You do realize that mathematics works with values, don't you? Do you think it's possible to have science which is free from mathematics? — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean value in the moral and ethical way - what is good, desirable and worthwhile. Science should strive for a moral free idea in this sense, though it can never achieve this as the scientists doing the science have their interpretations of what is good, desirable and worthwhile. As does the institutions that fund them. Nevertheless that ideal should be the goal.

I thought it was obvious that I was not referring to numerical value, but maybe I needed to make that clear.

A good example. What my focus here would be is on who decided to give everyone an equal wage and why. Seems silly to me, but I'd be interested in the thought process behind it. — Mikie

In this instance it was the owner of the business, who was also the CEO, who decided. He wanted to challenge the existing traditional structure of how people were paid and hoped to foster a new ethos of equity among his staff. He also hoped to attract employees that believed in this ethos. At first this worked when the company was small and the only employees were founders.

When the company expanded, he ran into problems that were a result of what I call market forces. The average salary for a software developer in London is £66,000 (this is what I refer to as their market value). The average salary of a clerk in London is £27,000 (market value). He offered both a salary of £36,000.

The software engineers knew that this was less than they can earn elsewhere (below market value offer), so didn't apply. The clerks knew this was more than elsewhere (above market value) and overwhelmed the company with applications.

The CEO and business owner had to readjust and move the salaries to be more in line with the market values I referenced above (I don't know the exact values they now pay their staff now).

So there's no mystery: what I'm advocating for, ultimately, is not having these decisions exclusively be in the hands a tiny group. I'm not in favor of plutocracy in government, and I assume no one else here is either. I'm not in favor of it in business either. — Mikie

I agree. See my previous post where I outline how I think it should work (as opposed to the above which is how I think it currently works).

I agree with all that.

Now when now get to science, I have a view that may look at first contradictory with the above, but I don't think it is. I think science should strive for a value free ideal, even though it would be impossible to achieve that. In other words, it should (and in the hard sciences does) take on a set of axioms and assumptions that what our instruments tell us is actually how the world is objectively. Now I have problems with that, but also it is the most powerful and useful system of analysis we have. And so I am of the view that it is correct for science to strive for this value free ideal.

Now to say what I think should happen

1) Different people should be payed differently based on their contribution to the companies profits, but based on two criteria:
a) A minimum wage that will allow a decent life. Even if some is performing poorly, they should still be able to earn a salary that allows them a decent life.
b)The ratio between the top and bottom wages should be within the bounds that all employees should have dignity. I can describe the qualitatively, but I would need more thought for a quantitative answer.

2) see 1) part b)

3)The limits described in a) and b) should be decided by the electorate of the country and be in the laws of the country. Within those limits, the owner of capital can decided.

Separately, there should be funding for innovation that allows for more competition. If any one of those 100 employees thinks they can create a better company, and have a reasonable idea and competence but lack the money to do so, there should be a common fund to do this taken from corporation tax.

The above point I could describe in terms of how more competition will change market value, but chose to leave out the term lest we get stuck on the terminology.

I don't understand your objection to "the market". An analogy - I say the electorate selected Biden as president. You say the electorate had nothing to do with it, it was real people. Of course it was real people, and the collection of people who did the voting within the system, I am referring to as the electorate. Both are correct. The electorate voted for Biden, and the electorate is real people making real decisions, not a magical beast.

Anyway I will give an example of where "the market" explicitly influenced decisions. This happened in the U.K.

A company decided to pay all of their staff the same amount - £36,000. This included software developers and clerical workers.

What happened? They struggled to hire software developers because other companies were willing to pay a lot more for this job (i.e they were paying below market value for the job - but I will only use the word in brackets for you). Equally they were inundated and overwhelmed with applications for clerical jobs because other companies were paying a lot less (i.e they were paying above market value for the job).

Ultimately they had a very disgruntled and unhappy workforce with a lot of internal conflict, and gave up and mostly likely ended up paying a similar wage to their competitors for each job (market rate for the job).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55800730

Minus talk about markets, anyway -- which is usually used as an abstract cover for real people making real decisions, usually for unjustified reasons. — Mikie

The "market" is the total set of real people making real decisions, all whose decisions are linked to each other.

Company A run by Adam will pay $55,000 for an entry level software developer job.
Company B run by Brenda will pay $48,000 for an entry level software developer job.
Company C run by Colin will pay $65,000 for an entry level software developer job.
Company D run b Daisy will pay $60,000 for an entry level software developer job.
...
...

Each one of those is a case of real people making real decisions. Each one is also influenced to some degree by each other and is looking over each others shoulder.

"The Market" is simply saying the aggregate of the above instead of listing them all out one by one, nothing more nothing less. It is not some mythical magical beast, but it is not nothing either.

How effective I would be in hiring a given entry level software engineer depends, among other things, on how my pay stacks up against the above - in other words how my pay stacks up against "the market."

Yes this is how it works. The people who put int he capital, through a form of competition, decide on market value. Your market value is simply how much someone is willing to pay you for the job.

Not how I would like it to work though, but how it works.

Interestingly the power has very much been in the hands of the employer, but recently I have seen more articles talking about a change - more employees quitting and refusing to work unless they get the wage they think they deserve. I very much support that, as I support strikes.

more — Mikie

Is this question in my ideal world or the current world? Taking your subsequent clarification about a Fortune 500 company, I'll assume this is a US company today you are asking about.

1) Each employee should be payed their market value. By this I mean the average salary they can get for doing a similar job in a similar company other than this

2) What their market value is. This depends on the specific breakdown for the jobs, and the market conditions at the company's competitors

3)The people who put the capital in decide.

Indeed, and the word "progress" has values embedded in it. I think it was Collingwood who said history doesn't exist. What exist is the present and in the present we have a number of things - books, images, remains, buildings, fossils, etc. And based on these things that exist in the present, we tell a story about what happened in history. And I think he is on to something - what we know as history is an interpretation of sorts.

I find history is also useful when I want to better understand what I mean by objective and subjective. The subjective is what I perceive to be what happened in history. The inter-subjective of my culture, time and place is what is commonly agreed to have happened in history. The objective is what actually happened in history. But I do not have direct access to this objective at all. I can only build a picture based on the best my own subjective view, and inter-subjective views today in my cultural surroundings.

Facts appear on those validated and shared by others. The basic aspects of evidence is about shared ideas and assumptions. — Jack Cummins

Isn't this is dependent on the time you live, where you live, the culture around you? What is shared and validated today is not necessarily what was shared and validated 100 years ago, nor what will be shared and validated 100 years in the future. And hence my difficulty in seeing this as objectivity. I can only think as a person living where I am in the culture I am in the year I am - I cannot escape the subject.

Now you talk about inter-subjectivity limited to culture and time - and that is perhaps what is happening here. There is the subjective - me. There is the culture and time specific inter-subjective - common agreed knowledge at the moment in my culture. That is still a step away from objective, at least in my books.

Yes a non sequitur is a formal fallacy as you explain and means the logic is not valid.

It may lead to the question of is there is any essential value-free objective logic or evidence? — Jack Cummins

I think that is a very big question. Here are my thoughts.

There may be an external objective reality. I go further - I operate on the basis that there is an objective external reality, which requires some axioms and assumptions on my part. But those assumptions are required to move knowing “I am” and nothing else.

However just because there is an external objective reality does not necessarily mean I can directly access that reality. My access to that reality is based on a lot of intermediary factors and assumptions – what I sense is how the world is, the sources I trust publish accurate information, my interpretations are accurate, my instruments are measuring what i think they are measuring, etc. And in these I can see many potential reasons why my access to reality may be influenced by who I am, where I am, which time period I was born, what culture I am in, what I want to do. Here values seep into my thinking.

To give a simple instance of value in logic, in order to avoid fallacies I must value truth. If I don’t value truth, then fallacies are of no concern to me.

Thus it is difficult for me to conceive a value-free objective logic or evidence through the lens of my mind (which is all I have got!), even though I accept that value free objective reality might exist out there.

But actually it is a complicated question and I have more to say, but the above would do for now.

I would be interested to investigate what constitutes a fallacy. Fallacy is defined as reasoning which is invalid, and Wikipedia for example, gives a list of specific forms of fallacy. Each named form is a type of reasoning which has been designated as invalid, therefore an unacceptable part of the reasoning process. We could say that these are mistaken actions in the reasoning process. — Metaphysician Undercover

I too find fallacies curious. I have wanted to make a thread on these but never had the time.

There are a number formal fallacies that invalidate a logical argument as you mentioned. However there are many more informal fallacies that are not about the validity of the argument - there is a list of these in the same Wikipedia page you mentioned. I find the majority of common accusations of fallacies fall into this category - fallacies like straw man, begging the question, appeal to authority are not formal fallacies about logical structure.

Then there are common accusations of fallacies that I find are very often not fallacies. Take the slippery slope - I think that is a useful line of inductive reasoning that is rarely a fallacy. If a step is taken in a direction, it makes it easier to take another step in that direction. That is how human progression (or even regression depending on your view) happens. Sure sometimes it is a fallacy, very often it is how the world works.

I think you are conflating two things.

We currently have many governments with conflict, persecution, economic exploitation. You want a global government with no conflict, persecution, economic exploitation. Fair enough.

But break that down, and there are two thing in there:

1) Reform government to stop conflict, persecution, economic exploitation
2) Somehow combine current countries to make a global government

The first is the one I'm interested in. And I see no reason a global government is more likely to provide 1) than multiple governments. In fact, for the reasons I previously stated I think the a global government is likely to have as much if not more of 1).

It’s what we are able to make of events , how we construe them that determines whether they are validating or alienating, not what they supposedly are ‘in themselves’, and that varies from person to person within the ‘same’ consumerist society. — Joshs

Absolutely. However there are circumstance where these external circumstances are challenging or contradictory enough that that it becomes difficult for a person to validate their identity with any group. My assertion is that this is happening to a greater extent in today's society than say a couple of decades ago.

Let’s say we find that members of our family support a political orientation that puts them in an opposite camp from us. They may feel alienated from us based on this political difference, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we feel alienated from them. — Joshs

True for a family member. But in that case the dominant identity would be of them being family, rather than their political identity. So the alienation is not happening in the dominant identity in that group - for that to happen a person would have to find their goals do not align with their family member being family. This certainly would cause an identity crisis - but it is not the crisis I intended to highlight with my example.

I might have been overly vague in my example as I wanted to generalize and not fixate on any single political or social issue. Here is another, perhaps clearer example:

There are two political parties X and Y. Jack's goals match reasonably well with X and he identifies as an Xer. Happy times.

Now the parties become more polarised. Jack's purpose no longer matches well with either party. Even worse, a lot of Xer now deplore him and his goals. Yet Y still does not align with his goals any better than previously. Jack is now a politically alienated person, who has an identity crisis in a portion of his social groups.

Note that does not mean he has no identity any longer - he may have a number of identities around family, work, etc. But a part of him is no longer fulfilled and he no longer has an identity in that area.

While I used a political party identity in the example above, I don't intend to limit my point to that - I just thought it would be the easiest example. I have seen it happen with work, gender, etc

Our identity has a functional unity to it based on meaningful relevance, rather than being glued together by jolts of externalized reinforcements — Joshs

This is largely true when everything is as it should be. However I think the OP has a point about how this functional unity can breakdown, and has been breaking down for many recently. Even within Kelly's framework, identity is dependent on external reinforcement so far as that the external social segments provide a person with validation material, rather than alienation.

One example is when social groups are polarized to the point where you are told "pick a side - if you are not with us, you are against us." A person may soon find that groups that shared their identity alienate them, and the opposite polarized group are even worse. Thus leading to a confusion about identity influenced by external sources.

Or to make the same point using Kelly's terminology - it is a problem when the validation material available from the the polarized segments of culture offer more alienation than validation for some people.

Is this not a specific instance of a greater theme - that which exists is given moral priority over that which has the potential to exist. And hence it is not limited only to beauty. Replace "beautiful" with "useful" or anything else that is considered a positive value - I have a greater moral duty to preserve the item that exists, than to create a new additional item.

I see, the AI technology is not just to make enable a post-scarcity world, but to also basically run the world on behalf of humans. It would be interesting to expand on that idea, because I wonder what possible pitfalls there might be, and how to avoid them.

Global "one world" government will have to wait until the advent of an irreversible Technological Singularity that brings about a sustainable Post-Scarcity economy. (NB: Iain M. Banks dramatizes this political-economic speculation in his acclaimed Culture series of space opera novels.) — 180 Proof

Yeah I think you are right, though I would say that a post-scarcity economy is necessary for a single world government but not sufficient.

Look at the corruption and power plays being made by millionaires and billionaires - it is not due to scarcity. It is because power and influence is very alluring. A solution to that would also need to be found.

The way I see it, first we have to understand and fix the structural issues that are faced in our current democracies of millions, before we can even begin to contemplate a democracy of 7 billion. Otherwise you are going to have the same issues and worse, just of a bigger scale. Why is the US so antagonistically divided? If you we can't first fix that, I can't see a good outcome on a worldwide scale.

I imagine a breakdown of all federations and dominions, so that relatively equal small states may form a pact where none dominate. — Vera Mont

Fair enough. I imagine much smaller and more practical steps like more discussion spaces and technical changes to how elections work, than empires crumbling and new world orders. I guess time will tell!

How do you get them to do that? Start with the US. — Vera Mont

Start with getting people talking about it. Talking more and swapping ideas more is one reason I joined this forum. More discussion about politics in a framework where moderation encourages argument and swapping of ideas over things like personal attacks.

Anyway it will be hell of a lot easier than forming a global government. If you are talking practical steps today, a global government has no chance.

The nation states do have the authority to oppose the accumulation of ultra wealth. They choose not to because of thought orthodoxy, inertia, or corruption. There has been a monopolistic thought orthodoxy since the fall of communism, which is a problem.

So the solution as far as I am concerned, is not an even larger monopolistic thought orthodoxy, but rather more options.

Starting with changing the electoral system to one that allows minority parties more of a say (eg proportional representation), as opposed to the two party dominant systems in many countries.

Not necessarily. It's simply an issue of too few people actually putting in the effort to make their arguments in logical form such as syllogistic logic or even symbolic logic... — Shawn

Fair enough, that is probably correct. I would add though, that syllogistic logic is not the only logic and much of science uses inductive logic. In those cases you simply could not state the issue in syllogistic logic.

And for the arguments about the premises, I don't see what help logical form will give. In your example above, if I disagree it is raining, then we will have a discussion about justification to say it is raining, that has nothing to do with the above logical form in your previous post.

1. Worms and rats come out of the ground when it rains.
2. It rained.
3. Worms and rats are created by rain. — Shawn

That argument is a case of wrong premises and a case of wrong logical form. But I think I understand what you are trying to say anyway, and agree so we can move on I think.

How does this tie back into your OP? As I understand your OP (correct me if I misunderstand), you are wondering why more posts on this forum are not about logic form. I think the reason is because the main disagreements are about the premises as per the point you were trying to make with the rat example. There is a lot more to explore with regards to premises, than with regards to logical form.

To be honest I have used it that way as well. I'm sure I have called a sound argument a valid one many times.

It just caused more confusion in this instance because it was a topic about logic form. Usually you can get away with it based on context of the discussion, without misunderstanding.

I'll try to express the following without either valid or sound, because now every time I see those words in your post I wonder in which way they are being used, which just adds to the confusion!

Are you saying that an argument can have the correct logical form, but the premises can be false, and the conclusion false? Absolutely.

From SEP:

Valid deductive arguments are those where the truth of the premises necessitates the truth of the conclusion: the conclusion cannot but be true if the premises are true. Arguments having this property are said to be deductively valid. A valid argument whose premises are also true is said to be sound. — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/argument/

it is like I said.

I'm afraid I still don;t understand this line:

"We can have logically sound arguments that are empirically false, yet still be sound according to our truth tables."

Take my example:

All postman are Martians
Mark is a Postman
Therefore Mark is a Martian

That is a valid argument.

That is a sound argument IFF "All postman are Martians" is true AND "Mark is a Postman" is true.

Now you can create a logic table and mark both those true. But I'm not sure many on this forum or outside are interested in that truth table when it goes against empirical observations.

Thus if you were to get a post in the forum about whether Mark is a Martian, the discussion will not focus on the structure of the logic, but rather on how we can know whether all postmen are actually Martians. The actual logic structure is rarely where disagreement occurs.

Can you give an example because I'm finding it difficult to visualize such an argument. An example may help.

Suppose it's an arm's length administrative structure, with diversified home rule, but no standing armies? Regional representation, like a senate, only without national borders, and a constantly changing elected parliament? An international court for transgressions against sovereign rights, and an arbitration process for inter-regional and inter-national disputes. — Vera Mont

The issue is that beast has no external entity to critique it, to constraint it, to make it justify it's actions. I find that a problem. If you did not like that structure, you have no option. It has no competition and so can be complacent.

Others have given different reasons that I think have merit, but mine is one against there being a monopoly, even if it is a benevolent monopoly.

Well, the premises can be false and the argument can still be sound, upon inspection. But, a valid argument requires true premises. — Shawn

No I'm saying it is the exact opposite. I.E swap "sound" with "valid" in the above sentence.

All postman are Martians
Mark is a Postman
Therefore Mark is a Martian

That is a valid argument
That is not a sound argument

I don't understand, do you mind restating that question? The truth of the premises in respect the validity of the argument? Or the truth of the premises in respect the validity of the premises by themselves?

I think a sound argument is based on a sound logical form. Aren't you referring to 'validity'? — Shawn

As far far as I know, a valid argument is one with correct form. The conclusion must be true if the premises are true.

A sound argument is a valid argument whose premises are true (and hence whose conclusion is also true).

I am of the view that monopolies corrupt, and this does also apply to government.

I was speaking to a politics graduate a few years back and he expressed a view that I found interesting. He said that a lot of the current world problems can be traced back to the last decade of economic stagnation, that in turn followed from the financial crisis in the late 2000s. This financial crisis was a result of a global thought monopoly that followed from the end of the Soviet Union - called the Washington Consensus. Even China at that point were economically adopting parts of that consensus. And this monopolistic thinking lead to bad structural choices and the recession.

And while communism in the Soviet Union was a failure, it at least provided a form of competition at least in the ideas space. The Washington Consensus had a challenger and thus was less complacent.

I think this is because the majority of philosophical disagreements on this forum occur not in the logical structure, but rather in the premises for. Or indeed in the background knowledge required to link the premise to the conclusion in the case of inductive logic. Logical form is not sufficient to determine if an argument is sound.

Even the majority of logical fallacies, are not formal logical fallacies related to the structure. They are context dependent (and hence the arguments about whether the context).

That's actually quite clever. I suggest you examine justification more closely. — Agent Smith

Yes the justification does a lot of heavy lifting. I need to give it more thought, but there are two ways in which I see this justification happening when someone says "I know..."

First is internal justification - they subjectively find the evidence they have gives a sufficient probability that their belief is knowledge. I have seen pictures of the Earth as a sphere so I am justified in believing the Earth is not flat.

Secondly is a societal justification - the society in which they exists has a consensus that the evidence they have gives their belief is knowledge. Scientists have a consensus that the Earth is a sphere, so I am justified in believing the Earth is not flat. I defer the justification to an external body that I trust, and accept their recommendation as justification.

what is true according to humanity is what is currently most justified. However, like many things, in science for example, the justification can be overturned by new evidence. — Benj96

Absolutely, that is exactly my point.

So when anyone says "I know..." this indicates they have a justified belief.

The T in JTB is objective truth, and that truth plays no part when you or I say "I know..."

It does away with the T, and replaces it with more justification.

Because I do not have direct access to Truth (as in objective truth independent of what I think, what you think, what anyone else thinks). I can only justify my beliefs, and after some point I start saying "I know..."

I put forward everyone does this - regardless of their worldview.

1. You stated you can't know T because it doesn't exist.
2. You stated you can't know T and it does exist. — Hanover

No.

1)In the case that T exists, then X
2)In the case that T does not exist, then X

As long as I cover every case for T, then I do not need to justify T in order to justify X.

I also explained it using IFs. All your replies ignore the case statements (or if statements). Argument (and proofs) by case analysis is both formally accepted, but also very intuitive. Take the following simplistic, intuitive example.

John is meant to be executed at dawn tomorrow. However I have intel that John may have built a plane to escape before that. Question: Will john die tomorrow?

If John has built the plane, then our air defense will shoot it down and he will die
If John has not built the plane, then he will be executed and he will die

Either way he will die by tomorrow.

You objection is - "You are incoherent. How can you say John built a plane and then say John did not build a plane. You must pick one." But surely you can see that is not what the if statements are saying. That is not how "if" works, either in formal logic or colloquial English.

You also protest "What justification do you have to for your intel about him building a plane?" But I do not need to justify my intel about his plane in order to answer the question "will john die tomorrow," as I have demonstrated either way he will die tomorrow.

Not absolutely sure of your point, are you asking how could I say "I know..." about anything, if I am not using JTB?

The answer is simple - I use a different system as described in my second post - What I called JMAOJB (the acronym is whimsical I know, but the point I describe is not).