All of that said, I really like your description of tying known facts together. — dog
Coming to acceptable terms with one's own experience? — creativesoul
I want to note here that by "fact" I mean events, happenings, the case at hand, the way things are and/or were, states of affairs... — creativesoul
...is the absence of an afterlife a case at hand? — dog
How does one interpret seeing someone buried or an urn of their ashes? — dog
Is there such a thing as theory independent observation? — dog
And then there's also the way language functions. People use 'fact' in lots of ways. I respect your definition, but I do think there's a limit to trapping the meaning of particular words. — dog
I personally try to get across a cloud of meaning that is independent from the individual words. For me everything is pretty smoky. We somehow muddle through, without ever perhaps being able to make what and how we do explicit to ourselves. — dog
I would say that in order for an afterlife to be possible - at least as the same person we are/were while living - thought and belief would need to be somehow preserved even after physiological sensory perception has ceased. That would require disembodied cognition. So, I do not believe that an afterlife is possible, at least not as the same person/being/entity. — creativesoul
In hearing an epic poem, for instance, apart from the euphony of the language we are interested only in the sense of the sentences and the images and feelings thereby aroused. — Frege
As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries -- not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods;
and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the
physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our
conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most
in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable
structure into the flux of experience. — Quine
I'm curious about how participants here factor a starting point into their own philosophical position(s).
For me, when I took up philosophy, I figured that one's position ought at least be agreeable to known facts. Thus, in short I basically attempted to set out all the things that are known and looked for a means to tie them all together, so to speak...
And you? — creativesoul
I would disagree, to some extent, that one cannot really decide a philosophical starting point. Doing philosophy is a metacognitive endeavor. It is thinking about one's own thought and belief. As such, it requires that one first have thought and belief, otherwise there is nothing to think about. One has no choice in either the socio-economic situation they are born into, nor their own cognitive capabilities, nor their initial world-view. So, in that sense, one does not decide their starting point.
However, that is not doing philosophy. — creativesoul
A good starting point with any philosophical narrative is "where does it go wrong?" — Banno
Starting point?
A metaphysics should be based on, start from, something inevitable. No brute facts, no assumptions. — Michael Ossipoff
Something Antisthenes said:
"Take your most solid arguments and build a castle on them". — Ying
I don't have a single starting-point except my own curiosity. I have nagging questions.
At the moment my nagging question is to do with the 'wisdom' in the name of philosophy and how that's somehow become about 'facts' and 'knowledge' and so forth. I learned more from a 3 minute record baby than I ever learned in school. I am especially interested in how language works, which I think is strangely (mis-)described by analytic philosophy. — mcdoodle
"Starting point?
" A metaphysics should be based on, start from, something inevitable. No brute facts, no assumptions." — Michael Ossipoff
No assumptions? Really now. A metaphysics that does not contain a single assumption? — creativesoul
Show me.
By the way, "if" IS followed by an assumption.
nothing is wrong with a belief, the question is whether you are fixed or still want to explore mystical/super natural things?I do not believe that disembodied cognition is possible — creativesoul
if all you have are definite answers or belief, then you have no philosophical position because philosophy explores the unknown. In other words, you need to have questions that are not satisfactorily answered by any knowledge so far. That should be a very good starting point.a starting point into their own philosophical position — creativesoul
I figured that one's position ought at least be agreeable to known facts. — creativesoul
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.