But isn't it kind of insane to go on a merry-go-round to nowhere? That's what you're effectively inviting me to.

Well certainly I thought I was, but I wouldn't include scientific or historical questions under Philosophy, and you would. So you must be defining these things in a different way to me. — PossibleAaran

You shouldn't capitalise the first letter of the word "philosophy". It's ungrammatical.

And why would you dispute what seems so obvious? That metaphysics and epistemology are branches of philosophy; that metaphysics deals with reality and what's the case; that epistemology deals with what can be known, and what is known; and that history and science are subcategories of that?

We make some progress here, but I'm sure you know that "metaphysics" and "epistemology" are again technical terms which philosophers use in different ways. So I will have to ask again what you mean by these two words, exactly? — PossibleAaran

That's the thing: you don't have to ask that. Are you, or are you not, capable of identifying questions covered by each branch of philosophy? Yes, you are.

If I took you to a room with a blue vase and a red vase, you would be capable of identifying them without me having to define terms.

My question to you is the same as I ask NKBJ: what do you mean by "Philosophy"? — PossibleAaran

Philosophy covers metaphysics and epistemology, which in turn covers what history and science cover.

And yes, I deliberately ignored defining "philosophy".

You can't philosophize about the content of empirical sciences. The philosopher doesn't tell you that Caesar crossed the Rubicon or that the earth is round. Those are not subjects of Philosophy. The philosopher might enquire by what methods these things can cogently be established and examine assumptions made in the course of establishing these things, but the historian and the scientist tell you that Caesar crossed the Rubicon and that the earth is round, not the Philosopher. — PossibleAaran

No, the good philosopher will tell you those things, because he doesn't disregard what can be known through history and science. What can be known, and what is known, is part of philosophy. Philosophy is extremely broad.

I strongly disagree with the attempt to spin philosophy as something which must look remarkably different. It isn't all evil demons and the like.

It seems foolish to even attempt to answer the title question. What can't you philosophise about? Nothing. Except even that can be philosophised about.

Isn't appealing to feelings or emotions a logical fallacy? — Harry Hindu

Only in the right context.

In America, the game is called "Clue." — YuZhonglu

Lol! Americans are funny people with their simplifications of the English language. I can imagine it being discussed in a board meeting:

"Yes, but if we call it 'Cluedo', Americans might get confused".

What do you guys call Monopoly? Money Game?

And it is an argument, as can be seen here, that Christians will see as supporting their morally bankrupt religion. — Banno

That one definitely gets one of these: :100:

I love how it brought this out of the woodwork:

Christianity is far from morally bankrupt. I am a part of the Salvation Army, and these people are completely sincere as well as ethical. — Ilya B Shambat

Yet those damn dirty Moslems be evil, I tells thee! :lol:

What's with the title? Islam isn't a region. Islam is a religion, like Christianity, from which it is derived, much like Christianity is derived from Judaism. Islam has adherents in the West, some of whom I know personally, and they are lovely people, far from morally bankrupt.

I am with you there. — Merkwurdichliebe

I am opposed with you there. — Merkwurdichliebe

How very Trumpian.

This uncertainty is then like a third coin toss... And so on. We end up, as Wittgenstein does in 'On Certainty' with a bedrock of propositions which we simply do not doubt, not ones we cannot talk about doubting, just ones we do not, in practice, doubt.

We cannot, in practice, act as if things exist with properties such as being impossible to detect, even in theory. Properties such as manifest influence on spacetime without being located in spacetime. In practice, "God doesn't exist", or "God probably doesn't exist" are both perfectly rational statements to make because it is impossible to even proceed with thought, let alone life, without simply assuming some hinge propositions to be sound.

I think each person may even have different hinge propositions, but that's another discussion. The point is, the coin tossing has to stop somewhere. — Isaac

You mentioned, "in practice", quite a few times there. But if you're talking about, "in practice", then you won't get much disagreement from me.

The problem is, we're engaged in this philosophical enquiry to get at something deeper than, "in practice". In practice, as I've said, a useless undetectable god that does nothing other than exist somewhere unknown to us doesn't make any difference. But aren't we questioning the possible reality, not how we casually treat things?

It seems important in epistemology that we can't logically rule out the actual existence of certain conceptions of god. Epistemology is not ethics. Ethics deals with how we should live, and the principle that we should live as though it doesn't matter falls under ethics, not epistemology.

It's so confusing, isn't it? All that ambiguity.

What on earth does, "I do not believe in a god", mean?

Does it mean, "I do not believe in a god"?

Or does it mean, "I believe in no gods"?

It's hard to tell, because the choice of words and the ordering of them in such sentences is apparently just completely random and has no bearing on meaning whatsoever.

I'm willing [to] consider your points... — Merkwurdichliebe

:rofl:

Yeah, you've really left me with that impression.

Well that went downhill fast. Oh well, brush it off and move on. I can handle being called names.

Now can we get back on topic, I was digging what StreetlightX had to say. — Merkwurdichliebe

That makes sense, given your clearly expressed gripe with both OLP and whatever I have to say.

Go ahead then, return to, "These terms really mean something completely different", and block out any criticism of that approach.

Wriggle away, man; you're dead wrong about my following 'mob-thinking" in ethics. You simply don't have a clue what I was getting at. In fact I don't think you have a clue what you are getting at either; you just like the sound of your own voice. — Janus

That was basically your definition of morality. Although you're inconsistent with it.

Morality is herd-morality! Just don't expect me to properly deal with any thought experiment which shows the glaring fault in my pet theory!

I am with you there. — Merkwurdichliebe

Oh. I had stopped paying attention when you began to blab.

That's hilarious coming from someone who declares that they eschew the thinking of the mob; which ordinary language obviously reflects. — Janus

And once again, you demonstrate your lack of close attention. In the context of ethics, I eschewed treating the thinking of the mob as sacrosanct, as you do, because it leads to obvious problems which you can't resolve.

Even in contexts outside of ethics, and in general, I do not treat common sense as sacrosanct. I just think that it can be a good guide.

Where is your argument for such a claim, how and why will lame-ass ordinary language philosophy prevail? it's been around about a century now and it has settled nothing. — Merkwurdichliebe

I spoke of ordinary language, not ordinary language philosophy. And the prevalence of the former is extremely noticeable.

But that is how it works. Or at least, in any real life scientific context where objectivity is said of expriments and their results. It's only here, among 'philosophers', where I am 'attempting to dictate language'. But consider that you've been using language wrong, from the very beginning. — StreetlightX

No, that's just how it works in a very narrow context. Consider that you're using language wrong in both the context around us, which is philosophy, and in general, which is ordinary language.

This sounds like you too. — Merkwurdichliebe

In what respect? The dictating language part, I get. But in the bigger picture, ordinary language will win without any input from me. The "sophisticated" language of philosophy doesn't pick up well outside of a tiny little group.

Right, so 'the existence of Jupiter' is not the kind of thing that can be qualified as objective - or not. You're projecting a grammar mistake onto the thing itself. — StreetlightX

I usually find your answers weirdly mistaken. It's like you're engaged in a futile fight against common sense. You present instead some account which you seem to think is more sophisticated, but which actually causes more problems. The main problem here seems to be that you're trying to dictate language instead of conforming to what it ordinarily means. It just won't work.

I mean what's usually meant. It's not like we've all been living under a rock or have no access to the internet.

And as for ‘subjective' - frankly, nobody knows what ‘subjective’ means. — StreetlightX

I do.

Yawn. Objective just means reproducible under fixed conditions. Nothing more. The blather about mind and feelings and independence and perception and reality and truth and so on is just noise.

The sooner people realize objective and subjective do not form an antithetical pair, the better. — StreetlightX

But it works for me, whereas your proposal seems vague and untested. Let's test it:

When I say that the existence of Jupiter is objective, you take me to mean that the existence of Jupiter is reproducible under fixed conditions?

Nope, doesn't seem to work. That's not what I mean at all.

So it seems you are using subjective here to mean something different. What? — Banno

If I had to put my finger on it, I would guess "fallible".

What exactly has that got to do with whether the universe has ever existed? — Devans99

It has to do with logic. But there's no point explaining it because you're an evangelical.

How about trying a more “down-to-earth” definition of what is true and what is false. For example: Any system of human thinking, doing, and governance which promotes and enhances the physical, biological, and mental health of the human race is true; those which do not are false.

Hopefully, this will get us away from focusing exclusively on overly abstract semantical arguments and dry propositional analyses. — charles ferraro

Is this a joke? You've basically just described the fallacy of appealing to the consequences.

but we're off topic from the OP — christian2017

Just a tad. But it doesn't really matter because he doesn't listen and in is in denial, so nothing we say will have any impact. He'll just repeat himself.

I'm content with that, afterall, I love pussy — Merkwurdichliebe

Then you'll love @Noah Te Stroete.

And hello. — Merkwurdichliebe

Hello.

How am I supposed to know that you weren't following the conversation? I quoted the bit I just re-quoted above, and that's what I was responding to. Then Frank responded to my comment about it. — Terrapin Station

Sometimes it seems like you're being deliberately difficult. It's like you withhold information, like the knowledge that you're addressing what's very much the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law, and you drag things out, only to eventually spring something like this on me.

Do you relish that moment?

To argue that it means something per what? — Terrapin Station

Per the rest of what I explained which you cut out from your quote. Why are you playing dumb?

It is very frustrating that people are not even engaging with my arguments. — Devans99

Oh the irony!

It seems simple to me, the universe can't have existed forever (it would have no start so none of it would exist) — Devans99

Yeah, yeah. And Achilles can never catch up with the tortoise. And the flying arrow is motionless.

You're right. — YuZhonglu

Yes, I'm right about many things: one of them being that you're playing a silly language game without realising it.

You don't understand, or are wilfully ignorant, that saying something like, "brains create facts", has zero significance outside of your language game.

And I will respond to what I like, whether you like it or not. If you're going to be just one more person who blocks out good sense because it sounds arrogant and rude, then that's your loss.

You're paranoid as well as defensive and abusive; nice combination! — Janus

You think you're talking about me, but what's funny is that you're really talking about you.

That's your usual thing of blaming me instead of taking responsibility.

My belief is that gods do not exist. If we are of the same mind regarding this then when you say you also do not believe any gods exist then you are expressing the same belief as I am. — Fooloso4

You seem very confused. The "also" makes no sense whatsoever there, and your interpretation is very poor. For some weird reason, you just decided to interpret a clearly worded negation of belief as an affirmation of belief.

All examples of tautological, logical or empirical judgements. They are not really judgements at all but facts. So you haven't answered the question; I asked for an example of a philosophical or aesthetic judgement which could be intersubjectively corroborated by incontrovertible evidence. That the epistemological status of philosophical and aesthetic judgements are comparable to that of moral or ethical judgements and not to that of empirical or logical facts was the point. — Janus

No, you simply asked for an example, without explaining yourself properly, and now you're doing your usual thing of blaming me instead of taking responsibility.

And I deliberately ignored your arrogant attempt to pigeonhole me instead of listening to what I've actually said. I define my position, not you. I haven't even used the term "empirical" once.

I don't care about your "intersubjectively corroborated" rubbish enough to treat it as a serious criterion that I must fulfill. You already know that we disagree over that, so I don't know why you'd expect me to do that when I don't need to. You seem to just be in your own little world right now.

it may seem obvious to you that there are unconfirmed hypothetical facts, and there indeed may be, but as I said earlier they will only become actual facts when confirmed. The idea of a fact which could never be confirmed in principle is incoherent. So, facts and confirmation are inextricably tied. — Janus

No, you're just making a very basic error in confusing facts, what is the case, with knowledge, what is known to be the case. They become known facts when confirmed. They were facts beforehand.

Confirmation is completely irrelevant here. Facts are not facts by virtue of anything whatsoever to do with confirmation. I know you really want to make your theory work, but it doesn't. It's rubbish. Just like your morality as herd-morality theory.

What is the "proper" understanding? — Terrapin Station

The fallacy is about applying the wrong criteria.

It's a fallacy to argue that because lots of people believe that in ancient Greece, sculptures were unpainted, then they were unpainted. They were actually painted bright colours. The fallacy is that the incorrect criterion is being applied.

It's not a fallacy to argue that the word "cat" means something other than "dog", because unless you're autistic, you'll know straightaway that what's meant by that is the general, ordinary meaning of the word, not what some joker or imbecile has decided it to mean. The correct criterion for that is common usage.

What you're doing is making the irrelevant point that someone can set an idiosyncratic meaning, and you're pretending to be autistic when someone says that "cat" doesn't mean "dog".