I'm sure you do. Of course, this has nothing to do with being or not being a BIV and everything to do with having a proper grasp of the English language. — StreetlightX

I am not sure I follow. If I am in my apartment then I am not a BIV. So if I have good reason to believe I am in my apartment I can simply deduce that I am not a BIV. Thus, I am not a BIV. The discussion has everything to do with BIVs after all!

PA

I have good reason to believe that I am in my apartment. I look around and I see all of the furniture, the walls, the windows. Out of the window I see the hotel which is across the street from my apartment. I am categorically not in the library, because the library has very different things in it to the things I now see. This is also a good reason to believe I am not a BIV, since being in my apartment entails that I am not a BIV.

I don't know what reason you have to believe that I am in my apartment. Perhaps only the fact that I say that I am.

PA

Silly PossiblyAaran doesn't know lizard people can grow human skin and impersonate us perfectly. — Akanthinos

Oh silly me! That could be so, but the simpler explanation is that the queen is what she looks like she is. A human.

PA

So the problem is that the question is about what isn't the case as opposed to what is the case? If I had raised a question using the positive mood instead of the negative, would that have made the question acceptable? If so, instead of "what reason is there to believe that I am not a BIV?" consider:

What reason is there to believe that I am in my apartment?

Obviously, being in my apartment entails that I am not a BIV, so having a reason for the former also gives me a reason for thinking I am not a BIV.. This question doesn't ask why something isn't the case, so is this question acceptable to you?

If so, does this question not raise all of the same issues as the original BIV question which you tried to dismiss?

I note in passing that I didn't say anything about being an impartial rational inquirer, but I do not see why the mere fact that a thesis is, in your opinion "bullshit" means that it should not be taken seriously, although I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "take seriously".

PA

As a general rule any unmotivated question of the form 'is there any reason to think that such-and-such is not the case' can be readily dismissed out of hand. It is the conspiracy theorist's question: "is there any reason to think the Queen is not a lizard?; "is there any reason to think we are not ruled by aliens?"; these are not questions to be taken seriously. They are questions to be laughed at and ridiculed. — StreetlightX

In a broad logical sense of "can", any question "can" be dismissed, but it doesn't follow that they should be. I take it you didn't mean to make that claim. You compare the question about BIVs to the question "what reason is there to believe that the queen is not a lizard?", and the suggestion is that both questions are ridiculous. Because they are ridiculous, they should not be asked. Is that right?

If so, pursue the issue just slightly below the surface. Why is the question about the queen ridiculous? I am tempted to say that the question about the queen is ridiculous precisely because there is a very obvious and decisive reason for thinking that she is not a lizard. Namely, the queen does not look anything like a lizard normally looks, nor does she walk around on all fours (or slither!) sticking out a forked tongue laying eggs. That is the reason for thinking the queen is not a lizard, and if we did not have this reason, the question about what reason there is to think she is not a lizard would not be ridiculous. If you had absolutely zero information about the queen or about human social institutions, you might well wonder whether this random entity "the queen" is a human being or something different. So if the BIV question is analogous to the queen question, it can only be ridiculous if there are obvious and decisive reasons for thinking that we are not BIVs. In which case, I don't see the point of insisting that the BIV question should not be asked, when you could instead simply provide the answer.

PA

I agree with others that the point you are making is quite insignificant to the point of the discussion.

The OP wants to discuss this question: is there any reason to think that we are not brains in vats, and if not, on what ground can we dismiss that idea? It does not matter to this issue whether you call it a theory, a hypothesis, a thought experiment or whatever. The question still remains whether there is any reason to think that the world is like that.

The fact that Putnam uses the idea as a thought experiment does not matter. We can use the idea for a different purpose. It isn't as though Putnam's use of an idea is God's law, and any other way of using the idea is apostacy. In any case, Putnam too wanted reasons to believe we aren't BIVs. He gives arguments against that idea.

how should we deal, logically, with speculations that are possible, but that come without evidence?

N.B. Brain-in-a-vat is a good example, but it is only an example, and not the topic itself. We are entirely unconcerned here with whether the brain-in-a-vat speculation is true or not. — Pattern-chaser

I found your OP admirably frank. Many people, when asked what logical reason they can give for dismissing the BIV hypothesis, will almost never just say "I don't have any such reason. I just dismiss it". Instead they will engage in all manner of evasions, some of which you pointed out in the dialogue of the OP and some of which other posters have themselves attempted.

I think your question is worth answering directly. As a preliminary venture. Consider:

BIV Hypothesis (BIV): I have lived a normal life on earth for many years. Last week I was, without realizing it, removed from my body. My brain was placed in a vat of chemicals and hooked up to various electrodes which produce in me sensory experiences just like those I would have if I were still in the ordinary world. For example, I have sensory experiences as if I am in my apartment; as if I am in my office; as if I am eating by the lake. But really, I am never in any of the places my sensory experiences show me to be in. I am a brain-in-a-vat, and I have been for a week, but I never noticed it.

Real Life Hypothesis (RL): I am now in my apartment having sensory experiences of my apartment. In general, my sensory experiences as a fairly accurate guide to my present surroundings. I have never been en-vatted.

Consider a single object: a table. I am now looking at the table at an angle from my chair - at least this is what I normally would suppose I am doing. I have certain sensory experiences of the face of the table stretching away from me and of the front edges of two of the legs. As I get up and move around the table the sensory experiences change. The face of the table appears a different shape as I move around it. I have sensory experiences as of the underside of the table, the other sides of the legs, and finally the other two legs that I couldn't see from my chair. According to RL all of these sensory experiences are caused by a single thing. The table. According to BIV what I see is caused by a series of different electrical stimulations which produce a series of hallucinatory images related in just the way that the parts of a table are related. On two counts RL is simpler than BIV here. First, RL posits one cause - the table, and says that the different sensory experiences I have are just what the table looks like from different angles. BIV posits many different things - independent electrical stimulations which lead to a series of hallucinatory images. Second, that all of the hallucinatory images are related perfectly so as to mimic RL is a sheer unexplained coincidence on BIV. The images could have been related any other way, but they are related exactly table-wise and no explanation of this is ever given. On RL, there is no coincidence. The table looks like a table because it is one. RL therefore is a superior explanation.

Of course, this is only to consider a small part of my total sensory experience - my visual experience of a table as I move around it, and to make a few comments about it. More could be said both about that aspect and about other parts of my sensory experience, but perhaps this is enough for now.

To the more general theme of the thread. When two theories are consistent with all of the evidence, choose the best explanation.

PA

I largely agree with you. I'll just quibble a bit and add something else.

It seems to me that possible worlds talk is unnecessary, circular and a source of possible confusion.

First, it is unnecessary. As we can have no epistic access to any world but our own, actual world, anything we can learn, we can learn from the real world — Dfpolis

.

Except for David Lewis and a few others, most philosophers do not think that possible worlds are literally real worlds that they inquire about. They think of possible worlds as more akin to logically consistent stories about how things might be.

Some philosophers think that Philosophy involves making "discoveries" about "possible worlds", which is a dramatic and perhaps even mystical way of saying that philosophers try to uncover necessary truths - propositions the negation of which is contradictory. I do not think philosophers do that either, for the most part. The fundamental issues in Philosophy do not seem to me to be of that kind.

Second, if the purpose of possible worlds talk is to define the meaning of modal statements, it is circular. If a person does not understand modality, they will not understand the meaning of "possible worlds."

I agree, and who actually has difficulty understanding modal statements anyway? Are there people who don't understand statements like "I would have had cereal this morning, but we had none left"?

Third, speaking of worlds as simply "possible" allows one to confuse logical, physical and ontological possibility. If one is thinking of a specific other world as possible, it is not clear that what is imagined to be possible will be self-consistent. For example, the calculations undergirding the fine tuning argument show that even small deviations from the real world may have unexpected and possibly unforeseeable consequences. If one is using possible worlds talk to justify Bayesian subjective probabilities, that can't be done without specifying a density of states for which we can have no objective justification.

I think possible worlds talk is usually intended as talk about logical possibility. I can't remember an article in which that isn't quite clear.

Despite my quibbles, I dislike possible worlds talk as well. Contemporary philosophers like to invent technical language to discuss their ideas. There is nothing wrong with that, if it is necessary. But quite often, philosophers will use technical language where plain language would do, and this has the effect of making philosophy seem incredibly convoluted to those outside of it, and even leads to errors for those within it. I think possible worlds talk is like this.

Thus, possible worlds talk is near the top of the list of philosophical worst practices.

Put it with talk of "analysis" and "intuitions"!

PA

Is empiricism of some kind a way out of the Trilemma? — Uber

I take this to mean "are perceptual experiences reasons for beliefs?". I think the answer is "yes" and that such reasons are neither circular, infinitely regressive or unjustified assumptions. When a piece of paper is in front of my face and my eyes are open, I have a particular perceptual experience and in that experience the paper itself is immediately before my consciousness. This relation between myself and the paper is such that, if I were to ask myself "why believe that there is a piece of paper in front of me?", the answer is right there. What is it that I believe in such a situation? I believe that "there is one of those there" where the italicized phrase refers to the immediate object of my awareness. Such a belief entails the existence of its object, and so there simply is no further question about why I think the belief is true. The very fact that I have the belief entails that it is true.

This is the way in which beliefs about the world around us may escape Agrippa's Trilemma. It is a difficult question, however, whether much more than that can be salvaged.

As you no doubt expect, I disagree with your short assessment of the project Descartes takes up. I also disagree that "everything is based on opinions" if this is to mean that we cannot have any good reason to believe anything. An honest reading of Descartes also shows that he never thought his doubts had to be answered before you can "live your life" and "make decisions". He thought his project was important, but not because somehow life has to be on stand still until you solve it. He says this repeatedly both in the Meditations and in the Discourse, so its so strange to me that people constantly think he was holding all of their day to day lives ransom pending his project of radical doubt. I also don't think its a "stupid issue", but one of the most fundamental issues in philosophy.

So much for my disagreements. Perhaps we can discuss Descartes and his project another time and I can convince you to be more sympathetic to it. But, concerning your views which are the topic of the thread, this view still strikes me as incoherent, and I've tried to show why with argument. Perhaps here is a good stopping point, since we both understand each other yet neither of us is likely to convince.

I don't just think that your position here is odd. I think its incoherent.

Take any proposition, P, which most people believe is objectively true. You say that there are no objective truths, only things its useful to believe. So, the most you will say about P is:

(1) it is useful to believe that P

One wonders again whether it is an objective fact that (1), but you have already shown that you aren't scared to ride the infinite stack of turtles so lets try something else.

Is it objectively true that there are people? You say, no, because there are no objective truths. But if there aren't any people what sense does (1) make? How can it be useful to believe that P if there is nobody for whom it is useful? You might say that its useful to believe that there are people, but how can that be useful unless there are people to whom it is useful?

Utility only makes sense against a background in which there are creatures to whom these things are useful.

Compare me saying that a hammer is useful. I say that its useful, but not for smacking nails or breaking things. It cannot be useful for those things, since there is no objective fact about whether there are any nails or any things to break. The hammer can't even be useful to me [/] because there is no fact about whether I even exist.

I am not sure why you made the comparison to Descartes. Maybe you could elaborate.

I will divide our issues in to three parts: the difference between scientific answers and philosophical answers; whether any philosophy is any better than any other; and whether we need to ask philosophical questions.

Scientific Answers and Philosophical Answers

You continue to press the idea that there is some serious difference between scientific answers and philosophical answers. In my post, I conceded that there is one difference - scientists agree on what methods are appropriate to answer their questions, and they agree on what results would confirm/refute their theories - at least they do this a lot more than philosophers do. Philosophers, by contrast, are always disagreeing about which methods to use, what can be taken for-granted and what can't, what counts as a good argument for what and so on. Most philosophers agree that "logic and argument" are to be used, but these methods radically underdetermine the answers in most cases, far more than in science.

In your recent post, you say that there is more to it than this:

Scientists don't just agree a lot because they are an amenable bunch, and philosophers don't just disagree a lot because they are particularly cantankerous, so why do scientists agree so manifestly more than philosophers do? Unless you are wanting to claim that it is just coincidence, it must be that there is at least something to a scientific answer which compels agreement, and that something is lacking (or at least in very short supply) in philosophical arguments. — Pseudonym

The "something" to a scientific answer is just that the methods of finding the answer have already been agreed on. If everyone agrees on how to go about answering a question and then they go about answering it in that fashion, its completely unsurprising that a lot of agreement is reached. What compels agreement in science is agreement on a broadly characterized method for answering questions and a broad agreement about what sort of thing is allowed to count as an answer. In short, what compels agreement in science is commitment to a paradigm. Philosophers rarely adopt a paradigm as a consensus, and when they do the paradigm is so abstract (and the methods contained are so modest) that it still permits substantial disagreement. What else could the "something" be? Is there something special going on that I've missed?

Is any philosophy better than any other?

Now, what do we mean by 'better or worse' in that context if not some form of widespread agreement among (to borrow Van Inwagen's term "epistemic peers"? A property we have just concluded philosophy lacks remarkably compared to science? — Pseudonym

A philosophy X is better (to some degree) than some other philosophy Y if (a) X contains fewer logical mistakes than Y, (b) X does not contradict scientific theories whilst Y does, (c) X is not contradictory and Y is, (d) X is not self-refuting and Y is, (e) X accomplish whatever aims philosophers had in developing X, whilst Y doesn't.

I'm sure there are other criteria we could come up with. Note crucially that what is meant by "better" here has nothing to do with how many people agree. Even if everyone in the world thought X was absurd and Y was self-evident, X could still be better than Y by meeting these criteria. And again, disagreement over whether these criteria are met does not entail that no philosophy is better than any other - just that it is hard to tell.

On at least one interpretation of Kant's views, many of his theses contradict orthodox views in physics (about space-time) and psychology (about conceptual diversity). - That is philosophy being replaced by science, there is no 'better' philosophy of space-time, there is just the science of space-time. — Pseudonym

No, because it isn't Kant's transcendental Idealism itself that contradicts scientific theories. Its some of his arguments for it. A philosophy obviously is better if it doesn't rely on arguments which use premises that contradict established science. Kant's philosophical system isn't just speculation about space-time. It entails some hypotheses about space-time that are contradicted by science. You can't replace transcendental Idealism with the science of space-time, any more than you can replace an apple with a paint brush.

Russell held (although it isn't clear whether he was right) that direct realism about perception was in contradiction with the science of perception - As above, it is the science of perception that has replaced direct realism, not another philosophy, and if Russell was wrong, it will be that same science that show him to be, not a new philosophy. — Pseudonym

The science of perception can't replace direct Realism (if Russell is right about this), any more than an apple can replace a paint brush. Direct Realism entails certain empirical hypotheses which Russell thought science showed to be false. But you can't just throw away direct Realism and be done with it, because - and Russell saw this too - throw away direct Realism and you are landed with all sorts of difficult questions about how we can know anything at all about the world, and how we could even meaningfully say anything about it - philosophical issues, not scientific ones. The point is that sometimes part of a philosophical system can contradict science. Throwing out that part of the system, however, will cause problems elsewhere. So it is never as simple as science replacing a refuted theory.

Anselm's original Ontological Argument treats existence as a predicate - a logical mistake. But if you take existence to be a predicate As it is possible to do (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/philosophy/article/is-existence-a-predicate/5E5525776149C95CB218AA50463530C7) then his argument can be believed. No-one has been proven 'better or worse' yet. — Pseudonym

Its curious that you would say this, because you think that majority agreement is crucial for a philosophy being better than another. Yet, that existence is not a predicate is something that almost all philosophers agree on. Yes, I see the article you present, but its a minority position. In any case, the majority of philosophers do think that Anselm's argument makes a logical mistake whatever that mistake is. Majority agreement isn't a criterion for being better as I am thinking of it anyway, and this last point is what I would say to your point about Plantinga and Rorty too.

Descartes most famously failed to refute his own evil demon hypothesis, because he resorted (accidentally) to helping himself to premises which he himself earlier banned himself from using (there are several interpretations of Descartes and all are fascinating, but he always slips up somewhere). - Absolutely, but not 'better' philosophy has filled in the blanks he was unable to fill. — Pseudonym

Some philosophers have taken up the project started by Descartes. W.T Stace, H.H Price, Russell, Fumerton, Bonjour, to give some examples. They have all made great advances over the attempts made by Descartes, even if they have not fully succeeded in completing the project he started. So it seems they are better in that respect.

I drop the Russell example, because I don't know enough about it.

I really don't see how it can mean anything other. If rational, intelligent people, in possession of exactly the same arguments nonetheless cannot agree, even close to unanimously, that any of those arguments are 'better' or 'worse', then that's about as close as you're ever going to a fact that none of these arguments are 'better' or 'worse'. It is at least close enough to a fact that an unbiased analysis would hold it to be the case for the time being. — Pseudonym

I think you really underestimate philosophy. Philosophers tend not to agree on "the" answer to their biggest questions. But they quite often agree that a given argument for a position is fallacious or of no dialectical use. They also quite often agree that particular versions of certain philosophical theories are susceptible to serious objections. But what often happens is a series of objections are made to a theory, and then in response defenders refine their theory to avoid the objections. Sometimes a theory gets refuted outright, but only very rarely. The result is that positions get gradually refined and the logical space of positions gets narrowed over time. You cited Chalmers' PhilPapers study earlier. He has a lecture on youtube called "why isn't there more progress in Philosophy", where he makes this point about the gradual refinement of philosophical positions. He is much more persuasive than I am.

The Necessity of Philosophical Questions

Since we are determined beings without free-will sensu stricto, then the question what 'should' we do is the question of how can we most efficiently achieve our desires. — Pseudonym

Isn't Physical Determinism a Philosophical theory? Doesn't it presuppose another Philosophical Theory - Physicalism about the mind? If so, then the claim you make above presupposes philosophical theories, which by your own admission, are not better or worse than any others. You did this earlier on too. You said that there is something special about science as opposed to philosophy, which somehow makes it better at reaching objective answers to its questions. When I replied, I did so relying on a Kuhnian Philosophy of Science. If you disagree you will have to disagree with the Kuhnian Philosophy of Science and put forward some other philosophical idea. When you do that you won't be doing science. You will be doing Philosophy of Science and I can almost guarantee you that you will not be able to do this in such a way as to command majority agreement from all philosophers, or even all members of this forum, or even all members who are reading the thread. Yet, this idea of yours - that there is some serious difference between scientific answers and philosophical answers- is a crucial piece of your position. Without it I'm not even sure what your position would be. But it turns out that the only support you can give for it is the kind of thing you don't like - "an" answer, not "the" answer.

This is a theme which I've noticed by many people who say that Science can answer all questions which can be answered. Assume all of the answers to philosophical questions which are needed to make your position defensible, then claim that science can answer all questions which can be answered and that philosophy can't do anything. I agree that if determinism is true and if Physicalism about the mind is true and if science is special in using a particularly objective method and if any myriad of other philosophical views you need to defend the previously listed ones - if all of those are true then the only questions left to answer are scientific questions. But it is trivial to say that if we help ourselves to all of the answers to the most controversial philosophical questions, then science can do the rest.

I think this is why people have such a bad attitude toward people they associate with Scientism. It typically involves presupposing all of the answers to philosophical questions with one hand whilst dismissing philosophy with the other.

This ties in with 's point that we need to ask philosophical questions. We need to ask them in the sense that we just cannot help it. The biggest and most basic philosophical questions aren't just silly abstract musings that you can just ignore and get on with living. They are questions which shape how you act, how you see other people and how you see the world. They are presupposed in almost everything. Even in trying to get rid of philosophical questions you commit yourself to answers to them. And if you can't help answering these questions anyway, you may as well do so carefully and reflectively, as in Philosophy. It would be nice to get "the" answer, but it isn't the end of the world if we don't get it. Most people interested in the subject are happy if they understand the issues more clearly than before.

No disagreement on my part!

Great discussion. A lot to think about.

When we began I thought you were maintaining that all philosophical questions could be answered by science, but when I gave you some examples of the questions I'm interested in, you agreed that science cannot answer them (with the exception of morality). Then I thought you held the weaker doctrine that any philosophical question which can be answered at all is answerable by science. But your newest post draws a distinction between the answer and an answer. You then hold that philosophy can only give an answer to the questions I'm interested in, whereas science gives the answers to other questions.

What's the difference between "the" answer and "an" answer. I think what you have in mind is that in science there are agreed upon methods of answering questions. The answer which results from using those methods is the truth. Thus, you write:

Science knows when it has an answer. All the while the theory is being tested and cannot be dis-proven, it is the answer — Pseudonym

Add in a touch of modesty, of course:

The moment a test comes along to disprove it, it's no longer the answer. The clever thing about science is it's only ever temporary, it only ever has the answer for the time being. — Pseudonym

Philosophy by contrast, isn't like this. There aren't agreed on methods for answering philosophical questions. All you get are different answers from different perspectives, taking different approaches, even interpreting the questions themselves differently. The Phil Survey shows you that much.

I agree with you, but this isn't Scientism is it? This isn't a controversial doctrine that forum members detest is it? Its just the plain empirical fact that philosophers disagree a lot and scientists don't. What puzzles me is that you seem to think that it follows from this that there is no better or worse in philosophy. Everything is equal:

Kant is not a 'better' philosopher than Hume, they're all just offering something, you either like it or you don't, there's no argument to be had as to why one it more 'right' than the other. — Pseudonym

I disagree. Philosophers can make logical mistakes, their views can be incompatible with scientific findings, they can be in tension with other views of their own, they can be contradictory or self-refuting, a philosopher might have failed to solve a problem even by his own understanding of that problem and by his own standards. In all these ways some philosophy can be better/worse than others.

Some examples. On at least one interpretation of Kant's views, many of his theses contradict orthodox views in physics (about space-time) and psychology (about conceptual diversity). Russell held (although it isn't clear whether he was right) that direct realism about perception was in contradiction with the science of perception. Anselm's original Ontological Argument treats existence as a predicate - a logical mistake, and one of Berkeley's arguments that Esse es Percipi conflates conceiving and perceiving, as well as ontology and epistemology (although I think Berkeley is ingenious in some places!). Many versions of Relativism (I think Richard Rorty's) are contradictory and self-refuting. Plantinga argues that certain versions of Naturalism are self-refuting. Descartes most famously failed to refute his own evil demon hypothesis, because he resorted (accidentally) to helping himself to premises which he himself earlier banned himself from using (there are several interpretations of Descartes and all are fascinating, but he always slips up somewhere). Russell also failed to reduce mathematics to logic, by his own standards and according to his own interpretation of the issue. Of course, philosophers will debate with each other whether any of these mistakes has really been made, but that doesn't mean no philosophy is better than any other; just that it can be hard to tell sometimes.

On to the ethical issue. The Ethical Naturalism which you are talking about in this post is different to the kind which we spoke about previously. I thought you were advocating a doctrine about the meaning of "moral goodness", since that is the view I know of which goes by that label. But in this post you don't defend that doctrine at all. Ethical Naturalism, as you are thinking of it, is a kind of anti-theory in ethics. We all already know what answers to moral dilemmas we want to give, and we all already know how we want to live our lives, so we may as well just use science to figure out the best way of doing it. Looking for an ethical theory is hollow, since philosophers always end up just bending the theories so that they give the results we want. Thus:

This is why I became convinced by ethical naturalism (although I've always been a moral realist) every ethics paper I've read seems to be working backwards, it seems to be 'trying' to find the answer the author knows already is right in whatever ethical system they're applying. — Pseudonym

Its clear that we can use science to determine how best to satisfy our desires and how best to get what we want, even in complex dilemmas. I also agree that many philosophers frustratingly bend ethical theories around their intuitions, so that it doesn't look like there is much difference in those theories, or much point having them. My only complaint is that Ethical Naturalism, I thought, was your example of science answering a philosophical question. The question it was supposed to answer was "how should we live?". But it doesn't answer that question. Sticking only with what can be scientifically established, all that can be said is "these are our wants and desires. These are the most efficient ways of achieving them". That doesn't answer the philosophical question at all. You seem to recognize this here:

Science can't tell us what we 'ought' to be looking for, but that doesn't seem to matter. In my experience we're all looking for roughly the same thing anyway. — Pseudonym

We can add this part about how "we" already know how we want to live and what we desire, but that doesn't answer the philosophical question either. The end of your first sentence is telling - "that doesn't seem to matter". Your view isn't that science can answer the philosophical question. Its that the philosophical question doesn't matter. Whether or not the question matters, the fact is that science doesn't answer it, and so we do not here have an instance of science answering a philosophical question.

In a way I think neither your Ethical Naturalism nor the intuition driven moral theorists you criticize make the same mistake - to wit - the moral theorists start with the answers they want (their intuitions if you like), build a theory out of them and say that we should live according to the theory. You say "forget the theory" and settle for the answers we are already inclined to give. Neither of these things will help a person who has risen to the level of reflection in which they wonder whether the way they are currently living is the right way to live, or whether there even is such a thing as the right way to live.

And no, it's not a matter of fact. It's an understanding I've chosen, that chose me. For me, it is very useful. — T Clark

The distinction you made earlier between facts and useful perspectives has vanished. The "fact of the matter" side has collapsed into the useful perspectives side. Even something like "there are mountains" or " I exist" is just a useful perspective among others. Thinking of things as "facts" itself turns out to be a merely useful perspective. But then your distinction is between things its useful to believe and things its useful to believe. No distinction at all!

I'm not sure if this is really coherent. Isn't it an objective fact that "believing X is useful"? And if something is useful to believe, isn't there an objective fact about who its useful for? And these facts cannot just be more useful beliefs. Well, I suppose they could be, just like the earth could rest on a turtle on a turtle on a turtle on a turtle...etc.

Isn't it objectively true that there are mountains on earth? Isn't it objectively true that you exist? That I exist? Aren't these 'fixed realities'?

In my heart, I don't feel as if there is a fixed reality — T Clark

Do you just find it useful to believe that there is no fixed reality, or is it a fact that there is no fixed reality?

The examples you choose create some difficulties. My goal here is just to understand what your distinction between fact of the matter questions and underpinning questions really amounts to.

The free-will question quite often degenerates into a semantic debate about how to use the word "free-will". I don't read much in that area because of this, so I'll leave this one aside.

The question about absolute morality is one of some interest to me. You call it a question about the 'underpinnings of reason' and you contrast it with questions like "are neutrons made of smaller particles?". There is a fact of the matter about the latter but, you say, not about the former. We just decide whether to think about morality as absolute or not, but there is no truth to be had. I am not sure why you think this. Perhaps it has something to do with what can be "rationally established"? I remember previously you had said that whether or not there is an absolute morality cannot be verified by sense perception. Maybe that is why you think there is no fact about it?

The question about objective reality is serious tangle. When you say that there is a fact of the matter about whether neutrons are made of particles, this claim itself seems to already presuppose that there is an objective reality. After all, what is a 'fact of the matter' if it isn't an objective truth? And so the positive answer, "yes" is something which you presuppose in even stating your distinction. It all depends what you mean by "objective" when you ask your question. What do you mean?

The regress argument is something which analytic philosophers discuss. The argument makes assumptions about the meaning of "knowledge" and "justification". I don't think there is any point to that argument. Its a fiction invented by (some) analytic philosophers which makes it look like scepticism has lots of philosophical assumptions you can just reject.

There is something very similar to to regress argument discussed by Sextus Empiricus and picked up by Descartes. That issue is just this: why should I believe any of the things I do believe? Is there any reason at all -beyond my mere psychological conviction- to think that my beliefs are true? For any belief you have, it can simply be asked "why?", and if you provise an argument for that belief, the premises are equally open to question. Scepticism is the fear that these questions in the end have no answers and suspension of judgement in light of that.

This issue doesn't make the assumptions you mention. It doesn't even invoke the concept of knowledge.

And what is the point of the regress argument? So what if all knowledge at bottom is without support? Therefore what? — Purple Pond

The point of the issue just described is that reason is exposed as resting on faith, at least if there are no answers to all the "why" questions. Every belief turns out to be a sort of bias we have, or a faith we cling to.

Aren't you implicitly excepting the regress argument as true when you interrogate the believer? — Purple Pond

All you are accepting in asking "why" questions is that it is coherent to ask that question and it hasn't already been answered.

Well... I'm talking about your standard type question. Matters of fact. Is the capital of France Bucharest? Are neutrons and protons made up of smaller particles? Did the universe begin with the big bang? — T Clark

So there are questions of this kind and there are questions about "the underpinnings of reason". The questions above are questions about which there is a fact of the matter. Either the capital of France is Bucharest or it isn't. Either neutrons are made of smaller particles or they aren't. The questions about the "underpinnings of reason" aren't factual in this way. We just agree to accept those 'underpinnings' when it is useful to accept them.

Could you give an example of a question about the "underpinnings of reason"? I sense that we have travelled over this before, but please humour me. I think having one specific example of such a question in front of us will be very helpful.

I think you misread my post. I wasn't attacking religious believers at all. I didn't call them dogmatic. I said others call them dogmatic. I used the phrase 'religious folk' not intending anything negative. I just meant religious believers. So there's no log in my eye.

You simply talk about philosophers and their thoughts — Count Radetzky von Radetz

I doubt you have read any of the gospels — Count Radetzky von Radetz

I have read the gospels, and yes I talk about philosophers and their thoughts. I'm on a Philosophy forum.

Although I feel this is the first time Religion has adopted a philosophy that is directly antithetical to its previous practices showing a form of "desperation" in its need to be attractive to the populati — SnowyChainsaw

I don't think its the first time. Aquianas synthesized the ancient Greek Platonic and Aristotelean metaphysics with Christianity and his views became the official doctrine of the Catholic church. In Aquinas' time, almost everything that was distinctively Christian was in tension with the old Greek ways of thinking. Aquinas absorbed those old philosophies creating something more attractive because more inclusive.

Two ways to look at that. One way is to think that Christianity desperately tries to stay relevant by adopting whatever it can to keep people interested as things change. You could put a sunny face on it however, and say that the most influential Christian thinkers have been prepared to make changes to established principles if other schools of philosophy contain valuable insights. That's how I see Aquinas. Many contemporary Christian philosophers do a lot of work synthesizing Christianity with scientific findings and contemporary philosophical issues. I'm not a Christian, but I think the work they do is valuable.

Its funny that religious folk are damned if they do and damned if they don't! If they don't synthesize their religious ideas with contemporary science and philosophy, they are called dogmatic, stupid, anti-science fanatics. If they do synthesize, many like yourself say its a form of desperation to remain attractive to the population. All of the most interesting philosophical schools are resiliant and do synthesize with new ideas as times change, but its only the schools under the label "religion" that get told off for doing it.

I make the distinction between questions of fact that can be answered yes/no, true/false and epistemological/ontological questions that cannot and which are decided by preference or agreement and which are then included as assumptions, whether or not they are recognized as such. — T Clark

Maybe it will be helpful to start over like you suggest. Let me just try to clarify your distinction by asking some questions. When you say that there are questions which "can be answered yes/no, true/false", do you mean that there is a fact of the matter about these questions or do you mean more strongly that there is a fact of the matter and[\i] that fact can be "rationally established"?

I am starting to wonder whether we have spoken past one another slightly. When I spoke about answering "why" questions, I was referring to the Regress problem first articulated by ancient sceptics. I'm not sure if you had that in mind in your reply.

My hypothesis is that all philosophical questions end up requiring a fundamental statement of belief, my test is to look through all the philosophical questions that have ever been asked, my hypothesis has yet to be falsified because I have yet to find a philosophical question which has an unequivocal answer not requiring some belief statement. It's not the best theory in the world, and it needs a lot more testing, but it is definitely scientific, by the definition I'm using. — Pseudonym

This is why I think we spoke past one another, because the Regress problem isn't just about philosophical issues. It is about the justification of ordinary beliefs about ourselves and the world. I say that there is a role for Philosophy at a certain stage - the justification of beliefs about my immediate surroundings, justification of the belief in other minds and unperceived existence, the justification of memory, of various patterns of inference.

This is just one place I think Philosophy has work that science cannot do. Issues of scepticism and relativism enter in, as well as idealism and antirealism. There is also the issue of why we should take scientific theories to be more credible than myths and religious legends and answering this throws up many other interesting questions.

In general, there is a space for Philosophy in examining, clarifying and where possible justifying the assumptions which people take for-granted in other contexts (or the assumptions which are necessary in those contexts). I wouldn't say a priori that no scientific experiment could deal with these issues without further philosophical claims but I've never seen it done, and it isn't the approach I find promising.

This is the really interesting bit, completely off topic, but I'd love to hear how you think this would happen, are you just hopeful, or do you have a theory as to how? Don't worry about the off-topicness, I don't think anyone's reading this any more. — Pseudonym

Essentially as follows. Justify beliefs about the world by appeal to experience (deal with the many objections against this, by doing Philosophy). Justify belief in other minds by inference (again, deal with objections). Justify the inference rules a priori. Justify memory (hopefully). If it turns out all of this cannot be done then that is a shame, but the thing to do is not just to abandon the issue. We could try to determine what the minimum number of assumptions is that we need to make in order to justify everything we want to believe. That would be to reduce the number of things we take for-granted, giving a kind of clarity and order to the mess of our pre-reflective beliefs. I think that's the role Russel saw for philosophy. Modern philosophers had that idea too, but tended to romanticize it.

Absolutely, you're getting the idea, although I sense you're just being charitable and don't actually agree with it. The sort of thing you're suggesting is exactly the way naturalists think that science can answer these questions. The only refinement I would make is that we all know people lie through their teeth when asked about personal matters like morality. I would design the experiment to see how people behave in controlled situations designed such as to best elucidate what they really believe, not just what they say they do. — Pseudonym

Ah so you do advance the doctrine about the meaning of "morally good". I'd make two points.

What question does Ethical Naturalism answer? As I understand it, it answers the question "what do people ordinarily mean by "morally good"?. It is obviously an empirical question what people mean by "morally good". So in principle scientifc methods can answer this question. I haven't seen the survey results about the matter (ask your favorite experimental philosopher about it. They are the hot new fashion!), but I gravely suspect they would not show that people mean something even close to "maximizes well-being". Many people I know adhere to deontological rules on which some things just aren't acceptable, period. My supervisor, for example, is a Kantian and sure as anything does not mean "maximizes well-being" by morally good. Moreover, large portions of the world are still religious and so likely mean something like "accords with God's will" or "is approved by God" or something like that. You say in reply that you think these people are lying and that experiments would show this. Well maybe, and maybe not. Still, in the absence of such experiments it seems that your suggestion that they are lying is a kind of ad hoc move which saves your theory about "morally good". The relevant point for this thread though is I agree with you that this semantic question can be answered by scientific methods, even if I don't think ethical Naturalism is the right answer.

What many philosophers try to do, (your interpretation of) Harris included, is move from a doctrine about the meaning of "morally good" to a doctrine about how we should live and what we should do. This move is fallacious. Suppose it turns out that everyone in the west means "maximizes well being" by "morally good". Does that entail that we should maximize well being at all costs? Its hard to see why it would. Maybe easterners have a different concept of morally good. Should we live the western way or the eastern way? The ancient greeks seemed to have a different concept to "maximizes well being" (unless they were lying!). Should we live their way or our way? I cannot see how an analysis of "morally good" can help us at all with the philosophical issue of how we should live, unless some how the correct norms for living are built into our concepts, but that sounds far fetched.

I've never understood why so many philosophers think they can draw normative conclusions from conceptual analysis. Stephen Stich calls that idea conceptual romanticism, and I'm inclined to agree with him that its just cultural bias dressed up in fancy talk of "the real meaning" and "analysis". I should say at this point that I actually find debates about the ordinary meaning of philosophical concepts quite interesting in its own right. I just don't see how it really helps answer the fundamental philosophical questions. If "how should we live?" is a philosophical question, I can't see how science helps answer it.

Perhaps coming back full circle to the main topic. It seems silly to me to just label a view "scientism" and be done with it. It might be that scientific methods can answer some philosophical questions. They've done it in the past. I can't see it happening with the questions I've flagged up here. What do you think about that?

Sorry for the delayed reply by the way.

Seriously - have you ever tried that on this forum? — T Clark

I am new here, relatively speaking.

I'm just pointing out that that something has to be included in our starting assumptions because it can never be rationally established. — T Clark

I can't help but wonder whether there is something controversial being built into the notion of "rationally established" here, but that's probably off topic.

Good talking to you. Hope I helped in some small way.

as I understand it, you find VERI useful because its a conversation stopper. It stops people talking on and on about things where they will never agree with one another, because they don't share the same assumptions. That's hard to deny. VERI sure does do that. But then, we don't really need anything as strong as VERI for that. All we need to do to avoid endless conversations is try hard to lay out agreed starting assumptions for our discussions. We need not insist that if something isn't verifiable by the senses then it is either a useful perspective or meaningless. That's a very strong claim which isn't needed for the goal you want to achieve. So I still can't really see the use of VERI.

It is a matter of what is the most useful way of looking at the issue — T Clark

It does not generally seem true that it is useful to think of morality as preference. In fact it encourages an "anything goes" type attitude where everyone just does what they prefer. Murder? Rape? Genocide? Kidnap? Hey if that's what you prefer! This does not seem like a useful attitude for the human race.

The best definition you have given of "justified" so far is "sound". As I understand it, soundness is a logical property of arguments. An argument is sound if and only if it is valid and its premises are true.

So what you are asking is whether it is possible for me to believe that I have a sound argument for P and yet not believe that P. I'm not sure whether I can coherently do that.

In Gettier's coin case, Smith infers that a man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job using a deductively valid argument from premises which he is justified in believing. One of those two premises turns out to be false, and yet his conclusion is true.

Smith doesn't have a sound argument because one of his premises is false. So, by your definition, Smith isn't justified in the 1st place. This was an account offerred by Russel years before Gettier even published, and also pursued by Lehrer, Klien and Mcgrew. Is that your solution?

I think it actually is logically impossible, by way of contradiction. To "justify" requires sound logic. If the premise or conclusion is false, then the logic is unsound. If the logic is unsound then there is no justification. To state that the logic is unsound, and that the conclusion is justified is to state a contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here you are using a definition of "justified" which is not the definition I used. I defined it in terms of being responsible in belief. But I can be perfectly responsible in belief even if the argument I have for my belief is logically unsound. Suppose that I'm just not very smart or very good at logic. I try my level best. I've been responsible, but still my argument is fallacious. Clearly the way you are using the word "justified", I cannot be justified on the basis of a logically unsound argument. You might be right that in your sense of "justified", I cannot believe that X is both justified and false. To find out, we will need a precise statement of what you mean by "justified". Could you give one?

No, I wouldn't want you to think that I thought that of you personally, I'm just arguing against the pejorative use of the term which seems to me to be aimed at dismissing the position by means other than mature argument. I hope that's clear. — Pseudonym

Well, I can't say that I'm sure what the position really is yet, so it would be unwise at this stage for me to throw around pejoratives. I thought initially that your position was that Science can answer all questions of Philosophy, but your recent post seems to contradict this.

You begin by discussing (I think?) a question of great interest to me - is there any way to answer all "why" questions about our beliefs, and hence is there any way to provide a non-question begging reason for everything that we believe? This is what you say:

So when I say science can answer the questions of philosophy, I am making that claim on the presumption that if you keep asking 'why?' somewhen you will end up just making a statement of belief. — Pseudonym

This presumption of yours is itself a philosophical position, and one which many philosophers of the past would have disagreed with you (these days I think your view is much more popular). If you hold that science can answer all Philosophical questions, one might expect you to claim that this position of yours is at least testable by scientific method. But you don't cite any scientific paper or experiment in which this is shown. It is tempting to think that this is because no such paper or experiment exists and even that no such thing is really possible, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. What you do say here is this:

I don't think science can solve that problem, nor do I think philosophy can. I've yet to hear a convincing argument that such a problem can ever be solved by any means. — Pseudonym

The "problem" here, as you are thinking of it, is that we cannot answer every "why" question with non-question begging reasons. You think that science cannot provide such reasons, and that Philosophy can't either. As I pointed out above, this is itself a Philosophical position, and so, unless it is one you arrive at by "the method of science", whatever that turns out to be, then your claim that science can answer every philosophical question turns out to be in conflict with other views of yours.

What I believe science can do, is push back the amount of belief statements which need to be made. — Pseudonym

I think that's right, but I'd also insist that Philosophy can do that too if Philosophers set their minds to do it. What normally happens, however, is Philosophers decide quickly that you can't answer every "why" question and then they give up on the whole business and don't try to answer any of them - a very hasty step!

I agree with your thoughts on the constitution of the world. It used to be a philosophical question, and now it's a scientific one.

but I really think the interest now is in questions which remain unanswered, should we investigate those by the scientific method or not? — Pseudonym

Here it depends which questions are at issue. Which contemporary philosophical questions can be answered by scientific methods? All of them? All of the ones that can be answered at all? You tell me. It sounds like you think Ethical Naturalism is itself a scientific theory:

That being said, the idea, with ethical naturalism, is that it can be demonstrated by falsifiable theory, that most humans simply are the way ethical naturalists describe them. — Pseudonym

I'm still not sure what you mean by "Ethical Naturalism" and so I have no idea whether it can really be tested by scientific theory. One view going under that label today is the view that the phrase "morally good" ordinarily means something like "maximizes well-being". Vague as this still is, it would be empirically testable. Ask people what they mean by "morally good" and see what they say. Since a large part of the world is still religious, however, I greatly doubt that they mean anything like this by "morally good". But I don't think this view about the meaning of words is what you meant to defend.

I don't see this at all. All your examples are in the form of "You see that I...", or "I see that you..." — Metaphysician Undercover

Well here is a very plain example. See if you agree with this one and then we can move to others which are more complex.

Think of the notio of "justification" as responsible belief. I believe that I have a very good argument that God exists. Because I believe that, I believe that "God exists" is justified - I believe it would be responsible for me to believe it. But, I'm a stubborn and dogmatic atheist and I don't really care much whether there are good arguments or whether I'm fulfilling my epistemic responsibilities. I insist that God does not exist. Such a person would be strange, but not logically impossible. Viola, a case where I believe that P is justified and that P is false - using a particular definition of "justified".

You are right in that one instance, but the other definitions I used still work when it is you believing that X is both justified and false.

How can this even be a question at this point? — Wayfarer

I hadn't followed the entire thread, and this is the first time I've spoken with Pseudo.

What I object to is the insulting suggesting that it is not even 'allowed' for someone to hold those beliefs. — Pseudonym

I don't intend to ban your view from Philosophy. It seems to me pointless to just ban discussion of unpopular views. I'd be interested to see, though, any convincing example of science answering traditional philosophical questions. By this, I don't mean merely an example in which science is relevant. I don't want to be shown merely that scientific results can sometimes be used to criticize a philosophical view (and/or method). I agree with that. I don't want an example in which science is used to work out the details of a foregone philosophical conclusion. I agree that this can be done (for example, I agree that science can tell you a lot about how humans can be physically and psychologically well). What I'd really be interested to see is a much more ambitious sort of example - a case in which scientific theory and experiment straightforwardly answers a philosophical question.

I don't think that's a bad thing, but it seems pointless to me unless there is some conclusion at the end of the process, and presuming there is, some of the things thus examined must end up passing the test. — Pseudonym

The authority of science (in certain areas) might well be one of those things that pass the test surely? — Pseudonym

Of course I think there must be some conclusion to the examination. Does the authority of science 'pass the test'? Well it all depends on what exactly we are asking here, but painting with a broad stroke, there are at least some philosophers who have denied any substantive authority to science - Rorty, Feyarabend, Kuhn (well, not Kuhn, but followers who interpreted his work a certain way) to give a few examples. I'm not sure about that particular issue myself. I mentioned it just as an example of the sort of thing I consider Philosophy, and the sort of thing which you can't answer by doing more scientific experiments and theorizing. Even Kuhn's work, which is primarily historical and sociological, has to be conjoined with other philosophical claims to settle the issue about the authority of science.

I don't know if you've read Harris, but his work is built upon quite a firm foundation of Ethical Naturalism that goes all the way back to Aristotle (in some form). It's really not just 'assuming 'consequentialism', it's building on the work of those who have argued in favour of it quite persuasively, which is surely all any philosophy can do. Also, I agree with most of what Harris has to say, except that I'm broadly a virtue ethicist. I don't really find the consequensialism necessary to the point he's making about science and morality. It could equally be applied, as Phillipa Foot does, to which virtues it is necessary to cultivate. — Pseudonym

I've read his Moral Landscape. I don't know if he wrote anything else after that. When you say "Ethical Naturalism", what exactly do you mean? There are several things which go under that name. None of the views I associate with that label are ones which can be established by scientific experiment. They are all argued for Philosophically, and so it may be that this debate about Harris is a distraction from the main topic.

I still do not see how one can truthfully say "I think P is justified but I still do not believe P". — Metaphysician Undercover

Take any definition which I gave you of "justified" and you will see how it is so. If "justified" means "responsible in believing" then you might think I am responsible in believing that P, even though you think P is false. Hence, you would think that I am justified in believing P, even though P is false. The way this would work is quite simple. You see that I have tried my absolute best to investigate things. You see that I have considered all of the objections against P, weighed up the best arguments for P, and I've made no obviously foolish mistake. I am convinced that P, and, you think, perfectly responsibly. You, however, have more information than I do, and you are far smarter than I could ever aspire to be. Because of this, you can see clearly that P is false. Here you believe that P is false and that poor foolish little me is justified in believing that P.

The very same for the notion of "justified" as "having reason to believe". I think that you have very good arguments for your belief that P - arguments which I don't quite know how to criticize. Still, I'm dogmatic and stubborn. I think that P is false and that there must be some answer or another to your arguments. I think you are justified in your belief, but I think that P is false.

Again, take the notion of "justified" as "produced by a reliable process". You think that my belief that P is produced by a reliable process. A process is reliable if and only if when it produces beliefs they are for the most part true. But, that my belief that P was produced by a process which usually gets things right does not entail that the process has gotten it right on this particular occasion. It's reliable, not infallible. Hence, you might think that my belief is produced by such a process whilst nevertheless thinking that, in this instance, the belief is false.

To say "X is justified" is strong evidence that one believes X. To say "X is not justified" is strong evidence that one does not believe X. So to say "X is justified but I do not believe X" is evidence that one is being untruthful. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a much weaker claim than the one you originally made, which was that

believing X to be true is a necessary condition of believing X is justified. — Metaphysician Undercover

Still, perhaps the weaker claim is right.

What has this thread become? Maybe it should be called "whose a troll, whose an idiot and whose worth taking seriously?". Various people can defend themselves from the charge.

Anyway, I'll try to say something useful.

science can answer questions of philosophy — Pseudonym

I am not sure if you actually claim this Pseudo. But I've always thought of Philosophy as the examination of opinions and assumptions which are usually taken for-granted. I think here of the existence of the external world, other minds, the existence of God, the authority of science, the distinction between right and wrong, and between fact and value. All of these things are often just taken for-granted. Few people pause to think about what they really mean in making these assumptions, nor how they might justify them. These are tasks for Philosophy.

I don't have any a priori objection to the idea that scientific approaches could answer these questions, but any time I've seen that attempted has made some gross confusion or skipped right over the most contentious issue. This is just what Sam Harris does. He just assumes a kind of Consequentialism and then uses science to work out consequences. That isn't using science to answer philosophical questions. That is assuming an answer without reflecting on what it means or trying to justify it, which is just what I defined Philosophy as not doing.

Hawking's book is an odd case. He says Philosophy is dead. He then discusses extensively scientific realism and anti-realism, a clearly philosophical issue, seemingly without realizing that it is Philosophy.

No, I don't conflate truth and justification. I state the simple fact that believing X to be true is a necessary condition of believing X is justified. One cannot believe X is justified without believing X is true. But this does not mean all truths are justified. — Metaphysician Undercover

I suppose it depends what is being built into the notion of being "justified" here. Normally, if I say someone is justified in believing something, I mean that they have good reason to believe it, and either no reason or a comparatively weak reason not to believe it. Clearly I could think there are such reasons for believing that P without my being psychologically convinced that P. Maybe I recognize the strong case to be made for P, but I just find the idea of P hard to believe. This is at least logically possible. Hence, it is possible to believe that X is justified without believing that X is true - in this sense of "justified".

Some Philosophers have a very weak notion of being justified as having been responsible in believing. It seems painfully easy for me to believe that you have been responsible in believing that P and yet I do not believe that P. Maybe I see that you have thought about it as carefully as you are capable, have made no obvious mistakes which you should have reasonably noticed etc, yet I still think you are mistaken.

Other Philosophers define "justified" as "produced by a reliable process". On thwt definition, I could believe that my belief that X is produced by a reliable process. Its just that I also believe that on this particular occassion the process got things wrong - X is false.

have you ever heard or read anyone actually making this claim — Pseudonym

Not anybody who is actually trained in Philosophy, no. Lawrence Krauss does say it in some of his debates, but he isn't a Philosopher- he's a Physicist. An old friend of mine claimed it, but he wasn't a Philosopher either - he was a Biologist.

I think perhaps you are looking for something which doesn't exist. You ask for a neutral, non-polemical definition of Scientism. I don't think there are any philosophers who willingly accept "Scientism" as a description of their views. Usually "Scientism" is used as a name for views which, in the eyes of the critic, elevate science into an unacceptably special position.

Some people call Sam Harris' moral theory "Scientism" because he insists that you can just use science to tell you what is right and wrong, and you don't need anything else - like a philosophical assumption or theory. Many critics say this is appealing to science in an illegitimate way. Frankly I think Harris' view makes no sense. I wouldn't call it "Scientism" but many people would.

When I hear "Scientism", I think of the idea that the only reliable way of discovering truth is the method of science. This doctrine smuggles in three assumptions. First, that there is such a thing as "the method of science". Second, that this method is reliable. Third, that no other method is reliable. I think there actually are some people who accept all of this, but they wouldn't call it "Scientism", because that term is usually used polemically, with the suggestion that it is a bad thing to accept Scientism.

Does this help?

I always had thought that Carnap was 'scientism' incarnate. I am willing to be corrected, though. — Wayfarer

Well he was a Verificationist and thoroughly disliked metaphysics. So in a way yes, he was scientism incarnate. But, contrary to his own protestations, his philosophy contains very serious metaphysical commitments. His philosophy is quite fascinating, if you see through his surface level scientistic rhetoric.

7

First of all, you're right, it is not matter of fact. I find it very useful. To me, it's the most important procedural, foundational concept of philosophy I can imagine. Would it be stretching things to say that answering, or at least addressing, these types of questions is what philosophy is. I'll have to think about that. On these pages, who cares if Paris is the capital of France? All that's important here is how I can demonstrate my belief that Paris is the capital of France is correct. — T Clark

You distanced yourself from Verificationism in your post, but then you accepted VERI. VERI it seems to me is incredibly close to Verificationism, but that doesn't really matter. At any rate you say that VERI is useful. You say it is the most important "procedural and foundational concept of Philosophy". Could you explain more what you mean by this? Give me some example of how VERI is useful perhaps?

Would it be stretching things to say that answering, or at least addressing, these types of questions is what philosophy is. — T Clark

I am not sure which questions you are talking about here. I think I missed a step. Could you show me which questions you meant? I think this is related to the previous issue.

On these pages, who cares if Paris is the capital of France? All that's important here is how I can demonstrate my belief that Paris is the capital of France is correct. — T Clark

Perhaps here we agree. I do think that a major part of philosophy involves justifying these sorts of beliefs which we do not usually try to justify.

By the way, what is "VERI?" Is that a word you just made up, or does it have some established meaning? — T Clark

It was just a name I gave to the principle which I attributed to you. I used "VERI" as a shortening of Verificationism because I thought the principle was very close to that doctrine.

it's a matter of preference not fact. — T Clark

I think you missed my point here. The view that "morality is a matter of preference" is the denial of the claim that morality is objective. Presumably, you think that "morality is just preference" is a fact. But if you accept VERI this is exactly what you cannot hold. Because the view that " morality is just preference" is not verifiable by perception. So you cannot say that "morality is preference" is a fact. You can either hold that "morality is preference" is a useful thing to believe, or that "morality is preference" is a meaningless sentence. Or you could abandon VERI and admit that the question "is morality objective?" has a factual answer - the answer being "no, morality is just preference".

Thanks again for your reply.

Thanks for the detailed reply.

One thing that comes out in your discussion is your commitment to a certain kind of Verificationism - although perhaps a kind weaker than the once very popular doctrine. Here are samples of the commitment (I leave aside one quote in which you maintain that if people argue a lot about P, then there is no fact about whether or not P. I do not think you meant this literally, and perhaps it was just shorthand for what you say in these other quotes?):

If you mean unperceivable even in theory, then I'm not sure whether that is a metaphysical question or just meaningless. — T Clark

I'll go back to my criteria for the existence of a fact - If a phenomenon cannot be observed or verified, even in principal, then whether or not it exists is not a question of yes or no. It's either metaphysical, rhetorical, or meaningless. — T Clark

In these quotes you infer from the premise that X is unverifiable in principle to the conclusion that X is either "metaphysical or meaningless". I suspect you have your own definition of "metaphysical" in mind, according to which a question is metaphysical if and only if it is a question about how it is useful to think. Then your phrase "metaphysical question or just meaningless" equates to "a question about what it is useful to believe or just meaningless". If that is what you mean, then you hold the following doctrine:

VERI: For any question, Q, Q is either (a) a question the answer to which is verifiable by perception, (b) a question about how it is useful to think, or (c) just meaningless.

I am not sure why you accept VERI. Do you have any argument for it? Relatedly, unless VERI is a useful thing for us to believe, then VERI is itself meaningless by its own standards, because it isn't verifiable by perception. I am not sure, however, what VERI would be useful for. Of course, an awful lot depends on your notions of "verification" and "meaningless", both of which might benefit some further definition.

Motivations for VERI aside, in some places, you hold views which are just incompatible with VERI, and so you hold views which, according to your own principle, are meaningless. The most clear case is the question "is there an objective morality?". If you really hold to VERI, what you ought to say here is that the answers to that question are unverifiable in principle, and so it must either be a question about whether it is useful to think of morality as objective, or meaningless. What you say, however, is very different:

Morality is a matter of human value - I like this, I don't like that. — T Clark

Saying that there is nothing more to morality except what different people like and dislike is the very same as saying that there is no objective morality - answering "no" to the question "is there an objective morality?". But if your answer is "no", then you presumably think that that is the fact of the matter. Yet if VERI is true, there is no fact of the matter. There is only what it is useful to believe and meaninglessness. I am not sure how to reconcile this quote with VERI.

Suddenly it seems like you're agreeing with me, although I don't think you think you are. — T Clark

I don't think I am either. I think that there is a fact of the matter about the questions I listed in my last post, but you insist that there is only an issue about how it is useful to think. You accept VERI (I think?), and I don't.

If I have interpreted you correctly in this post, and you are still looking for like-minded philosophers, I am now thinking of Rudolf Carnap,who accepts something much like VERI and has a similar attitude towards metaphysics. I find him personally more interesting than Collingwood.

I don't think I understand the difference. I believe that the concept of objective reality is one way, not the only way, and not the only good way, to think about our perceptions, knowledge, and understanding of how the world works. — T Clark

It depends what is being built into the concept of "objective reality" here, but I fear we are straying from the metaphilosophical topic.

Yes, it's a pretty good summary. Now the question is whether your approach is true while mine is false or whether mine is just more useful than yours. — T Clark

I would not say that my approach is "true". I don't think my approach is "the nature of philosophy" or something lofty like that. Take various questions I would call metaphysical:

Is there anything which exists unperceived by anyone?
Are there any other minds than my own?
Does God exist?
Is my mind separate from my body/brain?
Is the future in some sense fixed?

I interpret these questions in what I think is a straightforward fashion - to wit - as questions just like "Is the earth round?", " Did Plato teach Aristotle?" and even "Is there any milk in my fridge?". I think they are questions about which there is fact of the matter, even if they are difficult to answer. That's basically how modern philosophers saw "special metaphysics" and I share that with them.

Now look at some of your questions:

Is there an objective morality? — T Clark

This one I would happily include in my list above. I think there is a fact of the matter about whether anything is ever a right or wrong action, or a virtuous or non-virtuous person. I am open to the possibility that there is nothing which is correctly described as right or wrong - nothing which we really ought to do; if that were the case, that would be the fact of the matter. I don't think the question is just whether it is useful to think one way or the other.

Is the mind the same as the physical organs and mechanisms of thought? — T Clark

I have this question in my list already. I think there is a fact of the matter about whether the mind has properties which nothing else in the physical world has - a fact about whether Dualism or Monism is true. I don't think its just a matter of whether it is useful to believe that the mind has different properties.

Is truth correspondence between a proposition and actual facts? — T Clark

I think this question is a semantic question about the ordinary meaning of the word "truth". I'm not particularly interested in that kind of question. I would be interested in the question whether it makes sense to think that propositions can correspond to "the way the world is", and I'd call that a metaphysical question and say that there is a fact of the matter about whether this is really coherent.

How many pins can you stick in the head of a dancing angel? — T Clark

If there are angels, I take it that there is a fact of the matter about this too, and that, if there are angels, how many pins you could stick an angel's head would not just be a matter of how many pins it is useful to believe you could stick in (I have trouble making sense of that last interpretation).

Do we live in a multiverse? — T Clark

A question much like "Is there milk in my fridge?", not a question about what it is useful to believe.

Like I said, I don't think my interpretation of these questions is "the true" interpretation. I'm not sure that even makes sense. But the interpretation I put on those questions is the one I find interesting. There is, perhaps, also a question about what it is useful to believe in each of these cases, but I've never thought of philosophy as in the business of providing useful answers to questions - just true ones.

I suspect that our disagreement isn't just that I take the questions one way and you take them another way and we can both happily trot off in our own pursuits. That's the position I would take, but from your remarks, it sounds like you wouldn't be so liberal. It sounded like you would say that there is something wrong with my interpretation of the questions. Is that right?