Hume's argument is a kind of exclusion of induction by exhaustive dichotomy. What is your response here supposed to be? Do you think that Hume would say, "Oh someone told you that the offspring of two tigers is a tiger! Oh, well in that case my argument doesn't apply!" Or would he say, "Oh, you are 'simply asserting that you know things,' well in that case my argument really seems to break down." — Leontiskos

I imagine it'd be easy to get him to see that knowledge is generated by human being, and that the conclusions of his argument are at least consistent with that. Rather than making appeals to the logical structure between events, which he demonstrates is invalid, we make appeals to people's emotions and habits of thought. In this case those habits are at least academic of some kind, though there is surely more knowledge in the world than the academy -- the electrician knows a good deal about the world, for instance.

Rather than undermining knowledge and philosophy it demonstrates why it's necessary to pursue -- we will never have a grasp whereby we can derive necessary conclusions about things. The question then becomes how does that work, in spite of induction being invalid?

But what essences do is give us something we know of the thing that must be the case. In which case we'd say that with a new essence we have a new species.

It's not so much "falling prey" as saying -- there's more than one philosophy that answers this question. We don't have to accept Aristotle's solution. And, indeed, we could just say we don't know, like good and curious skeptics, though I indulge in philosophy and try to answer the questions anyways because they're enjoyable to think about and connect with others over.

You don't get to exempt yourself from the criticisms you level at others. That's not how it works. — Leontiskos

I don't think that when I make a guess about something that I'm making a valid inference, so I'm being self-consistent.

Self consistent? Oh, okay, so...

When Red Sky asked: "Is there an objective quality?"

and you answered: "Yes. Now what?"

...who were you appealing to then?

Hume? Aristotle? Kripke?

Yourself perhaps. Maybe you were...

...do what they did and write our own little thoughts, inferences, suppositions, and what-have-you. — Moliere

I was wondering what the consequences of the question were. When they said they wanted opinions I thought to give them one that hadn't been stated yet.

But also I don't feel a deep attachment to the dichotomy between the objective and the subjective, which is why I noted Kant's theory of aesthetics which could be read as both/and or neither/nor -- it's a troublesome theory to categorize as strictly objective or subjective.

When they said they wanted opinions I thought to give them one that hadn't been stated yet. — Moliere

Yours was the first reply in the thread. And it was a very definite answer, you didn't elaborate on, but I think would have some bearing on the broader question being discussed here: How do we know what is real? You must surely have a basis for knowing what's real if you are certain there are objective qualities.

I don't see how Kant's theory of aesthetics helps you very much, given that Kant maintains aesthetic judgements arise from a "free play of the imagination and understanding."

It's widely regarded as a solidly subjectivist theory. I would ask, how could it be otherwise where it not for your assertion that objective qualities exist? So my question is, how do you know there are objective qualities?

I don't know that -- it's something I wonder about. And in the context of art I think it's interesting to explore the objectivist stance. In what sense can we make aesthetics "objective", or whatever? Is it even appealing to do so? Does it matter at all if the qualities are objective, or is this just a way for us to say "It's really important for others to see this"?

Ultimately I'd say the same of aesthetics as I do of ethics though -- that the statements aren't interested in matters of fact, exactly. But they are still valuable for all that.

Which is kind of a theme of my thinking generally. With respect to objective/subjective, though, I really don't think it's an important distinction at all. We get the drift, but there's plenty of interesting questions which can't be addressed by such a simplification of the authority of a speaker -- either it's TRUE or it's just your opinion doesn't exactly allow for nuance.

I imagine it'd be easy to get him to see that knowledge is generated by human being, and that the conclusions of his argument are at least consistent with that. Rather than making appeals to the logical structure between events, which he demonstrates is invalid, we make appeals to people's emotions and habits of thought. — Moliere

An appeal to emotion or habits of thought will not justify the claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger, for Hume. But yes, part of the problem here is that Hume himself is not a serious thinker. He himself vacillates on whether his argument is sound.

I don't think that when I make a guess about something that I'm making a valid inference, so I'm being self-consistent. — Moliere

"I just make guesses," is not a serious answer. You can't just say, "Oh, Aristotle's approach was flawed, but I just make guesses, and that's a much better approach."

Either we have rational grounds to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger, or else we don't. This is what most people would do:

1. If Hume's argument is sound, then we do not have rational grounds to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger.
2. But we do have rational grounds to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger.
3. Therefore, Hume's argument is unsound.
4. Therefore, I can't go around wielding Hume's argument as if it were sound.

This is what you do:

1. If Hume's argument is sound, then we do not have rational grounds to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger.
2. But we do have rational grounds to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger.
3. Therefore, Hume's argument is unsound.
5. Nevertheless, I will still go around wielding Hume's argument as if it were sound.

The problem with (5) is that it transgresses the first principle of dialogue: speak only what you really believe to be true.


(And of course you can keep running with the idea that we have non-rational grounds—whether emotional or habitual—to claim that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger. I don't think that goes anywhere. To predict a future event is a rational and normative act, and there is no such thing as non-rational normativity. The idea of "non-rational grounds for claiming X," conflates description with normativity. A psychological explanation for why someone proffers a prediction is different from a reason for why the prediction is reliable.)

Oh, Ion!

If we know we know something then there's no reason for us to invent some frame in which to say how we know that we know that we know something -- like what philosophy is trying to do. We can just say "Rule 1 of this discussion: We know things"

Upon thinking that we can see that though there's a problem in Aristotle, and though there's the philosophical puzzle of the problem of induction we still know stuff. This is an inversion of the question. Instead of asking after the method in order to know our conclusions are good we are seeking out possible patterns in what we already know in order to answer the question "How do we know?"

It's a philosophical question with more than Aristotle's and Hume's answer, though: And I've even supplied a name so I feel like we've hit the merry-go-round of disagreement and will just go back and forth asserting what we're asserting thinking it somehow addresses whatever it is we're trying to address.

Therefore, I can't go around wielding Hume's argument as if it were sound. — Leontiskos

I wonder. Consider Newtonian mechanics, as employed in space flight. It's good enough to get the job done. But it's no special relativity! Isn't sometimes a rule of thumb - or a lower resolution argument sufficient to get us from a to b? And if not, how DO we know what is real? And I mean KNOW!

We can just say "Rule 1 of this discussion: We know things" — Moliere

You can say that, but then you have to accept 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Upon thinking that we can see that [...] though there's the philosophical puzzle of the problem of induction we still know stuff. — Moliere

You can't do that without accepting 3. Your error is 5. You think the "problem of induction" is a problem for Aristotle, but not for your lackadaisical positions (like, "I've been told, therefore I know"). That's nuts. If Hume's argument doesn't count against you, then obviously it doesn't count against Aristotle or anyone else. Let's be done with these double standards.

I wonder. Consider Newtonian mechanics, as employed in space flight. It's good enough to get the job done. But it's no special relativity! Isn't sometimes a rule of thumb - or a lower resolution argument sufficient to get us from a to b? — karl stone

If someone understands Newtonian mechanics as accurate within a (comparatively large) margin of error, and they wield the theory according to that understanding, then they have done nothing wrong. It only becomes a problem when they erect a double standard by wielding the theory against others in a different way than they understand it themselves. So for example, if they wield it against others as if it has a small margin of error, and they wield it against their own thought as it if has a large margin of error, then they are involved in the rational error I am highlighting.

You think the "problem of induction" is a problem for Aristotle, but not for your lackadaisical positions (like, "I've been told, therefore I know"). — Leontiskos

Why would I think such a thing?

I have noted that we could just not know. I don't particularly care to overthrow Aristotle -- I think he's anachronistic to our practices of science and philosophy today, but I don't particularly mind others who want to adopt his methods. I don't really see philosophy as this tournament of positions which must be laid out in order to demonstrate who the victor is.

Regardless knowledge does indeed begin with listening to others. Without the ability to hear a teacher, say in an academy or some other setting that's not controversial, one doesn't obtain knowledge. But, really, we learn about what exists in this world more or less daily by this method. We don't go to the degree of questioning whether the induction is a logically valid construct for our inference -- in our everyday life the way we determine what is real is through that interactive process with one another. Think of hallucinations here -- we classify someone who sees things no one else sees as undergoing a hallucination: it's real in some sense but not real in another. The way a person would realize they have a hallucination is by communicating with others about their perceptions. Since we have no way of verifying someone else's perceptions -- to perceive their perceptions as my own perception -- we pretty much just have to trust one another on what it is we see.

Over time we learn to discriminate that trust further, but the last thing in the world I think it comes from are logical constructions of knowledge. I don't think the process of knowledge generation is constrained by logical validity, except where research in logic and other disciplines might be concerned as a meta-requirement. We really can make guesses and then go and see if they are correct. Usually someone who is a better guesser knows a lot or has some familiarity with the world and what is considered knowledge, but that doesn't make their guess anything more than that.

I have noted that we could just not know. — Moliere

But that's not what you've done in this thread. You haven't claimed that we don't know whether the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger.

Regardless knowledge does indeed begin with listening to others. Without the ability to hear a teacher, say in an academy or some other setting that's not controversial, one doesn't obtain knowledge. — Moliere

It does, but not to just anyone, but to those who know.

We don't go to the degree of questioning whether the induction is a logically valid construct for our inference -- in our everyday life the way we determine what is real is through that interactive process with one another. — Moliere

I would suggest re-reading this post more seriously. "I know it because someone told me," is not a response to Hume. And if you think there is some schizophrenic divide between philosophy and life, then I think you need a new philosophy.

I don't think the process of knowledge generation is constrained by logical validity — Moliere

Then why the hell have you been arguing for page after page that Aristotle lacks knowledge because he lacks validity? Hint: it's because you've been saying things that you know are not true. For instance, you've been saying that your theoretical objections refute knowledge of species or else knowledge via induction, and yet now it seems that you don't actually believe that theoretical objections are sufficient for such refutations.

In any case, your whole idea that induction is an inference that is supposed to be valid is a strawman. Valid inferences are deductive. Induction is not formal in that way, and has never been said to be. This is related to the incoherence of your whole notion of induction:

The problem with your construal is that it isn't induction at all. It is not an inference at all, but a tautology. "I have seen three swans and they all have wings; therefore three swans have wings." Or, "I have seen every swan that currently exists, and they all have wings; therefore every currently-existing swan has wings." No induction is occurring here, much less any inference at all. If you go from "all tigers" to "all tigers" then you haven't made a move at all, and you have certainly not moved to a "more encompassing category." — Leontiskos

In any case, your whole idea that induction is an inference that is supposed to be valid is a strawman. Valid inferences are deductive. Induction is not formal in that way, and has never been said to be. — Leontiskos

Now I've already agreed to say that my understanding is terrible in order to jump into the ideas and arguments. Let's just say Aristotle is right about everything.

If what I say is false, then you can set me straight.

The point here is that if Hume's argument is sound, then it counts against Aristotle (and everyone else, too). So do you think it is sound or not?

Aristotle is at the very least saying that someone who achieves familiarity with tigers will be able to identify tigers, and they will have at least a partial understanding of tigers. They will likely know, for example, that the offspring of two tigers is a tiger. There is nothing in Aristotle about "mathematical induction," as if it were some kind of formal inductive proof. The article I pointed you to is all about Aristotle's notion of experience and what is contained therein.

But again, this is the central question: Do you hold that Hume's argument is sound, or not? If you don't then you can't appeal to it. If you do then all of my unanswered questions loom. You can't maintain your praxis in which it is simultaneously sound and unsound.

Do you hold that Hume's argument is sound, or not? — Leontiskos

Yes, but I don't think it does the work you're thinking it does.

The first time I read Hume I thought the same, which is what ultimately drove me to Kant.

But then I realized there's this other reading of his skepticism which treats it a bit more in accord with the Kantian notions than a first reading might suggest. The skepticism doesn't undermine knowledge as much as note how human beings' rationality is embedded with their emotions. The bits Kant adds notes how the mind has a rational structure, like I believe you're insisting upon, but he also puts a limit to knowledge. For Hume it's that the way we infer things about causation does not match his philosophical construct of causation, and so he must conclude that though his description of the human mind leads to conclusions we would not otherwise consider he can't help but draw the consequences when thinking philosophically.

In some ways we can read them as the emotivist and the rationalist both contending with this classical philosophical duality between emotion and reason, but each putting their own spin on it. Whereas for Hume it's to note that human beings don't produce knowledge by engaging in philosophy, for Kant our experiences are rationally conditioned. (But also, importantly, we don't produce scientific knowledge of philosophy, except for his one tome, of course, because he got it right)

Skip to Popper. His attempt to deal with the problem of induction is to note how our scientific theories aren't exactly positive cognitions or syntheses of reality exactly as it is, but instead what differentiates science from philosophy is the criterion of falsifiability. He takes up the notion that induction skepticism is true, and science proceeds, logically, by the modus tollens (which I flipped in my head earlier and misspoke)

The idea of a guess isn't that far off, to my mind, of how science works though Popper and others try to dress it up a bit more than that. But for me I'm trying to look at it as simply as possible in order to explain it to someone, rather than grasp its essence, and also to hear what others say on the matter of course.

...he can't help but draw the consequences when thinking philosophically. — Moliere

Okay, but would Hume himself say that this makes the drawing of the consequence justified? I don't think he would.

So suppose we ask, "Are we justified in claiming that the offspring of two tigers will be a tiger" (which is asking whether we have true grounds for such a claim)? I think the Humean answer is, "No." And I don't think emotions or habit or anything else like that is going to come to our aid, even if Hume might have thought so.

If this were not so then one could answer Hume's challenge to induction by simply saying, "Oh, but our emotions and our habits provide legitimate grounds for the inductive claim."

The skepticism doesn't undermine knowledge as much as note how human beings' rationality is embedded with their emotions. — Moliere

...So I don't think this goes anywhere. If Hume indeed held it, then it is merely another problem with his thought. For instance, if our inductive propensities are not grounded in our rationality, but instead in our emotions, then in order to say that the inductive propensities are reliable we would have to say that our emotions are "reliable" in some sense. I don't see that going anywhere within Humean thought.

Else, what is the idea here? Is it that Hume would say, "Oh we don't know that the offspring of two tigers is a tiger via our reason, but we do know it via our emotions"?

For instance, if our inductive propensities are not grounded in our rationality, but instead in our emotions, then in order to say that the inductive propensities are reliable we would have to say that our emotions are "reliable" in some sense. I don't see that going anywhere within Humean thought. — Leontiskos

Right, I agree!

So enter Kant -- he puts the rationalist spin on his philosophy but then I think he has a more romantic undertone which relies upon emotion than stated. Much in the same way we can look at Hume as a rationalist we can look at Kant as an emotivist and not because this is some defect in their thought or some such. What Kant adds to his moral theory is that there are proper kinds of emotions in order to claim one is acting morally or elsewise. That emotion is respect for the law itself. And then his aesthetics open up a door to a rationality of the aesthetic. Ya'know, a new one other than Aristotle's ;)

What I see is that the way we generate knowledge requires a priori assumptions, rather than knowledge -- or we might be tempted to call it knowledge after relying upon it or proving it or some such, but if we do there's be some other a priori assumption by which we are doing it. There's a certain arbitrarity to a starting point, to the question that one wants to ask, or to what sounds plausible to a person.

But then we hold to these because we desire to have a kind of shared knowledge with our fellows -- in a way these a priori assumptions are the basis of a philosophical research group or scientific group or what-have-you. And it's a unity of mind and reason that we see in our goings abouts and doings.

So in the soft neo-Aristotelian way this isn't even that far from Aristotle, but I do have certain objections and I take other answers more plausibly than his, and have already noted where I find it hard to believe and the consequences of those beliefs.

And I really do think it's important to see outside of the Aristotelian framework, sometimes. Since I don't see metaphysics as a knowledge I see it as ways people perceive the world when they ask philosophical questions, and when we listen to one another we find that it's different.

I left Kripke out, so to touch back on that --

The part of Kripke that makes sense to me is page 18 of the PDF on the OP Kripke: Identity and Necessity.

My quick summary is that if the wooden lectern in fact exists, then in any world in which it in fact exists it necessarily is not made from frozen water from the beginning of time that's been sitting at the bottom of the Thames until five minutes ago. We can infer necessary negative predicates of individuals when we successfully use a proper name. The upshot of this is that there are a posteriori necessities -- so if any world in which water is H2O is in fact the case then for any possible world that water exists in thenthat water is necessarily H2O.

Proper names makes sense to me, but I'm uncertain about natural kinds for various reasons stated about how philosophy and science are not the same.

What I see is that the way we generate knowledge requires a priori assumptions, rather than knowledge -- or we might be tempted to call it knowledge after relying upon it or proving it or some such, but if we do there's be some other a priori assumption by which we are doing it. — Moliere

Plato begins with the a priori, empiricists like Aristotle move away from it, and then after Hume objects to empirical induction there is a natural move back to the a priori (with Kant). So sure, if you do that then you circumvent Hume to a certain extent. I wasn't expecting you to go the a priori Platonist/rationalist route.

So enter Kant -- he puts the rationalist spin on his philosophy but then I think he has a more romantic undertone which relies upon emotion than stated. Much in the same way we can look at Hume as a rationalist we can look at Kant as an emotivist and not because this is some defect in their thought or some such. What Kant adds to his moral theory is that there are proper kinds of emotions in order to claim one is acting morally or elsewise. That emotion is respect for the law itself. — Moliere

I think Kant does do the a priori thing in response to Hume, but I don't agree with any of this about Kant being an emotivist.

Similarly, Kant and lots of philosophers think emotions are reliable when formed and ruled by the reason. Like, you know, Aristotle.

Plato begins with the a priori, empiricists like Aristotle move away from it, and then after Hume objects to empirical induction there is a natural move back to the a priori (with Kant). So sure, if you do that then you circumvent Hume to a certain extent. I wasn't expecting you to go the a priori Platonist/rationalist route. — Leontiskos

I like both. As you note:

Like, you know, Aristotle. — Leontiskos

Part of the joke I've been enjoying is that all I've been doing to Aristotle is Aristotle's method to Aristotle -- noting how he does things, his strengths, his limitations, where we might have problems with him and where we might not.

Almost like a peripatetic. ;) (not quite, I'll admit -- but this has been part of my humor)

I think Kant does do the a priori thing in response to Hume, but I don't agree with any of this about Kant being an emotivist.

Similarly, Kant and lots of philosophers think emotions are reliable when formed and ruled by the reason. — Leontiskos

Eh, it's a big-category assessment after having read and thinking "Are they as strict as people think?"

In a straight reading I wouldn't say what I've said about Kant, though I do think Hume is a bit more rationalist than given credit even on a straight reading. Else, if it destroys all knowledge and philosophy, why did he continue to do philosophy, and even write a history of England?

I do think Hume is a bit more rationalist than given credit even on a straight reading. — Moliere

Perhaps the missing shade of blue is a bit of rationalistic thinking? I mean, he admits, re: E.C.H.U., 2, 16, an exception to the general rule of constant conjunction, insofar as he grants a subject may indeed apprehend that of which he has no experience.

Part of the joke I've been enjoying is that all I've been doing to Aristotle is Aristotle's method to Aristotle — Moliere

Except I don't think that's anywhere close to true. Aristotle accurately and charitably characterizes his opponents before answering them. You've not done that. Here is an example:

• Moliere: Aristotle's induction would be valid if he first observed every member of the set.
• Leontiskos: Observing every member of a set and then drawing a conclusion about every member of a set is not induction at all.
• Moliere: *crickets*

Else, if it destroys all knowledge and philosophy, why did he continue to do philosophy, and even write a history of England? — Moliere

Of course, because he couldn't see it. Lots of folks engage in performative self-contradiction. But it doesn't destroy non-empiricist philosophy, that's true. I would have singled that out if I knew you were positing a priori categories or conditions of knowledge.

But it doesn't destroy non-empiricist philosophy, that's true. I would have singled that out if I knew you were positing a priori categories or conditions of knowledge. — Leontiskos

I have sympathies, but just like I do with any other philosopher -- there's a with the grain and against the grain, and I think Kant's categories fall to the absurd.

So even here, the story moves on... even with Popper, the story moves on. Eventually I end this story with Feyerabend wherein "anything goes", but if you pay attention that's more a slogan than his whole critique.

But, knowledge-first: We know things. How do we know things? I take it that Feyerabend demonstrated the impossibility of building a science of science from axioms or what-have-you in the vein that Popper was doing. So if we know things, and some of those bits of knowledge are scientific, and we have to learn how to learn scientific knowledge (which I think we do), then there must be some other kind of knowledge other than science. For me I turn to current practice, and history (or, really, just "history" properly understood) to answer that question: So there are at least two kinds of knowledge, science and history.

What I notice there is that there isn't some set number of a priori categories -- there are conditions of knowledge, but they change with time and practice and even practitioner. And I don't think that they construct experience, ala Kant, but I take the underdetermination of theory/overdetermination of evidence as a true description of science -- it's a "real" philosophical problem, but as per rule 1 solving it won't destroy all knowledge.

So the quest for an all-encompassing philosophy which tabulates all the categories of knowledge I take to be impossible to fulfill, given that the a priori categories are more assumptions that block out problems so that research may continue (not get overwhelmed by multiplicity). Rather, we have many philosophies, several categories, and even different ways of organizing thought that's not so obsessed with categorical methodology, or with proving oneself right. Hence the notion that philosophy is like a garden or a forest -- with a garden you've cultivated it, but there's some structure there and we know how it grows, and with the forest it's more "in the wild", waiting to be discovered, cut down, replanted, re-invented and so forth. Of course we're not separate from this forest or garden -- and really I'm still talking about ideas here, I just think they move and have a life of their own -- so we can effect how it looks over time as it effects our thoughts too.

Except I don't think that's anywhere close to true. Aristotle accurately and charitably characterizes his opponents before answering them. You've not done that. Here is an example: — Leontiskos

Eh, fair.

But, knowledge-first: We know things. How do we know things? I take it that Feyerabend demonstrated the impossibility of building a science of science from axioms or what-have-you in the vein that Popper was doing. So if we know things, and some of those bits of knowledge are scientific, and we have to learn how to learn scientific knowledge (which I think we do), then there must be some other kind of knowledge other than science. For me I turn to current practice, and history (or, really, just "history" properly understood) to answer that question: So there are at least two kinds of knowledge, science and history. — Moliere

Related, the discussion between Srap and I beginning <here>.

it's a "real" philosophical problem, but as per rule 1 solving it won't destroy all knowledge. — Moliere

If someone were to show that empiricism is the only option and induction is impossible, then they would destroy all knowledge. What troubles me is that you don't seem to recognize this. You would apparently just pivot and claim that there is some fundamental divide between philosophy and life, and that knowledge pertains to life (cf. my post <here> about the crucial move of 3).

obsessed with categorical methodology, or with proving oneself right — Moliere

Strawmen, I think. If you found another category Aristotle would say, "Great."

Hence the notion that philosophy is like a garden or a forest -- with a garden you've cultivated it, but there's some structure there and we know how it grows, and with the forest it's more "in the wild", waiting to be discovered, cut down, replanted, re-invented and so forth. Of course we're not separate from this forest or garden -- and really I'm still talking about ideas here, I just think they move and have a life of their own -- so we can effect how it looks over time as it effects our thoughts too. — Moliere

At the end of the day, whether garden or forest, I think we need something more robust than a gesturing towards "guesswork." Foresters have their tools just as gardeners do. No one is just running, day after day, with random guesses. To run away from Aristotle so vehemently that we oppose method itself strikes me as irrational.

Yeah. I think it's fair to call him a rationalist, though a non-cognitivist -- most people don't worry about the problem of induction because they don't have a passion for rationality, but Hume demonstrates his passion for rationality by writing philosophy and carrying his conclusions to their end even though he finds them hard to believe when not doing philosophy.

So in that vein we'd have to build rationality out of the emotions, in some sense. The passion for truth (or being right) would somehow have to break down into the passions, however we theorize that. He has a schema for the passions but for myself I'm as unconvinced by schemas of the emotions as I am of schemas of the mind: Probably pretty close and reveal something but not a literal representation.

If someone were to show that empiricism is the only option and induction is impossible, then they would destroy all knowledge. What troubles me is that you don't seem to recognize this. — Leontiskos

I don't recognize that at all. I would rather make the inference that if empiricism is the only option and induction is impossible then knowledge must not be derived from induction -- there must be some other way of rendering empiricism, since we know that we know some things.

You would apparently just pivot and claim that there is some fundamental divide between philosophy and life, and that knowledge pertains to life (cf. my post <here> about the crucial move of 3).

I don't think there's a fundamental divide between philosophy and life -- I think there's a difference between scientific knowledge and philosophy.

Strawmen, I think. If you found another category Aristotle would say, "Great." — Leontiskos

But what if I called something that was not categorical knowledge? :D

Related, the discussion between Srap and I beginning <here>. — Leontiskos

I had been following that discussion up to https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/992579

At the end of the day, whether garden or forest, I think we need something more robust than a gesturing towards "guesswork." Foresters have their tools just as gardeners do. No one is just running, day after day, with random guesses. — Leontiskos

Sorry, missed this.

I think we'd like such a thing, but it's not always appropriate. Also I think that such a thing takes a great deal of work, and sometimes I see the play in philosophy as undervalued. Further I think that philosophy is generally undervalued by people because they don't understand that it can be fun -- we need good tools and arguments are great, but there really is this erotic side to philosophy that I think would benefit people because if they like philosophy then they'll employ it more widely.

Less of an architectonic and more of a walk through the forest.

I don't recognize that at all. I would rather make the inference that if empiricism is the only option and induction is impossible then knowledge must not be derived from induction -- there must be some other way of rendering empiricism, since we know that we know some things. — Moliere

Again, Hume gives a proof via exhaustive disjunction. The retort, "There is a disjunct you missed," is sort of tangential to the whole spirit of the thing. In this case you seem to be saying that we could have direct empirical knowledge of rational relations, which seems unlikely.

But what if I called something that was not categorical knowledge? :D — Moliere

Then, as with everything else, he would point you to the place where he already did that. :wink:

I think we'd like such a thing, but it's not always appropriate. Also I think that such a thing takes a great deal of work, and sometimes I see the play in philosophy as undervalued. Further I think that philosophy is generally undervalued by people because they don't understand that it can be fun -- we need good tools and arguments are great, but there really is this erotic side to philosophy that I think would benefit people because if they like philosophy then they'll employ it more widely. — Moliere

I'd say that folks who are making random guesses are not having as much fun as those who know how to achieve their end, and that anyone who thinks they are merely guessing, but has consistent success, already has a method that they just don't understand. But I'm sure you disagree on that.

It is quite beautiful, though, when one moves beyond random guesses and begins to understand rationality proper. It is as if they step into a new world. This is why I recommend tutoring.

Again, Hume gives a proof via exhaustive disjunction. The retort, "There is a disjunct you missed," is sort of tangential to the whole spirit of the thing. In this case you seem to be saying that we could have direct empirical knowledge of rational relations, which seems unlikely. — Leontiskos

That would solve it, you're right.

But I'd rather just say I don't know when I don't know: the retort is "What if there is some third thing we missed?" -- supposing empiricism (whatever that is) must be true and induction must not be true then it seems that knowledge must (somehow) be produced by empiricism without induction. I'd say that's an interesting philosophical question.

One way we might retort back is that reality is wider than exhaustive disjunction, yeah?

I'm OK with people taking a non-position when they realize an issue is confusing and say "I don't know, though I know what others would say" -- mostly because that's where I'd say I'm at with most issues. I have thoughts, I indulge, but honestly . . .

Then, as with everything else, he would point you to the place where he already did that. :wink: — Leontiskos

See, this is the bit I think we clash on the most. Soft neo-Aristotelianism makes enough sense to me, but if we start talking about Aristotle Aristotle then I have to say that I don't think he already did that. I think Aristotle made errors like all scholars do.

The tradition after that deals with counter-examples, as traditions do, and builds from them. But in that case it's easy to point to another tradition to say how they "already" took care of that.

I'd say that folks who are making random guesses are not having as much fun as those who know how to achieve their end, and that anyone who thinks they are merely guessing, but has consistent success, already has a method that they just don't understand. But I'm sure you disagree on that. — Leontiskos

Yeah :)

It is quite beautiful, though, when one moves beyond random guesses and begins to understand rationality proper. It is as if they step into a new world. This is why I recommend tutoring.

I'm not opposed to tutorship at any time -- I'll never learn it all. Someone else will always know more than I. And likewise I know more than others on certain things and in the right circumstances I'll tutor them.

I'm a bit bemused again, though, because in terms of philosophy I think that reason, rationality, all that, are the sine qua non of philosophy. I know that the world looks beautiful under rationality. I just started noticing how sometimes truth superseded beauty.