In a parallel universe where Cartesian skepticism was never developed, someone who turns up here writing: "I have a proof that knowledge is impossible, what if there is a demon tricking all our intuitions and knowledge and all we know is the demon's machinations? How can we truly know anything now? The only answer is God.' would have their thread scoured from the forum almost as quickly as an objectivist Holocaust denier. — fdrake

I'd say that the same would happen in the universe we actually inhabit.

If memory serves, actually, that did happen with several supposed radical skeptics on this forum :D. (or perhaps the last iteration?)

Allowing the skeptic their innocent imaginings is already giving them enough rope to hang you. We do have knowledge; so the skeptic is wrong in any case. — fdrake

That the skeptic is wrong isn't the interesting part of the thought experiment, I'd say. Aren't many philosophers wrong, after all? But they can still be of philosophical interest to read. Here what's interesting is why the radical skeptic is wrong -- where is the error? -- and also, supposing these conditions of skepticism, is there some way to persuade the skeptic?

It's probably true that what makes demon-like scenarios so enduring is that they play on the intuition that doubt is set against knowledge. They also invite their reader to imagine knowledge devoid of the contexts it arises in, so it's not surprising knowledge seems unattainable in this light: the deck is stacked.

I don't disagree with this. As I said to Marchsk, I think that looking at the meaning of knowledge is what's fruitful. And the fact that the skeptical scenario plays off of intuitions is also what's fruitful -- because those commonly held intuitions are fallible and often mistaken.

But it's also true that dealing with the skeptic is something every student taking an introductory epistemology module, or someone with an interest in philosophy reading an introductory text, will be acquainted with. At least Cartesian skepticism. Without that context, it's madness to believe it; and deferred madness - to the hypothetical everyman 'the skeptic'- to give it much weigh

Do you think Descartes was mad?

I don't think entertaining doubt, even of the radical sort, is madness -- whether it be a Great Philosopher, or someone before Descartes who had similar thoughts.

You may not find skeptical doubts persuasive, but that doesn't seem enough to make a charge of madness against said doubt. Especially as Descartes lays out his arguments -- obviously there was no tradition of Descartes prior to Descartes, but madness isn't what I'd say is where his thinking comes from.

Sure. The radical skeptic at least. It's more or less a thought experiment. It seems to me that you believe that undermines the thought experiment, though. I don't know why you'd think that. I don't think the thought experiment lies on the authority of tradition. I think it actually makes headway because it plays on common intuitions.



Also, I'm not sure no one entertains the idea. Descartes entertained such doubts, at least, even if it was justified as methodical rather than actual.

The reason metals don't do that is because of the unique chemistry of carbon at the temperature-pressures found on Earth differs significantly from the chemistry of metals. The way carbon bonds to itself (and other elements) allows the millions of unique molecules which no other element has the capacity to form.

So the skeptic claims that we can't know about the external world because it's possible to doubt it? — Marchesk

More or less. Obviously there's more than one way to put the skeptical challenge -- and there are more types of skepticism than radical skepticism of the sort associated with Descartes -- but that's the gist of the argument

That's a really high standard for knowledge. — Marchesk

I think that's the best way of going about addressing the skeptic, personally. The fault lies in what counts as knowledge, and secondarily how the skeptic divides between how we evaluate internal vs. external worlds.

But even adopting the (rather commonplace, if often criticized) distinction between internal and external, if we examine what counts as knowledge and rework our thoughts on what counts as knowledge, then we undermine the skeptic.

Usually, in the process, though, we also have a weaker form of knowledge. (not that I have a problem with that, but it's a worthwhile realization I came to while thinking through the skeptical problem)

Plausible? No. That's why I said there's not much of a difference.

It's more an issue of palate than reason. The skeptical challenge remains the same in both scenarios.

it seems to me that it's more consistent with the skeptical position, though. If the skeptic claimed the world we experience is the result of an evil scientist who has put our brain in a vat, then that would sort of belie the whole skeptical position -- that we do not have knowledge of the world.

It's the possibility of radical error which gives reason for doubt, and based on that doubt out goes knowledge of the external world. (at least, so goes a way of putting the argument)

The skeptical scenario isn't proposed as something that should be believed, though. There's not much of a difference between the BiV and the demon -- the BiV was just meant to be a modern update to the demon, so that it came across as more plausible. It's just supposed to be a defeater to particular claims of knowledge, usually of the external world.

In reality? No. I'm not a skeptic at all. :D At least not a radical skeptic.

Merely pointing out that were we a BiV, then we could have fabricated memories implanted. It could even be algorithmic -- anytime someone squares a circle, then erase said memory and replace it with the impression that they proved that Pi is transcendental.

I agree with you @fdrake, but there is something about the BiV scenario that weasels out of your proof -- the evil scientist can also edit memories. So we may have memories of transcendental numbers, when in fact we have already squared circles, but those memories are erased as soon as we do so.

"Find" doesn't make sense in the world you posit. Meaning must rather be created. But the meaning we can create isn't proportional to, and doesn't fit, what the desires of the heart demand. — Thorongil

I would say that humanity has the queer ability to contort its own soul to desire more than what can be found -- or created. (I don't see too much of a difference between the two, but I am an atheist, so I probably wouldn't either)

But that humanity can turn its soul against itself doesn't mean that humanity must do so. Disentangling human desire from the various butchers of the soul that the world has on offer is a process, by all means, and one which isn't the easiest to do. But we can learn to live within our means -- and our means provide a world without intrinsic meaning, yet we can live happily all the same if we choose to let go of foolish desires.

For me, at least, I find The Myth of Sisyphus resonating and persuasive. I can't speak to Nausea specifically, since I haven't read that one -- but Camus is definitely an author that I think takes on the problem of nihilism head on, and overcomes it in a way that's also persuasive.

The method I am accepting is quite straight forward. When I look at the piece of paper its existence is something of which I am immediately aware. It is there right before me in conscious view. When this is so, I have reliably established that the paper exists. I am tempted by the thought that this is more than reliability, and more like certainty, but I feel like that might be problematic and so I hesitate. Let's just say that when the paper is right before my conscious view, it is more likely than not that the paper exists. — PossibleAaran

But is immediacy really important for determining the existence of things reliably?

Perhaps for you it is... still, it seems to me that doubting the existence of the paper I put in my desk vs. the paper I have in my hand isn't really much different. That is, the likelihood of one isn't more likely than the other. The paper in my hand could very well be a dream paper, after all, which doesn't exist. But it can seem very real. The possibility of error -- the probability -- is close enough to the same (I'm not sure how we could even come up with an actual number here, but just by judgment on my part) that there isn't a difference.

If it is certainty though, wouldn't the persistence of objects without perception be just as certain too? Depends on how you go about thinking of certainty, of course. But if certainty differs from probability, at least, as it would seem to when you're making a distinction, what kind of certainty would actually make the existence of the perceived any more certain that the existence of objects after they have been perceived?

Actually, there may be something - not in all objects of nature, but specifically in biological organisms - that exhibits such a teleological structure. It is hard not to notice how naturally we think in terms of functions when we think about organisms, both from the perspective of their present-day structure and behavior and from the perspective of their evolutionary development. Indeed, this has been noted both by theoretical biologists and by philosophers (Ruth Millikan being particularly notable among the latter). I refer you to this short SEP article: Teleological Notions in Biology. — SophistiCat

I've actually read that stub before :D. It was awhile ago, so maybe it's changed. But I'm aware that teleological explanation plays a role in biology, though not from the perspective of a person who has put in the work -- merely in passing.

It's an interesting fact, but I think we're on the same page when it comes to whether or not teleological explanation denotes intelligent design. Yes?

Yes. The lesson from the failure of various attempts to come up with a set of narrow criteria that define design - criteria that apply just to the product of design (complexity and such) - is that design properties must be broad: they must encompass not just the thing that is designed but, essentially, the designer as well. — SophistiCat

You should worry more about too many apostrophes ;) — SophistiCat

:D

While it's true that there are a large number of examples in both camps, what makes the argument to intelligent design so strong is that we know based on what we've observed, that we only get artifacts that display the properties of premise one in this way. — Sam26

I think this is an example of one mans modus ponens being another man's modus tollens. Or, rather, it's still just a matter of how we count what is designed and what isn't.

I don't understand? How is it that a cat doesn't have parts, e.g., legs, heart, lung, liver, etc. that work together to achieve higher order functions than any single part alone, and the same can be shown with the tree. — Sam26

Well, I admitted that in some sense I could see how the parts make a whole, and without them the cat wouldn't reproduce. My issue was more that I don't think this is enough for me to conclude that the cat is intelligently designed. It seems to me that the cat doesn't fulfill a purpose which some intelligent being had a desire for. The watch, on the other hand, is exactly like that. In our society we desire to keep accurate accounts of the passage of time, and so we built a watch. In our society we desire to have a place to sit, and so we built a chair. We fashioned the world around us in various ways to fulfill our desires.

In some sense this could be applied to trees and cats and crops and cows -- but here the intelligent designer is human, who applies pressures to these living systems through simple breeding. No more than that.

But the origin of speciation can be understood in terms of simple physical forces acting on living systems. This doesn't rule out some other designer by necessity, but it does make me want evidence of, say, a designer of nature as a whole who set things in motion to create things just as they are. Something akin to our own watches and chairs -- where I understand these are products of thinking beings who want to fulfill their desires, and who thereby create objects with that purpose in mind.

I don't see what the beings of nature do, like that, which our watches and chairs do. And where our watches and chairs have clear designers and builders, I don't see that so clearly in the case of animals and plants.

I don't think nihilism is the end result of having no reason why objects are. I find existential philosophers arguments to be compelling -- even in a nihilistic universe, an absurd world, we still can find meaning in life. Even if some objective purpose is not knowable, we still can live a life of joy. Even if it were knowable, and there was a purpose, but we were to find it reprehensible we can live well.

No, it cannot. At least in not some kind of self-help way. Consider having a broken leg. In a distant sense, philosophy can help medical practitioners thinking through the problems people have. But if you have a broken leg you don't turn to Plato -- you see a doctor who knows a thing or two about broken legs and how to help them mend.

Not every doctor is a patient's best friend. Just because they know a thing or two that does not then mean they know everything, or know the best course in your specific case. But seeking out knowledge from those who have a better inkling than you do on how to get on the mend is better than picking up a book by a philosopher, whose interests are likely quite divergent from your more immediate need to be helped.

Well, in a loose sense, he's making generalizations from observations, and so he is an empiricist.

His arguments regarding causality are sort of different from whether or not he counts as an empiricist. And he builds to them in the first section of A Treatise of Human Nature -- it's not as if he opens with "all inductive inference is invalid!" (or, really, that he concludes that, either). He comes to some queer (to common sense thinking, something he even acknowledges) conclusions, but they are worth reading if you're interested.

Yeah, it was Dembski's arguments, in particular, that had be starting off with talking about complexity. But I'm willing to see where the thoughts go. It'd be nice to hear something that's not part of the usual offerings.

@PossibleAaran -- I suppose I'd first ask, what is it about perceiving the paper that makes you believe you know, in the same sense that you're asking about knowing how the unperceived paper exists, that the perceived paper exists?

Clearly if you believe that then there's some kind of method you're already accepting as a path to knowledge of what exists. What constitutes that method?

Sure. I allowed for that possibility. I didn't explicitly say that the premise had to be denied, but that's what I meant by "skipping over or written off as a pseudo-problem"

Hrmm, that's not how I understand it at all. Substance or property dualism would be an explanation for the hard problem, not a problem for the hard problem.

I'd say the hard problem is posited on the basis that consciousness exists, 1, and the standard physicalisms are unable to account for the fact. By standard I just mean the one's you list -- behavior, identity, functional, or eliminative.

There are people who lay claim to non-reductive physicalism, but I don't think the metaphysical stance is quite as clear as the other four. It's usually kind of idiosyncratic and unworked out -- sort of like saying, hey, consciousness exists, and it is physical, because. . . it's convenient that way? That is, the "because..." doesn't seem to work out what physicalism means like the other four have.

I think that were a materialist to say that then they'd be sort of skipping over the hard problem, or perhaps have written it off as a pseudo-problem. If one were to take the hard problem seriously then, to be a materialist, one would have to deny that there is such a thing as consciousness (as defined by the hard problem, at least) -- since even functionalism is adeqaute enough to account for mental processes and the effects of a nervous system on a body, but doesn't say much about consciousness.


I think the OP's article conflates consciousness with awareness as it related to perception, at least with respect to the discussion of the hard problem of consciousness. The feely-ness of the world differs from the amount of concentration a learning system needs to learn, or whether or not they are aware of a perception or if that perception is subliminal.


Sorry if that's off topic. I reflexively read "consciousness" in terms of the hard problem.

So I think my main objection is with premise 2. But I hope to say a little bit about why I think disagreement on ID is strongly divided first by responding to this part of your post:

This is an inductive argument, not a deductive argument. The conclusion is not necessarily the case, but follows from the premises with a high degree of probability, based on the number of examples in nature, and comparing them with what we know about intelligently designed human productions. — Sam26

I think I was asking after evidence not to say you were committing a fallacy, but rather because I think the question of how we count examples is precisely why disagreement is often difficult to discuss. Once one counts living items of nature as designed then there really are an incredibly large number of examples that seems to confirm the inference. Likewise, once one counts living items of nature as not-designed, the products of physical forces and nothing more, there are an incredibly large number of examples that confirms the inference. So, in both camps, it's easy to look at the other camp as irrational or dogmatic or confused, or any many other possible psychological explanations which are far from flattering (and certainly miss the point anyways)

In a lot of ways, if I am correct at least, it all comes down to how we count -- meaning, how do we include or exclude some entity from the set of designed entities.

(2) Objects of nature have a structure where the parts are so arranged that the whole can achieve or be used to achieve activities of a higher order than any part alone (e.g., a cat). — Sam26

I'd contend that objects of nature, like a tree or a cat, do not have a structure where the parts are so arranged that the whole can achieve or be used to achieve a higher order than the parts alone. Or, really to put it better and keep our positions linguistically distinct, I think I'd add more to this definition of intelligent design than what you've laid out here.

What does a watch achieve that the parts couldn't? It tells time. At least, it helps us to keep track of the passage of time within the manner that we, as a culture, keeps track of the passage of time better than we can do all on our own. In some sense technology, to put it more generally, is an extension of our desires, and we so happen to live in a culture where it is desirable to be able to keep precise track of the time (even if, in some sense, we may find this desire undesirable). If one part of the watch is removed then it will not fulfill this purpose.

I'd set forth that what a designed entity does is fulfill some purpose that, in this case, an intelligent being wants to be fulfilled (hence why I'm bringing up desire before, but here I'm introducing purpose as well).

Now, higher order I suppose I could see. Sure, if the bits of a tree are separated then the tree will not reproduce. If the bits of a cat are separated then the cat will not reproduce. Separated enough and neither would even be a cat or a tree at all, not even the leftover remains of one, but simply atoms or quarks or whatever it is we want to conceptually break things down to. The whole of the cat or the tree is something over and above its parts, by way of the pattern and arrangement of these very small parts.

But I don't think I'd say that this is enough to say that something is designed. That the parts do more arranged in a certain way doesn't mean that a designer was involved, from my perspective. It seems to me that we need some notion of, first, a being who wants, and second, a purpose which fulfills that want. (I'm always using too many comma's...) -- the aspect of design I *think* we're pretty much on the same page on is in the general sense of the word. I think it's just the specifics, between higher and lower order or purpose, that seems to be how we might see things differently (and therefore count things differently)

Now I don't expect a believer of intelligent design to have to produce evidence of said being. But having a being involved is important to me because I could certainly be swayed in my opinion were such evidence presented -- some being who said, hey! here I am. Look at my records, looks at my plans, this is what I did and see what you see before you? That's what I designed.

That is, I may just be more skeptical than yourself, and desire more evidence that there was some being involved, rather than dogmatically so. I can see how another person may not need such evidence, and think that certain entities of nature are very much like our watches, but I'd hope that someone could see why I'd want more to go off of as well.

That being said, since I think it can be mostly lain to the side (these past two paragraphs I'm just addressing the charge of dogmatism more than the actual debate), I think our disagreement lays primarily with notions of higher order vs. purpose.

Do you see it that way?

Does intelligent design negate evolution, absolutely not.

Cool. I'd say you'd be climbing an uphill battle if you thought intelligent design lay in opposition to evolution. Now, stateside, that is normally how intelligent design is presented -- as a theory which should be taught in opposition to evolutionary theory, as if it holds better or equal scientific credibility to evolution.

So perhaps that is also where some of the push back you've mentioned comes from. You mean something different from a politically contentious term, but use the same term.

But if your notion of intelligent design doesn't conflict with evolution, then that's cool. We'll see where this goes.

Cool. The tree example was meant to get at the whole nature/artifice distinction as well. This is nice and straightforward. I'll have to think a bit before replying, but I'm glad to see your reply.

I didn't ask a question, only answered yours. But I'll try to posit a direct question here to keep the ball rolling.

It seems to me that what needs better elucidation between ourselves is the distinction between artifice and what is not designed (for lack of a better word).

You give the eddies in the sand or the rocks in the desert as not designed.

I give the tree as not designed, but the chair as designed.

I agree with your examples. Do you agree with mine?

Also, I'd like to hear more about what you mean by higher or lower order. Does higher or lower order mean the same thing as complexity? This was what my example between the tree and the chair was meant to explore.

The chair is an artefact, so obviously it is designed, as that is the meaning of 'artefact'. — Wayfarer

Granted I am risking going into tautological territory. I'm hoping that by reference to particulars, like a chair, the gist comes across without merely being some convenient definition for my purposes, though.

Mostly I'm trying to highlight that artifacts are made from something more basic, and they need not be more complex than what they are made of (though "complex" may not be the same as being higher or lower order -- I'll wait to see what @Sam26 says)

(((edited for clarity -- fewer pronouns and whatnot)))

I don't find that a difficult question. Look at the shape of the sand in the dessert caused by eddies, or the random placement of rocks on the ground. There are too many examples to list. — Sam26

Cool. Examples are nice. In some sense if one believes in an intelligent designer to the universe it would seem to me that even the eddies in the sand could be thought of as intelligently designed. But having examples to draw from helps in making a clear distinction between the two.

On the other hand, if those who don't believe in intelligent design aren't committing the fallacy of the self-sealing argument, answer the following: What would count as evidence of intelligent design? When we say that something is intelligently designed what does that mean other than, a structure having parts so arranged that the whole can accomplish or be used to accomplish activities of a higher order. Isn't this the hallmark of any intelligently designed object. Is there anything that you know of that has been intelligently designed that doesn't fit this description, assuming someone isn't aiming at randomness?

It seems to me that in order for something to be intelligently designed I'd just go to what the words seem to mean in a plain way, at least at first: someone intelligent built something from a design. So we have a tree, which is not intelligently designed, and then we have a chair, which is.

It's not the complexity so much, as a chair is rather simple, but that an entity bears the hallmarks of artifice. (and, it's worth noting, that artifice works on something to make something else -- it doesn't create the beginning, so to speak)

Is it a higher order? I'm not so sure about that. The tree seems more complicated to me than the chair, for instance. But the chair is certainly a product of intelligent design.

How could these quarks assemble and organize without some sort of outside guidance? A computer could never have been created - never mind programmed - without some sort of intelligent designer. — CasKev

Seems interesting to me that you don't use life, but physical reality, as the gawking point.

I think the sense of awe one feels when looking at the complexity of the world is what the argument for an intelligent designer mostly leans on, rhetorically speaking. It's why people find it persuasive.

But if there were some other answer as to why the universe is complicated, what then? Perhaps the universe is complicated because it has many entities with a myriad of properties and relations between said entities, properties, and relations. Perhaps it's just very large in relation to our cognitive capacities. Larger than what our feeble minds are able to comprehend, at least independently (as, even assuming science explains it all, that only happened through collective intergenerational effort that continues to go on to this day)

I think that the argument for an intelligent designer is nothing more than analogical reasoning supported by gawking at the intricate nature of things. I would ask, though, for believers in an intelligent designer: What does something which is not designed look like?

It seems to me that without some sort of basis of comparison between the two that no fair judgment can be made, and we are simply left with how compelling we feel awe at intricacy and complexity is. Which, in my round-about way, is what I'm trying to get at -- the argument needs more than merely listing things which the speaker finds too complicated to believe would form of themselves, since clearly there are those who find that notion just as plausible.

What counts as evidence in the conversation, either way?

Anti-depressants might help one cope, but they are not a cure. The idea that antidepressants will cure depression is probably a dead end. — Bitter Crank

Eh. While I agree there's more to curing depression than anti-depressants, I don't think this is right either. Anti-depressants work for some people. How do we know? We can ask them, and they say so.

I don't think there is a Cure to depression, but cures. Descriptions of depression vary widely from person to person. They're grouped thematically, but we don't understand the mechanism of depression terribly well -- in part because we don't understand the mind terribly well. I think the safest inference here is to treat "depression" as a term which references a wide range of mechanisms, though symptoms are thematically similar to an observer. If that be true then there simply isn't a Cure, because "depression" references a multiplicity of possible mechanisms at play.

Which is why I'd say the golden standard for evaluating whether a cure is working or not is not double-blind analyses of groups, but rather what a patient says about their condition given x, y, and z.

That's not a bad summation at all.

This is already covered in the OP, which provides sources that heavily discuss and present research on evidence.
Is reading the sources so arduous? — ProgrammingGodJordan

Thus far, throughout the discussion, I have not detected any novel information.
Please recall that I am busy working on:
My book: "Artificial Neural Network for kids".
My model: The "Supersymmetric Artificial Neural Network".
Thus, I shall underline a summary below, until I return in roughly 12 hours. — ProgrammingGodJordan

And we mere students were simply waiting by the pond for the master to appear from his work to enlighten us, and help us over the great hurdle of observing your statements steeped in non-belief via your guiding touch.

If A then A
A
therefore...

That doesn't answer my question. I quite agree with the idea that people hold onto beliefs in spite of evidence. I think it is well demonstrated. I agree that people can accept beliefs without sufficient evidence and also retain beliefs longer than would be the case had they sought out diagnostic information, and that people have a tendency to not question proto-beliefs.

But I asked:

what is this "paying attention" and "observation" such that it is not belief? Even given the basic definition above (which is surely more science-friendly than fixating on a single dictionary definition, and given that you like science should be something you'd pay attention to) -- how in the world do you pay attention or observe without representational content and assumed veracity of your observations? — Moliere

Given that these are the bare-bones necessary features of belief in the paper you cited.

2. By extension, research shows that beliefs typically occur on non-evidence.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25741291 — ProgrammingGodJordan

The paper you're citing defines belief pretty early on, and it doesn't really match how you're defining belief, i.e. by reference to a single definition of a particular dictionary. Here's what they say in the first paragraph on their section titled Defining Belief:

Belief can be defined as the mental acceptance or conviction in the truth or actuality of some idea (Schwitzgebel, 2010). According to many analytic philosophers, a belief is a “propositional attitude”: as a proposition, it has a specific meaning that can be expressed in the form of a sentence; as an attitude, it involves a mental stance on the validity of the proposition (Schwitzgebel, 2010). Beliefs thus involve at least two properties: (i) representational content and (ii) assumed veracity (Stephens and Graham, 2004). It is important to note, however, that beliefs need not be conscious or linguistically articulated. It is likely that the majority of beliefs remain unconscious or outside of immediate awareness, and are of relatively mundane content: for example, that one’s senses reveal an environment that is physically real, that one has ongoing relationships with other people, and that one’s actions in the present can bring about outcomes in the future. Beliefs thus typically describe enduring, unquestioned ontological representations of the world and comprise primary convictions about events, causes, agency, and objects that subjects use and accept as veridical.

Belief so construed would include things like perception, given their example of "that one's senses reveal an environment that is physically real" -- and hence observation and/or evidence.


That was my first cursory glance to the part of the paper that seemed relevant to your point. I didn't read it all. But I don't think that what you're explicitly stating is supported by your citation, and so I have reason to doubt that you've done the reading you're requiring of us all.



All that being said, it seems to me the most charitable interpretation I can give is that you'd rather people pay attention to evidence and observation rather than hold onto any sort of belief which is contradicted by evidence. But then what I'd wonder is -- what is this "paying attention" and "observation" such that it is not belief? Even given the basic definition above (which is surely more science-friendly than fixating on a single dictionary definition, and given that you like science should be something you'd pay attention to) -- how in the world do you pay attention or observe without representational content and assumed veracity of your observations?

Seems an odd start because most defenders of intrinsic value are usually against pleasure. :D Not to say I am one of them....

Though I think it does depend on what you mean by pleasure.

I sort of wonder about the phrase "in and of itself" to be honest. And "desire" too since it's a defining term of said term -- if something is desirable without leading to anything else then isn't that just what pleasure means? To satisfy desire, to find what one is lacking (at least in a usual sense of desire) -- isn't that just tautological to your definition of intrinsic value?

I feel like this statement gets closer to disagreements we've had on incommensurability before. (I'm sorry to Streetlight for going astray of the thread. alas I suppose that's what I do at times)

I have definitely tried to utilize ways of communicating with people who seemed totally other to me. I have mirrored them and even did get "a sense" of their world through such action.

When you describe such activities it makes me wonder how you are such a staunch defender of commensurability to be honest. (bad spelling aside)

I long ago acknowledged how Davidson shewn that incommensurability is not logically defensible in the sense that the very idea of it can lead to contradictory results.

But here it seems -- to use a method by example -- that you would agree with what I thought of incommensurability at least.

I just highlight that because we were so unable to find where our disagreement lay before. Maybe this shines a light?

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/785/785-h/785-h.htm

Perhaps a bit obvious, but worth noting all the same.

I think that's just a matter of names after the fact. How do you answer the questions you pose? I'd say a piece-meal approach to the questions is better than deliberating between options.


Yup, I acknowledged my error.

Cool. My familiarity with Cicero is primarily through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_finibus_bonorum_et_malorum bc. of its polemic of Epicureans of the day. The wiki article mentions that he subscribes to Acadmic philosophy on it, so it seems I'm the one in the wrong on that. I mostly took his opposition to Epicureanism to be a Stoic one bc. they were the competing schools of thought of the day.

So not a strict stoic, I agree. Just one who is sympathetic of stoicism.

A bit of historical pedantry on my part, but I feel it important to note just cuz -- Cicero was a Stoic, and not a Skeptic.