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!

That you are caused to so reason? — J

Phhhh.

Big issues. Let's leave it aside for now.

The problem with this sort of "argument from psychoanalysis" is that they are very easy to develop.[/quote
Of course; I quite agree. Furthermore, even if the account I gave of Klima's motivation is true, it does not impact the validity of the argument in the article.

Their use is in setting out in general terms the territory in which the discussion is taking place. Kinda like claiming that Wittgenstein on Laws is a variation on Hume or Parmenides. Or saying things such as "Moderns come to define freedom in terms of potency", as if "moderns" were a monoculture.

We have found some agreement.
— Count Timothy von Icarus

2. Water was not H2O before 19th century chemistry. — Leontiskos

Perhaps it is worth noting that while before Cavendish announced the composition to the Royal Society in 1784, we didn't know that water was H₂O, water was nevertheless H₂O before his announcement.

Seems to me the core distinction here is between those who would say that a property is essential to an individual iff it is what makes that individual what it is (or something like that...) and those who say that a property is essential to an individual iff it belongs to that individual in every possible world. That, and 1-3 are not obviously mutually exclusive.

I would claim that water was not H2O before Lavoisier. — Moliere

That seem quite mistaken. And on either account of essence.

Regarding the question about "one correct interpretation" of texts; I can't see how that could be supportable. What could it mean to say there is only one correct interpretation if we cannot have any idea what criteria could be used to identify it? That said, I suppose it could be argued that what the author had in mind determined what was written; but then it could be asked as to what 'What the author had in mind" could refer to beyond the actual words that were written.

I mean the author could have been experiencing all sorts of feelings and associations during the process of writing, but it is questionable whether even the author, let alone anyone else, could identify and describe them after the fact.

To leap several steps ahead, I'm exploring whether the meaning of an allegedly mystical experience can be the subject of correct interpretation. — J

If we ask what the explanation of a mystical (or any other kind of) experience are we not asking what caused it, or what were the necessary conditions for its occurrence?

Is the meaning of a mystical experience the same thing as the explanation of it? We could also talk about what are the implications (for ontology perhaps?) of mystical (or any other kinds of) experiences.

Would the latter kind of question not be related to the former. For example if we thought that mystical experiences only occur because God exists would that not be asserted because we also thought that God caused or provided the necessary conditions for mystical experience?

Or we could say that mystical experiences occur on account of DMT or Seratonin in the brain, and the preferred implication there could still include God (with DMT or seratonin as neurophysical "gateways") or it could leave God out and just stick with the psychoactive chemicals as providing both necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of such experiences.

Quite so, but for me, the non-physicist, the reliable evidence is not Einstein's equations but my evaluation of the competence and sincerity of those who understand those equations. A very different kind of evidence, and yet I insist that I'm justified in saying that I know the theory is correct. — J

I haven't attempted to understand the equations, but is not the real test whether what the theory predicts is actually observed? Apparently GPS relies on calculations based on relativity theory for its accuracy
(don't ask me to explain that). But yea, I accept the theory on the basis that it is generally accepted within the physics community as the best understanding we currently have and also that it has real technological applications. Perhaps the Theory of Evolution is a more pertinent case. Apparently Popper at one time claimed it was not falsifiable and hence did not count as a scientific theory. If memory serves he later withdrew the claim.

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. — J

I'm really glad that you are beginning to perceive the moral foundations of your philosophical project. Your whole project seems to be motivated by this moral fear. In the past I have dubbed it "pluralism as first philosophy."

Note your thesis: <If we think this way, then we will end up being immoral>. Your own relativistic approach destroys this thesis as much as any other thesis. The idea that this thesis represents the "right way to see the world" is, on your reasoning, "morally questionable." If we say that your thesis is true, then we have made other things false. And therefore people who disagree with your thesis are affirming falsehoods. But if this situation is "morally problematic," then it seems that we cannot affirm any truths at all (lest we fall into the "moral error" of thinking that someone else has erred or uttered a falsehood).

Logical consistency would require you to avoid all truth claims, and the curious thing is that, in some ways, this is precisely what you do. Some of the time you follow your own advice in this. Of course, much of the time you don't, namely when you say things are true and argue against those who disagree with you.

One of the great boons in understanding that intellectual habits can be immoral is understanding that we are not beyond reproach merely because we are engaged in some argument or another. The boon is understanding that bad faith argument exists, and that we are capable of it. Once that occurs the possibility for a great deal of growth opens up, in that one can begin to rectify their vicious (in Aristotle's sense) intellectual habits.

(Note how closely this relates to the thread, "Beyond the Pale," where the central question asks what forms of falsehood or irrationality are beyond the pale and which are not.)

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.

I don't see how this is a problem. The fact that people still break the law is not an argument against good jurisprudence. The fact that people still sin is not an argument against theology. The fact that some students don't learn is not an argument against teaching. Even if one was committed to a very rigid, foundationalist philosophy (or theology, or theory of law, etc.) it would not follow that one's own doctrine is undermined by the fact that some people are not perfected by these. It's like how of the strictest ascetics, with a very strong position on the need to "uproot the passions" nonetheless maintain that most people will remain slaves to the passions.

Anyhow, as Gibbon says: "History…is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind." :grin: Or, if there is some sort of progress in history, a telos, a dialectical unfolding, a transcendence of finitude...it ain't easy. Socrates has to die to make his point.

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.

Wouldn't this just be true in general? If we think we know something, and people do not accept it, or affirm something contrary, we think they are ignorant in that matter (or I suppose acting in bad faith). The only way to avoid this is a sort of pluralism re truth or simply lacking conviction (the deflation of truth to a matter of taste).

Second, this suggests that philosophy based on first principles and rationalism will be particularly inflexible and prone to dogmatism, while pluralism or relativism will tend not to be. I've discussed philosophy a lot of places online and in person over the years. Do I think this is so?

No, not really. If anything, it might go in the other direction. I have seen a great many people be quite aggressive in asserting pluralism and relativism. Particularly, over the years, I have encountered a lot of Nietzsche fans who assert their particular flavor of pluralistic moral anti-realism with a great deal of vitriol.

Anywhere philosophy is discussed, there is a tendency for people to defend thinkers by claiming that anyone who disagrees with them simply lacks the ability to understand them. This happens with all sorts of philosophy. It's more common with difficult or abstruse thinkers, who are indeed easy to misunderstand (e.g. Kant), so the criticism is sometimes valid. But it seems to me that this happens less with say, analytic philosophy, with its heavy focus on argument, and the most with post-modern thinkers (and particularly with Nietzsche). But this is a sort of dogmatism rearing it's head precisely where relativism is strongest. Likewise, these are the areas where the "cult of personality" seems to become most dominant (we have had threads on this, so I know I'm not alone in this appraisal).

Is this just incidental? I don't think so. I had a thread before about the relationship between relativism, misology, emotivism, and dogmatism. In a philosophy that claims that knowledge claims come down to power relations, one that claims that moral claims are just expressions of emotion, or one where beliefs are just the result of being inculcated in a certain sort of social game, etc. the role of rational argument is necessarily limited. There is only so much it can do; we have stepped outside logocentrism, for better or worse. Whereas, while belief in accessible first principles might lead to dogmatism, I do not see why it might not also lead to greater faith in argument and the capacity to demonstrate one's position in good faith in the long run.

Third, while telling people they are wrong about closely held metaphysical or moral beliefs can produce friction, I don't see how other methods, i.e. explaining broad fields as pseudoproblems or declaring all sides of the debate "meaningless," claiming they involve merely relative truths, or that they deal in "fictions," etc. is necessarily any less so. Again, this is a case where sometimes it seems like the opposite is sometimes true.

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!

This wasn't meant as a refutation of relativism, it's just pointing out that it doesn't make people play nice or avoid disagreement. Indeed, relativists and pluralists can be plenty aggressive in arguing for their position (whether the relativist is contradicts themselves in this depends on the sort of relativism). They don't fall victim to this criticism because they don't use relativism as a way to avoid friction, but assert it explicitly at the expense of non-relativists (often as an "obvious truth").

That said, I have had this exact conversation with Joshs before (I think more than once), on truth being situated within metaphysical systems which are embraced based on a sort of "usefulness," and I definitely do think that such a position still has to call other positions wrong. I used Saint Augustine has an example in that discussion. If the relativistic view on truth is correct, then it has to say Augustine is wrong because Augustine doesn't think truth is relative in this way. To say he is "also correct" is to not take what he says seriously.

More broadly, I think this is somewhat related to an abuse of the principle of charity one sometimes sees, where pluralists translate monists into holding just "one position among many," to make their arguments more acceptable (more acceptable to the pluralists anyhow). Some (but not all) perennialists tend to do this with religious claims too.

Wouldn't this just be true in general. If we think we know something, and people do not accept it, or affirm something contrary, we think they are ignorant in that matter (or I suppose acting in bad faith). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Quoting from, "Beyond the Pale":

For me the most interesting question asks from whence the moral disapproval arises. One person thinks black people are inferior to white people; another thinks black cats are inferior to white cats; another thinks black pens are inferior to white pens. Supposing that all three are irrational, why does moral disapproval attach to the first but not to the second or third? All of our various pejoratives seem to signal irrationality, but we do not deem all forms of irrationality to be immoral. Is there some added ingredient beyond irrationality that makes racism or bigotry immoral. Malice? Obstinacy? Harm? — Leontiskos

1. I hold X to be true
2. Therefore, I am committed to saying that Joe, who holds ~X, is holding to a falsehood

The question is, "What is Joe, according to me?" Certainly he is wrong. Is he ignorant? Possibly, depending on one's definition. Is he acting in bad faith? No, not necessarily.

No, not really. If anything, it might go in the other direction. I have seen a great many people be quite aggressive in asserting pluralism and relativism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think this is right, and I think it is because realists like Aquinas care about the answering the question of culpability accurately. If you are a consistent realist then you won't want to ascribe culpability where none exists. If you are a relativist then everything is much looser. Relativists don't tend to work out theories of culpability, or innocence, or guilt, or correct reasoning, or incorrect reasoning, etc. Therefore they tend to err in both directions: they can treat the innocent as if they are guilty but they can also treat the guilty as if they are innocent. They lack rigor when it comes to assessing culpability, because if there were a proper way to assess culpability then relativism would be false.

As a quasi-relativist @J tends to clump all of the negative predications together: wrong/ignorant/culpable/irrational/neglectful/malicious/obstinate/harmful. He says, "If we [believe in truth] then we will end up making accusations of that stuff!" The answer is, "Yes, and people do commit those acts, but not every act which supports a falsehood is guilty of the same crimes. For example, not everyone who speaks a falsehood is doing so in bad faith."

Edit: I also think that this is just bad reasoning in general: <Y is bad and sometimes it follows from X, therefore we'd better do away with X>. As long as X is a central, complex reality of human life, you shouldn't just do away with it. That sort of reasoning is why germophobes would never leave their house. It is the irrational subordination of love/desire to fear.

One approach says reality is what’s consistent, testable, and persists independently of perception (empiricism). Another argues everything we know is filtered through perception and cognition (constructivism or idealism), so “real” might just mean “coherently experienced.”

At the end of the day, we trust our senses and reasoning not because they’re perfect, but because they’re the best tools we’ve got, until they aren’t

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.

I don't see how this is a problem. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I guess it needn't be. As I say, it just doesn't fit my own experience of doing philosophy. I'm aware that, for some, philosophy is seen as a history of disputes that ought to have been resolved. You put it well:

it would not follow that one's own doctrine is undermined by the fact that some people are not perfected by these. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The idea that "some people are not perfected" by one's own presumably correct doctrine makes me smile, but I suppose it expresses the attitude you'd have to take if you saw philosophy as an attempt to make a single correct view triumph, and the failure to do so is down to the other guy, not the issue itself.

"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.}

Wouldn't this just be true in general? If we think we know something, and people do not accept it, or affirm something contrary, we think they are ignorant in that matter (or I suppose acting in bad faith). — Count Timothy von Icarus

But when it comes to philosophical views? I would have said that one of the key differences between thinking philosophically and our ordinary ways of thinking about the world is the recognition that we don't propose ignorance or bad faith as a plausible explanation for someone's disagreeing with us. And I have to admit how difficult it is for me even to imagine carrying on as you suggest.

Third, while telling people they are wrong about closely held metaphysical or moral beliefs can produce friction, I don't see how other methods, i.e. explaining broad fields as pseudoproblems or declaring all sides of the debate "meaningless," claiming they involve merely relative truths, or that they deal in "fictions," etc. is necessarily any less so. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What would you think of the method that says, "Hmm, tell me more. Help me understand why you say this. Here's how I see it. Let's see what we can learn"? The difficulty that many people have with such a method, unlike all the ones you enumerate, including telling people they are wrong, is that it requires sincere curiosity and philosophical humility on the part of the inquirer. But if one is already sure enough about one's beliefs to declare someone else wrong, then curiosity and humility probably don't apply. BTW, I am far from a perfect exemplar of any of this. I too fall prey to arrogance and impatience.

I'll have to leave the relativism question for later. It's Sunday morning and -- I hope this doesn't shock or disappoint anyone :wink: -- I'm off to church.

That seem quite mistaken. And on either account of essence. — Banno

The only thing that comes to mind is that I'm anti-essence. But I'm glad to see that I've said false things cuz that's what leads to new thoughts.

I'm certain that your perspective is perfect for a counter-balance to mine, though.

@J, just noticed this. I don't recognise you in the somewhat patronising description given by .

I was going to PM that, but perhaps it is better said publicly.

1. I hold X to be true
2. Therefore, I am committed to saying that Joe, who holds ~X, is holding to a falsehood

The question is, "What is Joe, according to me?" Certainly he is wrong. Is he ignorant? Possibly, depending on one's definition. Is he acting in bad faith? No, not necessarily. — Leontiskos

There's also the possibility that Joe is right and I am wrong. There might be some point in trying to understand Joe's position, to see how the arguments he uses function, to try to find some common ground.

There's an alternative to thinking that an argument is either right or wrong. Rather than framing disagreements as binary conflicts we might seek the underlying structure of the disagreement, which could lead to deeper agreement or at least mutual intelligibility.

This would involve some good will on the part of the participants, and the acceptance of what we might call "liberal" guidelines for discussion.

This seems to be what this forum is about. But we can check with @Jamal on that.

It might involve not dismissing someone as "beyond the pale"; however given the limited time and resources available to us all, there may be some folk with whom the law of diminishing returns suggests there is not much value in continuing a discussion.

Just a thought. Let's see what response this post elicits.

I would claim that water was not H2O before Lavoisier. — Moliere

I'll put my reply here instead of to your PM.

I understand that it was Cavendish, not Lavoisier, who first identified water as a compound (through experiments around 1781), though Lavoisier's chemical revolution helped fix the conceptual framework.

It occurred to me on looking again that there are two readings of what you wrote - the de re and the de dicto. The sentence ‘Water is H₂O’ was not something people could assert or know before Cavendish; the term "water" did not yet rigidly refer to H₂O. So if you were saying that the word "water" could not be used to refer to H₂O before Cavendish announced his work, I agree. However, if the assertion is that prior to Cavensih's announcement, the chemical structure of water was not H₂O, it is I think in error.

There's all sorts of complexities here. The foremost is that Kripke's "Water=H₂O" is intended only for extensional contexts. While Aristotle presumably believed fish live water, he doubtless did not believe that they live in H₂O.

We should head back to the topic at hand, which is "what is real". The idea seems to be that there is an essence, a "what makes a thing what it is", and that this is of use in deciding what is real and what isn't. Along with this goes the view that there really is a difference between what is real and what is not real, such that for any x, the question "is x real" has a firm "yes" or no"no" answer.

I think that view is mistaken, for reasons I gave earlier. And I think that view is quite common amongst philosophers - at least those who are alive.

Now there is a clear and well-formulated use of "essence" that relies on modal logic, and says that an essence of some item is a property had by that item in every possible world. This appears to me, and I suspect to most folk*, as a better definition than either that the essence of a thing is determined by its participation in a Form... or that the essence of a thing is "what it is to be that thing".

Now Kripke really did throw the cat amongst the pigeons. Unit Possible World Semantics, the orthodoxy, form Russell and Quine and friends, was that essences were passé, not amenable to a decent logical analysis and best thrown out. Kripke gave essences A New Hope, redefining them in a rigid and formal way. However in so doing he moved the emphasis away from metaphysics to logic and epistemology.

And also, in doing this, Kripke (and others - "Kripke" here is shorthand for those who adopted and adapted his ideas) detached essence from natural kinds and teleology and other such notions.

So Kripke's revolution dispatched much of the previous work on modality, necessity and essences.

The result is that essences no longer are of much help in setting out what is real and what isn't.

But here are those amongst us who, bathing in the light of Plato and Aristotle, seek to reinvigorate metaphysics by bringing back the "what makes a thing what it is" version of essence. And that's pretty much were the argument here stands.

I'll leave this now, although I might come back to it and talk about water again.

Cheers.

* it's not in the philpapers survey, and perhaps it should be

Regarding the question about "one correct interpretation" of texts; I can't see how that could be supportable. What could it mean to say there is only one correct interpretation if we cannot have any idea what criteria could be used to identify it? That said, I suppose it could be argued that what the author had in mind determined what was written; but then it could be asked as to what 'What the author had in mind" could refer to beyond the actual words that were written.

I mean the author could have been experiencing all sorts of feelings and associations during the process of writing, but it is questionable whether even the author, let alone anyone else, could identify and describe them after the fact. — Janus

Yes, it's a headache, but I don't think we can just throw out the idea of a correct interpretation, if we limit "interpretation" to some version of "conscious intention." Again, I'd appeal to ordinary experience: When you say something and I say, "Oh, you mean Y," getting it completely wrong, you're going to stand on your right to reply, "No, that's not it, I meant X." And so you should. This is a version of "author's authority," and you're right that it certainly leaves out many cases in which we'd like to say we have a correct interpretation but can't appeal to any "author." It also leaves out the "feelings and associations" problem, where it's not clear that even the author is fully in charge of what they meant. Psychoanalytic interpretation would be the locus classicus here.

Is the meaning of a mystical experience the same thing as the explanation of it? — Janus

I think not, but it's far from clear. The traditional distinction is that we're supposed to understand things in the human sciences and explain things in the physical sciences. Where does this kind of experience fall?

Perhaps the Theory of Evolution is a more pertinent case. Apparently Popper at one time claimed it was not falsifiable and hence did not count as a scientific theory. If memory serves he later withdrew the claim. — Janus

Yes, I think he was persuaded that there are falsifiable predictions associated with evolutionary theory, namely that if X aspect of the theory is true, we would expect to find Y types of fossils at location Z, dating to time T. And this has been borne out many times, and never to my knowledge falsified. Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True is good on this. ("True," but perhaps not complete . . . see Nagel.)

In Watkins' terms evolution is both confirmable and influential. Also, it risks being show to not match the data, unlike creationism in it's various forms. As Haldane pointed out, finding a rabbit fossil in Precambrian rock formations would be a knockout. But there aren't any.

Evolution is not strictly falsifiable - only universal statements are strictly falsifiable. That was what Popper was drawing attention to in his 1974 article, "Scientific Reduction and the Essential Tension". But the many misunderstandings of that comment brought out a later retraction.

He didn't change his mind, he clarified his point.

There's an alternative to thinking that an argument is either right or wrong. Rather than framing disagreements as binary conflicts we might seek the underlying structure of the disagreement, which could lead to deeper agreement or at least mutual intelligibility.

This would involve some good will on the part of the participants, and the acceptance of what we might call "liberal" guidelines for discussion. — Banno

Of course. "Argument" as a zero-sum game with winners and losers. . . . I had a professor who used to talk about "the gladiatorial theory of philosophy," in which two arguments battle it out, giving no quarter, and the result is supposed to settle some issue. He didn't think it worked, usually, and that's been my experience. More deeply, I've come to see that the reasons why it doesn't work can tell us a lot about what philosophy is -- how it is distinct from other human pursuits, and what can be gained by engaging in it.

"the gladiatorial theory of philosophy" — J

"Are you not entertained?"

Entertainment is also a large part of the discussion here in the forum. It's cold outside and I can write this post between chess games and Stelaris.

Let's see what response this post elicits. — Banno

I would say that instead of engaging in ad hominem you should give philosophy a try.

Here is the question:

In short, if you start from premises you believe you can show to be foundational, does that commit you to also saying that everything that follows is rationally obligatory? That you are caused to so reason? — J

Here is your answer, as usual:

Phhhh.

Big issues. Let's leave it aside for now. — Banno

Just because you don't want to answer @J's questions doesn't mean no one else can.

The question of whether one is obliged to be rational goes hand in hand with the question of whether one is obliged to believe that those who hold contradictory propositions to one's own are holding falsehoods. Pretty basic stuff. Here is @J's phrasing:

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. — J

And the first question is, I have proposed, much more simple. It is, "If we believe that some proposition is true, then must we believe that those who contradict that proposition hold to a falsehood?" This would be a good starting point for J, and one which is less polemical and charged than one fashioned with the various pejoratives he is leveraging in this paragraph (e.g. "apodictic," "ignorant," "stupid," "stubborn," "malicious").

Here is the moral fear I referenced:

The idea that there is only one right way to see the world [...] seems morally questionable. — J

And again: if we hold that some proposition is true, then apparently we have claimed that all contradictory propositions are false (and that this is the "right way to see the world"). So what do we do with that? Is the moral fear justified? Or when we affirm that a proposition is true are we not saying that that is the right way to see the world?

This would involve some good will on the part of [Leontiskos] [...] It might involve not dismissing someone as "beyond the pale"; — Banno

My whole thread presupposes the idea that not everyone should be dismissed and yet everyone agrees that some people should (indeed early posters mistakenly read the OP as claiming that no one should be dismissed!). So it raises the question of what criteria are legitimate for such dismissal. Your insinuation that I haven't considered the possibility that someone should not be dismissed as "beyond the pale" is simply a bad faith reading of the thread and my posts here. (Note that the whole point of my post was to point out that not every falsehood is held in bad faith. The point was that Count was jumping too fast when he jumped to "bad faith.")

What you are yet again doing is making an interesting discussion personal with ad hominem attacks, which is why I tend to ignore you.

(Since you have a tendency to notify @Jamal about everything you find questionable, and because you tagged him in that "call-out" of me, I will add him to this post as well.)

Posts like this are a part of the reason that @J and I moved our conversation to the PMs. J. would have understood that. Butt out. nothing to do with you.

Let's see what response this post elicits. — Banno

Mmmm.

Butt out. nothing to do with you. — Banno

The forum topics are available to all members, are they not? As I said, if you don't want to answer J's questions, don't. But don't get mad when other people do. Some of us do want to discuss those questions of J's.

You're a bit of a dill, really.

I'll try again. J and I are talking on a PM, not a forum page, about issues hereabouts, in order to avoid irrelevant shite posts such as these.

And he will have understood the suggestion that we keep the discussion of that question until we get through our discussion in PM.

Have you more to say on a topic that does not concern you? Please feel free to keep it to yourself.

You're a bit of a dill, really.

I'll try again. J and I are talking on a PM, not a forum page, about issues hereabouts, in order to avoid irrelevant shite posts such as these.

And he will have understood the suggestion that we keep the discussion of that question until we get through our discussion in PM.

Have you more to say on a topic that does not concern you? Please feel free to keep it to yourself. — Banno

If you have something of substance to add to the thread, by all means do that. If not, please cut it out with the harassment.