All of that said, I really like your description of tying known facts together. — dog

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...

So, in that sense, people do not have their own facts as you've described them. I think that you're calling one's own beliefs "facts"...

Coming to acceptable terms with one's own experience? — creativesoul

Right. We can think of a reactive folk-philosophy mode for coming to acceptable terms. Then there's also the active or inspired mode. For instance, I think religion is spontaneously generated by human beings. Lots of this is joyful, and it comes with the urge to share it.

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

Right. I understood that. But is the absence of an afterlife a case at hand? How does one interpret seeing someone buried or an urn of their ashes? Is there such a thing as theory independent observation? 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. 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.

...is the absence of an afterlife a case at hand? — dog

The absence of an apple is. The difference here, of course, is that the absence of an afterlife is unverifiable. However, we can surmise what it would take for an afterlife to be possible. I find no reason to believe that thought and belief is possible without physiological sensory perception, and as a result, I do not believe that disembodied cognition is possible. 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.

How does one interpret seeing someone buried or an urn of their ashes? — dog

By virtue of attributing meaning to the event. The meaning would vary according to the particular correlations that the individual has drawn and maintained throughout their life involving such things/events.

Is there such a thing as theory independent observation? — dog

Of course there is. Observing is an act that is not existentially contingent upon a world-view. Theories are. Therefore...

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

The term "trapping" here... what is it doing? I agree and respect the fact that words have multiple accepted uses(meanings). I also caution against equivocation...

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

Certainly.

Living life doesn't require understanding one's own belief system.

Starting point?

A metaphysics should be based on, start from, something inevitable. No brute facts, no assumptions.

I suggest that abstract if-then facts, and therefore complex inter-referring systems of them, are inevitable.

Someone could say, "But would there be those, if there were no experiencers? If not, then they aren't inevitable".

That doesn't follow. Among the infinity of complex systems of inter-referring abstract if-then facts, there are inevitably some (like the one whose events and relations are those of your experience) that consist of a life-experience possibility-story.

Those systems of if-then abstract facts are inevitable. They don't need objective or global "reality" or "exisitence", or any medium in which to be. They're mutually applicable and valid in their own local inter-referring system.

For the purpose of this discussion, we can ignore the other abstract facts and systems of them, and skip the issue of whether, without an experiencer, they "are".

Michael Ossipoff

@creativesoul A good starting point with any philosophical narrative is "where does it go wrong?"

What must be the case in order for there to be perceptual knowedge, scientific knowledge, an objective difference between right and wrong, etc — Mitchell

Transcendental arguments are notoriously fickle. Placing them at the heart of philosophy can't be a good idea.

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

Even during death, you never reach a time when there isn't experience. You don't experience the time after your complete shutdown. Only your survivors experience that time.

For you, there's no such thing as a time when you don't experience.

"To sleep, perchance to dream"

That could (and eventually must, pretty much everyone agrees) consists of entry into a deep sleep in which there's no knowledge or memory that there was, or even could be, such a thing as life, identity, events or time.

Quiet peaceful sleep.

Of course complete shutdown soon follows, from other people's point of view, but not in your experience. Anyway you won't know or care about your temporariness then, having reached timelessness.

Since none of us have been there (at least not that we remember), it would be difficult to reliably say more.

It depends on your metaphysics If there's a reason why you're in this life, and if that reason remains at the end of this life, then what would that suggest?

Michael Ossipoff

Something Antisthenes said:

"Take your most solid arguments and build a castle on them".

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.

I am trying to link in my head, because to my intuition they are linked, the strong feeling of wrongness I experience in rereading a remark Frege made,

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

with this provocation, which opens the door to an entirely different world-view than the one advocated:

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

Hello everyone, haven't posted here in awhile. Thought I'd say hi!

My philosophical background is mostly in phenomenology and existentialism. To that end, my methodological starting point tends to be phenomenological.

When a philosophical question is posed, I look to the phenomenological data that manifests itself in our everyday world for a starting point. From there, I can use other tools and methods like logical analysis to make sense of the phenomenological data and see if what manifests itself at first blush holds up under stricter scrutiny.

So, take a question in metaphysics as an example. i.e. "Do numbers exist?" The place I would tend to start is by examining how numbers show up for human beings in everyday life. What role do they play in our world?

Places I would not start are methods such as listing out necessary and sufficient conditions for being a number, or, looking to physics and the natural sciences to answer the question for us.

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

This sounds a little bit like American Pragmatism, yeah?

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

I like a lot of what you say here. I think Heidegger described what you are talking about as our "thrownness" into a pre-made world that we always are already starting out from. Philosophy is an endeavor to rise above our pre-given belief structure and examine its integrity. Does it hold up under scrutiny or do we need to revise our beliefes?

A good starting point with any philosophical narrative is "where does it go wrong?" — Banno

X-)

I just saw this...

A gem, and something I do far too often... particularly in real life with those people who aren't so welcoming of someone questioning their worldview...

It is worth noting here that being able to identify where a position goes wrong requires a level of understanding and critical thinking that isn't innate...

;)

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?

Show me. By the way, "if" IS followed by an assumption.

Something Antisthenes said:

"Take your most solid arguments and build a castle on them". — Ying

Indeed.

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

Yeah. I've been critiquing the analytic notion of belief, which in turn, sheds light upon the inherent inadequacy of the analytic notion of JTB(knowledge) as well as how language works.

"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

Correct.

Show me.

It's the metaphysics that I've been describing here and there. I described it in the post that you're replying to..

By the way, "if" IS followed by an assumption.

You're referring to the "If " premise of an if-then fact.

I call it a "premise".

The metaphysics that I propose doesn't assume that the if-then facts' "if " premises are true.

If I say, "if you strangle your neighbor, you'll go to jail", does that mean that I'm assuming that you're going to strangle your neighbor?

"If you win Power-Ball, you'll be able to buy a 100 foot yacht." When I say that, does that mean that I assume that you're going to win Power-Ball?

No, you probably won't strangle your neighbor or win Power-Ball. I certainly don't assume either of those things.

Michael Ossipoff

What does the word "if" do?

It sets the stage for a hypothetical.

It is preparing to entertain some hypothetical event, occurrence, or situation - a possible and/or potential happening that hasn't been realized...

Saying "if" is to assume it happens as means for further extrapolation...

The "then" portion explains the consequences in some way, shape, or form...

These aren't facts by my lights...

I do not believe that disembodied cognition is possible — creativesoul

nothing is wrong with a belief, the question is whether you are fixed or still want to explore mystical/super natural things?

a starting point into their own philosophical position — 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.

1. The "if" premise and "then" conclusion of an if-then fact aren't necessarily facts. If the "if " premise is a fact, then the "then" conclusion is a fact.

But the overall if-then fact can be reliably a fact, regardless of whether or not the premise is a fact.

2. You can call the "if" premise an assumption (of the if-then fact, but not of a proponent of the metaphysics) if you want to, But, even if so, it's only the if-then fact that uses that tentative assumption. The metaphysical proposal based on if-then facts doesn't make any assumptions.

Proposing that metaphysics, I don't assume or claim, or ask anyone to assume, that any of the "if " premises that I mentioned are true. In fact, I specifically said that none of them are objectively true. because metaphysical reality consists only of those hypothetical, abstract if-thens, and they're about things that have no objective existence.

So--far from assuming that all of the "if " premises are true--I'm saying that none of them are objectively true.

Want an example of a metaphysics that makes an assumption? Materialism assumes the objective, fundamental, existence of a physival world. Materialism assumes and believes in that physical world as what fundamentally is, the ground of all being. That's a brute-fact assumption.

My metaphysical proposal neither has nor needs any such assumption or brute-fact.

Do you see the distinction?

Michael Ossipoff

I figured that one's position ought at least be agreeable to known facts. — creativesoul

What is a fact? Philosophy's job is to begin by unpacking those taken for granted things like facts. Philosophy ought to, and does, challenge endemic assumptions.
Reflections on history and anthropology are more likely to reveal alternatives ideas that make you facts look parochial and idiosyncratic.

A good question to post, creativesoul. (Hah! I have lost my ability to use the quote function -- it's been a long time).
Anyway, something that Banno said about "where does it go wrong?" as a good starting point.
I take issue with this because this was actually raised in one my academic report writing projects -- that before you 'could' ask this, you must have already had some exposure to some first principles and had formulated an 'opinion'. In other words, I believe asking "where does it go wrong" is a step-up from the question of philosophical starting point.

I'd say instead that we are prone to using universals. Someone may have already alluded to it in this thread.