It also strikes me how the last thread on baseless speculations and the BIV offers us an example of said transcendantal stupidity. — Akanthinos
An answer can be true, and yet be entirely so vulgar as to be less compelling than a known lie. A sophisticated falsehood might actually be the best tool at hand to deal with how we relate to the world (in my case I always come back to how filled with fictions and falsehoods the legal system is, and how better off it is for it).
...Having to mount serious intellectual defenses against every baseless speculation encountered seems both counterintuitive and counterproductive. You should not feel compelled to offer a serious rebuke to a string of non-sensical sounds, why should you act differently simply because in another occasion you are offered a proposition which can be interpreted in your language? Baseless is not wrong, per say. — Akanthinos
Why post then if your position is it's impossible to judge the difference between a good and a bad argument on its own terms? — Baden
But your argument is the one that's self-immunizing by continuously conflating any form of judgment with personal preference. — Baden
judgements occur in a context in which they are intregrated into a system that is standardized and monitored and based on educational theory not to mention the individual's experience in the field, so it's not simply a case of what seems right. — Baden
At this point I don't even know what your positive criticism is. That there should be no level of intuitive judgment at all with regard to so-called "transcendental stupidity"? In which case, for example, university essays could be marked by computers (and I can explain to you how that would be impossibly inaccurate and unfair if you like.). Or you just don't like the name? Or you don't think it exists at all? Or something like it exists, but not in the form described by Street, or what? — Baden
There's a fundamental difference between the "origin of fossils and the causes of climate change" and something like philosophical propositions. The theories about climate change or fossil origin are based on empirically verifiable evidence, they both ultimately rely on something which we widely agree on the measurement of and (if they're good theories) they will make predictions which we widely agree on the measurement of. The 'rightness' of a theory about bridge-building is attested to by the ability of a bridge built according to that theory, to hold traffic. No one watches it fall down and claims it a success, no one believes that bridges are 'supposed' to fall down, that being the aim all along. To be honest, teaching English as a language falls more into this camp, the ability to correctly use terms being somewhat widely agreed on. But no similar wide agreement exists for arts and philosophy. There are those for whom Shakespeare does nothing, there are those (Schopenhauer comes to mind) for whom Hegel wrote nothing but mystical nonsense). Any idea that someone can recognise quality thought in these fields by some universal metric is clearly nonsense. — Pseudonym
Who is it that will have developed and refined it, and by what measure will they have identified a need for refinement? What would it 'not working' look like such that it could be recognised as being in need of refinement? If any of these things involved some external empirical fact, then it falls into the camp of fossils and climate change, if all of these considerations are measures 'in house' by a group whose membership criteria consist solely of being judged by the very metrics they're supposedly refining, then the whole system is self-immunised almost by definition. — Pseudonym
Yes, basically I do not see a method for discerning that which is not 'transcendentaly stupid' in fields such as art and metaphysics which does not simply reinforce the subjective views of a particular group. — Pseudonym
That's a strawman. We all know there's a difference between science and the arts in terms of empirical verification etc. — Baden
I don't see the attraction of a philosophy forum for you then. The interest for most people here is, I would suppose, in making exactly the kinds of judgments you seem to deem impossible. — Baden
The problem is simply that Psuedonuym has an incredibly blinkered view of not just philosophy, but - as it turns out - of basic argument in general, which he thinks can and should only be judged on the basis of truth - the 'empirically verifiable'. — StreetlightX
At this point I doubt it can be helped. He literally doesn't know what he's talking about. — StreetlightX
Basically, I get that you're trying to describe a distinction between arbitrary personal judgement and critical identification of poor thinking which is not yet as objective as empirical vetification. What I don't get is what makes you think that. What structural or empirical basis are you using to determine that such a process is possible, because it sounds like just wishful thinking. — Pseudonym
One of my academic interests is in how people hold and defend belief, particularly in relation to group dynamics. I think my interest here should be obvious from that without me having to spell it out? As to the interest of most people here, I would say the empirical evidence on group behaviour very much opposes your view. Most people are here to reinforce beliefs which confer membership of the social group to which they wish to belong. — Pseudonym
. What it seems most people within these fields want to do is measure it by some intuitive sense of 'rightness' held by those who've been taught to 'see' it. — Pseudonym
It sounds like you're asking how any judgment of quality of argument that's not empirically verifiable is possible. And then asking for an empirical verification to show that that's the case! — Baden
But your criticisms of my argument already presume you're acting on the same presumption I am, and know the answer. The structure is at base, the structure of reason, which undergirds empirical verification in the first place. — Baden
Well, I disagree. I think most people come to a philosophy forum primarily to do philosophy. — Baden
And empirically based results, for example, a poll alone, won't definitively decide the answer. Theory, reason, and critique of thought would come into play. — Baden
you don't appear to want to explicitly accept regular terms of rational engagement which require us to critically analyze each other's posts in order for the conversation to be of any intellectual value. — Baden
If someone offers an analysis , then any criticism of it should address the errors and or untruths in it, and not simply arrogantly dismiss it as insignificant, irrelevant, vacuous, trivial or whatever. Along the latter way lies the tendency to fascism and political correctness (which is really fascism in disguise) inherent in the worst forms of postmodernist thought. — Janus
Ok, but impractical musing is fun and sometimes profitable. — frank
a truth matters to any given subject matter to the degree that it has bearing upon it. — StreetlightX
the index of any truth for any particular problem must belong to the problem itself: — StreetlightX
the radically stupid idea that anything goes, that anything is worth addressing, and that each and every mundanity is worth its weight in gold. — StreetlightX
Where you additionally claim that a certain group of people just 'know' which truths matter to which subjects, that they just 'know' what the index of truth is for each problem, that they just 'know' what is worth addressing and what is not. — Pseudonym
As is playing in the mud, occasionally. — StreetlightX
"What is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. This is agreement not in opinions, but in forms of life". — StreetlightX
If we agree, it is with the words we say. — TheWillowOfDarkness
The first sentence is wrong. If I agree with you, it's not with the words you speak that I agree. — frank
The second sentence is quasi-mystical. He's saying that the whole is in the part. — frank
. Are you saying that being "transcendentally stupid" consists in starting with some set of premises and then failing to make any (or many) of the significant connections, or explicate any (or many) of the relevant concomitants, within the context of those premises? — Janus
To clarify, I would have thought that what you were saying would not have allowed you to say both that "Plato is full of shit" and that Plato is not transcendentally stupid, but if you can say both of those things, consistently with what you are trying to say about transcendental stupidity, then it appears that I have indeed misunderstood you. :smile: — Janus
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