ain't Science.

Are you interested in anyone besides Chomsky? The immediate counter-part to Nozick that comes to mind is John Rawls -- though he is not a left-libertarian by any means.

In the video @Baden posted Chomsky drops some names of left-libertarian/anarchist/etc. thinkers that might appeal more to your sensibilities, too.

Yes, the feeling of cold/heat cannot be the temperature the thermometer measures because the feeling varies between individuals and even the same individual when the thermometer does not.

I'd just say that it's a way of talking with one another, rather than something which exists.
— Moliere

I don't see how that's possible. Language doesn't make us feel cold or hot. Animals and babies feel heat. It's biological. And language doesn't make a thermometer work the way it does. That's physics.

Physics gives us an explanation which doesn't depend on feeling at all. It says temperature is the result of kinetic energy of particles.

Thus we have an appearance of heat/cold that's biologically based, and we have the temperature reading, which is physics based. The feeling didn't tell our ancestors what temperature was, only that we should avoid things that were too cold or hot for us, and that certain things happened when it was hot (fire starting) or cold enough (water freezing). But they didn't know why.

The skeptics thought we couldn't know, but the stoic retort, "I'm horsed", shows why it is possible to know. — Marchesk

My contention is directed at:

This is why the subjective-objective divide exists, whatever conclusions we draw from such a division. — Marchesk

So my feeling and your feeling and the thermometer reading all exist. But calling these entities subjective or objective is a manner of organizing rather than a divide which also exists.

Language does not make us feel cold or hot. Language does not give us an explanation of what the thermometer means.

But calling our feelings subjective and the thermometer reading objective is just a manner of speaking about things which exist, rather than something which exists.

This is why the subjective-objective divide exists, whatever conclusions we draw from such a division. I feel cold, you feel warm, but the thermometer says it's the same temperature. This eventually leads to a scientific understanding of temperature as the amount of energy the particles in a volume of space have. Cold and hot are only relative to absolute zero and minimum entropy, which is far beyond the range at which we can experience temperature. — Marchesk

This is the paragraph where I begin to lose the plot.

I gather that the first line of the quoted paragraph is the conclusion you are arguing for. Am I reading you right here?

If so, then I'd have to say that everything that precedes your conclusion does not imply your conclusion. Maybe I'm being a bit pernickety in my reading but I don't think I'd go so far as to say the subjective-objective divide exists.

We can have a means (a method?) for dividing perceiver-dependent qualities from object-dependent ones. So we have a thermometer, as in your example, which reads the object-dependent quality whereas you or I may say the water is cold or warm depending on whether we came from a hot or cold room prior, which we would say is the perceiver-dependent quality. In one case we call those qualities which we use an instrument that reads the same for ourselves the object-dependent qualities, and in the other case we just state how we feel to designate the perceiver-dependent qualities.

I can go along with this kind of category. But I don't know how that leads to a belief in some kind of divide which exists. That strikes me as a hypostatization.

I'd just say that it's a way of talking with one another, rather than something which exists.

It may seem off, but I have a question for you and I believe it relates to your topic "on the next step" so to speak.

To what extent do you group rationality, scientific activity, and reason? Is the venn diagram of these three akin to an "O"?

I ask because I'd like to posit that reason -- our ability to think -- differs from rationality -- social norms for collective thinking -- differs from science -- the present way we do things in universities, labs, and industry.

In which case we should be able to provide a reasonable account -- at least in principle -- of rationality or science, though it would by these definitions count as unscientific.

Of course I would agree with you that there is more to the story than reason when it comes to how we do things. But I guess I'm asking is the more even state-able, on your view?

I probably haven't said much, no. :D Only attempted to answer your question. We can have new rituals by doing something new, and that doing is both re-occurring, and brings us (or perhaps just oneself) closer to what we/I/you find meaningful -- because it is easy to forget what is meaningful in the day-to-day. Rituals bring us out of our daily rhythm and back to what we find meaningful. At least in an ideal sense, since clearly rituals can also become just another thing on the checklist of life's duties -- but then it isn't exactly meaningful anymore.


I believe I agree with you in saying that reasons and causes are inadequate to our lives -- and I'd at least agree that the unreasonable is commonplace.

I read the article. It's a cool story -- I sort of wonder about that moment things clicked for him. Everything had a reason at one point, before, and then as he tried to "Fake it" he became it. Or, at least, he let go of his reasons and waited to see what would happen after he passed the test.

Isn't it a bit like acting in a play? We are given a script in a play that's different from our lives, and so an opportunity to try a different role on. In that transition we might come to recognize that what we were living was more of a script than we had realized.

I'd say that new rituals arise just by doing them -- at least that's what I was trying to get at. It's as simple as finding meaning in the world and doing something to bring oneself closer to it.

How, for fucks sake, can a ritual be new? — unenlightened

It seems to me that a ritual, while often reliant upon tradition, need not be motivated by tradition -- how else did our rituals come about in the first place, after all?

But rituals are re-occurring. So when Christmas comes about perhaps we do not give gifts this time around. Instead we get together and sing songs -- because the whole gift-giving thing become a monster on its own, and took away from the meaning of Christmas, where being merry together seemed to bring is back to what we were after in celebrating in the first place.

Obviously there's nothing new in that, but it gets at how rituals are re-occuring -- Holiday on such and such a day has such and such a meaning, we get together and do something every year to enact, remember, or get closer to that meaning; to feel the meaning.

Holidays in general are sort of like this, I think. There is some significant thing in our life that we are easily drawn away from in the day-to-day, and so we commemorate it with a holiday where we go out of our way to remember or enact that important thing, and we make a ritual of it.


So perhaps a ritual can be new insofar that it has some established re-occurring activity we do together -- and it's just a matter of starting it and making it a re-occurring thing rather than going back to a tradition. Maybe it doesn't need to be a holiday, or a day on the calendar set aside for the year. Perhaps it could just be a morning ritual. And I don't think that pouring a bowl of raisin bran every morning would quite count all by itself -- it would have to have some kind of meaning attached to it as well. Like a morning cup of coffee to take in the simple pleasures of life, or a prayer at night to feel grateful.

Yes, in a sense. But not just coping like it's a cure.

I think I've mentioned this analogy before, but think of diabetes. There is no cure for diabetes. There are strategies for living with diabetes. Now if a cure comes along of course we'd be interested in taking it. But there is an undue amount of stress you can put yourself through by thinking that you'll be cured in your lifetime and once that cure finally comes through then I can get on with the process of living.

There are just some conditions that do not have a cure. And depression might be such a condition for yourself, as it is for myself. In which case all you can do is identify the symptoms, recognize them for what they are, and wait for them to lessen (or not, if they do not) while you go on living. It's just another thing to recognize as outside of your (direct) control.

Well I think I've mentioned that I've been diagnosed with depression before. And those sorts of thoughts are just a part of my life. They come in waves -- with crescendo's and valleys. It's just a part of the ride.

For myself at least nothing really helped me out of a bad spot. But medication and therapy helped me get through a bad spot. I never felt better really when things were wrong, but such effects made the affect feel less bad -- as if I could get to the next day.

I think that usually, for most folk, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. It's unfair that you have to go through that tunnel, but hey life was never fair. It's an odd waiting game where everything you can do is more indirect rather than direct -- it's not about feeling good now, it's about coping with a disconnection from your emotions now however you can do so.

And it's not the sort of thing that is cured in the sense of *erased* -- it's much more like a torn tendon. It goes away, and you learn to even run again, but you always feel it a little after the fact when the weather is awry.

EDIT: I guess in a way I mean you don't really combat them, you live with them. And through living with them they become less influential -- "combat" indicates something far too direct for something that actually works. It's a bit counter-intuitive, but seems to work for me.

Philosophically it sounds like you're asking after the nature of identity.

But I think your underlying question is: should I continue to see this man in a romantic way?

And for that question I wish to emphasize that only you can answer that question in the end. I know that you know that, but it's worth stating because these things are so very confusing.

Maybe it works out. Try it. Why not? You're only a few dates in. At the worst he shows himself a fraud and all his promises to drink less will show themselves easily enough after a month or two.

And if he changes then you'll know that by the fact that he follows your advice. If he doesn't -- and this is important to you of course -- you're in a different situation. Regardless of the question about personal identity you may decide, though it is painful right now, to move on.

Yeh. That's cool with me at this point. I've been a bit MIA mostly because of a move and a new job.

Sure, I'd agree with that.

But I suspect the devil is in the details.

Tying this all back to intuitinism -- it seems to me that there is an "aha!" moment when we read philosophy. It's like when we are able to see both the duck and the rabbit, just to lead this back to hinge propositions. I couldn't give a straightforward answer to your question, @Banno because I just felt too ignorant to be able to affirm or deny your question, but I can see a certain amount of sense to it from my perspective which is broader, far away, and not as intimately connected to the details.

But I believe that good philosophy is like that @Terrapin Station. We can see how the hinge can be flipped, and we might have reasons why we believe it should be this way or that way -- but in the end there is no method for determining which one of us is correct. The best we can do is provide our reasons for why we are satisfied this way or that way, and at least check for things like consistency or undesirable consequences. But in the end every theory can "bite the bullet", so to speak.

Also, with philosophy the theories we're exploring are usually so totalizing that it can be hard to un-see what we're used to seeing. You see this a lot in ethics especially, where one normative theory re-interprets another normative theory into its own frame -- "Well, that's just basically a form of deontology/virtue ethics/consequentialism because...." -- but if we are sensitive to this totalizing habit then we can begin to sense how there are hinges beneath our big-picture views, and that there are differences that are subtle, but important.

I think I see our disagreement in that light @Terrapin Station -- though by all means we can of course continue to try to provide reasons which will allow us to refine our views and state them more carefully (which I think is a good benefit, even if we don't agree in the end)

I'm just skimming this paper you linked, but I'd encourage you to look at it again with a different idea in mind tham relativism.

I ran a quick search on your Canadian paper and the combination "social construct" does not appear in that paper.

The Canadian paper seems concerned with integrating indigenous knowledge into the wider scientific curriculum, focusing on Saskatchewan in particular as an example of what this looks like in practice. The problem is that the social stuff is getting in the way of teaching the science stuff.

Objectively speaking this isn't about social construction at all, but how to help students to learn. They note that there is a general problem with scientific pedagogy in that it alienates the student from the subject matter, and that this alienation is more pronounced in the cases where the social world has experienced European colonization.

They state:

A cross-cultural science curriculum promotes the decolonization of school science.
Indigenous students learn to master and utilize Eurocentric science and technology without, in
the process, sacrificing their own cultural ways of knowing nature

So, really, this is mostly about getting students to learn given the real obstacles teachers face, and very little about the social construction of science or something like that.

I agree with the part about Wittgenstein -- he is kind of an ubermensch of philosophical value. Reading him, for myself, was like changing my thinking against my own will. That's a pretty good example of tablet-breaking.

The part that had me thinking from you was your last sentence. I'm not at all certain about ethical progress -- though the good, the beautiful, and the true do seem to have a certain familiarity with one another when it comes to meta- issues.

I don't know.

I tend to see philosophy as not having correct answers -- but there are good answers and bad answers.

Heh. I made no such assertion about popularity.

And I do not expect you to agree with me. This is, after all, philosophy. However I think we can both see that we're at the point where we basically believe or do not believe a proposition, and we're kind of at the part where we're just asserting our belief -- we have tried to show the other what we mean, but failed.

I suppose that seems false to me because of the two reasons I've tried to convey.

There are extreme cases. So Chuck Berry and Beethoven -- that's a hard case to judge. They are good in their own ways, and which we prefer listening to is likely a matter of preference. But Beethoven compared to the garage band next door? They are just beginning. They haven't learned much about music. They are mostly playing covers, and they aren't able to play together in unison - they are often playing different beats and aren't listening to one another.

Just to keep the analogy cleaner -- comparing them to the New York Philharmonic to the garage band next door, the New York Philharmonic is better.

And then there are middling cases for which it makes sense to differentiate between what I like and what is good. In one case I know I just like it. In another I can provide reasons why you should like it too. Kant makes a similar distinction when talking about aesthetic judgment -- that though there is no fact to the matter we hold aesthetic judgments as if others should conform to our judgment.

It's the reasoning part that differentiates matters of aesthetics from mere liking -- for you can reason to the ends of the earth and I will like or dislike something just because I like or dislike something. There is no reason to it. But something is good because of such and such reasons which have to do with comparison between artworks, context, history, the elements of art, and the principles of art.

Then you have the capability of choosing which is better. To me that is enough. Of course you have a preference for this or that. Preferences play a role in evaluating what is better or worse. But it's also not quite right to say that they are the same as mere opinion either -- we have elements of an art and principles by which said art is made, a history to draw from, and -- importantly -- reasons we can provide to others as to why this is better or worse than something.

With matters of preference there isn't anything more to judging something other than whether or not it pleases you. But with matters of aesthetics there is -- we provide reasons for others to consider in making their own judgment about whether such and such is good or bad.

Which is why I was trying to drive the point home with Star Wars. There is a difference between my saying "I like Star Wars" and my saying "Star Wars is a good movie" -- and I'd say that the primary difference is in whether we can reason about something. It wouldn't make sense to debate whether I like something. But it does make sense to debate whether this movie is better than that one -- we have this, that, and the other reason.

That our preferences influence our judgments doesn't matter and is obvious. What matters is that these two things are not the same sort of judgment.