if chemistry had this ability, it would be able to respond to a physicist's attempt at reduction using only the arguments available to it qua chemistry — J
Interesting. What must not happen, or at any rate what we don't want to happen on pain of triviality, is the "flippant repetition" version. I think we need to be more precise. Did you mean your repeated "Why?" to be shorthand for "Why is what you just said a justification for what you said before that (eventually recurring back to X)"? Or does the "Why?" question change its character and possibly its reference depending on where we are in the chain of reason-giving? I'm trying to figure out if we're absolutely stuck with what we might call the "2-year-old's version" of "Why?" I think this makes a difference, but say more about how you were using the repeated why's. — J
Well, not quite that bad, but I think we have good reason to want to draw back from this conclusion. Before I talk about that, could you say whether your premises concerning relevance relations (3 - 7) are accepted logical truths? I don't know alternative logics well enough myself. — J
IE, there must be something in the nature of questioning itself which allows it to alchemize any input into relevant philosophical concepts. And we'd need to put that in as a constraint on the series of questions to ensure the termination. What would it be? — fdrake
And there is no natural science which constrains physics — Srap Tasmaner
Eventually, the chemist himself will have to reach for physics, because while reduction is a myth, and the laws of physics are not enough to do biochemistry, biochemistry is constrained by physics and you can eventually reach a level where the explanation for what happens and what doesn't comes not from chemistry but from physics. — Srap Tasmaner
Imagine that X is relevant to Y and that Y is relevant to some philosophical claim P, then X is relevant to Y, Y is relevant to P, then X is relevant to P. — fdrake
I don't think your sentence here is grammatically coherent. Not sure what it is supposed to mean. Same with your argument given earlier. — Leontiskos
There are many other important and useful discourses besides the rational/philosophical. They may even lead to vital truths. — J
Does this have to be an argument, if I can put it this way, that philosophical maximalism is equivalent to philosophical minimalism?
Does it also function as an argument that no boundary between philosophy and the sciences (and possibly other empirical disciplines, and possibly the arts, ...) is definable much less enforceable? — Srap Tasmaner
Assume X isn't relevant to any claim whose context is philosophy, then X cannot be relevant to any Y which is related to a Z whose context is philosophy, since then X would be relevant to that Z through transitivity. — fdrake
1 ) Take a philosophical claim X which does not have relevance to a claim in any discipline. — fdrake
Philosophy could be called highest because it is without presuppositions. — Leontiskos
Collingwood says that for every question there is at least one presupposition. Collingwood also talks about "absolute presuppositions" which are the underlying, often unrecognized, assumptions that are the foundation of a way of looking at the world. Is this what you're talking about? — T Clark
That gives you two choices about how disciplines are organised based on relevance. Either philosophy is related to all domains, and thus co-extensive with each of them it is related to. Or philosophy is not relevant to some domains - that is, philosophy is of no relevance to any claim in them.
But we don't get to decide which is which, based purely on the notion of relevance. If you can show that some claim is related to some claim which is relevant to philosophy, you would show that it is thereby relevant to philosophy assuming relevance is an equivalence relation. — fdrake
There are two conceptions of philosophical foundationalness in this thread. The first says that philosophical justifications are the linear foundation of all justification-claims. The second says that philosophy (in terms of logic or metaphysics) permeates all justification-claims or domains of study. The difference is very similar to Aristotle's difference between a per accidens causal series and a per se causal series.
I think both are defensible, but I am more interested in the latter. — Leontiskos
Either philosophy is related to all domains, and thus co-extensive with each of them it is related to. — fdrake
In philosophy there are no such unallowed criticisms. In philosophy there are no such presuppositions. — Leontiskos
I don't believe they are. I stipulated them based on my intuitions. It captures a sense of relevance, but you might prefer to think of relevance differently. Like if relevance was thought of causally, you might want to relax symmetry (since if X is a cause of Y, then Y cannot be a cause of X, perhaps). — fdrake
Either philosophy is related to all domains, and thus co-extensive with each of them it is related to. Or philosophy is not relevant to some domains - that is, philosophy is of no relevance to any claim in them. — fdrake
1 ) Take a philosophical claim X which does not have relevance to a claim in any discipline. — fdrake
There is no such X. — Leontiskos
Arthur Koestler's definition of philosophy: "the systematic abuse of a terminology specially invented for that purpose." — Fooloso4
One might almost say that over-generalization is the occupational hazard of philosophy, if it were not the occupation. — Austin
Assume X isn't relevant to any claim whose context is philosophy, then X cannot be relevant to any Y which is related to a Z whose context is philosophy, since then X would be relevant to that Z through transitivity. — fdrake
1 ) Take a philosophical claim X which does not have relevance to a claim in any discipline.
2 ) Take the collection of statements of which X has relevance to and call it Q.
...
7 ) Then anything relevant to X cannot be relevant to any philosophical claim.
8 ) Then all of Q is not relevant to philosophy. — fdrake
1 ) Take a philosophical claim X which does not have relevance to a claim in any discipline.
...
5 ) Relevance is reflexive, X is relevant to X.
...
7 ) Then anything relevant to X cannot be relevant to any philosophical claim. — fdrake
One might almost say that over-generalization is the occupational hazard of philosophy, if it were not the occupation. — Austin
One might almost say that over-generalization is the occupational hazard of philosophy, if it were not the occupation. — Austin
What I was imagining, and trying to describe, was a refereed situation, so to speak, where each of the interlocutors agrees to the rules of rational philosophical discourse. Playing by these rules, the philosopher always trumps, and always wins. — J
If the bearded Viennese tries his "Interesting. Do you always . . . " response, the referee steps in and says, "Out of bounds. Please answer the question." — J
we know what the rules are for rationality — J
Does the Freudian get to claim that his path is rational, that we are wrong about knowing the rules? — J
In short, the Freudian may be right, but what he can't do is justify a claim to being right, without engaging in more philosophy — J
And what is your justification for asserting that such an explanation is true? — J
Are you saying that philosophy is different because everything is on the table - open to questioning? I'm skeptical of that, but I'll have to think about it more. — T Clark
Yep, pretty much. — Leontiskos
Suppose some surly neo-Freudian interrupts me at the point where I assert that “there’s nowhere else to go.” Nonsense, he says. “I’ll give you a psychological-slash-reductive explanation of why philosophers do what they do, and this explanation will have nothing to do with ‛ideas’ or ‛reasoning,’ and everything to do with culturally determined modes of expression mixed with individual depth psychology.” Ah, but I can reply, “Indeed? And what is your justification for asserting that such an explanation is true?” — J
I think it is reasonable to say that philosophy is the study of thought, beliefs, knowledge, value, which are mental phenomena - the structure and process of the conscious mind. As such, it is a branch of psychology. Anything you claim as the province of philosophy can be trumped by a psychological interpretation. The overarching absolute presupposition of philosophy is that there is a mind which is knowable. — T Clark
Here's my problem. I'm pretty interested in what I intuit as the substantive issue in this thread. I would like to get to discussing that, and I don't know what I would say ― which for me is a big reason to have that conversation.
But I keep getting stuck on what, in my mind, I'm still treating as "preliminaries," just trying to clear up your framing of the issue. That framing keeps failing to make any sense at all, so I keep putting off getting to the supposed substance... — Srap Tasmaner
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