We know that Aristotle was wrong, and an idea more akin to Democratus' was more right...there is serious concern regarding the method Aristotle employs to reach "metaphysical knowledge". — 013zen
Lectures, however, produce their effects in accord with people’s habits, since we expect them to be spoken in the manner we are accustomed to, and anything |995a1| beyond this appears not to have the same strength but to be something quite unknown and quite strange. For it is the customary that is familiar. Indeed, the extraordinary power of what we are accustomed to is clearly shown by our customs, where mythical and childish stories about things have greater power than our knowledge about them, because of |995a5| our habits. Now some people do not accept what someone says if it is not stated mathematically, others if it is not based on paradigm cases, while others expect to have a poet adduced as a witness. Again, some want everything expressed exactly, whereas others are annoyed by what is exact, either because they cannot string all the bits together or because they regard it as nitpicking. For exactness does have something |995a10| of this quality, and so just as in business transactions so also in arguments it seems to have something unfree or ungenerous about it. That is why we should already have been well educated in what way to accept each argument, since it is absurd to look for scientific knowledge and for the way [of inquiry] characteristic of scientific knowledge at the same time—and it is not easy to get hold of either. Accordingly, we should not demand the argumentative exactness of mathematics in all cases |995a15| but only in the case of things that include no matter. That is why the way of inquiry is not the one characteristic of natural science, since presumably every nature includes matter. That is why we must first investigate what a nature is, since that way it will also be clear what natural science is concerned with, and whether it belongs to one science or to more than one to get a theoretical grasp on causes and starting-points. |995a20| — Aristotle, Metaphysics, 995, translated by CDC Reeve, emphasis mine
I heard that the American Civil War was in some sense the second American Revolution, please clarify this. — Linkey
On the one hand, we have reality, and on the other we have our "picture" of reality. What bridges that gap? Well, I think Witt's answer is the logical relations. — 013zen
4.18 Logical forms are without number.
Hence there are no pre-eminent numbers in logic, and hence there is no possibility of philosophical monism or dualism, etc — ibid.
5.5561 There cannot be a hierarchy of the forms of elementary propositions. We can foresee only what we ourselves construct.
Empirical reality is limited by the totality of objects. The limit also makes itself manifest in the totality of elementary propositions. — ibid
5.61 Logic pervades the world: the limits of the world are also its limits.
So we cannot say in logic, ‘The world has this in it, and this, but not that.’
For that would appear to presuppose that we were excluding certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case, since it would require that logic should go beyond the limits of the world; for only in that way could it view those limits from the other side as well.
We cannot think what we cannot think; so what we cannot think we cannot say either.
5.62 This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism.
For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest.
The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.
5.621 The world and life are one.
5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)
5.64 Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it. — ibid.
6.363 The procedure of induction consists in accepting as true the simplest law that can be reconciled with our experiences.
6.6631 This procedure, however, has no logical justification but only a psychological one.
It is clear that there are no grounds for believing that the simplest eventuality will in fact be realized. — ibid.
I've been asking it questions about Wittgenstein's Tractatus and it does well. — Sam26
I'll bet it would do better than you in a university setting. — Sam26
However, the more serious press noted the disaster of Horse Face’s testimony yesterday. — NOS4A2
Witt is thinking, I believe, of the realist/idealist/, empiricist/rationalist debate. — 013zen
Thank goodness. Do you think the emerging romantics who want to go back to the Greeks count as philosophy or is this just a romantic nostalgia project? — Tom Storm
Pray tell, what is your opinion on the state of global education. For me, the critical thinker is resilient to rhetoric and propaganda, the fact learner is however....not. — Benj96