the idea that wisdom might transcend discursive articulation isn’t foreign to philosophy — it runs through Plato, Plotinus, and arguably into Wittgenstein himself. It’s also central to Eastern philosophy, where sometimes silence becomes the highest form of answer, akin to 'see for yourself!' — Wayfarer

Yes, and we shouldn't find this surprising or confusing. What philosophy can talk about is not the same thing as what philosophy can mention or acknowledge. That would be like saying that, because cell biology isn't a philosophical topic, it somehow fails to be legitimate. I can say that philosophy has shown me that there may be realms of experience beyond the discursive. That's not to claim that philosophy has talked about them. It's the old image of philosophy as pointing to a door you must open by other means.

In Kant? Isn't there apprehension prior to judgement? There is intuition/understanding/reason, which is clearly influenced by the three acts. He takes quite a bit from Aristotle. That's sort of Hegel's critique. "Oh look, I started presuppositionlessly and just happened to find Aristotle's categories." (I never found this critique of Hegel's strong, maybe the categories have held up because they are themselves strong).

Kant would deny truth as the adequacy of thought to being in the strong sense, or the idea of form coming through the senses to inform the intellect. I suppose the response here is that he rejects this because he presupposes representationalism and he has no good grounds for doing so (totally different subject). I'm also pretty sure he falls into identifying falsity with negation. So there would be other differences. I just don't know if the differences hold up without also accepting the fundamental axiom of "we experience only ideas/representations/our own experiences, not things," and of "knowledge of things in themselves," (as opposed to things as revealed by acting, actuality) as a sort of epistemic "gold standard" to aspire to. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Naturally it's tricky and subject to interpretation. Something that might be of value here is that Kant kind of does sit astride the line being explored here. I can say how I understand it, but mostly what matters in my summoning him is in his limitation on metaphysics. I recognize he takes a lot from Aristotle, but his modifications definitely put metaphysics into question as a science -- and I think it's a fair reading to say that the powers of judgment "underly" the categories.

"That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt...But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience. -- Intro CPR, Gutenberg edition




In the Kantian sense, sure, but "perception" isn't even the same thing as we normally mean it when we speak "in the Kantian sense" :D

The priority is of the forms of reason -- most importantly for our discussion here I'm thinking of Kant's critical turn on metaphysics, in particular. With respect to metaphysics Kant is the nit-picker, and with respect to scientific knowledge Kant is the world-builder.

I don't agree with any strong distinction between science and philosophy, but let me ask: can we (ought we) ever ask questions about ethics or aesthetics? Would these fall under the category of "science?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

It depends on from which view we are talking about ethics and aesthetics. Are we talking about them from the "internal" position of distinguishing right and wrong and beauty and plainness, or "externally" with ethics and aesthetics simply being one of the many means humans use complex social behaviors to improve their social fitness?

At the same time, it seems that there are at least questions about what makes science a good way to know things that must be prior to science, and which tend to fall into the common box of "philosophy." — Count Timothy von Icarus

How about what makes science a good way to know things is that it is the only method that has provided answers and philosophy has provided none. Name one answer philosophy has provided that did not involve some semblance of the scientific method - observing and rationalizing one's observations.

Of course, the line between "philosophy of biology" and biology, or "philosophy of physics," and physics, is always quite blurry. So too the line between philosophy of science and epistemology and foundational questions of evidence and the role of mathematics and logic in scientific discourse and models. That's why I actually think the art/science distinction is more useful than philosophy/science. — Count Timothy von Icarus

All philosophy can do is ask questions. Will there be questions that cannot be answered? Sure, but those questions will only seek subjective answers (ethics and aesthetics from an internal view - similar to how Banno is invoking Godel in this thread), or just be silly (language on a holiday).

As an example of the monolithic style of thought I'd say Hegel takes the cake. No one seems to claim to understand so much as he does. In the Adorno reading group I'm reminded of...

Next he looks at an early criticism of Hegel by Krug, who "objected that if he really wished to do justice to Hegel’s philosophy he would have to be able to deduce the quill with which he had been writing." — Jamal

Hegel's response being "that's not relevant to philosophy" as a way of dealing with a possible counter-example.

Now it could very well be the case that this is a stupid thing to say in relation to another thinker, to have missed the point. And truthfully I think for any research program to be productive -- be it philosophical or scientific -- there are going to be some counter-examples that are simply ignored as not pertinent to what the thinkers are trying to get at.

But I think it worthwhile to note that Hegel's approach, though it feels like it encompasses it all, can be turned on its head and re-intepreted.

And, further, it's actually good philosophy to do so, sometimes. (Re-interpretation seems to require both the critical and the narrative)

(** philosophically archaic definition, so as not to be confused with the way the term is commonly used on this thread, yet consistent with the immediate subject matter.) — Mww

:D Hey, I'm the one defending the nit-pickers. I had you in mind in crafting the thought -- it's always a bit of an art in trying to simplify the greats to a manageable idea we can all work with and think through.

Agree with a good deal. Especially on the point of some newer members coming in with a ToE pretending great wisdom and exhaustive theoretical depth, which, when ever so slightly pushed, collapse.

This is not to say that I think it makes to delimit what a philosopher ought to do, but "taking things down" or "breaking them apart" is good mental hygiene.

Beyond that, when evidence is lacking to settle a case, the merits should be decided on the strength of given reasons. However, we should also be aware that in many respects, our own inclinations in philosophy could be off the mark.

Sure, and that's why a charitable reading can be important. You can help make the position clearer and more compelling! (And maybe start by discarding the assumption that the person "hasn't bothered questioning it themselves." Perhaps they've done so to the best of their ability.) — J

My point was that charitability it is a two-way street. I can only help make the position clearer if the other participates in answering the questions or explaining why the question is irrelevant.

Well, showing discrepancies, that's step two, which requires a whole new mindset, I've found. Quite often, if I start by indicating that I do have some understanding of the position, and can see some value or importance, and then describe the discrepancies I also see, it's received more openly. Or not, of course! -- people get defensive. — J

If understanding is the first step, can you say you have successfully completed the first step if your questions that would help you understand are not answered (they get defensive by the simply fact that you are questioning anything they say)? When I show a discrepancy between their current claim and their prior claims is it fair to say that either I don't understand their position or their position is a contradiction BEFORE even reaching step two, and if they don't address the discrepancy by agreeing to either of those two possibilities, then what? At what point are we to say that they are simply insulting our intelligence and wasting our time?

Is the "you" here the "British 'one'" -- that is, "one should be asking oneself . . ." etc. -- or do you mean "you" as in me, specifically the position about understanding another's position that I was sketching? — J

The former.

If the conclusion you have reached is aporetic then you've made a wrong turn somewhere in your thinking and would need to reflect.
— Harry Hindu

Say more about this? I'm not understanding yet why aporia wouldn't be a possible outcome for a philosophical inquiry. — J

A possible outcome - yes. A useful outcome - no. Computers produce errors even though they are the most logical devices we know of. If the output is aporic then you need to re-evaluate the input or the program for bugs. If you have reached the conclusion that we don't know anything - doesn't that constitute knowledge - that we don't know anything and therefore creates a contradiction?

There is arguably logical convertability as well. To say "a man is standing," is to say "it is true that a man is standing," (assertoric force), which is also to say "one man is standing" (unity) — Count Timothy von Icarus

What we've seen in the threads about Frege, Kimhi, and Rodl is that we can't rest content with this formulation. Consider what you just "said": "a man is standing". Did you also say "it is true that a man is standing"? I certainly didn't take you to be saying that. If I were to reply to your statement by asking you, "Is it true that a man is standing?" you would be puzzled, because you intended no assertion. You would try to explain the difference between use and mention, quite rightly. And yet you said what you said.

Moral: There is no one thing called "saying", which carries with it certain corollaries (such as assertion). A statement can be used or mentioned. It can be performed in a play or suggested as a possibility. It's the same insight we find in Rodl about "p" -- we want to think of "p" as innocent, just a sort of placeholder whose meaning is obvious, but it isn't. What we choose to allow "p" to stand for makes a difference in what we can go on to say.

If understanding is the first step, can you say you have successfully completed the first step if your questions that would help you understand are not answered (they get defensive by the simply fact that you are questioning anything they say)? — Harry Hindu

Fair enough. My nice division into steps is oversimplistic.

A possible outcome - yes. A useful outcome - no. — Harry Hindu

I dunno, the aporetic dialogues of Plato seem quite useful. But we may be saying the same thing -- that aporia is an invitation to reconsider. My idea is that the reconsidering is a lot more radical than looking for a "bug" in the logic, because I think aporia is often a sign that we've set the whole problem up incorrectly.

If you have reached the conclusion that we don't know anything [about X] - doesn't that constitute knowledge? — Harry Hindu

Yes, but not about X. So no contradiction, I'd say.

as I've said before, it seems to me that for you language is all names, that you think each word stands for something. And I think this is mistaken. I think that what counts is not what the word stands for - if anything - but what we do with our words in context.

And i think this difference prevents us seeing eye to eye. — Banno

Exactly. Context helps to establish the meaning (what a word points to) of certain words. Some words are helper words in that they establish the context of the other words in a sentence. When we have agreed that a certain scribble can have multiple meanings, we use helper words to distinguish between the multiple meanings. So we can say that the helper words point to the specific definition of another word in the sentence.

Words (scribbles and sounds) are like anything else in the world. We can use other scribbles to establish context, or something else in the immediate shared environment to establish context, like the direction you are pointing. More scribbles is just one of the possible things we could use to establish context.

This is what I mean when I say that we use the world (scribbles, sounds, braille, pointing, etc) to communicate. Scribbles are just one of many things we can use to refer to other things.

When you look at or listen to another language you do not know you see scribbles and hear sounds. You can't even tell where one word ends and the other begins when hearing a foreign language. It is only by learning the rules for interpreting the sounds does one perceive the spaces between the spoken words. The spaces is what makes language modular, where you can plug in various strings of scribbles with other strings to create new meanings. So there are times when it is useful to use a single word as pointing to something and useful to take the whole sentence as pointing to something depending on the words being used.

Right, there are all sorts of modifications possible in quotation, ampilation, appellation, etc. But these are hardly counterexamples. Descriptive sentences, claims, signify "what is." But truth vis-á-vis sentences just is the property of signifying "what is" If descriptive sentences, claims, facts, etc. did not signify "what is" it's hard to see how they even have content. We are, after all, predicating something of something, which is to say that something is, which is also to say that it is true that something is.

Would we ever claim: "x is y, but it is not true that x is y?" (And please, no examples using quotation, this obviously applies to actual claims only). If not, then there is a convertability and it is related to the possibility of signification and content. Appellation, etc. are certainly important, as is the question of assertoric force, but those are unrelated as far as I can see. The convertability deals with cases where there is assertoric force, and surely, there is at least sometimes assertoric force, and this is crucial for signification.

The strong counterexample would be that there is never assertoric force, or that saying "x is y," doesn't entail that it is true that "x is y," i.e. that x can actually be y, but this isn't true of x. Or, that saying something about what is is not basic.

I dunno, the aporetic dialogues of Plato seem quite useful. But we may be saying the same thing -- that aporia is an invitation to reconsider. My idea is that the reconsidering is a lot more radical than looking for a "bug" in the logic, because I think aporia is often a sign that we've set the whole problem up incorrectly. — J

Which is the same as saying that the program was written incorrectly and/or is handling input that is was not designed to handle.

Define "useful".

If you have reached the conclusion that we don't know anything [about X] - doesn't that constitute knowledge?
— Harry Hindu

Yes, but not about X. So no contradiction, I'd say. — J

Your edit of my post isn't what I intended to say.

anything = everything about every X

If you have reached the conclusion that you don't know why or how the universe (everything) exists, then aren't you effectively stating that you don't know anything about everything? Doesn't the conclusion of you not knowing anything about X create doubt in your understanding of all the other X's? If I'm wrong about X, how do I know I'm not wrong about all the other X's?

How about what makes science a good way to know things is that it is the only method that has provided answers and philosophy has provided none. Name one answer philosophy has provided that did not involve some semblance of the scientific method - observing and rationalizing one's observations

But you made a distinction between philosophy and science. As commonly conceived, philosophy deals in observations all the time. This is true of phenomenology, ethics, metaphysics, etc. Is the claim that whenever these involve observation they are actually "science" and not "philosophy?"

I would just say that this would make most (perhaps all) philosophy into "science," or at least "scientific" (in virtue of involving observation). Indeed, it's a popular axiom in philosophy that "there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses [i.e. "observed"]. And this other sort of "philosophy" that doesn't involve observations would either be very small or non-existent.

Are we talking about them from the "internal" position of distinguishing right and wrong and beauty and plainness, or "externally" with ethics and aesthetics simply being one of the many means humans use complex social behaviors to improve their social fitness?

I'm not really sure why these should be different. Ethics is the study of ends. Politics, as a sort of archetectonic study of ends in the broadest sphere possible, is both a study of what people do and what they would benefit from doing, and this is recognized in the contemporary social sciences.

Consider Wittgenstein's following remark:

124. Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language;
it can in the end only describe it.
For it cannot give it any foundation either.
It leaves everything as it is.
It also leaves mathematics as it is, and no mathematical discovery
can advance it. A "leading problem of mathematical logic" is for us
a problem of mathematics like any other.

I think such remarks are self refuting and mischaracterise both mathematics and philosophy by falsely implying that they are separate language games. Indeed, formalism fails to explain the evolution of mathematlcs and logic. There's nothing therapeutic about mischaracterising mathematics as being a closed system of meaning.

No thanks, C.S. Peirce is my go to American. Pragmaticism, not pragmatism, thank you :grin: — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree, but let’s give the devil his due. I think it will be helpful, and it will also afford an opportunity to give an example of how to constructively interact with a thesis rather than dissect it.

"James’s central thesis is that when an option is live, forced and momentous and cannot be settled by intellectual means, one may and must let one’s non-rational nature make the choice. One may believe what one hopes to be true, or what makes one happiest;" — Hanover

There is a very interesting and ubiquitous philosophical problem that is being confronted by Hanover. I touched on it <here>. Consider this argument:

1. Supposition: The only rational assents are those that are entirely derived from the intellect (and not at all derived from the will)
2. But (most) everyone is involved in a great number of assents which are not entirely derived from the intellect
3. Not all of these assents are irrational
4. Therefore, (1) is false

Our most familiar instantiation of this problem is the debate over moral realism, where the anti-realist holds to (1) and claims that moral assents are not rational (because they are derived from the will, whether in the case of ‘oughts’ or values). But we faced another acute instantiation of the problem in the recent <thread on faith>, where we saw that faith-assents are common and rational even though they involve the will. For example:

Such faith is rational, but it is also an act of choice. The evidence, because it is about the trustworthiness of the authority and not about the things the authority says, does not convince the mind of the truth of these things, but only of their trustworthiness. To believe their truth, the mind must be moved to do so by an act of trust. But an act of trust is an act of will. We can, if we like, refuse to believe the doctor or the chemist, however convincing the evidence of their trustworthiness may be. We cannot, by contrast, refuse to believe that the angles of a triangle equal two right angles once we have seen the proof, though we can contradict it in words if we like, for speech is an act of will. — Peter L. P. Simpson, Political Illiberalism, 109

Consider an example of a conservative argument against (1) which does not go so far as William James’ voluntarism:

If someone is starving and they decide to eat a mushroom, knowing that it might be poisonous, then I can see how the act has value and reason. — Leontiskos

The conclusion—whether belief or opinion—that the mushrooms are edible is not motivated purely by the intellect. In fact such a belief would never have been formed if one were not starving and desirous of food. One would never have had occasion to judge the mushrooms edible if not for that hunger. The will is necessary for such an assent, but this does not render the assent irrational.

My guess is that the number of assents which involve the will in such a way is very large. It doesn’t seem to be practicable to avoid all such assents, which is probably why people like so often overreach their own intellectualist criteria. Janus is someone who gives a very idiosyncratic approach to this problem by positing a set of non-rational assents which are justifiable to oneself but not to others. Williams James seems to go too far in collapsing truth into will altogether. Pascal’s Wager represents an especially potent leveraging of the problem. But even after dissecting all of the errors, it is very hard to deny that there must be some rational assents which are not derived entirely from the intellect.

The Medieval answer to this philosophical problem is found in both a robust understanding of the relation between the intellect and the will, and also in the doctrine of the convertibility of the good and the true.

(Given that it is plain to us that there is a form of will which is inimical to intellectual honesty, presumably any thinker worth his salt who rejects (1) must follow Aristotle in distinguishing an upright will from a corrupt will.)

---

Austere criteria for knowledge and reason will result in a truncated philosophical sphere, and this is what @Banno’s view commits him to. He has a relatively narrow view of knowledge, philosophy, and reason, because of his more stringent criteria (with some exceptions). Something like (1) appeals to him, even though he is plagued by the same fact of incompleteness that plagued the Logical Positivists. Like his forebears, he has no principled way to exclude knowledge claims, given that he knows that his own system is incomplete. Such people can say with certainty, “If a rational assent is derived entirely from the intellect, then it is rational,” but they are constantly tempted to affirm the consequent and assert (1).

This austerity is given to dissection in one way, insofar as many knowledge claims will fail the stringent criterion and a tight logical system will be able to show why they are not theorems within the system. But in another way the negative judgments that naturally follow upon dissection are beyond its reach, even though it often deceives itself in denying this. Lacking completeness, the fact that something is not a theorem within the system does not prove that it is not true. Thus the adherent is consigned to the paradox of only being able to dissect and never being able to exclude; of only being able to say, “At least according to my incomplete system, what you say is not valid.” Gödel and reality itself beckons them onward to wider vistas, where the truths which elude them can be seen.

For these reasons I find Hanover’s approach too strong (although at this point he is only quoting James' more mild ideas). The intellect itself is sufficient to show that Banno’s approach is insufficient for the sake of truth.

I think such remarks are self refuting and mischaracterise both mathematics and philosophy by falsely implying that they are separate language games. Indeed, formalism fails to explain the evolution of mathematlcs and logic. There's nothing therapeutic about mischaracterising mathematics as being a closed system of meaning. — sime

It would be hard to overemphasize the importance of what you say here. :up: :fire:

the act of understanding closes of critique. — Banno

OK, so where does philosophy fit between these two extremes? — J

This could be an interesting discussion. For now I will only add:

As Spinoza said, "Omnis determinatio est negatio." — Leontiskos

Every determination is a negation, including the determination involved in the act of understanding. If such "closing" is necessarily authoritarian, then mathematics is authoritarian, and we actually have some nutty folk in universities saying precisely that.

In today's climate what is needed is philosophy rather than diatribes, ideology, and virtue signaling — Leontiskos

But you made a distinction between philosophy and science. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Only when it comes to providing answers. The only way we obtain the answer is by testing all possible answers. An untestable answer is just as valid as all the other untestable answers.

As commonly conceived, philosophy deals in observations all the time. This is true of phenomenology, ethics, metaphysics, etc. Is the claim that whenever these involve observation they are actually "science" and not "philosophy?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Isn't logic a fundamental branch of philosophy and isn't rationalism vs empiricism a philosophical debate? I think the claim that philosophy deals in observations all the time is suspect.

Do you agree that science also deals in observations (all the time)? If so, then dealing in observations is neither philosophical or scientific, but something else and philosophy and science would be types of this something else. What is that something else?

Do you agree that philosophy and science both deal in rationalism (all the time)? Are there any irrational scientific theories? Can there ever be such a thing as an irrational scientific theory? Is there such a thing as an irrational philosophical theory like in the fields of religion and politics?

If both philosophy and science deal in observation and rationalism (all the time), then dealing in observation and rationalism are not defining qualities of either. What makes them different is their defining qualities and the difference is in how testable the answers to any question we pose are.

My guess is that the number of assents which involve the will in such a way is very large. It doesn’t seem to be practicable to avoid all such assents, which is probably why people like ↪Russell and Banno so often overreach their own intellectualist criteria. Janus is someone who gives a very idiosyncratic approach to this problem by positing a set of non-rational assents which are justifiable to oneself but not to others. Williams James seems to go too far in collapsing truth into will altogether. Pascal’s Wager represents an especially potent leveraging of the problem. But even after dissecting all of the errors, it is very hard to deny that there must be some rational assents which are not derived entirely from the intellect.

The Medieval answer to this philosophical problem is found in both a robust understanding of the relation between the intellect and the will, and also in the doctrine of the convertibility of the good and the true.

This is a very interesting post. It reminds me of how Aristotle (or maybe it is Aquinas in the commentary), likens moral reason to advice given by a father or friends, rather than the strict informing of theoretical reason vis-á-vis demonstration.

One idea here in the medieval context is that, because we only ever encounter finite goods, the will is always underdetermined. Thus, there is always a "choice factor" in our pursuits (and from a theological point of view it is this separation that allows/is necessary for man to transcend his own finitude and so to become more "like God"—at least this is one answer for "why were Satan and Adam not created fixed on God?")

@J might find this interesting because, if I have understood him correctly, this relates to why he thinks all moral reasoning is always hypothetical? That is, we can tell what follows from moral premises, but never be led to any particular premise (even though the premises are indeed really true or false, and knowable as such, which is the part I don't get, since this would seem to imply non-hypothetical judgements are possible).

I think this goes too far. There are at least some things that can be known as good vis-á-vis human nature, particularly ceteris paribus, and if the good is more choice-worthy than the bad, then we have a clear intellectual line to the preferability of at least some habits, i.e., the virtues (intellectual and moral). But I'll certainly grant that this does not apply to every case, and is not without difficulties in particular applications. Nor do I think this suggests the absolute priority of the intellect in the pursuit of virtue, in that the appetite for knowledge, including knowledge about what is truly best, always plays a role.

I think such remarks are self refuting and mischaracterise both mathematics and philosophy by falsely implying that they are separate language games. Indeed, formalism fails to explain the evolution of mathematlcs and logic. There's nothing therapeutic about mischaracterising mathematics as being a closed system of meaning.

Right, reason becomes trapped in the disparate fly-bottles of sui generis language games. Man is separated from being, either by the mind, or later by language. He is like the separated lover who can never reach his other half in the Symposium. Language, the sign vehicle, ideas, etc. become impermeable barriers that preclude the possibility of union, rather than the very means of union.

D.C. Schindler has a book on the "catholicty of reason," the way it always relates to the whole and always is already beyond itself that I quite like. It's very continental though, which is not everyone's cup of tea.

From the text:

One of the first and most decisive forms of this self-restriction of reason is no doubt Kant’s determination to set limits to reason “in order to make room for faith." Such a determination seems eminently reasonable: the remedy for presumption is modesty, and modesty would seem to be best ensured by restricting reason’s scope, which would cause it to respect what lies beyond it as genuinely “beyond.” But our argument is that setting limits to reason in this way in fact makes modesty impossible, and that the only way to avoid a closed system is vigilantly to insist on “totality.” The problem with Hegel, for example, who is typically presented as the very peak of Western rational presumption, is not that he claimed too much for reason, but too little: his system closed in on itself the moment he allowed reason to lose sight of the whole.

You know, the old Hegelian dictum that: "to have recognized a limit is to have already stepped beyond it."

I'm not really sure why these should be different. Ethics is the study of ends. Politics, as a sort of archetectonic study of ends in the broadest sphere possible, is both a study of what people do and what they would benefit from doing, and this is recognized in the contemporary social sciences. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ethics is not necessarily the study of ends, but the ends in relation with some intent because we see people that accidentally caused harm different than people that intentionally caused harm.

What people do and what is best for them is different than what an individual does and what is best for the individual, which could conflict with what is best for the group. The questio s and conclusions of ethics and politics are subjective and why science doesn't bother with them.

Define "useful". — Harry Hindu

In this context, I meant philosophically helpful or provocative -- something worth our time to understand. Is there a way you prefer to think of it? -- I'm certainly not married to this one.

Your edit of my post isn't what I intended to say.

anything = everything about every X — Harry Hindu

Oh sorry, didn't mean to misconstrue. As for "everything about every X", I guess I don't know what to say about that!

Ethics is not necessarily the study of ends, but the ends in relation with some intent because we see people that accidentally caused harm different than people that intentionally caused harm.

Right, because the former are seeking different ends from the latter.

What people do and what is best for them is different than what an individual does and what is best for the individual, which could conflict with what is best for the group.

Potentially. That's a question ethics and politics studies, the role of the "common good" being key here.



Good questions. The difficulty in answering these are precisely why I don't see a particularly strong line between the two.

In this context, I meant philosophically helpful or provocative -- something worth our time to understand. Is there a way you prefer to think of it? -- I'm certainly not married to this one. — J

I would define useful as being applicable in real-world situations and produces the expected results.

What does "philosophically helpful" mean if not helpful in extending language's holiday?

I take your use of "provocative" to mean that it causes one to reflect upon the usefulness of one's own ideas in contrast with a different idea, or to think differently about something in a way that is useful, with usefulness being defined here as I did above.

This is why I'm saying that philosophy as language on holiday is not useful as I have defined it. It's just scribbles that are not applicable to the world as we know it, and might never be applicable, so it's only use could be to provide some social benefit by using language in artful ways, not to say anything useful about the world.

Yes, this can get complicated and nit-picky very quickly, and I doubt that we really disagree about assertions. What I'm claiming is that it takes more than "saying" something to make an assertion.

To assert X is to claim that X is true -- I imagine you agree with this, and so do I. But life, and language, has many shades of meaning, and we don't always draw such a clear line. I might say, "That man over there is my old roommate." But if you ask me, "Are you asserting this?" or "Are you saying this is true?" you shouldn't be surprised if I pause for a moment and then reply, "Well, not quite. I think it's true, it appears to be true, but I'm not 'asserting' it as if I were under oath."

Point is, we need to stipulate what counts as an assertion. That's why I was focusing on "To say 'p' is to say 'p is true'." I don't think that's right, but it is right that "To assert 'p', and make clear one is doing so, is to say 'p is true'."

Right, become the former are seeking different ends from the latter. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Seems like you're just defining "intent" here.

Potentially. That's a question ethics and politics studies, the role of the "common good" being key here. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not when the "common good" is bad for the individual. The good of the individual vs the good of the group is a well-known ethical dilemma and has not been settled as far as I know.

Good questions. The difficulty in answering these are precisely why I don't see a particularly strong line between the two. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If you're having difficulty answering the questions then how can you say whether there is a strong line or not? The point of asking the questions was to try to get at whether there is a strong line between the two or not, and if the distinction is useful or not. The conclusions reached in any field of knowledge must not contradict the conclusions reached in another field. All knowledge must be integrated. The field of genetics integrates well with the field of biology. The field of quantum mechanics does not integrate well with classical physics. The interpretations of what the science of QM is showing would be in the domain of philosophy as none of them are testable at the moment.

I could give me my answers to the questions, I just don't think it would be particularly helpful. "Testability" of "falsification" are often offered as criteria for science. I do think this works. Theoretical work often predates the possibility of any sort of test or "verification" by decades. Mach famously decried the atom as unfalsifiable. A number of major physicists decried the quark on the same grounds. The quark and anti-particles were first developed as speculative theories and were not immediately testable. The theory had to come first though. Quantum foundations is often decried as unfalsifiable, but in fact some theories of objective collapse have been successfully tested (and seemingly falsified). This work has given us real insights. We wouldn't have Bell's work on locality without it for example.

And this sort of issue isn't limited to physics. You can see it in the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis debate in biology just as well. Information theory, and the idea that "biological information" is "really reducible to mechanism," is a particularly apt case, because it becomes a very philosophical question, really one of metaphysics when one wants to challenge the idea that dyadic mechanism is the way causation must be described. Understanding dynamical systems and a lot of complexity studies in quite similar.

If science only becomes science when it is testable, then a great deal of what scientists do, especially theoretical work, is philosophy and not science. So, like I said, the line is not very clear by this criteria, or at least it fails to corresponds to common usages.

If science only becomes science when it is testable, then a great deal of what scientists do, especially theoretical work, is philosophy and not science. So, like I said, the line is not very clear by this criteria, or at least it fails to corresponds to common usages. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I was thinking about it a bit more and can see philosophy, with the application of logic, tests the theories for soundness, while science tests them by experimentation - a process involving both logic and observation. So, philosophy and science done well would be where the conclusion reached passed all, or at least most, of the tests each one performs.

OK, I see where you're coming from. Most of philosophy, in that sense, isn't very useful, I agree.

I'm the one defending the nit-pickers. I had you in mind in crafting the thought…. — Moliere

Oh, I’m a rational-life-long, card-carryin’ dissector, to be sure. I do loves me some minutia, donchaknow, in the interest of philosophical clarity of course.

Williams James seems to go too far in collapsing truth into will altogether. — Leontiskos

I do think that James creates criteria to limit the amount the will allows one to create one's own reality, but I do think there is merit to the position that the will is a dominant force in one's life, enough so that it can significantly change one's outlook and perspective. It's especially noticable on website like this, where I often detect an over-riding sense of doom, this idea that if you don't accept a certain pessimism, then you're looked upon as blissfully ignorant. And the point is that it's not ignorance. It's a choice.

And so that's why I ask aloud why someone thinks there's virtue to absolute fidelity to logic and scientific discovery if it yields such misery. But I do understand that some cannot but do that because to do otherwise would be alien to their nature. This is what James means by "live," meaning the decision to beleive has to be of something you actually have the constitution to believe.

For these reasons I find Hanover’s approach too strong (although at this point he is only quoting James' more mild ideas). — Leontiskos

My personal worldview actually is very different than this, only referring to pragmatism because it is more palatable here than my actual views that lean toward theism and mysticism, but that's an aside as far as what my particular beliefs are. What's not an aside is that everyone's personal beliefs form their worldview, which is what I think the OP doesn't address as closely. What it actually addresses is the fact that there are two ways of philosophizing within the analytic tradition, and some do it rigorously and some do it sloppily. Those who are rigorous allow beliefs to fall as logic requires. Those who are sloppy maintain their views regardless of where they are contradicted, using analytic systems when it benefits their biases and ignoring the problems when it doesn't.

When we truly have different views of the world (i.e. not a shared view), then rejection of the results brought about by the tools of other traditions isn't inconsistent. If my world is not conducive to examination by an atomic microscope, it doesn't bother me what results it might show.