Isn't it fantastically obvious?

The good lawyer focuses on persuasive power while the good philosopher focuses on predictive power.

Under the adversarial justice system, prosecution and defense attorneys both do their best to win their case, with the overall thinking being that truth or justice will tend to emerge as the result of their conflict and competition (in more or less the sense that truth tends to emerge from debate). A good defense lawyer will try to get the lightest sentence they can for their client even if that defense lawyer thinks their client is guilty and deserves to get a harsh sentence.

Philosophers sometimes do the same as a consequence of dialogue and debate, but history and experience shows us that what is more persuasive is not always more accurate or more true. That truth tends to be more persuasive than falsehood could be mere evolutionary happenstance; and since we're not caught in a dilemma where we need to make a fast and reliable decision about important matters (which is why we use courts), we can achieve more reliable standards. The pursuit of "truth" impels us toward the best standards we can derive.

history and experience shows us that what is more persuasive is not always more accurate or more true. — VagabondSpectre

This seems to make quite an epistemic leap from the evidence. What we have from history is that - what was more persuasive in the past does not always continue to be most persuasive contemperaneously. Which is most 'true' requires substantiation through one or other epistemic truth theory.

Which is most 'true' requires substantiation through one or other epistemic truth theory. — Isaac

. And even then, what was more true in the past does not always continue to be most true contemperaneously.

And even then, what was more true in the past does not always continue to be most true contemperaneously. — Joshs

Hume took this to the logical extreme, and concluded that it's just habit.

This seems to make quite an epistemic leap from the evidence. What we have from history is that - what was more persuasive in the past does not always continue to be most persuasive contemperaneously. Which is most 'true' requires substantiation through one or other epistemic truth theory. — Isaac

Fully disentangling truth and persuasion is probably a very tedious affair, but suffice it to say: in so far as "truth" of whatever caliber is actually discoverable, it may differ from what is persuasive to us.

It's an admission that we might be wrong; that belief does not arbitrate truth (such as it does in a jury-case/court setting). We normally think of "philosophy" as a set of theories and knowledge-products waiting to be consumed, but there's also philosophy the solo-sport, which is a slow process that involves recognizing past, present, and possible future errors as we continuously strive toward better truth and more accurate or useful understanding. A good philosopher must access "truth" through that much longer process of substantiation rather than the immediate suasive whims of their potentially fallacious mind.

Maybe it's not persuasion per se that I'm wary of, but rather the common primitive varieties (i.e: fallacious appeals) that give me pause.

Time to thoroughly examine all the evidence seems to be the rub. Reason and evidence based persuasion takes much more time, and is much more reliable than the results of fast and loose conclusions.

Reason and evidence based persuasion takes much more time, and is much more reliable than the results of fast and loose conclusions. — VagabondSpectre

This seems fair enough. If I understand what you're saying correctly, it's that we can, theoretically, discard the notion of 'truth', except perhaps as a direction, and concentrate on the far more tangible notion of the means by which we are persuaded. First glance superficial appeal is out, long-term considered assessment is in.

This is very close to my own view on the matter, which is Ramseyan in the main. Logic and reason are habits of thinking, means by which we arrive at beliefs, and they have proven themselves to arrive more reliably at useful beliefs than other habits of thinking.

But darn... the obnoxious things always grab the attention. — 0 thru 9

Yes, and not feeding the trolls can be really difficult! :wink:

philosophy has demanding standards about the method of persuasion it prefers to use. It requires that something be persuasive for rational, logical, or otherwise evidence based reasons — VagabondSpectre

This started me thinking. What exactly is philosophy, in the sense of your words? What is it that philosophy demands of us? Is there a body of knowledge on philosophical inquiry, or on how philosophy is, or should be, practised? Is it written down anywhere? I've looked on the interweb, and surprised myself: I can't find anything along these lines. So can you, or anyone else, offer a better link than I have been able to find? Thanks. :up:

"Philosophy" can be so broad a category that I'm necessarily generalizing when I say it tends to use reason/logic/evidence as opposed to other vectors of inquiry.

These are much more common to (good) epistemology than philosophy in general, but good philosophy also tends to have good epistemic foundations. Reason and evidence are highly persuasive, but more importantly, are highly reliable means of improving understanding or predictive power (and they happen to be even more persuasive once we recognize how reliable they can be).

Thanks. :up: I started a topic in General Philosophy to discuss this, and it seems to have concluded that there is no accepted or agreed way of doing philosophy. There are plenty of opinions, of course, but that's because there are plenty of philosophers. :wink: But there is no list of guidelines (or similar) that describe how philosophy is, or should be, practised.

I think I find that surprising. :chin:

Well, consider all the different realms of knowledge that are out there for humans to discover/create (innumerable fields within physics, ethics, civics, biology, psychology, medicine, ontology, epistemology, math, economics, technology, sociology, ecology, and on, and on, and on)...

Do you think that there is one single method of inquiry that works best within all of these fields of study? "The scientific method" is actually just as poorly defined as "the philosophical method". Best we can give you are highly generalized principles like measurability, falsifiability, predictive power, explanatory power, etc... The same is true for science because we have had to to develop and refine different approaches for scientific success in disparate fields. Scientists in one field might not at all be familiar with the methods and principles that are popular in other fields.

Perhaps a golden standard that scientists and philosophers both seek is a kind of interdisciplinary reinforcement. Scientific or philosophical conclusions that have application or predictive power within many fields of study tend to be the most reliable and useful (e.g: thermodynamics), so they receive the most praise and attention.

Wow, I'm new here and missed this!! So much to share. I make soap, and my Padawan learner told me, "I like Tigger," and so I looked for a Tigger soap mold and bought him in the shape of an aluminum pan.

First time I tried to cast soap in a pan. It's really large 10 cups + 4.5 to 5 lbs. of soap, 20 full size bath bars, but my friend loves them. I make the blocks of Melt & Pour soap for her in Tiggers now.

I'm here looking to make meaningful connections with people. I ordered two more pans today, one of Pinocchio, and one of Jiminy Cricket. I'm going to make all three for the fair, it's in about a month, the mental health fair. Just having them on display will be sure to delight children and adults of all ages. And then we'll raffle them off!

It's late here, thank you so much for your kind words. You're the best I've found here so far. Everyone has really been great, even the people I'm not smart enough to know don't hold my same views seem very pleasant to me.

My mentor, Dfpolis - a contributor here, showed me this. Said he was the only one teaching from it on the internet. The book is out of print. Intentional Logic by Henry Veatch discusses the nature of logic from an Aristotelian perspective, contrasted with the analytic approach of Russell, Frege, Quine, and others. It argues that logical concepts are tools of knowledge that enable us to know the real world, independent of our consciousness …

I mentioned formal & instrumental signification in therapy group once and the clinical therapist said, "I haven't heard anything of that since college." And then he gave me an honorary degree, "Professor Dan."

At the clinic they call me "Dr. Dan; professor Dan; & Big Brother." The last was my favorite from one of the other patients.

Dr. Dan? Dr. Cox would've been funnier.

↪Pattern-chaser
My mentor, Dfpolis - a contributor here, showed me this. Said he was the only one teaching from it on the internet. The book is out of print. Intentional Logic by Henry Veatch discusses the nature of logic from an Aristotelian perspective, contrasted with the analytic approach of Russell, Frege, Quine, and others. It argues that logical concepts are tools of knowledge that enable us to know the real world, independent of our consciousness … — Daniel Cox

Thanks. :up: And are you suggesting that this book tells us how to 'do' philosophy, or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

Thanks. :up: — Pattern-chaser

You're welcome, buddy! :smile: :up: :flower: :party:

Funnier for who?

Where would this country be without this great nation of ours? Where would this country be without Cox?

When my grandad was hurt during battle and the commanding officer asked the platoon leader, "How many men do you have ready?" He responded "fourteen without Cox."

An earned title is far better than the title itself. One of the staff members when it was brought up said, "We call him Dr. Dan, it's an honorary title" but the tone of her voice suggested that what they were assigning me was somehow inferior to having gone through the appropriate channels, academia. I don't believe in academia. I believe in earned titles!

Here's funny:

"At the request of the Catholic Church, a three-day sex orgy to be held near Rio de Janeiro was cancelled last Friday. So instead I spent the weekend cleaning my apartment.

Two peanuts were walking down the street. One was assaulted." - Tina Fey

Yes, it contrasts Aristotelian intentional logic with modern analytic philosophy.

It's kind of like Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire

it contrasts Aristotelian intentional logic with modern analytic philosophy — Daniel Cox

And that's how we should 'do' philosophy? With logic, and nothing else?

Well, that's my position.

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

WTF?! <= Is that o.k. here? Funny, that's Aristotle. Just read that on Wikipedia anyway.

The fact is that our experience presents us with truths serially in time. As far as the physical world is concerned, we have no absolute guarantee that the system state we observed in past, and to which our knowledge is adequate (=true) is relevant to the current system state. - Google (not Bing) Logical Propagators.

Long Version

The law of conservation is about conserving energy. The law of gravity is about how objects are drawn toward each other in virtue of their mass and so on. So, by the standard analysis of intentionality and aboutness the laws of nature are definitely intentional. There is another and more specific way in which the laws of nature may be said to be intentional. They and human committed intentions are both species of what we may call logical propagators. To understand what this means we need to consider what makes a syllogism valid.

For a syllogism to be valid both of its premises need to be true at the same time. It does no good for one premise to be true at one time, and the other to be true at a different time. Suppose that we are argue that:

All in the room now can hear Mary (time specific)

John will be in the room tomorrow (time mismatch)

John can hear Mary (invalid).

Obviously this is invalid because of the temporal mismatch. Being in the room tomorrow is not the same as being in the room today. So, unless both premises are true at the same time are conclusion is invalid. Still, we can make predictions. The reason for this is that some propositions have the special property of carrying information forward in time. Such propositions are what I'm calling logical propagators. Consider for example the following line of reasoning.

All in the room when Mary speaks can hear her (Timeless).

Mary now intends to speak in the room tomorrow (Logical Propagator).

John will be in the room tomorrow (Time Matched).

John can hear Mary tomorrow (Valid).

What allows this reasoning to be valid is the fact that Mary now intends to speak in the room tomorrow. This proposition carries information from today into tomorrow and is what I'm calling a logical propagator. There are only two examples of logical propagators that I can think of. The first is committed human intentions like Mary's intention to speak tomorrow, and the 2nd is the laws of nature which allow us to use information on the present state of a system to predict it's future state. Thus, human committed intentions and the laws of nature are generically similar being the only two species in the genus of logical propagators. - Dfpolis (contributor here) #22 The Mind Body Problem (YouTube video).

Reference to Scrubs. :meh:

Oh Yeah, the show!! There is a Dr. Cox. I'm fresh off battling God haters from Google + to following same to MeWe. They try to make fun of my name in every second comment so I'm a bit on the defensive when I totally don't need to be here.

It is funny to me because COX means Christ. The Captain of our Salvation. Here's my dad putting the Holy Cross on Mt. Rubidoux. The God haters are shooting at the wrong target. https://riversandlands.org/mt-rubidoux-peak-campaign-2018/mt-rubidoux-history/
Less than 1/2 way down the page.

Everyone has been so nice to me here, the defensiveness will soon be a thing of the past, and you got some good jokes. Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin is super hilarious.