I disagree, but also I don't think it matters that I disagree because I clearly put them forward thinking them convincing :D

When they are not.

1a. The essentialist would say that the term “water” signified H2O before 19th century chemistry. — Leontiskos

I don't think that's what the essentialist would claim -- but I would claim that water was not H2O before Lavoisier. But this is a claim about meanings and how we understand things rather than the world. The essentialist would agree with me there, and the disagreement would be about true reference -- that when Aristotle described water without use of H2O he said true things about water which are no longer true today.

But I'd put it in historicist terms -- we can imagine Kripke being transplanted to another time with different concepts being taken seriously,

So, for example: "Fire is the release of phlogiston."

I think the essentialist would tend to say the concept of fire (the understanding in the mind actualized by fire being experienced through the senses) stays the same, but our intentions towards it are clarified. Fire hasn't changed, but our intellects have become more adequate to it, and towards its relationship with other things. The identity of water as H2O clarifies a whole host of relations between water and other things (the way water acts in the world), and it is through those interactions that things are epistemically accessible at all.

I suppose one challenge to the essentialist lies in pursuing the primacy of interaction into something like a process metaphysics, dissolving the thing-ness (substance) of water into processes. Yet this has its own difficulties.

I disagree — Moliere

Er, but how are you disagreeing?

Again:

(2) does not contest (1); instead it contests (1a). And (3) does not contest (1); instead it contests (1b). — Leontiskos

So:

P1. (2) does not contradict (1)
P2. (2) contradicts (1a)
P3. (3) does not contradict (1)
P4. (3) contradicts (1b)

If you disagree, then assign truth values to P1-P4. Be clear about what you are saying. If you say you disagree then apparently at least one of the truth values must be false.

that when Aristotle described water without use of H2O he said true things about water which are no longer true today. — Moliere

Why? Klima's whole point is that what Lavoisier & co. discovered does not falsify what came before. That Lavoisier understood water better than Aristotle does not mean Aristotle had no understanding of water, or that Aristotle's understanding of water was false.

Why? Klima's whole point is that what Lavoisier & co. discovered does not falsify what came before. That Lavoisier understood water better than Aristotle does not mean Aristotle had no understanding of water, or that Aristotle's understanding of water was false. — Leontiskos

Because Aristotle believed water to have a teleology which put it above Earth, and air above water, and fire above air. The reason water goes where it goes is because it's supposed to be -- it wants -- to sit atop earth.

At the time I think that's pretty much true -- how else to distinguish why the ocean sits on top of the land and we breath what's above the water and see the fire in the sky?

I agree that Lavoisier did not falsify Aristotle. I just don't think there's a better or worse understanding of water with respect to historical thinkers.

Today we'd say that Lavoisier had a "better" understanding than Aristotle, but tomorrow we may say the opposite if we find out teleology was right after all.

I think the essentialist would tend to say the concept of fire (the understanding in the mind actualized by fire being experienced through the senses) stays the same, but our intentions towards it are clarified. Fire hasn't changed, but our intellects have become more adequate to it, and towards its relationship with other things. The identity of water as H2O clarifies a whole host of relations between water and other things (the way water acts in the world), and it is through those interactions that things are epistemically accessible at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Fair.

Tho this gets a bit into some of my disagreements -- an essentialist has to have an idea of mind? Intentions, actualized understanding, experience through the senses?

A Jedi craves not these things. ;)

I suppose one challenge to the essentialist lies in pursuing the primacy of interaction into something like a process metaphysics, dissolving the thing-ness (substance) of water into processes. Yet this has its own difficulties. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeh, I'm not so keen on process metaphysics, though I ought to be given my stances.

What can I say? I just live in a world of confusion and questions. :D

Today we'd say that Lavoisier had a "better" understanding than Aristotle, but tomorrow we may say the opposite if we find out teleology was right after all. — Moliere

I think you've presented a canard of "teleology," but let's accept it for the sake of argument. Does "water is H2O" contradict "Water wants to sit atop Earth"? It looks like Lavoisier did not contradict Aristotle even on that reading.

But you ignored this:

If you disagree, then assign truth values to P1-P4. Be clear about what you are saying. If you say you disagree then apparently at least one of the truth values must be false. — Leontiskos

I actually think you've ignored that sort of question over and over throughout this conversation. You are ignoring requests for clarity.

I actually think you've ignored that sort of question over and over throughout this conversation. You are ignoring requests for clarity. — Leontiskos

M'kay.

I'll focus on those, though not today. I've been responding with my first thoughts rather than digging in. Sorry if that's distracting.

- No worries. I just find that when people ignore parts of posts they seldom come back and return to them later. Maybe you were planning to do so.

Heh, I wasn't, so thanks for highlighting what I ought focus on when I'm in the mood to focus fr fr.

- :up:

But, I think a difficulty here, when one reads a work like De Anima is the desire to see it as some sort of contemporary empirical theory, which it sort of is, but this isn't really where its value lies. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thank you for the citation. I always try to read philosophers sympathetically, in context, and fortunately with Aristotle there's an enormous interpretive literature I can consult.

And in virtue of what is a stance adopted? Reason? Sentiment? Aesthetic taste? Sheer impulse? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd refer you back to the "Epistemic Stances . . . " thread. I can't say it any better than Chakravartty does, or lay out the arguments any more clearly than I did in the OP. The short answer to your list, as you will see, is "none of the above." An epistemic stance will largely depend on "a collection of attitudes, values, aims, and other commitments relevant to thinking about scientific ontology, including policies or guidelines for the production of putatively factual beliefs," to quote Chakravartty. So I guess closer to "reasons," plural, than anything else on your list.

If they are disputable they will certainly be disputed, hence "how philosophy actually proceeds." — Count Timothy von Icarus

But isn't the goal of the kind of philosophy you espouse to resolve those disputes? More, to claim that in principle they must be resolvable? This would make the history of philosophy, taken in toto, a story of failure, since the disputes live on. That's the part that I have trouble recognizing as my own experience of doing philosophy with others.

and also morally questionable.

I don't get this one. How so? — Count Timothy von Icarus

The worry here is that the foundationalist philosopher who believes that everything of importance can be demonstrated apodictically, thus resolving all disagreements in favor of a position they hold, will treat those who disagree as if they must be doing something wrong, whether due to ignorance, stupidity, stubbornness, or malice. And we can't limit the "wrong" to "intellectual wrong," because the whole foundationalist picture is supposed to hang together, such that ethics follows from metaphysics, or at least depends upon it. Thus it is not merely possible but necessary that to be mistaken in one area is to be mistaken through and through, at least on the big-picture significant questions.

I certainly don't say that everyone who values a firm foundation for their philosophy has to think this way. But, as I said, it's a worry, especially when disagreements provoke ire, contempt, and unkindness toward those who disagree. In such cases, quite apart from the merits of the arguments, it's the attitude that disagreement must be ended, and would be ended if the world operated aright and everyone could reason properly, that gives me shivers. In everyday language, it's the attitude that says, "What's wrong with you! How can you still be disagreeing with me?!" Thomas knew about what can happen next . . . the old argumentum ad baculum. (He thought it was a fallacy. :smile: )

And would a strong epistemology of rational obligation mean that we were wrong in doing this?

Wrong in doing what exactly, not affirming truth? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, I meant wrong in claiming that we had reasons for affirming what we think true, as opposed to being caused to do so. I can tell that the reason/cause thing doesn't really speak to you, and that's fine, there's no need to pursue if it's not philosophically fruitful for you.

One of the problems with relativism as a nice solution to disagreements is that it doesn't actually allow "everyone to be right" anyhow. It says that everyone who isn't a relativist (most thinkers) is wrong. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't actually think that's true. Can you cite a relativist philosopher who says this, or who's been unable to respond to this criticism? If it were that simple to refute relativism, surely the position would be in the graveyard by now!