As a pragmatist I consider the 'reality' debate to be futile and I doubt whether 'refinement of limits of applicability of scientific paradigms' can be equated with your term 'accuracy'. — fresco

As a pragmatist I would think you would be concerned with what works. Let's, as you suggest:

Consider the demise of 'the aether' — fresco

It either exists or does not exist, or, given your aversion to the term, it is either present and plays a role in the physical world or does not. The assumption of its presence played an important role in the advancement of our understanding of light and gravity. The wave theory of light, was based on the theory of the luminiferous aether.

Einstein concludes an address in 1920 "Ether and the Theory of Relativity":

Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it.

With regard to the classical notion of the aether Einstein retained only the notion that space has physical properties. Part of the progress of science is through its mistakes, but another part is through the correction of its mistakes. But there can be no mistakes or corrections if there is no accuracy of description and explanation.

One thing I find interesting is the support of the "west coast Straussians", academic political philosophers, conservatives and followers of the late Leo Strauss who frequently teach and write about Aristotle. They may give lip service to issues of character and human excellence and yet seem to turn a blind eye when it comes to Trump. Despite their extensive learning with all their learning they seem to have not learned some very basic things about demagogues and tyrants.

Are you making a connection between them or are they two separate subject matters that interest you?

The word 'fact' comes from the Latin facere -to construct. — fresco

The Latin for construct is 'construo'. Facere means more generally to act or do, and by extension to make or construct. Regardless of the etymology the question remains whether a fact is an artifact.

Bohr can be paraphrased as saying, ''atomic particles' are the names we give to particular types of expected interaction we have as observers'. — fresco

I am not going to get into the debate of the Copenhagen interpretation. I know enough to know that I am not properly equipped to enter into such a discussion. Although there are some who think it has been settled, the debate continues between those who are so equipped.

There is no 'representation' implied. If 'breaking atomic bonds' is a concept which observers find useful to predict further observation — fresco

I used representation in response to the quote by Kant cited by Wayfarer. The images of molecules breaking chemical bonds is not simply a concept useful to predict further observation it is itself something observed happening, the observation of a process. The process is real.

Added:

The description of the process may be incomplete or inaccurate but the history of science shows that we are capable of providing more accurate descriptions over time. The more accurate the description the closer it is to the way things are, not simply from the human conceptual and observational perspective, but in relation to the events themselves.

Actually, didn't Trump settle with this rape victim? I remember it happening just before the election. — ssu

According to Newsweek he lawyer claimed the suit was dropped because of "numerous threats" against her. It seems likely there was also money changing hands. It's a familiar pattern with Trump - deny, deny, and deny and if necessary intimidate and pay them off.

There's no evidence that Trump had sexual contact with underage girls. It's not his style. He likes beauty queens, showgirls, glamour girls. Look at his wives. I don't believe he directly did anything. — fishfry

Apparently he likes the beauty queens who compete in Miss Teen USA. In his own words:

Well, I'll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show, and everyone's getting dressed and ready and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere. And I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant and therefore I'm inspecting it. You know, I'm inspecting, I want to make sure that everything is good.

You know, the dresses. ‘Is everyone okay?’ You know, they're standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody okay?’ And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that. But no, I've been very good.

Some of these "incredible looking women" were as young as 14 and none older than 19.

There is a big difference between Trump's trophy wives and females he grabs by the pussy or allegedly rapes.

With regard to Epstein Trump told New York Magazine in 2002:

He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.

One might take this to mean that Epstein likes them on the younger side, but given Trump's behavior at Miss Teen USA, he does too.

None of this is evidence of Trump having sexual contact with underage girls, but then there is the story from 1994 of the 13 year old girl who filed suit against Trump for raping her in Epstein's apartment. From Newsweek, 11/16/17:

In 1994, Trump went to a party with Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire who was a notorious registered sex offender, and raped a 13-year-old girl that night in what was a "savage sexual attack," according to a lawsuit filed in June 2016 by "Jane Doe." The account was corroborated by a witness in the suit, who claimed to have watched as the child performed various sexual acts on Trump and Epstein even after the two were advised she was a minor.

"Immediately following this rape Defendant Trump threatened me that, were I ever to reveal any of the details of Defendant Trump's sexual and physical abuse of me, my family and I would be physically harmed if not killed," Jane Doe wrote in the lawsuit, filed in New York.

The lawsuit was dropped in November 2016, just four days before the election, with Jane Doe's attorneys citing "numerous threats" against her.

I think the subtle point you're not seeing here, is that even 'this vast universe' you speak of, is still considered here from an implicitly human perspective. — Wayfarer

I don't think the point is subtle at all.

... science measures time in units relative to the rotation of the earth around the sun and distances of kilometers and so on. — Wayfarer

This is simply not true. Physicists use light. The geological time scale is based on prior events of earth's history.

But the reality is vaster than even that, because it is not constrained by our human sensory and intellectual faculties. It's 'vast' in a way that even science can't imagine! — Wayfarer

And this shows the limits of the subjective pole and why it is only related to our limited understanding and not to what is.

I'm not sceptical in the sense of doubting scientifically-established facts as we rely on them every day. — Wayfarer

What I am getting at is whether these facts are artifacts. Do molecules break atomic bonds or is it this just a "mere representation"?

Hence the soul is as the hand is; for the hand is a tool of tools, and the intellect is a form of forms and sense a form objects of perception. — Valentinus

I saw this when I found the other passage. I wonder how far he intends for us to push the analogy. The tool requires the hand to manipulate it. If the intellect is analogous that suggests that the reception of forms by the intellect and senses is not passive.

What I'm arguing, however, is that there is an ineluctably subjective pole or aspect to all of our knowledge of the world, including scientific theories about the age of the world, and so on. — Wayfarer

I agree with this, but I also maintain that the world is as it is independent of our knowledge of it. We do not know the world as it is but as it is for us. It is here, the world as it is for us that we find the two poles. Most of what is going on in the universe we know nothing of. Some of those things we will come to discover but others we will never know anything of given the vastness of the universe.

One question that remains is whether our knowledge must always be as it is because we are as we are. Is it possible to know at least some things as they are? We know, for example, the results of what happens when chemicals combine. A chemistry text book will tell us about atoms and molecules and chemical bonds, but is this just "our ways of seeing and acting on things"? We have images of molecules breaking chemical bonds. These images would not be possible without our instrumentation but are they merely artifacts of it or does the image capture what is really going on at the molecular level?

The 'desire to know' is clearly advantageous in potential control of one's life, even from the trivial povs of 'being respected' or 'self confidence'. — fresco

Yes, it can be but that does not mean that one desires to know in order to control her life. It may be the case that one sacrifices control of one's life in order to follow the evidence.

And I suggest 'objects or processes of aesthetic value' always have an element of organizational complexity associated with them which by definition involves 'control'. — fresco

Making music or art need not be for the sake of control. It is often the other way around, one exerts control in order to make music or art, but as every accomplished musician and artist knows once the technique is mastered one must relinquish control. The sheer joy of play is an end in itself.

Okay...define 'knowledge' without reference to 'prediction and control'. — fresco

Tell me what the paleontologist expects to predict and control. Seems a little late for that.

There are some who desire to know in the same way that others desire to create music or art or poetry. There is for them nothing pragmatic about it. It is, rather, aesthetic or spiritual, a sense of wonder.

Definitions — Amity

I am reminded of Arthur Koestler's definition: "the systematic abuse of a terminology specially invented for that purpose."

I am saying that the act of constructing such scenarios is part of a cognitive process which is particular to the needs of humans In their quest to 'predict (or retrodict) and control' what constitutes their 'lives'. — fresco

Well, it does seem to be particular to humans but I don't buy this stuff about predict and control as it pertains to all endeavours to know.

What is self-explaining (meaning 1) but cannot be explained (meaning 2) is a conjuring act.
— Fooloso4

I have no idea what you're talking about. I said precisely how God is self-explaining. Please read what I posted. — Dfpolis

It is really quite simple. You have not provided an explanation (2) for the existence of God, you simply assert that God is self-explaining (1). You are claiming that an explanation (1) is:

the fact(s) that make some state of affairs be as it is. — Dfpolis

and that in the case of God:

the explanation is the thing in question — Dfpolis

and:

So for an infinite being, what-it-is would be identical with that-it-is. — Dfpolis

This is not an explanation (2) it is an unsubstantiated claim, creatio ex nihilo, of an infinite being made to explain (2) what cannot be explained - being. It amounts to saying it must be because otherwise there is no explanation for what is (2).

First, you are begging the question by assuming that all reality is part of the universe. — Dfpolis

The question is whether the universe requires God. It seems evident to me that what is part of the universe is actual. If you are going to claim that there is something that is not that is the explanation for what is in the universe then the burden is on you to demonstrate its existence.

Most cosmologists, even though they are naturalists, believe that there may be other universes, with other laws (the multiverse). — Dfpolis

Is the multiverse infinite in the sense you are using the term? If not, then the same problem holds - it would not be self-explanatory. If the multiple universes are separate then the existence of one has no effect on the others.

The laws of nature restrict what is physically possible, but they do not restrict what is logically possible. — Dfpolis

And what do you think follows from that? If something is logically possible that does not mean that it is actual or has any bearing on what is actual.

Third, things that happened in the past are possible in virtue of having actually happened, but they are not actual because they no longer exist. — Dfpolis

This is muddled. If something were not possible it would not have happened. There are things that are possible that are not actual, but what is actual cannot be impossible.

We cannot extrapolate from our limited acquaintance with limited things to a universe that is limited.
— Fooloso4

Yes, we can. Because whatever changes has to be limited. If it were not, it would be all that it could be, and so there would be nothing for it to change into. — Dfpolis

The inability to change is a limit.

Thanks.

I suppose that what reminded you of this is the idea that things are not in the mind in the sense that the actual physical object is in the mind, but as I read it Aristotle is not claiming, as Wayfarer is, that world and mind arise together as objective and subjective poles.

We cannot 'know' anything about the 'ontological status' of the entities we conceptualize other than they are 'useful' in our epistemological quests to 'predict and control'. — fresco

What reason do you have to doubt the abundance of evidence of life before man? Do you doubt the fossil record? Radiocarbon dating? Do you think the dinosaurs are products of the imagination?

In what way is a paleontologist on an epistemological quest to 'predict and control'? The desire to know is not the desire to predict and control, although that may be one motivation and end.

I know nothing about second order cybernetics and cannot comment.

I'm not questioning scientific method, what I'm doing is questioning the sense in which it conveys or results in or approaches an ultimate truth. Which is, I believe, the purport of the above-mentioned Allegory of the Cave — Wayfarer

If you accept facts then I assume you accept the fact that the world existed prior to man. But if you accept Forms then those facts are just images. And yet in the Theaetetus, the Platonic dialogue about knowledge, there is no mention of Forms. In the Republic, a dialogue about the politics of the soul that requires the mythologies of the poets to be replaced by a philosophical poetry, the Forms play a central part in the education of philosopher; but if one takes the image of image of that education seriously then it is only those who have actually ascended from the cave who know anything about ultimate truth. The image of the cave we read about is just another image on the cave wall.

This reminds me of De Anima where Aristotle says: "In a way, the soul is all things." — Valentinus

Can you provide a reference?

The point I'm trying to make, is that there is an inextricably subjective pole or aspect of all experience. — Wayfarer

Yes, that is self-evident.

This applies even to the objects of scientific analysis. — Wayfarer

The object is what the analysis is about. The analysis is subjective in so far as (a) there can be no analysis without a subject to analyze, and (b) the analysis is limited by the state of our understanding, our instruments of observation, our methodologies and models, and so on. The object, however, is not subjective. Further, the analysis is not subjective in that it is not independent of the object. (See below on carbon dating). It cannot ignore or contradict the facts as we know them.

This realisation has been more or less forced on science by the conundrums associated with quantum mechanics. — Wayfarer

We simply do not understand quantum mechanics.

Even the scientific picture of the world, which I am not suggesting is fallacious, is still a construct or representation — Wayfarer

Yes, a picture, in so far as it is a picture of something, is a representation.

Could I suggest that in saying that, you're positing 'mind' as 'something within the individual' - my mind, or your mind, — Wayfarer

You could suggest that but it is not what I am saying and does not follow from what I said.

... world and mind arise together as objective and subjective poles, we have a shared world of meanings and common facts within which we all dwell. — Wayfarer

I cannot accept the notion that world arises together with mind. There is solid evidence that the earth was here prior to any mind that we know of. And here is the claims about the subjectivity of science becomes problematic. Radiocarbon dating works because we know the half-life of the carbon isotope C14. The decay is independent of any subject. It is in this sense objective.

In whatever way we may be conscious of the world ... — Edmund Husserl, Crisis of European Sciences p108

This begs the question. The issue is not our consciousness of the world but whether the world exists independent of our consciousness. Husserl avoids addressing this question via the epoche or bracketing of the question, that is, putting it out of bounds of his investigations.

I avoided "cause" because I'm not writing in ancient Greece. — Dfpolis

Aquinas did not write in ancient Greece

I am perfectley happy with either "fact" or "state" of affairs as long as no confussion arises. — Dfpolis

The point is you are using the term in two fundamentally different ways - (1) fact(s) that are not dependent (God/infinite being) and (2) all other facts which are dependent on (1).

Your argument is ... and that the infinite being needs no explanation because it is infinite.
— Fooloso4

That is a complete misstatement of my position that everything that is, has some underlying dynamics/explanation. It you are going to criticize, criticize what I actually say. — Dfpolis

What you said is that God, i,e., the infinite being is self-explaining.

An uncaused cause.
— Fooloso4

Thank you for illustrating why I did not use "cause" -- by misstating of my position. — Dfpolis

How does your argument for a self-explaining God differ from Aquinas' first cause, an efficient cause, an uncaused cause?

Before going to college I did not know in what ways I would benefit from it. I could not have made a prudent decision based on my lack of knowledge.

The entities and systems which they conceptualize. — fresco

Are there entities that are not part of a system of human interaction? Are entities mind dependent? Is the mind interacting with itself or with entities that are not products of the mind? Is there nothing but the mind generating a world ex nihilo?

The genius of Aquinas's insight that God's essence is His existence is that it gives us an intelligible reason why God requires no extrinsic explanation. — Dfpolis

You might think it genius but as you said in the OP, thinking something does not make it exist. So too, for the same reason, one cannot define something into existence . Aristotle saw that the cause of being cannot be a being. Aquinas, in line with the belief in a Creator, avoids the problem by simply declaring that there is an uncaused being that is the cause of other beings. A being that is (existence) because to be is what it is (essence).

You are attempting to put old wine that has turned to vinegar into new bottles. Once again:

You use the term explanation to mean:

the fact(s) that make some state of affairs be as it is. (We may or may not know these.) This is the sense I am using.
— Dfpolis

You avoid Aristotle's causal language but do not side-step the problem. What distinction do you make between the fact(s) and some state of affairs? You said:

Proofs show us how to assemble facts we already know to see something we may not have noticed.
— Dfpolis

Your argument is that there are these facts because of some other fact(s). There are finite beings because there is an infinite being, that the infinite being is the "explanation" of finite beings, and that the infinite being needs no explanation because it is infinite. In Scholastic terms you make the distinction between contingent beings and a necessary being. A first cause. An uncaused cause.

The same tired old argument. — Fooloso4

Humans are the judge of 'interaction'. — fresco

The interaction of what?

There would appear to us to be 'transient systems' of interactive 'entities' ... — fresco

Could there be any interaction within these systems if these entities were human constructs?

It provided him with powerful images to be used in the re-election campaign. — Amity

Sure, but I do not know how beneficial or harmful it is with those who have not already decided to vote for him. But then again, we do love spectacle.

On the contrary, I have asserted we SHOULD reject 'existence' not mediated by human understanding because 'existence' is a human concept like any other. — fresco

Is there anything other than human constructs?

As far as I am concerned, ' where concepts originate from' is just another vacuous endeavor played by ' aspiring 'realists' desperate for 'axioms'. Biological understanding of languaging as 'behaviour' needs no such 'axioms' (Maturana) — fresco

It is not a question of where concepts originate. You are right that biological understanding of languaging as 'behaviour' needs no such 'axioms', that is the point!

For me, this one amounts to 'naive realists' squirming on the uncomfortable hook arising from Kant's point about the inaccessibility of noumena and the subsequent ditching of 'noumena' by later phenomenologists. — fresco

That there were dinosaurs that roamed the earth long before man has nothing to do with the Kantian distinction between noumena and phenomena or with phenomenology. Mediated understanding does not mean we must reject the existence of what is not mediated by human understanding.

Obviously, an 'objective world' is useful picture ... — fresco

Here again you introduce concepts that are not at issue. The universe prior to or in the absence of man or consciousness is not an objective world. The concept of an objective world stands in relation to the concept of a subjective world.

... such 'pictures' are always human constructs... — fresco

Of course the pictures humans construct are human constructs! That there are only human constructs is a human construct, a picture that some have difficulty seeing passed.

I agree with Freedland that it is not enough just to laugh at him, but there are benefits to laughing at him. On the one hand it is cathartic, on the other it deeply wounds him. He desperately wants to be taken seriously. He always has. Early on he was shunned by the rich and famous, the "beautiful people". He has spent his life, his father's fortune, and money he borrowed and stole in order to accepted into their exclusive society. Nothing could be worse than to be laughed at for his efforts. But the scorn did not dissuade him, it only made him try all the harder.

Having stumbled into the presidency, he now wants to be a world historical figure. The mocking and ridicule feeds his insecurity, but again he doubles down. The Fourth of July military spectacle did not accomplish what he hoped it would, it did not bring him the kind of admiration he seeks to legitimize himself. It is not enough that his followers adore him, the numbers are too low, no matter how much he might inflate them. We should not take too much comfort in this, however. It will only spur him on.

One way in which I have defined philosophy is as what the philosophers do.

From here we begin to read a select group of philosophers and discuss what we have read.

I'm taking a Pragmatist (Nietzschean) perspective that there is no way of seperating 'description' from 'actuality'. All we can ever have are 'descriptions' which vary in functionality according to context. — fresco

Describing is a kind of doing, but it is not the doing of what is described.

Our ability to conceptualize has led some to believe that everything we do must be conceptual or the result of conceptualizing. It is in order to correct this, to start from the other direction, from where concepts originate, that Wittgenstein quotes Goethe.

I want to regard man here as an animal; as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but
not ratiocination. (On Certainty 475)

Our language-game is an extension of primitive behavior. (For our language-game is behavior.) (Instinct). (Zettel 545)

Instinct first reason second (Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology 689)

The squirrel does not infer by induction that it is going to need stores next winter as well. And no more do we need a law of induction to justify our actions or our predictions. (On Certainty 287)

But when we imagine ... we're picturing ... that is still an idea ... — Wayfarer

The existence of the earth prior to man and what we imagine or picture or form ideas of what that was like is not the same.

'Agents' doing 'deeds' are concepts privileging one side of the interaction. — fresco

Your description is conceptual, but the description is not the doing.

So, hidden humour played a serious role. As in the competitive Superiority Theory ( same article ) ? — Amity

I don't see it that way. It is not that the irony or humor is hidden but that it is just not seen. For us, though, it helps to have certain things brought to our attention that we might not be aware of if all we knew was what we read in the dialogues. Aristophanes' The Clouds, for example, is about Socrates and philosophy.

I do not know about the competitive Superiority Theory, but Socrates was clearly superior both intellectually and morally to many of his interlocutors. The twist though is that many of them thought of themselves as superior. The Theaetetus, for example, is funny because he thinks he is instructing Socrates about piety, but he is clueless. The dialogue ends and it is not clear whether he caught on and confronted his ignorance or if in his ignorance he went on and prosecuted his father as he claimed the gods wanted him to do.

Fine if we discount the fact that 'before' and 'after' are also parochial human constructs. — fresco

I think it may rather be the case that theories of time are the constructs and time as we experience it and what occurs in time - getting older, for example, are pre-cognitive events, which in time we developed concepts of.

We were born into a world of concepts which WERE of our own making. — fresco

We are born into a world in which there is light and noise and motion and, if we are fortunate, a breast to latch onto, although the nipple of a bottle will do.

As Goethe said, and Wittgenstein quotes approvingly:

In the beginning was the deed.

Concepts come later.

I would like to talk about humour in philosophy. Seriously. — Amity

Plato is said to have slept with a copy of the works of the comic poet/playwright Aristophanes under his pillow. Aristophanes was serious and funny.

There is a connection between Socratic humor and irony. Many of Socrates' interlocutors were unaware of the irony of Socrates' responses, which makes it doubly ironic. One must see both that it is and why it is ironic. In the same way one must be able to see both that and why some of his responses are humorous.

Aristophanes appears in Plato's Symposium, where wine and love are mischievously at play. Humor is a form of play, and like other forms of play, there is competition. Here the competition involves making the best speech on love during a drinking competition. It is also a competition between a comic and tragic poet, between philosophy and poetry, and between Aristophanes and Socrates.

Not a very funny post, I know.

It does not help you case to equivocate on the two meanings of "explanation" (verbal vs effective) that I carefully distinguished. — Dfpolis

What is self-explaining (meaning 1) but cannot be explained (meaning 2) is a conjuring act. What is self-explaining but by which you cannot explain anything is empty. It amounts to saying that nothing in the universe can explain itself (1) and so there must be something else that explains what is in the universe, but can't be explained (2) and does not need explanation (1 and 2).

You claim that:

There are logically possible acts that the universe cannot do. — Dfpolis

All that is actual is possible, and our concern is with what is actual, that is, the universe as it is, was, and will be. Any imagined possible acts that are impossible within the universe have no bearing on the universe as it is.

In addition, we do not know the limit of what is possible within the universe. We cannot extrapolate from our limited acquaintance with limited things to a universe that is limited.

If there are facts with no underlying dynamics/explanations ("brute facts" that "just are"), then the logic of science fails. — Dfpolis

The "logic of science" works quite well without recourse to an a priori first cause, or in your terms, without something that does not require an explanation because it is self-explaining.

As I explain earlier, essences specify possible acts, while existence makes powers operational — Dfpolis

This is what you said:

Essence, what a thing is, is the specification of its possible acts — Dfpolis

A thing cannot be what it is if it is not. Nothing is possible for what is not. Essence separate from existence is an abstract fantasy.

Naive realists think that what we humans call 'the physical world' has nothing to do with the active perceptual needs of us as a species. — fresco

Drop the labels and maybe we can make some headway. Labeling someone a "naive realist" and then attaching naive realism instead of what someone actually says is not productive.

Our "active perceptual needs" do not create the world ex nihilo. We are each of us born into a world that is not of our own making. It was here before any of us were and will be here after all of us.

You use the term explanation to mean:

the fact(s) that make some state of affairs be as it is. (We may or may not know these.) This is the sense I am using. — Dfpolis

You avoid Aristotle's causal language but do not side-step the problem. What distinction do you make between the fact(s) and some state of affairs? You said:

Proofs show us how to assemble facts we already know to see something we may not have noticed. — Dfpolis

Your argument is that there are these facts because of some other fact(s). There are finite beings because there is an infinite being, that the infinite being is the "explanation" of finite beings, and that the infinite being needs no explanation because it is infinite. In Scholastic terms you make the distinction between contingent beings and a necessary being. A first cause. An uncaused cause.

The same tired old argument.

Well someone on this forum mocked me for it. — Corra

I think it quite amusing when someone who is evidently uninformed mocks someone else who is trying to sort things out. They make fools of themselves. Try not to let it bother you. Your detractor is wrong in thinking it is a modern misconception and that the guidelines by which one lives equates to a lifestyle.

You really had to take a deep look at yourself. — Corra

Socrates frequently cited the Delphic maxim: "Know Thyself". You are on the right track.