Far too seriously. Certainty can be a crippling psychological illness.


Uncertainty too. Philosophy has its place but should keep to it: clearing away the clouds.

You read it wrong. I said that metaphysics is a misunderstanding of language. It requires equivocation of meaning or an error in abstraction, for example. Both of these either destroy or ignore context. There is no meaning without context.

For people like Kripke, x=x has some metaphysical meaning. To people like me, x=x means "for purposes of the present argument, the value of X shall be preserved". Even if we know that x changes. We are simply claiming that those changes are not material to our argument. It's not metaphysics, it's just context. Abstraction removes information, but when abstraction removes all context, it can produce metaphysics.

when abstraction removes all context, it can produce metaphysics. — Faust Fiore

I don't understand why metaphysics gives some people conniption fits. It is like arguing since we cannot determine what is always the right thing to do, we must eliminate ethics.

I don't understand why metaphysics gives some people conniption fits. It is like arguing since we cannot determine what is always the right thing to do, we must eliminate ethics. — Jackson

Good issue. For some it seems to suggest something too much like religion or superstition (insufficiently rational). Others may see it as a stuffy father figure (too rational.)

I don't agree that those authors claim to have reached the irreducible basis of things. In general, they each describe an approach, a method, but they do not claim to have reached the bottom. There's a big difference between claiming to be pointing the way, and claiming to have reached the end of the voyage.

In general, they each describe an approach, a method, but they do not claim to have reached the bottom. There's a big difference between claiming to be pointing the way, and claiming to have reached the end of the voyage. — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly. They create a specific ‘way’( a metaphysics), and assume future philosophy will follow this path and add more clarity and detail.
In other words, they claim to have reached the bottom (the way) as far as they can tell. Obviously if they were able to detect a more originary ground than the one they present in their writing they would talk about it. When a philosopher believes they have penetrated to the most fundamental level of things, this means that going any further in that direction would lead to the dead end of nihilism, meaningless relativism, an infinite regress, the elimination of the world, incoherence, or some such catastrophic consequence. These are the accusations they typically make against the philosophers who follow and critique them for not having reached the most fundamental level of metaphysical grounding, and who proceed to burrow deeper.
What you will instead find is that a philosopher will remind us they have only sketched out a beginning framework, which will need to be completed by future generations of thinkers. In other words, while they cannot conceive of a more originary ground that would stand up to scrutiny , they tend to be quite aware of the incompleteness of their framework,that they have only pointed the way, and this ‘way’ needs to be filled in with more detail.

↪jgill Far too seriously. Certainty can be a crippling psychological illness.


Uncertainty too. Philosophy has its place but should keep to it: clearing away the clouds. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Clearing away clouds is only desirable to the extent that it opens up magnificent new vistas. Would you describe the job of the sciences as merely clearing away clouds? Is thar all that Newton, Einstein and Darwin did? Everything we pride our sciences for , and more, we can expect from our philosophies.

Clearing away clouds is only desirable to the extent that it opens up magnificent new vistas. — Joshs

That's the idea. It's a malleable metaphor.

Is thar all that Newton, Einstein and Darwin did? — Joshs

No, they did science and research but needed philosophy to clear away whatever clouds created confusion or hindered progress. Philosophy should be a tool, not an obsession, not a fetish, not a fun house mirror to twist the ego or aggrandize the thinker.

Just my view.

Everything we pride our sciences for , and more, we can expect from our philosophies. — Joshs

Philosophy in general deals in untestable theories so it's easy to get snared in one's personal fetishistic philosophical labyrinth and thereby to self-aggrandize boundlessly - there's no controlled experiment on the horizon to set one straight if one has committed an egregious error.

All we have here is peer review (Academia to Facebook) and echo chambers (Academia to Facebook) choosing camps and scoffing at the enemy. Fetishizing the untestable.

Again, just my view.

To the extent that philosophy clears away clouds, eliminates confusion, it has value.

But philosophy also has its part in creating clouds and confusions. Think egocentric self-distortions. I see it on the forums every time I check in.

Clearing away clouds is only desirable to the extent that it opens up magnificent new vistas. — Joshs

Day or night, only clear away the clouds and you get a "magnificent vista." The word "new" here I can take or leave. The old Stoics have provided me with the cloudlessest of skies.

We only need the new if we're clearing ancient clouds and have never seen the sky. We need the new to eliminate inherited errors of thought - confusions, covert and overt.

You probably think I'm having a fit because I mistakenly used italics. I meant to emphasize only one word. I can assure you I am not, and was not, having a fit. Bit OI appreciate your concern. I can assure igjugarjuk that I do not believe that metaphysics is too rational. One can misunderstand language, or anything else, and still be rational. Irrational and incoherent are two different things.

I do not believe that metaphysics is too rational — Faust Fiore

Philosophy should be rational.

We only need the new if we're clearing ancient clouds and have never seen the sky. We need the new to eliminate inherited errors of thought - confusions, covert and overt. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Consistent with your previous comment, we only know error(clouds) in hindsight, from the vantage of a new perspective. All current scientific and philosophical accounts will be show as erroneous from a future vantage. That means we should strive for a new perspective not just when a theory isnt working, but also when it is working, when it does t appear confused.

That means we should strive for a new perspective not just when a theory isnt working, but also when it is working, when it does t appear confused. — Joshs

I agree we should constantly strive for a new perspective. But when a vital healthiness of mind is achieved, to my view it's time to put philosophy to bed and rest on our laurels.

My continuing to search for new vistas put philosophy on the back burner in favor of psychology, especially the positive psychology of flourishing and Maslow's research on peak experiences. Unfathomed heights there to discover and explore.

Philosophy in general deals in untestable theories so it's easy to get snared in one's personal fetishistic philosophical labyrinth and thereby to self-aggrandize boundlessly - there's no controlled experiment on the horizon to set one straight if one has committed an egregious error. — ZzzoneiroCosm

All philosophical accounts are testable and only persist becuase they continue to be validated. Your notion of testability comes from a narrowly conceived empiricist conception of evidence. It doesn’t take into account that what counts for the scientist as evidence is circular. That is, what appears within a scientific domain as an observable is recognized as such on the basis of the interpretive framework of that science. When a scientific paradigm changes, what counts as evidence changes with it. The value of scientific evidence and proof is to tighten up the structure of the theory under test. It doesn’t make the theory more ‘true’. On the contrary, it makes it easier to recognize when the theory is eventually overthrown.

One might want to argue through the method of empirical test , scientific theories are tighter, more rigorous, more precise in their predictions than any philosophical account, but I think the opposite is the case. A science is a conventionalized version of a philosophy.This means its mathematized terms are designed to be so general as to hide interpretive differences between participants. A philosophy is richer and thus more particular, which accounts for the disparity of interpretive modes of access to it.

That means we should strive for a new perspective not just when a theory isnt working, but also when it is working, when it does t appear confused. — Joshs

This seems to be a healthy - non-fetishizing - approach to the philosophical adventure. My complaint is with, for example, folks on this forum who have, at times more or less brutally, defended a particular worldview for years on end with no further exploration apart from a continuous buttressing-up of a static view with novel-sounding morsels from their echo chamber of choice. I assume this sort of thing goes on in Academia as well.

I think philosophy should have some connection to wisdom.

All philosophical accounts are testable — Joshs

All? Do you mean testability exists vis-a-vis the realist v. idealist showdown?

I agree we should constantly strive for a new perspective. But when a vital healthiness of mind is achieved, to my view it's time to put philosophy to bed and rest on our laurels.

My continuing to search for new vistas put philosophy on the back burner in favor of psychology, especially the positive psychology of flourishing and Maslow's research on peak experiences. Unfathomed heights are there to discover and explore. — ZzzoneiroCosm

You should dump Maslow for his contemporary, George Kelly ( or at least Carl Rogers).
Kelly’s philosophy of constructive alternativism offers that there are infinite ways of construing the world , none of which is the final or correct way.

One might want to argue through the method of empirical test , scientific theories are tighter, more rigorous, more precise in their predictions than any philosophical account, but I think the opposite is the case. A science is a conventionalized version of a philosophy. — Joshs

I don't really compare science and philosophy in this way. Science sends folks to the moon and gives me omeprazole for my reflux. So to my view, it's a tool, just like philosophy. No hierarchy here, to my view.

I dig Carl Rogers, his approach to therapy is refreshing. I'll check out George Kelley.

But nobody should dump Maslow. :joke: He was a beautiful man and he changed my life.

All? Do you mean testability exists vis-a-vis the realist v. idealist showdown? — ZzzoneiroCosm

To test a perspective on the world is to use it as a tool for meaningfully organizing and anticipating events. We know that a construct is invalidated when it fails in this task and we find ourselves in a state of confusion. This is not something we can hide from ourselves or deny because sense making is an affective process. The signs of failure to anticipate are anxiety, anger, etc.
Validation doesn’t require the consensus of a community. This is an artifact of objectivist thinking.

I can't tell if that's a yes or a no.

We know that a construct is invalidated when... we find ourselves in a state of confusion. — Joshs

I agree with this.

↪Joshs I can't tell if that's a yes or a no. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I was still editing my comment.

:cool:

Re George Kelley, who apparently doesn't have a wiki page:

"It began to occur to him that what truly mattered to these people was that they had an explanation of their difficulties, that they had a way of understanding them. What mattered was that the "chaos" of their lives developed some order. And he discovered that, while just about any order and understanding that came from an authority was accepted gladly, order and understanding that came out of their own lives, their own culture, was even better.

Out of these insights, Kelly developed his theory and philosophy. The theory we'll get to in a while. The philosophy he called constructive alternativism. Constructive alternativism is the idea that, while there is only one true reality, reality is always experienced from one or another perspective, or alternative construction. I have a construction, you have one, a person on the other side of the planet has one, someone living long ago had one, a primitive person has one, a modern scientist has one, every child has one, even someone who is seriously mentally ill has one."


http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/kelly.html#:~:text=The%20philosophy%20he%20called%20constructive,another%20perspective%2C%20or%20alternative%20construction.

Is that an accurate account, to your knowledge? I like the sound of it well enough.


Thanks for the new name.

George Kelly — Joshs

This seems like a valuable insight into varying constructs of reality - for the practicing psychologist:

"Some constructions are better than others. Mine, I hope, is better than that of someone who is seriously mentally ill. My physician's construction of my ills is better, I trust, than the construction of the local faith healer." Ibid.

I don't really compare science and philosophy in this way. Science sends folks to the moon and gives me omeprazole for my reflux. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I know it will sound weird if I say that philosophy ‘sent folks to the moon’ two centuries before NASA. But what I mean is that most of the important conceptual elements required for this technological achievement were in place with the breakthrough work of certain key philosophers.
Think about the most astonishing and monumental scientific achievements of all time(Newton, Einstein, Darwin) My claim is that the bulk of the conceptual substance of their contributions was already on the scene through the work of earlier philosophers. Most of us simply aren’t familiar enough with philosophy, or good enough at making the translation from philosophical to scientific language, to recognize this parallel.