I don’t mean to interrupt — Fire Ologist
Amadeus seems to be saying no more judgment is needed to carry out the course of action.
Leon is saying there are more pivotal moments requiring more judgments. — Fire Ologist
I happen to agree with Leon, and don’t see how you can follow directions blindly, and skip adjudicating between when a step is completed and when the next step begins. When I am following directions, I know that I could misunderstand the direction and go astray and end up lost and not at my destination. I also know that Google maps is wrong and has led me to the wrong destination. So at each step, I have to decide “Is the last step completed yet? Can I move on to the next step? Is where I am driving what is meant by this next step? Is Google still correct of should I switch to Apple Maps?
Often these interim judgments are easy and immediately made, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t judgments. — Fire Ologist
Btw, truth I dismiss. True I do not dismiss. — tim wood
I distinguish between the adjective, "true," and the noun, "truth," the one an accident, a quality, the other a substance, or should be. — tim wood
Acceptance of truth on authority is something we do all the time, as in medicine, where we trust the authority of doctors, or in schools, where we trust the authority of teachers. In these cases the truth that we do not know ourselves but accept from others is a truth we could come to know ourselves if we went through the right training. In the case of divinely revealed truth, we can, ex hypothesi, never know it directly for ourselves (at least not in this life), but only on authority. The name we give to acceptance of truth on authority is “faith.” Faith is of truth; it is knowledge; it is knowledge derived from authority; it is rational. These features are present in the case of putting faith in what a doctor tells us about our health. What we know in this way is truth (it is truth about our health); it is knowledge (it is a coming to have what the doctor has, though not as the doctor has it); it is based on authority (it is based on the authority of the doctor); it is rational (it is rational to accept the authority of one’s doctor, ceteris paribus). Such knowledge is indirect. It goes to the truth through another. But it is knowledge. The difference is between knowing, say, that water is H2O because a chemist has told us and knowing that water is H2O because we have ourselves performed the experiments that prove it. The first is knowledge by faith, and the second is knowledge direct.
Knowledge by faith, while it exists in the mind, is attained by an act of will. We must choose to trust our doctor or the chemist, and only because we do so do we have knowledge about our health or about the chemical composition of water. The choice must be rational, in that it must be based on adequate evidence. The evidence will not be about the fact known (we would not then need to trust anyone to know it); it will be about the trustworthiness of the authority. We are rational in trusting our doctor, because we have evidence that, say, he went through the right training, that he is licensed by a known medical authority, that he is acknowledged as an expert by other doctors who went through the right training and are licensed by the same authority, that what he told us about our health before turned out correct (we or people we know were cured of this or that ailment by following his instructions), that he is not a liar or corrupted by bribery, that he has an upstanding character, and the like.
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. Where acts of belief dependent on acts of will are involved, coercion can be legitimate—not to force the act of will (an act of will cannot be forced), but instead to facilitate it by the suppression of opposed irrational desires and opposed irrational contradiction. The force is used to facilitate the act of trust, not to prove its rationality (which is done instead by the evidence). That there is such force with respect to belief, and that it is legitimate, is ignored by liberalist doctrines of tolerance (even though, if truth be told, they have to rely on something like it to justify their own coercive acts of rule and self-protection). — Peter L. P. Simpson, Political Illiberalism, 108-9
So many things fell into place, so much begins to make sense where previously there was a patchwork of ancient philosophies and myths. — Wayfarer
This absolutely ignores what I've said. You haven't addressed it. I can wait, but its also not entirely needed - your definitions are your definitions. They don't matter much to the discussion. I made a point about your definition which has been glossed over. That's fine. But not my problem. — AmadeusD
By recognizing it and making no judgement. If all that happened was a green light lit up on a HUD, all i've done is seen something and exited the car. You'll not get me to say this is a judgement. This is what I wanted to avoid - I thikn your definition sucks, you probably think so about mine. — AmadeusD
I gave you several. I also gave my own. — AmadeusD
And it's odd - peculiar - how difficult it is. — tim wood
I'd say the study of mystical experience as one aspect of human experience is as much a part of phenomenology as the study of any other aspect of human experience. — Janus
f(a, (b,c)) is of course malformed — Banno
I think this is a good answer to Leontiskos question about whether an emphasis on properties and one on mathematics contradict each other. — T Clark
The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp35-36
We can see this in Galileo, Locke, etc. with the demotion of color to a "less real" (merely mental) "secondary quality," while shape and motion, etc. remain fully real "primary quantities." — Count Timothy von Icarus
Just to note a basic division in testimony, theistic religions tend to report experiences of emptiness and such, while no-theistic religions tend to report experiences like the unification with God or whatever. Perhaps a general conclusion is not possible. — praxis
I don't see how the knowledge that Tully wrote X is something about the body. It seems to be about thought. — frank
if it were a relation, then substitution should be allowed - if f(a,b) and c=b then f(a,c) — Banno
I'll go out on a limb here based on my limited reading of the history of science in the 1600s. Looking at reality as made of of things with physical properties was a new idea in that period. Physical properties are only observable by our senses. Mathematics depends on measurable properties. Otherwise it wouldn't have anything to operate on. — T Clark
By true I mean a property, call it T of P, such that for proposition P, P is T, if in fact it is. — tim wood
If we don't check every member of a set it's always possible to find a black swan. — Moliere
Aristotle was not wrong in his time.
But neither he nor we can make induction a valid move that secures knowledge.
I say he wasn't wrong because I can see how his inferences are good given his circumstances, influences, and concerns not just from the rest of his writing but also from others' writings at the time, as well as writings about those writings.
But I don't think we can travel by induction up to knowledge of God, for instance. I'd say there is a limit of some kind on our ability to judge on some questions we might want to answer or try to answer, but don't seem like we can reliably answer. — Moliere
I'm not sure that the process is sound. — Moliere
Let's suppose that Aristotle thinks one should have wide experience before drawing a conclusion, and one should consult popular theories (or even all theories) to the best of their ability. Okay. I think that's right. Do you have some objection to it?
Because the idea that such a process is defeated... — Leontiskos
But if someone had something in mind other than Aristotle -- some modification which dealt with the notion that a single mind dealing with eternal categories does not bring one closer to being, but rather collective effort and distributing tasks and building trust such that we can work together, which tends to function better in an atmosphere where doubt is encouraged does. — Moliere
Are you able to say what each is? — Leontiskos
Not exactly, but by way of example I've hoped to show a difference -- Aristotle is the philosopher-scientist, Lavoisier is the scientist, and Kripke is the philosopher.
Not that I've been explicit or clear on this, really, but this is what the examples are meant to furnish -- as good examples of how to use the terms differently. The interpretation of each I'm meaning to use as why I might want to distinguish between the terms: look at what they mean and how they make inferences in these details and you'll hopefully catch onto the difference.
There won't be necessary and sufficient conditions -- I don't think we can solve the problem of the criterion, though I think falsification is still an important subject unto itself -- but there will be stark differences between two family resemblances when we compare them. — Moliere
Not that the future couldn't be different, but now there are just that many options that this method is not feasible to do metaphysics with. — Moliere
So, for instance, I wouldn't say induction requires, but I'd say that the manner in which Aristotle's induction does. The way I see him move is securing his claim by an exhaustive survey of the extent arguments, a review of their merits and demerits followed by the conclusion of Aristotle's.
So, yeah, you'd have to figure out some other way to be an Aristotelian, at least, if you wanted to progress to metaphysical truth in the manner of induction as Aristotle practiced it. — Moliere
Basically I think philosophy and science are separate activities. — Moliere
Would it follow, then, that if most people had mystical experiences, we'd consider them also to be "quasi-empirical" and possible evidence for general conclusions? How many would we need? What would be the threshold beyond which the experiences gained evidentiary status? — J
My thoughts were that they are ultimately connected. Mathematics is, at least initially, based on abstracting the common sensibles from any underlying matter and other qualities, including from time. So you get a timeless, changeless "platonic," intelligible subject that is nonetheless based on what is common to the senses (i.e. the experience of magnitude and multitude through shape, number, extension, etc.).
So, I'd argue that mathematization is sort of a blending of the two. It is materialism pulled back up into the intelligible realm, or the intelligible truncated down to just what is abstracted from the common sensibles.
It's obviously also intuitive in much the same way, which is why it is almost as old (e.g., Pythaogreanism). — Count Timothy von Icarus
But, aside from the objection that this cuts out far too much, I think there is also a good argument to be made that a recognition of both magnitude and multitude is reliant on a measure (e.g. "one duck" must be known as such to know three ducks, or half a duck, etc.) and measure itself requires going beyond mathematics, to a recognition of unity and wholes (virtual, as opposed to dimension/bulk quantity, i.e. intensity of participation in form). That puts some recognition of whole, and so intelligible form, prior to dimensive quantity. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Second , mathematization struggles with existence. Even if one accepts that "what everything is" can be described by mathematics, this does not seem to explain "that it is." Hence, mathematization still tends to either tend back towards materialism (e.g. "these particular mathematical objects really exist just because, for no reason—which essentially puts potency before act or potency as actualizing itself) or towards extremely crowded and inflated multiverse ontologies. For instance, Tegmark cannot fathom how mathematics can explain existence (fair enough) so he had to suppose that every mathematical object exists (and that some just happen to have experiences). — Count Timothy von Icarus
I suppose empiricism leans towards the materialist side, rationalism towards the platonist side. Either way though, they have to somehow reduce the fullness of experience to a part of experience (quantity). — Count Timothy von Icarus
Well, atheists I know would not say, as you write, “there isn’t any personal god.” They would say instead that there are no compelling grounds for belief in a personal god, though they remain open in principle to revising that view should persuasive evidence arise. — Tom Storm
Wittgenstein's Hinges and Gödel's Unprovable Statements — Moliere
As Wittgenstein observes, "There is no why. I simply do not. This is how I act" (OC 148). — Moliere
Just as Gödel showed that mathematical systems rely on axioms that cannot be proven within those systems, Wittgenstein's hinges reveal that epistemic systems rest on certainties that cannot be justified internally. — Moliere
I infer that because of his method of induction -- in order for him to be able to consider being, as such, he would have to start with the lower categories and move his way up. As I read the move from the physics to the metaphysics that's pretty much how we gets to his claims to have philosophical, metaphysical knowledge. — Moliere
Because it's small and could die and remains uncertain from its inception. It only grows in certitude with growth, or gets thrown out -- but its beginning is not its end, unlike a building -- an architectonic -- which builds from a solid beginning. — Moliere
They don't have to unless they're following in the footsteps of Aristotle. — Moliere
Possibly, though there's a difference in kind here where "X" is some measurement and "Y" is some theory.
So the theory that follows is just another guess that sounds good, but doesn't have any observable measurements which falsify it. — Moliere
Yes, I think a lot of the questions we're running across are somewhat siderails -- but I don't think it's some fundamental error as much as a difference in approach to philosophy. — Moliere
"What is real? How do we know what is real?"
This is one of those questions that can’t be answered in the way most people expect. It’s not that there’s no answer, but rather that the question itself rests on a misunderstanding; it assumes we need a justification or proof for what we already take for granted in our actions.
We don’t know reality in the same way we know facts; instead, we act with a certain conviction that things are real. This acting isn’t based on reasoning or evidence; it’s the foundation upon which reasoning and evidence even make sense. Doubt and knowledge only function because we already move through the world with an unquestioned trust in its reality. In this sense, the question "How do we know what is real?" is like asking, "How do we know that the ground holds us up?"—it’s not something we know in the usual sense; it’s the condition that allows knowing to exist at all.
So, the question isn’t meaningful, it’s misguided. It treats certainty as something that needs to be justified, when in truth, certainty is what makes justification possible in the first place. — Sam26
In this sense, the question "How do we know what is real?" is like asking, "How do we know that the ground holds us up?"—it’s not something we know in the usual sense; it’s the condition that allows knowing to exist at all. — Sam26
There's a great deal in these posts that is helpful and to the point.
But I don't think they can get round the fundamental problem, which is nicely exemplified by Husserl. Somebody earlier posted a quotation from him about his intent to start his project from scratch, in poverty, etc. It's a classic idea. Such a project might have a special status, above the fray of all the competing schools. But it's not possible, as the history of phenomenology demonstrates. — Ludwig V
Hence, the common sensibles of size, shape, quantity, etc. get considered "most real." We can see this in Galileo, Locke, etc. with the demotion of color to a "less real" (merely mental) "secondary quality," while shape and motion, etc. remain fully real "primary quantities." — Count Timothy von Icarus
We can also see how some people strive to remove the echo of the senses from this way of thinking, to make mathematics more abstract and thus, presumably, "more objective." For instance, LeGrange's 18th century mechanics textbook proudly announces that it uses no diagrams or drawings, only formulae. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Further, we don't begin with a solid foundation and build outwards. Rather I'd use the plant metaphor that we begin with a seed which, when nurtured in the proper environment, slowly takes roots to the soil and becomes something solid. — Moliere
It's as if Aristotle gives a theory of seed germination and growth, and in response you say, "I think you just have to throw seeds and see what happens." — Leontiskos
So rather than beginning with the certain I'd say we make random guesses and hope to be able to make it cohere in the long run. — Moliere
I'd say it's on par with "From the more certain to the less certain" — Moliere
I don't think that follows at all. I think that what this says is that Leontiskos can't understand how someone could think that sensibility and intelligibility are important unless they are not skeptics, rather than that one doesn't begin with skepticism. — Moliere
At the time one could reasonably, though falsely, believe they had reviewed "all the sciences" such that they could reasonably make inferences about "all of reality at its most fundamental". — Moliere
Aristotle, though he did not have access to all science, could feel confident that he'd responded to all the worthwhile arguments so that he could link science to metaphysics.
The sheer volume of knowledge today makes it so that Aristotle's procedure can't be carried out. So one's metaphysical realism can't be on the basis of science insofar that we are taking on a neo-Aristotelian framework -- it's simply impossible to do what Aristotle did today with how much there is to know. — Moliere
I'd start with Popper, at least, so falsification follows the form of a modus ponens. — Moliere
But then I'd say that in order to falsify something you have to demonstrate that it is false to such a degree that someone else will agree with you. — Moliere
Furthermore I don't think that for falsification to take place that the next theory which takes its place will be true or even needs to be demonstrated as true. — Moliere
The purpose of using names isn't to demonstrate what I've read and understood, but to refer to a shared body of knowledge between speakers. So when I say "Aristotle", I presume you understand Aristotle well enough and modern science well enough to be able to put together the dots that teleology and modern science, especially of the enlightenment era, are in conflict.
I switched to divisibility because the example is as good as the teleological one -- namely, I don't know if Lavosier, on a personal level, might have believed there was some kind of teleology behind water, but the whole enlightenment project basically rejects teleology in favor of efficient causation for its mode of explanation -- this is one of the primary reasons people reject Enlightenment era materialism and go in various ways. — Moliere
I think all it takes to grow in knowledge is to plant seeds and see what happens. — Moliere
But noting here: even our notions of "falsification" are at odds. So perhaps we cannot appeal to falsification in our back-and-forth, because even this is being equivocated in our dialogue. — Moliere
To say what's at stake: I don't think science delineates what is real. I also think that the project towards finding essences using the sciences is doomed to fail -- the big difference between Aristotle's and our day is the sheer amount of knowledge that there is. In Aristotle's day it probably seemed like a reasonable project to begin with the sciences and slowly climb up to a great metaphysical picture of the whole.
But any one scientist today simply can't have that perspective. Looking at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ their tagline on the front page states "PubMed® comprises more than 38 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books."
Aristotle could review all the literature that was in his day and respond to all his critics and lay out a potential whole. But he didn't have so many millions of papers or forebears to deal with. And I'd be more apt to look to the Gutenberg Press to explain this difference.
But this is only if we treat metaphysics as exactly the same as science, too. That was Aristotle's goal, but it need not be metaphysics goal. I'm more inclined to think that these metaphysical ways of thinking are ways of dealing with the sheer amount, the multiplicity, that one must consider to make a universal generalization. The generalizations, rather than capturing a higher truth, is a way of organizing the chaos for ourselves. — Moliere
It is odd to say that it is false. If it is "good enough" to begin understanding, then it simply cannot be wholly false. If it is wholly false then it is not good enough to begin understanding. — Leontiskos
Another terminological difference. I tend to think attributions of "not wholly false" or "not wholly true" can be reduced to a set of sentences in which the name is sometimes the predicate and sometimes not the predicate, — Moliere
So what I see is that skepticism, rather than security, is the basis of knowledge. Jumping out into the unknown and making guesses and trying to make sense of what we do not know is how new knowledge gets generated — Moliere
I think your construal of AW and LW is such that they look like they agree more than they do not agree. — Moliere
Aristotle's concern is philosophical and scientific, and he lives in an era where his project is feasibly both philosophical and scientific. He has a much wider theory of water that conflicts with the enlightenment, mechanistic picture of H2O which Lavoisier is credited with determining. I think of hisLavoisier's work primarily as a scientist because his work as a scientist was in improving analytic methods, and it was due to his care towards precision that he was able to demonstrate to the wider scientific community the ratio of Hydrogen to Oxygen you get with electrolysis. So maybe there's some philosophical work of his I do not know, but I'd say this work fits squarely within the scientific column, even if we don't have strict definitions to delineate when is what. — Moliere
And, likewise, Kripke is making a point about whether essences can be made viable in the 20th century after they had been largely abandoned by contemporary philosophy (even if there are other traditions which keep them). So he's a philosopher, but if science turns out to be wrong about the whole H2O thing his points will still stand(EDIT:or fall) regardless. — Moliere
When these assumptions lead to paradox, we get "skeptical solutions" that learn to live with paradox, but I'd be more inclined to challenge the premises that lead to paradox. — Count Timothy von Icarus
This flows back to whether or not you require every mental action to be a judgement. — AmadeusD
I do not - so, on my view this is a recognition only. I have simply taken what I've been told "We're here!" and run with it. I've not assessed it in any way (other than to pick up which words were aimed at me... is that hte judgement you mean? That's what Im calling recognition, to be clear). — AmadeusD
I think assessing against a rubric requires judgment. If you need a 10-foot pipe and you examine two possible candidates, you are inevitably involved in judgments, no? — Leontiskos
This is analogous: I judged my condition, the surgeon and medical advice, and the prognosis to go under the knife (or, anaethesia as you note). In the former, I could literally be unconscious, and be schluffed out of the car, and I'd still be wherever I actually was, regardless of whether it was 'correct'. Is it just that I am conscious you're wanting to hang something on, in that example? — AmadeusD
I don't quite think this is available to us, so I'm happy with that. — AmadeusD
Correct. But I've designed a scenario where I am not engaged in the prior activity, in terms of judgement. I can judge that hte crash fucking sucked, but I made no attempts to divert, or incur a crash. — AmadeusD
To decide when to turn your steering wheel with your eyes closed in relation to the instructions you are hearing is a judgment — Leontiskos
It seems to me that the "ultimate concern" of any life governed by self-reflection is the basic ethical question "how should I Iive?" Could there be strictly empirical evidence available to guide me in answering that question? — Janus
My position is that Pooper's (!) revision allows Positivism to be sustained until falsified, meaning it will survive contingent upon there being no facts falsifying it. — Hanover
What makes it fail, as I alluded to, might be the lack of predictive value in such things as economic and psychological theories. That is the blow to Positivism I'd think meaningful, less so internal inconsistencies in its logic. That is, the proof is in the pudding of how it works. — Hanover
I'd suggest, from what you've written, that positivism does not fail under the Popper revision of falsifiability you've described. — Hanover
I don't believe that Aristotle was falsified by Lavoisier.
Falsification is a much more complicated maneuver than disagreement on fundamentals. Disagreement on fundamentals -- such as whether water is an element or not, or whether water is composed of atoms or not -- don't so much falsify each other as much as they both make claims that cannot both be true at the same time. This is because they mean different things, but are referring to the same object. — Moliere
I would say with respect to reasoning about reality -- deciding "What is real?" -- the PNC is not violated, of course, but they can't both be true either. Water is either a fundamental element which does not divide further into more fundamental atoms, or it is a composition of other more fundamental elements and so does divide further, or something else entirely — Moliere
I think you've presented a canard of "teleology," but let's accept it for the sake of argument. Does "water is H2O" contradict "Water wants to sit atop Earth"? It looks like Lavoisier did not contradict Aristotle even on that reading. — Leontiskos
The thinkers are very far apart from one another in terms of time, who they are talking to, the problems they're trying to address, and so forth, and yet are talking about the same thing -- at least I think so. So the variance between the two can only be accounted for by looking to the meanings of the terms, which in turn is how we can come to understand how people have made inferences about fundamental matter in the past, and thereby can serve as a kind of model for our own inferences. — Moliere
What water is seems to me more of scientific than philosophical question, but then I know that barrier is another bit where we're likely not in agreement, since for Aristotle the question of science and philosophy isn't as separate. His whole philosophy has large parts dedicated to ancient science and he's making use of philosophical arguments. — Moliere