Does one's philosophy have the burden of following all of the conventional distinctions?

:brow: — creativesoul

I'm not sure I understand this question. Can you elaborate?

So your only criteria for judging the truth is a description proposition is that it's not self-contradictory? Every self-consistent descriptive proposition is true? — Pfhorrest

No; just not necessarily false. (See propositions 2.3, 2.4 & 2.5, especially what I say (not clearly enough) about how we get to doubt). The LNC provides a handy prima facie filter for excluding "descriptive claims" not worth bothering with (i.e. when digging through piles of "descriptive" dung for gold nuggets); the rest are narrower criteria for fine-graining the sort of problematic conditions mentioned in the propositions referenced above. Process of elimination rather than 'justificatory' method (à la e.g Peirce, Popper, Feyerabend, Haack) which, defeasibly well-tested (see 3.5), provisionally concludes with Not False or Not Not-True, instead of with "truth" (or "the truth").

Sure...

Where is the category regarding human thought and belief?

Thanks for elaborating.

The questions about reality and knowledge are all about that. Meaning asks what the content of a thought or belief is, Subjects asks what's doing the thinking and believing, Objects and Methods are about on what grounds and in what ways to go about deciding what to think and believe, Institutions is about how to arrange the social application of that process, and Importance is about, well, the importance of all that.

What if I'm having issues accepting the framework you're using?

Given that this is a forum for discussions it would make sense to say why you feel that way and perhaps even offer up what you believe to be a ‘better’ framework.

Given that this is a forum for discussions it would make sense to say why you feel that way and perhaps even offer up what you believe to be a ‘better’ framework. — I like sushi

Step numero uno. Get human thought and belief right. That's the first thing I mentioned.

Please go ahead and show us how.

All thought and belief statements consist of predication. All prediction is correlation. Not all correlation is predication. All thought and belief consists of correlations.

:brow:

Happy?

How exactly are you distinguishing between ‘belief’ and ‘thought’, and what do you mean by ‘statement’ (do you mean that in a metaphorical sense or in an explicit sense of a ‘worded statement’?).

Then there is ‘predication’ and correlation. What is ‘predicated’ and what is ‘correlated’ in an ontological sense. If you’re not delving into the ontology of this then how/why are you justifying your reason for not doing so?

Essentially what I get from your post is ‘belief and thought statements are related’. I say related because you state that ‘correlation’ and ‘predication’ are the same thing by stating that All A is All B, so A and B are one and the same.

Please explain more if you can. Thanks

... I hold that normative ethics should be dissolved into metaethics on the one hand (which is all philosophy should be concerned with) ...

See 3.23. I prefer grounded/rooted to "dissolved". Is the difference merely semantic?

... and applied ethics on the other (which should be developed into a whole suite of contingent, a posteriori ethical sciences). — Pfhorrest

Explain. Science informs ethics (i.e. all of philosophy) but conflating ethics with science neither follows nor makes sense. Maybe I'm missing your meaning.

But questions like the criteria for judging moral claims and the methods for applying that judgement are meant to yield what is effectively a normative ethical theory ... — Pfhorrest

Yeah, well, I wanted to post my responses to your questions sooner rather than later and they had to be sketches outlines highlights fragments etc to do so. If the interest is there, I/we can flesh out the implications, etc of these speculations.

For discussion's sake here are some labels (to ponder now and (hopefully) unpack later):

• metaethics - Non-Identity Eudaimonic (i.e. agent (habits, capabilities)-based/centered; where harm (i.e. the bad) = reflexive loss of (some/all) agency) Naturalism [NIEN]

• normative ethics - Negative Hedonic Utilitarianism (i.e. right (conduct/response) = to minimize harm; wrong (conduct/response) = to maximize harm) [NHU]

• applied ethics - Negative Preference Consequentialism (i.e. just (laws, policies, contracts, inequalities, conflicts) = mitigates double-binds, hobson's choices, tragedy of the commons (i.e. unsustainable practices), burden-shifting, free-riding, scapegoating, etc;  unjust (laws, policies, contracts, inequalities, conflicts) = generates double-binds, ... scapegoating, etc) [NPC]

Update: For edits go to this post.

Essentially what I get from your post is ‘belief and thought statements are related’. — I like sushi

Aww. That's too bad. There is so much more to enjoy.

They are identical at their core. All correlation. The separation only applies in situations where the creature is suspending judgment or speaking insincerely. Here one can be considering without assent, or deliberately misrepresenting their own thought and belief. All correlation.

Enough of this though. Not my thread...

I'm wondering where human thought and belief are delineated in the OP, by the OP?.

Enough of this though...

The thread has another aim. — creativesoul

Enough meaning you have nothing more to offer, you don’t know how to express it, it’s too complex to sum up and/or something else entirely? If you feel like you’ll derail the thread just start a new one in response to my questioning.

3.21 Like Zen koans which provoke a suspension of conceptual thinking, works of art in particular (and aesthetic experiences in general) prompt suspension of ego - what Iris Murdoch referred to as unselfing - by presenting sensationally or emotionally heightened encounters with the nonself which make it more likely than not for one to forget oneself for the moment if not longer.

3.22 Altruism - judging, by action or inaction, not to do harm to another - begins with learning and practicing techniques for forgetting oneself: unselfing: suspending ego. (Ecstatic techniques (e.g. making art.)) This is the moral benefit of art, but not its function.

3.23 The function of making art (along with morality & rationality (see 2.5)) is to help expand - develop - Agency, or to inversely limit its shadow: Foolery (see 1.1) — 180 Proof

Is it possible you could go a little more in depth here please? I find your view of Art, Aesthetics and Morality a possible point of interest for myself.

Especially in regard to the bold. I’m taking the reference back to 1.1 to be something akin to concepts involving ‘exploration’ and ‘chaos’. The whole interests me in how you relate ‘morality’ with ‘art’ in general (both the practice of producing ‘art’ and/or the act of ‘viewing’ art; not to mention how we delineate ‘art’ from other fields of human interest and action.

Thanks, no rush :)

I don't completely understand what you're saying, but it sounds to me like that's all aiming to answer the question about the meaning of descriptive statements. So I'm still not sure what questions you think are lacking.

I prefer grounded/rooted instead of "dissolved". Is the difference merely semantic? — 180 Proof

(I'm not really arguing for the following position right now, but rather offering it as an explanation for why I chose the set of questions I did, and why they have a meta-ethical vibe to them but are still supposed to cover the important questions of normative ethics. I don't mean to specifically push this position as part of posing the questions, but rather I was deliberately unorthodox as to whether the questions were meta-ethical or normative so as to be inclusive of such a view).

When I say normative ethics should be "dissolved", I mean the demarcation of that as its own subfield of philosophy should be broken down, not anything about any of the questions it attempts to answer. I think that once you have answered questions about what prescriptive statements mean, the criteria by which to judge them, and the methods by which to apply those criteria -- basically the metaethical subfields of moral semantics, moral ontology, and moral epistemology, although I would dispute that those are technically "ontology" and "epistemology" because of the semantics I endorse -- the rest is applied ethics. Metaethical answers tell you how to judge good from bad, moral from immoral; actually making specific contingent a posteriori judgements of particular things as good, bad, moral, immoral, etc, is then applied ethics. So basically, there are no questions that normative ethics uniquely investigates, so it doesn't need to be its own field.

Explain. Science informs ethics (all of philosophy) but conflating ethics with science neither follows nor makes sense. Maybe I'm missing your meaning. — 180 Proof

Yeah. I don't mean the physical sciences, I mean an ethical analogue of the physical sciences. I'm very much against attempts to reduce ethical questions to physical-science questions, but I think there ought to be a prescriptive analogue of that descriptive endeavor. I'll just quote from my essay A Note On Ethics:

I am of the peculiar opinion that applied ethics is not properly speaking a branch of philosophy at all, but is rather the seed of an entire field of underdeveloped ethical sciences, parallel to the physical sciences, concerned not with building theories (descriptive models, complex beliefs) to satisfy all of our sensations or observations, but instead strategies (prescriptive models, complex intentions) to satisfy all of our appetites. Furthermore, I hold that the field of normative ethics is something of a mutt, and as such should be dissolved entirely into the two other sub-fields of ethics. On the one hand, I think something like a normative ethical model, a general and all-encompassing model of what is good, is what the most general and fundamental of the ethical sciences should aim to build, but based on the a posteriori phenomenal experience of our contingent appetites rather than a priori philosophizing, akin to how fundamental models of physics are built on a posteriori phenomenal experience of our contingent senses. That most general and fundamental subfield of the ethical sciences, playing the foundational role to them that physics plays to the physical sciences, is what I think deserves to be called "ethics" simpliciter. That field's task would be to catalogue the needs or ends, and the abilities or means, of different moral agents and patients, like how physics catalogues the functions of different particles.

Building atop that field, the ethical analogue of chemistry would be to catalogue the aggregate effects of many such agents interacting, as much of the field of economics already does, in the same way that chemical processes are the aggregate interactions between many physical particles. Atop that, the ethical analogue of biology would be to catalogue the types of organizations of such agents that arise, and the development and interaction of such organizations individually and en masse, like biology catalogues organisms. Lastly, atop that, the ethical analogue of psychology would be to catalogue the educational and governmental apparatuses of such organizations, which are like the self-awareness and self-control, the mind and will so to speak, of such organizations. Like the physical sciences naturally feed into engineering and technology, I propose that these ethical sciences naturally feed into entrepreneurship and business, as all of those endeavors are ultimately about value: things like wealth, power, and freedom all boil down ultimately to the ability to fulfill intentions, desires, or appetites, to avoid pain and suffering and obtain pleasure and flourishing. I hold that such ethical sciences — contingent, a posteriori applications of the philosophy of morality and justice — are the bridge to ever more useful businesses, in the same way that the physical sciences are the bridge from the philosophy of reality and knowledge — of which they are contingent, a posteriori applications — to ever more useful technologies. And just as those physical sciences have over time largely supplanted religious authority in the educational social role, so too I hold that these ethical sciences should in time supplant state authority in the governmental social role, as I will elaborate upon in my later essay on politics and governance.

Yeah, well, I wanted to post my responses to your questions sooner rather than later and they had to be sketches outlines highlights fragments etc to do so. — 180 Proof

Oh I wasn't complaining at all, I felt like you answered everything completely. I was just answering your question about whether the questions were meant to be meta-ethical or normative. My answer is "yes", because I think that a complete meta-ethics just gives you what would normally be called a normative ethics for free.

:cool: I appreciate your interest. After I post a reply to the OP's last ("bonus" :sweat: ) question re: "the meaning of life", I'll come back to yours, sushi. Btw, the numbers (e.g. 1.1) refer to particular propositions in each section of my answers to Pfhorrest's question - 1.1 refers to section 1 proposition 1, which I refer back to my take on the function, or purpose, of philosophy (i.e. my metaphilosophy, such as it is). Your guess about "concepts involving 'exploration' & 'chaos'" is way off base from the intent of what I wrote. Apologies if the numbering confused you.

:up: :up:

No thanks. Your questioning is chock full of groundless pretention. I'm not in the mood to indulge your rhetorical drivel.

There wasn’t really any ‘rhetorical drivel’. You make a claim and I asked for clarification; you refuse with venom.

No problem. Good luck

I don't completely understand what you're saying, but it sounds to me like that's all aiming to answer the question about the meaning of descriptive statements. So I'm still not sure what questions you think are lacking. — Pfhorrest

All attribution of meaning consists of correlations drawn between different things. I would not pursue a question about the meaning of descriptive statements.

According to the position you're arguing for and/or from, what does all human thought and belief consist of?

There wasn’t really any ‘rhetorical drivel’. You make a claim and I asked for clarification; you refuse with venom — I like sushi

As I said... groundless pretension.

All attribution of meaning consists of correlations drawn between different things. I would not pursue a question about the meaning of descriptive statements. — creativesoul

I don't understand what you're trying to say. These two sentences to me sound like they're contradicting each other. In the first one you say what all meaning consists of. In the second you say you would not pursue a question about a particular kind of meaning. If it helps for me to clarify, the "descriptive" there is to distinguish it from the later question about prescriptive statements, because some people hold that those kinds of things mean different kinds of things. If you think they mean the same kind of things that's fine, you can give the same answer for both.

According to the position you're arguing for and/or from, what does all human thought and belief consist of? — creativesoul

I'm not arguing for or from any position in the OP, I'm asking what your (or anyone's) position is.

And that question, "what does belief consist of", sounds to me like it's either a question about what the contents of a belief are like, or what the process of believing is like, I'm not sure which you mean. But two of my questions are meant to ask those same things.

The question about what descriptive statements mean is meant to ask the same thing as what the content of a belief is like, because to believe something is to think that it is true or real, and a descriptive statement is asserting that something is true or real, so agreeing with a descriptive statement is the same thing as believing what is stated, and the meaning of the statement is the content of the belief. I think that's probably what you mean, because your answer sounds like an answer to that question, but again I'm not sure.

If you mean instead to ask what the process of believing is like, that's what the question about the mind is about: what is it that does the believing, and what exactly is that thing doing when it believes something? If you mean something else entirely, and not either of these things, you'll need to elaborate because I'm lost.

What defines philosophy and demarcates it from other fields? — Pfhorrest

It's always still trying to answer that question. For me it's the highest & most radical thinking. It's like religion is the sense of its authority or height. It's like science in its attachment to something like reason. It's theoretically open to those who will try. It doesn't speak of hidden doors. It stays within conceptuality. Roughly.

What is philosophy aiming for, by what criteria would we judge success or at least progress in philosophical endeavors? — Pfhorrest

It's always still trying to answer that question. For me this is intimately related to the questions:
Who am I? Who are we? Who shall I become? Who shall we become?

How is philosophy to be done? — Pfhorrest

As the highest & most radical kind of thinking, this is one more question that philosophy is never done answering. It does feel natural though to keep it distinct from religion, which is not to say that a religious person can't also philosophize about their religious experience.

What are the faculties that enable someone to do philosophy, to be a philosopher? — Pfhorrest

One need only be able to speak/think. I suspect that everyone is at least a bad philosopher.

Who is to do philosophy and how should they relate to each other and others, socially speaking? — Pfhorrest

That's another question for philosophy. Personally I think we are radically dependent on others. I'd be nothing without my books. We'd all be nothing without our lives in which we learned to survive and use language. The philosopher is primarily receptive. Unless I read or talk myself into the conversation, I am likely to come up with a inferior, accidental imitation of a system of thoughts that is centuries old. The individual is a place where different streams of influence mingle. The luckiest have the circumstances, strength, and creativity to fuse these influences into something that others won't willingly forget.

The kind of philosophy I prefer is the kind that we experience as vital to our senses of self. For this reason it's easy to hate those who refuse to recognize our positions as their own. On a practical level, wrestling with difference is nurturing a good life skill. But it's also of philosophical interest. How does one philosopher account for the refusal of another philosopher to recognize his system within that thereby threatened system? What additional stories do we tell when our initial story is met with disbelief or even ridicule? This forum that welcomes all, maniacs fresh off the park bench along with the well-read and respectable, is great place to study such collisions and attempted assimilations of the threatening other.

What do descriptive claims, that attempt to say what is real, even mean? — Pfhorrest

I think we know well enough in a sub-theoretical sense. I don't claim to be Derrida scholar, but I am inspired by what I take as his notion of something like 'no pure meaning.' I can emit various sentences about what is real. I can even swear to you that in my head I know exactly what I mean. But that would be a lie. I don't know exactly what I mean even when the words feel righter than others. As I explore what I mean, I generate yet more sentences. The problem is amplified.

But the problem is primarily theoretical. We'd like (or so we think) to once and for all settle the issue, which is in some sense to kill language, turn it into bones. Our deadest language is (perhaps) mathematical. So perhaps the metaphysical fantasy is having concepts like 'real' so dead and fixed that we can build a castle of theorems, the one book of eternal truth, a divine spiderweb. It's a side issue, but I think the notion of the eternal is tangled up with the philosophical desire to conquer time or escape time. But time, some demon whispers, is language, is us. Hence 'learning how to die.'

Why do philosophy in the first place, what does it matter? — Pfhorrest

To me it's just spontaneous for human beings, or at least something like religion is spontaneous, and philosophy emerges from religion, I think. My own biased view (which I stole from a real philosopher) is that philosophy often steps in when religion fails the individual and/or their culture at large. Philosophy tells a story that answers all the questions you ask in the OP, giving a role (who are we?) to individuals and communities, thereby giving them a sense of being at home in the world, having a right to it --and often to a piece of it that currently belongs to others. It's also hugely important in political organization. Beneath the explicit laws are the unwritten 'laws' that a community doesn't even know it knows. I like (among other kinds) the kind of philosophy that drags this tacit 'knowledge' into the light of articulation.

Metaphilosophy

The Meaning of Philosophy
What defines philosophy and demarcates it from other fields?

The Objects of Philosophy
What is philosophy aiming for, by what criteria would we judge success or at least progress in philosophical endeavors?

The Method of Philosophy
How is philosophy to be done?

The Subjects of Philosophy
What are the faculties that enable someone to do philosophy, to be a philosopher?

The Institutes of Philosophy
Who is to do philosophy and how should they relate to each other and others, socially speaking?

The Importance of Philosophy
Why do philosophy in the first place, what does it matter? — Pfhorrest

I’ll give ‘em a quick go ...

Meaning? Dunno. I guess it is more or less about dealing with items that evade demarcation and/or measurement in any accurate sense.

Objects? Dunno. I guess it’s more or less about opening up new/old perspectives and seeing what can be done with them separately and/or in combination.

Subjects? Dunno. I guess, very generally speaking, cognition of space and time (Kantian intuitions).

Institutes? Dunno. Doesn’t matter. People will or won’t do it regardless of my ideas of should, would or could as the most obtuse individuals will call anything ‘philosophy’ just as they’d call everything ‘art’. I guess this means the geniuses, idiots and insane are usually the primary movers - for good or bad!

Importance? I guess it’s importance comes into play by exploring questions - meaning how questions are useful and what their limitations are or are not.

Note: I’m not entirely sure what ‘metaphilosophy’ means in modern parse?

Oh! And of course it is certainly a means of flexing the Ego.

Thank you both for your responses!

Note: I’m not entirely sure what ‘metaphilosophy’ means in modern parse? — I like sushi

"Philosophy of philosophy", pretty much. (Some take it to mean a separate field which studies the field of philosophy, and some of those people argue that there is no such field as metaphilosophy, because the study of the field of philosophy is just philosophy itself. But I mean it in the "philosophy of philosophy" sense: the philosophical investigation of philosophy itself).

Thank you both for your responses! — Pfhorrest

My pleasure. It's a good thread. We all like to talk about 'our' (cobbled-together) philosophies, right?

What do prescriptive claims, that attempt to say what is moral, even mean? — Pfhorrest

In practice this is straightforward. Do X and people will like you and help you. Do Y and people will dislike you and hinder you. We want to be liked and helped. Our dependence is extreme, and therefore hard for us to confess. Part of me would like to be radically independent, even self-created. A younger me held fast to positions that exaggerated the degree to which this is possible.

It does seem to me that most prescriptive claims manifest the best part of our nature. Good laws and traditions aren't bondage but rather the highest expression of our freedom even (another stolen though.) Younger people (or at least my own rebellious youth) tended to understand prohibitions as externally applied. Everyone was repressed. But with time it became clear that many prohibitions are simply successful self-sculpture. We live above such things. Humans take profound pleasure in denying themselves things, and this is great.