When there is an impasse such as this, I would say that what is needed are formal arguments, with explicit premises and conclusions. That's why I have been doing this in many of my recent posts. If you want to give formal arguments I think we can continue. If not, not.

(I saw that a post of yours disappeared. Just so you know, I did not report it or even have a chance to read it. A moderator may have simply taken the initiative.)

The above caught my eye. Given that you believe humans have the same nature, and by this you apparently have in mind a powerful facility to understand the world from the other’s point of view ( linguistic, cultural, scientific), what sort of explanation is left in order to account for profound disagreements concerning ethical, epistemological and philosophical matters ( not to mention day to day conflicts with friends and family members)?

It seems that what is left falls under the categories of medical pathology, incorrect knowledge and irrationality, and moral failure. Is this characterization close to the mark? — Joshs

No, it's really not close at all, beginning with the idea that human nature is the ability to understand the world from someone else's perspective. I don't think that's what human nature is, although human nature includes that (which is why we answer arguments and questions).

If someone thought the only thing humans have in common is the ability to empathize, so to speak, then the opposite of what you hold would follow: there would be no possibility of disagreement; there would be no possibility of distinguishing one's own perspective from another's. There would be one lump of merged view, one over-mind that does not distinguish persons. If all we could do was empathize (so to speak), then there would be no possibility of disagreement at all.

Contrariwise, if we could not say to someone, "You are wrong,"—whether for moral reasons or for some other reason—then we would simply not be intellectual beings with individual views who are able to grow in knowledge and understanding. This so-called "compassion" ironically snuffs out all contexts and perspectives, which is yet another reason why the "contextualism" counter involves non sequitur.

Oh, not by choice -- not a priori -- but a posteriori I started to note how they're different.

It's certainly odd. I recognize that what I say is odd. — Moliere

Well they have something in common and they have something that is different. The question is whether the difference excludes historical study from being scientific, and we would need arguments for that thesis. Obviously the assumption that historical study is altogether unscientific would help preclude the possibility that there is some common thread between history and "science" (what are we including under that heading...?), but that's precisely the sort of assumption that needs to be argued.

I agree. That is the important contribution of the analytic school to the philosophic enterprise. Rigor. — Fire Ologist

mortis. :wink: — Wayfarer

:lol:

The Analytic is analytic. He is a knife: he cuts. He is very good at dividing, separating. He is not good at ...really anything else. So yes, he dissects, criticizes, and accuses; but he is evidently unable to construct, synthesize, or build up. Too often he is someone whose skill with a knife is over-developed, and whose skill elsewhere is underdeveloped.

Insert caveats about shared perspectives, bias and reasoning here. — fdrake

I.e. echo chambers, for people who refuse to engage those on the open forum who question their positions and suggest that they might be wrong. I think this is a very large caveat in the OP's case.

PMs can be great, but when they are being used to limit counterarguments one would prefer to avoid I think they are a poor choice, and a poor use of storage space. Gossip is also a very relevant issue, here, related to echo chambers.

Jamal, any chance of closing this thread, here?

Seems an appropriate point. — Banno

@Jamal, I would prefer that the thread stay open. Banno keeps making his bed. Why not let him sleep in it? <Here> is his newest iteration; his newest bed which will similarly disintegrate and which he will also eventually ask to be closed. He is making threads that are little more than excuses to crap on other members; he craps freely; he refuses to engage; and then he asks for the threads to be closed. I want to say that this habit of "thread"-making is a problem.

I think you successfully show that we can't make a sharp distinction between moral and non-moral norms such that anti-realism closes the door on only the former, and that people always act morally in the sense that their acts might be subject to moral scrutiny (which I think is a bit of a trivial truth). — goremand

Okay, thanks.

I don't quite understand how this gets us to the claim that people all have (implicit, I assume) moral beliefs. — goremand

Do all people make non-hypothetical ought-judgments?

I would like to know if you're even interested in justifying a particular set of norms (rational, moral, whatever) rather than just proving that they are implicitly assumed. — goremand

I wouldn't try to justify some to someone who doesn't see that they are already making others. Does that make sense?

The irony, as I have pointed out before, is that this thread is rooted in a self-contradictory moral accusation. It says, “It is morally impermissible to be so certain that one then accuses others of being wrong; I accuse those who do this of being wrong; and I am certain that they are wrong.” This is bad enough even before the rider is attached, “And I refuse to give arguments for my accusations, or offer 'due process'.”



What you are doing here is very similar. You have decided to ignore me because you think I should not treat any “witness” as “hostile,” even if they are hostile. Such a decision to ignore is inevitably based in an overarching standard, namely one regarding the treatment of witnesses. So in this thread, your exclusionary practice is oddly enough a position taken with respect to the OP. You are another person who excludes and attempts to shame those you disagree with (both directly and through inflammatory insinuation), even though you claim to deny the very standard that such a practice depends upon. This is self-contradictory. You are of course welcome to try to shame me based on your selective readings, but you cannot at the same time eschew the overarching standard that such shaming presupposes.

This is why the promoters of the thesis that there are no overarching standards end up as tyrants. It is because that extreme form of self-righteousness is inherently tyrannical, with an inherent double standard (“There are no overarching standards, but nevertheless my judgments are absolute, beholden to no standard!”). When someone like @Count Timothy von Icarus, @Fire Ologist, or myself tell another that their position is wrong, we provide the standard upon which our judgment is based, and to which appeal can be made. Hence truth and standards are the very things which prevent tyranny. The reason we are happy to answer questions and consider objections is because our will is not absolute.

This is the difference between tyranny and rule of law. In a tyranny you get locked up because the tyrant said so, and the tyrant is beholden to no overarching standards. Where there is rule of law you get locked up on the basis of a standard, and if you can show that the standard does not apply then you will not be locked up. Only where there is tyranny is there no recourse; only where there is tyranny can someone simply say, “Don't bother defending yourselves. [My will is absolute].” Similarly, only where there is tyranny is there a self-elevation above rational discourse, where one says, “I refuse to answer your questions and engage your objections, but I will at the same time pretend and act as if I have done so.” This latter is tyranny even when it is covered over by a thin veneer of politeness.

The ironies of this thread are endless.

You should be ashamed — Srap Tasmaner

Consider a story

You see a thread about two different ways to do philosophy. Looking closer, you find that the subtext reads, "The right way to do philosophy and Srap Tasmaner's way to do philosophy." Soon enough it becomes clear that the premise is even simpler, “Srap Tasmaner is an authoritarian.” This isn’t surprising to you, given that the duo who produced the thread has been consistently doing this sort of thing for over a year now.

So you enter the thread and push back, also giving arguments and asking questions with respect to the thesis. The duo refuses to consider your arguments or answer your questions. For 22 pages they even stonewall a premise of your most basic argument, namely <p v ~p>. So the duo won’t consider your arguments, they won’t answer any questions, and all the while they maintain their thesis, “Srap is an authoritarian.” At one point one of them actually says, “My answer to your questions is, ‘I don’t know.’ And you’re still an authoritarian.” A banana republic. Splendid.

But then someone who is more serious enters the thread: someone who agrees with a speculative thesis that the duo believes supports their moral thesis. He is willing to hear your arguments and answer your questions. He is not neutral, but he is at least genuinely trying. You point out some of his non-neutral presuppositions, and he tries to reconfigure his analogies. He is intent on turning a blind eye to the moral nature of the central accusation and wants to keep to the speculative thesis. That’s fine. At least he is answering questions and exchanging arguments. He is the first person to do that on the duo’s behalf, and he is offering the first real arguments for anything resembling the thesis of the thread.

Then he sees you give an argument for why the duo are themselves authoritarian.* He takes umbrage, refuses to continue, and says, “You should be ashamed.” All because you argued that someone was an authoritarian. Imagine how fucking crazy that would be. :meh:

(In the end you think wryly to yourself, “Maybe I should have just called them authoritarian instead of arguing the point. Surely that’s what makes all the difference.” :grin:)


* What you mistakenly took me to be explaining I have indeed explained elsewhere in the thread.

"the problem with J" — Srap Tasmaner

Much like your strange claim that I was concerned with pseudoscience in this thread, this claim is similarly lacking in accuracy. None of the posts you reference make any mention of @J. I certainly don't think he is a "hermeneuticist." I had in mind those who explicitly appeal to "philosophical hermeneutics."

Nevertheless, it is quite natural to opine on what @J believes when he refuses to answer question after question, and also to opine on why he constantly refuses. It's no coincidence that human systems such as courts have remedies for that form of evasion. The solution is simple: @J merely needs to engage in philosophy and answer the questions posed to him. To engage the members of the forum. That is a guideline here, after all. As is the guideline against "evangelization," such as the incessant opposition to so-called "monism."

(See also )

So I'll not be participating in this thread anymore. Fire Ologist and @Leontiskos, I think you should be ashamed of yourselves.

@Leontiskos, back when I was a mod, I would have warned you pages ago to cease your relentless attempts to diagnose "the problem with @J". It's inappropriate. It's disrespectful. And in my view it's a violation of the site guidelines, but none of the other mods have ever been as committed to reining in this sort of behavior as I was. — Srap Tasmaner

I think that's nonsense. From your very first post you've had a biased read on the whole discussion. The strawmen you've relied on and your inflammatory language throughout is indicative of this (e.g. "juvenile," "unserious," "policing," "stuck," "imprisoned," "anxious," "baggage"). Your whole concept of moving from St. Louis to Kansas City begs the question, as has been pointed out. And you haven't even acknowledged the other ways to consider the question. But it is convenient that you won't have to confront that growing laundry list now, isn't it?

I am disappointed to see this silliness from you. @Fire Ologist said it very well:

I’d be allowed to treat the witness as hostile to the court.

And then the Judge would force you to answer “are all narratives acceptable or not?” The most liberal progressive judge would demand, “in my court, on my record, nothing proceeds until you answer, or the charge that you say ‘all narratives may be true’ stands. You swore to tell the truth in my court and now we see you can still say anything you want, possibly giving no meaning to the ‘truth’ you swore, since you won’t answer the question and think it doesn’t matter.” — Fire Ologist

And in my view it's a violation of the site guidelines — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, insofar as I think moderators ought to address the way that @Banno and @J make accusations and insinuations before prevaricating and hiding in the bushes, thread after thread.

This thread is a testament to what happens when the targets of catty, moralizing sniping confront the snipers, and it turns out the snipers have nothing of substance to offer.

I am beginning to think that as soon as they see an end in sight, they feel the need to back track, take a turn, or just stop moving. — Fire Ologist

It's .

Ends, like foundations, are anathema to the purely analytic philosophic enterprise. And sets a standard that cannot be met, namely, deconstruction without construction. — Fire Ologist

I mostly agree, but I would say that Analytics do hold to a standard of consistency. Hence the between two self-described dissectors in the thread.

@Banno tends to become "aimless" whenever he tries to move beyond a criterion of consistency, as he is doing in this thread.

If there are many, then we cannot know who shares our form, and so we cannot know that we are playing a language game at all. — Hanover

Yes, and we certainly cannot know that we are playing the same language game as someone else.

There are certain assumptions that need to be made for it to be the case that all general epistemic principles (or any at all) must require a standpoint outside any paradigm to achieve. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the work you did can be utilized elsewhere, which is why I keep bringing it up. Don't we all agree that data should not be falsified? How did we do that? Did we all have to step outside ourselves in order to recognize it, grab hold of the truth, and hold on tight as we stepped back inside ourselves? How were we all able to recognize that standard even though some of us live in St. Louis and others live in Kansas City?

What I find funny about the "hermeneuticists" I have encountered is that their practice shows them to be looking for a "view from nowhere," even as they speak against it. They attempt to float above the fray with endless qualifications and contextualizations, and to what end? They clearly think that they are approaching some kind of objective view. My approach is much different, it is, "Cut out the fat and just give me an argument for what you believe to be true." Jump into the water right where you are and start swimming. That's how you get somewhere. It's no coincidence that many of the folks who fret day and night about frameworks and contexts and all the rest of it are remarkably bad at giving and recognizing arguments. That sort of dancing can become an excuse for avoiding arguments; a way to "rise above" without getting your hands dirty.

Yeah, that's one of the points I wanted to make. There are certain assumptions that need to be made for it to be the case that all general epistemic principles (or any at all) must require a standpoint outside any paradigm to achieve. I don't think those are good assumptions though. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right. :up:

Consider Plato's "being ruled by the rational part of the soul," as an epistemic meta-virtue. The basic idea that, ceteris paribus, one will tend towards truth... — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree. I've been pondering misology, and the way that the passions can hijack the reason.

For example, if someone wants to never admit they're wrong, then might achieve that by holding that every narrative is equal, including their own. They might avoid clarity in conversation, avoid being "put on the record," avoid answering questions, etc. All of that is great if you want to ensure that you will never be proven wrong. Opacity in general is a great help. But this is all passion-driven. The desire to never be wrong, or to never be shown to be wrong, is derived from the passions, not the reason. It's not at all clear how one can argue against such passions.

Though "science" in scare quotes makes me think you have something else in mind, and the examples are not persuasive. — Moliere

I just find it odd to separate scientific study from historical study. This bears on the discussion of "scientificity" from <another thread>.

I wonder most about where Banno said in the OP “perhaps we need both.”

I’d say we certainly do. No one ever says something meaningful about the world without both. (But I can hear the police sirens again… — Fire Ologist

I think that's right. Those darn sirens. :smile:

In general I wouldn't define it onone way or the other but would leave it to the particular referent (the particular case of incommensurability) -- but I do think the more interesting case would be when we say "No, not even one strand relates but the referent is the same"

For this I just go to science and history -- they both speak about "the world", but in their own particular idioms and ways of making inferences. They both mean "reality", and they mean it in a realist way such as "reality outside of my particular opinions about reality, but rather what the best methods/values which produce knowledge say"

At least that's the example which impresses me the most... — Moliere

There is simply no argument here to the effect that "science" and history have no common thread.

It'd be foolish to say either scientists or historians don't know anything because of the universalization of the standards of science or history exclude the other. Much better to shrug and say "I'm not sure how these guys relate -- perhaps we don't translate one into the other, but are about the same thing, and so demonstrate different facets of the same reality" — Moliere

We can say that "science" and history have a common thread without saying that either "scientists" or historians don't know anything. Similarly, saying, "I'm not sure how they relate," says nothing about whether there is a common thread.

I'm afraid these are all invalid arguments.

We've already seen a common thread between "science" and history, namely, "Do not falsify your data."

Given my best take on reality, it looks to me like it's impossible to arrive contextless and baggage-less . . . But I'm happy to add those qualifications. — J

Leaves open the possibility or at least hope of baggage free observation. — Fire Ologist

Yes, "I believe there is an overarching standard absolutely precluding contextlessness, but I could be wrong." So @J believes in an overarching standard. That he thinks he could be wrong is neither here nor there, since no one is claiming infallibility.

The objection here is, "That's not a 'standard', that's just how reality is!" Again:

The central contention of the thread can still be denied even if there is no view from nowhere, so long as there is a common thread running through the entire domain of “contexts.” The quintessential example would be the principle of non-contradiction (PNC), which is not merely a psychological principle; it is something that we both can and cannot choose to obey or disobey. It is not merely elective or optional, and yet it is nevertheless normative. This is precisely to the point, given that the “real ambiguity” I spoke about exists because we are talking about “exclusion” from the rational community, and it is not at all clear that one can opt in or out of the rational community. — Leontiskos

I want to say that the question of this thread is bound up with the question of whether we all have common aims, or more precisely, common ends. — Leontiskos

@Count Timothy von Icarus is not a police officer going around saying, "You're now in the jurisdiction of Venezuela, and therefore you're beholden to this Venezuelan law I have here in my pocket!" He is engaged in a Socratic move, "Although you don't know it, you just contradicted yourself. And if you think you don't care about contradicting yourself, then I will show you that you really do care about it."

Well, actually I meant the opposite.

I can put it another way: it's a question of whether the subject who judges things like narratives and paradigms and cities is thick or thin. In the thick conception, the subject comes with a history, a culture, a worldview, all that relativist business; in the thin view, he comes armed with rationality.

It's in that sense that taking the subject as a quite abstract rational judge is treating them as starting over each moment, entirely without the sort of baggage we all actually have. — Srap Tasmaner

It seems to me that no one in the thread is claiming such a thing, but you anticipate this objection:

I think Count Timothy von Icarus is especially interested in being in position to tell someone that they *should* put down some baggage they're carrying. The grounds for saying so would be (a) that this particular burden does not help you in making rational judgments, and (b) that Tim can tell (a) is the case by exercising rational judgment. (Stop thinking you need to sacrifice chipmunks to the river every spring so it will thaw, would be a typical Enlightenment example.)

I'm not sure how close that is to your view (or if it is in fact Tim's), but that's the sort of thing I imagine is on the table when people say they want an overarching standard. — Srap Tasmaner

First I think it is quite important to note the initial claim. @Count Timothy von Icarus did not start a thread saying, "I want an overarching standard." It is the other way around, where @Banno started a thread after private conversation with @J, opposing overarching standards.

Be that as it may, let's suppose someone claims that there is an overarching standard and that Jake has violated it. Does it follow that the person has a thin and not a thick conception of paradigms, or that Jake is being asked to put down baggage? I don't see why it would. All that is needed is a common thread running through every paradigm, from which the standard can be derived. The paradigms can be as thick as you like.

Do we agree that one can coherently say "I don't know"? — Banno

You're welcome to say "I don't know" when presented with ' question about whether all narratives are equal or some narratives are unequal. But if you really don't know the answer that question, then it is odd that you would write a thread claiming that dissection-narratives are better than discourse-narratives. You can't maintain your OP here while simultaneously saying that you don't know whether some narratives are unequal. :kiss:

Here is how I would approach the topic. First, read to Banno, beginning with the words, "I concede..."

What I do there is identify a common aim that Banno and I share within that conversation. I want to say that the question of this thread is bound up with the question of whether we all have common aims, or more precisely, common ends. Let me be very explicit about how this relates to the central question: if we do not have common ends, then there is no overarching standard; if we do have at least one common end, then there is at least one overarching standard.

(Cf. Aquinas, ST I-II.Q1 - Man's last end)

Oh, so as in -- one standard that was there before the paradigm shift and one that was there after the paradigm shift such that we know that the new paradigm is better than the old paradigm due to the standards external to the paradigms of evaluation? — Moliere

Sort of. It's asking if there is a common thread between the two paradigms, given that each paradigm is made up of many different strands.

My intention was absolutely to treat it as an open question. — Srap Tasmaner

Understood.

I actually worry about that too, especially with the stuff about translation that I posted.

I want, on the one hand, to leverage the recognition that people do not start from scratch every moment of their lives, but to avoid suggesting -- what is clearly false! -- that change is impossible. — Srap Tasmaner

Okay. I suppose I can see how that recognition has leverage with respect to the central question, namely insofar as the premise which says we start from scratch would invalidate the possibility of an overarching standard.

Ultimately I think we need to give arguments for or against the central thesis of the thread. It seems like you're trying to present things that stay perfectly neutral with respect to the central thesis, but nevertheless elucidate the question. I think it is often possible to do that, but it is very difficult in this case. I actually think gave a pretty definitive argument, providing an example of an overarching standard. Perhaps everyone already agrees that the standard he presented is overarching...?

If I wanted to try to straddle the neutrality fence, then I would present an image that pertains to bindingness or beholden-ness. Such as, "Is this a question of Venezuelan jurisdiction or is it a jurisdiction-less question?" I struggle to see any way in which the example about St. Louis and Kansas City has even the capacity to support the position which holds there to be overarching standards. I could manufacture some possibility, but it will look weak given that predetermined setup. In other words, the very notion that someone would posit an overarching standard which says that someone must move from St. Louis to Kansas City is pretty outlandish.

Hey you're right! I suppose it's all one big thread to me. We all end up saying the same things in every thread, myself included, though I keep trying to have new ideas... — Srap Tasmaner

No worries. :lol:

I think that was Count Timothy von Icarus's phrase. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, I added this in an edit:

...Count has spoken about pseudoscience, but I take him to be speaking analogically, and I do not take him to be interested in that question per se, apart from the parallels it has to the more central question. — Leontiskos

I see the pseudoscience question that @Count Timothy von Icarus has raised as an analogy for something that would be more generally considered beyond the pale.

It's whether there are overarching standards we are beholden to and can rely upon when judging the worth of a narrative (all the etc). — Srap Tasmaner

Okay, excellent. Thanks for setting this out. I agree. :clap:

All I was trying to do is see what such a thing would look and act like when you are already committed to such a narrative, when you already live somewhere and the question is not the abstract "Where should one live?" but the more concrete "Should I move?" — Srap Tasmaner

This makes the assumption that the person's starting point is not beholden to the the standard, no? It's a bit like, "Well I live in Brazil and I could move to Venezuela, but I'm going to have a look at the Venezuelan laws to see if it would be a good idea to move."

So I am worried that your scenario already assumes the thing that we are supposed to be proving. Obviously if we're thinking of moving from St. Louis to Kansas City, and St. Louis does not have the standard that Kansas City has, then that standard is not overarching. The question has already been answered.

This is really, really helpful, for I believe it highlights precisely what @J has been doing all along. It also shows how easy it is to get leverage on such things when someone just answers simple questions simply.

They are, quite clearly, self explanatory — AmadeusD

That's sort of your answer to everything. You very seldom give reasons or arguments for your positions. That's a problem when you're on a philosophy forum. Know that I am simply not going to continue responding to your posts if they do not present any arguments or reasons for your claims.

I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder on the 5th of March 1998. My parents told me to ignore the psychiatrist and not take the prescribed medications. I didn't listen to my parents. I trusted my psychiatrist and took the prescribed medications. 27 years and 3 months later, I am still struggling with depression and all the side-effects of the prescribed medications. I have gone from 65 kg to 98 kg as my medication causes weight gain. My mental illness has ruined my physical health, education, career and relationships. I often wonder how my life would be if I had listened to my parents instead of my psychiatrist. — Truth Seeker

One way we improve is by identifying mistakes and then resolving to change. What do you see as your mistake in this instance? What is the thing you wish you had done differently?

Ideally you want to identify something that is more than surface-level. So you shouldn't look back and say, "I shouldn't have taken medication, and therefore I now resolve to not take any medications." Or even, "I shouldn't have taken psychiatric medication, and therefore I now resolve to not take psychiatric medication." You want to identify something deeper than that.

The case you give is tricky because you were stuck between the authority of a medical professional and the authority of your parents, both of which have a strong purchase on you. Ideally you should start with smaller changes and less difficult questions if you want to improve your ability to make choices. "Small steps," as they say.

A book that might help, "Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly."

More simply, Aristotle's advice would be to identify people who you believe make good choices, and emulate them. Also consult and associate with them if at all possible.

Q7. Is there some standard that is being followed both before and after a paradigm shift? — Leontiskos

Yes. Though they need not be the same standard. — Moliere

To be clear, "some" = "one."

The plan was to approach the problem of relativism in a particular way, by acknowledging that you are already relying on some particular worldview (etc) when you face the question of whether some other worldview is "acceptable" or in some other way good. It's not like going shopping for something you don't have yet. (Hence the usefulness of the metaphor of where you live, since you must already live somewhere ― although I guess your thorough-going skeptic or cynic just wanders, "no fixed abode," which I guess we will now get dragged into talking about.)

The sorts of issues I wanted to raise seem obvious to me: you've got a worldview, and presumably it provides the framework within which you will evaluate alternative worldviews ― smart money is on finding that you've already got the best one and the others are crap. Even leaving that aside, what are you even evaluating? Is it a genuine alternative? Or is it that alternative as understood in the categories you're already using? It's an issue of translation, right? You have to translate the other framework into yours ― how do you evaluate the fidelity of that process? Is it even possible to access a different worldview that way? (Can you know a city the way the locals do without just being one of them?) — Srap Tasmaner

It sounds like you're an investor with some initial capital and you're looking to improve your lot. "Maybe I should move to Kansas City. Hmm..."

Again, I'm not sure what this has to do with this thread. What is the normative question you believe to be at stake? How does this relate to what has been discussed in the thread?

So when they discount all references to the world as metaphysical and vacuous and ill-conceived, in addition to contradicting themselves by speaking at all and situating themselves outside of the world in a language, they in effect make speaking meaningless. Which is, if they are conscious of it, why they devour all attempts to say anything. — Fire Ologist

Good. This is almost exactly Aristotle's argument for the PNC in Metaphysics IV. "You are welcome to deny the PNC, so long as you never speak or use language."

I am starting to see the dialectic as between process oriented (with no clear goal) (like this thread Banno set up), and goal oriented (with a clear process) (like proponents of truth like). — Fire Ologist

The trouble is the fact that processes have goals by definition.

We probably should not allow the constant reframing of the central question. — Fire Ologist

Yes, and even more fundamentally, we should all be willing to state what we believe the central question is.

This thread will certainly never get there, which is ironic as they are stuck in the mud, mud being the clearest form and context for them. — Fire Ologist

The thread is another example of, "X is bad and I won't say why." It is very similar to the faith thread, "Faith is bad and I won't say why." Whenever they try to say why they end up utilizing strawmen of faith (or whatever it is). So you say, "What is faith, on your reckoning?" Or, "What is authoritarianism, on your reckoning?" And their response is prevarication. It's just tyranny, and you can't reason with a tyrant. They have to be open to rational argumentation and a defense of their views before you can reason with them.

---

And note that this entire line of posting was started by your conflation of "all narratives are true or they aren't" that is "all x are y or not all x are y," as being equivalent "each x is either y or not-y." — Count Timothy von Icarus

More than conflation. @Banno decided to stick his head three feet into the sand to avoid seeing what had been pointed out to him ad nauseum. That he still hasn't admitted the point is beyond belief, even for him.

---

So by "making sense of such beliefs" you mean something like achieving coherence i.e. exposing the contradiction in denying it? I think that's a step short of justification. — goremand

Have a look at the thread in question if you like. I would again liken this thread more to my thread on the moral sphere, where I try to show people that they already have moral beliefs.

(So much of this is closely parallel to debates about moral bindingness. I feel as if <my thread on the moral sphere> could be retooled for intellectual virtue rather than moral virtue, and it would address the central contention of this thread. In that sense we would say, “Whether or not there are binding and overarching standards, everyone believes there are.” Similarly, my <recent thread> says, “We all believe there are binding and overarching standards, but can we make sense of such beliefs?”) — Leontiskos

You're latching onto that last sentence, which is about a different thread.

Because one or two folks are denying it. Even their simple claim, "You are bound to not-bind people," is self-contradictory.

(My internet cut at <this post>, so this reply is directed to what came before.)

My understanding was that if you're intent on policing the boundary between science and something else (art, sport, pseudoscience), you want to reliably pick out all and only sciences — Srap Tasmaner

I’m not sure about your premise, but either way I think the conditional is mistaken. One does not need to reliably pick out all and only sciences in order to exclude pseudoscience. All one needs is a single necessary condition in order to exclude something like pseudoscience.

It's just another way of talking about "all and only" — Srap Tasmaner

Whether or not that is correct, I don’t see the need to talk about “...and only.” If something doesn’t have legs then it isn’t a table (on that example I gave). We don’t need to claim that only tables have legs in order to make exclusions based on the necessary criterion of legs.

This is exactly why I moved to anchor the normative question to relations among or transitions between given epistemes (worldviews, frameworks, ideologies, whatever). — Srap Tasmaner

What do you suppose the normative question is? I gave my account <here>. I hope it was clear.

You are assuming that we have some species of activity and we need to define it in order to justify exclusionary practices. Let me show you a different way to think about it...

Again, I want to say that the central contention of the thread is, “There are no overarching standards by which we are bound.” A number of us are opposing that thesis. @Count Timothy von Icarus' example of falsifying data or evidence strikes me as an excellent counterexample, and the fact that @Banno resisted him shows that it does cut against the thesis of the thread.

I’m not quite sure what your analogies about St. Louis and Kansas City have to do with this central question. I can dream up ways to connect them, but those dreams involve lots of contentious assumptions.

I’m guessing you want to talk about necessary conditions because necessary conditions pertain to exclusion, and you seem to have assumed that someone is trying to “police” or “exclude.” Of course, Banno and @J are trying to police and exclude (certain levels of certainty), but I don’t think that’s what you meant.

A moral analogy might be helpful (and the thread is really just moral philosophy in the end anyhow). Compare law to morality, namely legal jurisdiction to the universal moral “jurisdiction.” If we say, “You’ve broken a law of Venezuela,” then we will of course need necessary conditions for what counts as Venezuelan jurisdiction. But if we say, “You’ve murdered someone,” we don’t need to figure out whether the guilty party was under Venezuelan jurisdiction, because murder is impermissible everywhere. The thread is precisely about such universal standards, such as a standard which says that one may not falsify evidence as a matter of inquiry. We are talking about standards that apply everywhere, so it doesn’t matter whether we move from St. Louis to Kansas City. The contextualists are saying, “There is nothing which is impermissible everywhere.” On this “different way to think about it,” we are asking about unconditional necessities, not necessary conditions.

Now there is real ambiguity in whether we are talking about excluding from some species of activity, or else opposing certain things regardless of the species of activity. I have been leaning towards the latter, as I think it is closer to the heart of the thread. Someone of your mind would naturally transpose any enunciation of the latter into some variety of the former, and I think @Count Timothy von Icarus’s points about falsifying data offer a good example of how to confront such an approach.

More precisely, I think ’s claim that view-from-nowhere thinking is more pervasive than we realize is correct, and that this is related to your own belief that <If there is no view from nowhere, then there are no standards or rules that apply regardless of the species of activity>. The central contention of the thread can still be denied even if there is no view from nowhere, so long as there is a common thread running through the entire domain of “contexts.” The quintessential example would be the principle of non-contradiction (PNC), which is not merely a psychological principle; it is something that we both can and cannot choose to obey or disobey. It is not merely elective or optional, and yet it is nevertheless normative. This is precisely to the point, given that the “real ambiguity” I spoke about exists because we are talking about “exclusion” from the rational community, and it is not at all clear that one can opt in or out of the rational community. It is not clear that in the face of an accusation of irrationality, one can respond, “Oh, I wasn’t attempting to be rational.”

(So much of this is closely parallel to debates about moral bindingness. I feel as if <my thread on the moral sphere> could be retooled for intellectual virtue rather than moral virtue, and it would address the central contention of this thread. In that sense we would say, “Whether or not there are binding and overarching standards, everyone believes there are.” Similarly, my <recent thread> says, “We all believe there are binding and overarching standards, but can we make sense of such beliefs?”)

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Glancing at this:

Take Leontiskos's anxiety about distinguishing science from pseudoscience. — Srap Tasmaner

Note that I have literally not said a single word about "pseudoscience" in this thread, so you're clearly mixed up. What I think is happening is that you are projecting <this thread> and <this thread> into the one we are in now. ...Count has spoken about pseudoscience, but I take him to be speaking analogically, and I do not take him to be interested in that question per se, apart from the parallels it has to the more central question.

@Srap Tasmaner:

I actually think the thread—at least this part of it—has largely been considering the question of whether scientists in two different fields can be said to be doing the same thing, rather than whether a scientist can pry himself out of his field and embed himself in a different field. For example, it could be asked whether a scientist's opinion with regard to a foreign field is capable of being worthwhile, or whether a non-scientist's opinions about scientific questions are of any worth. The thread has also been concerned with normativity, e.g. "criteria." So we have been asking whether there are common threads that are criteria. — Leontiskos

Although it may sound partisan, the simple fact of the matter is that @Banno and @J have been trying to chastise a certain moral disposition:

I guess it kinda grounds my OP - a moral preference for doubt. — Banno

They think it is morally wrong to philosophically engage in a certain way (i.e. with a particular level of certainty).

The whole thread has a moral flavor. It is about whether we are allowed to do certain things, philosophically, and specifically whether we are morally allowed. Your posts are interesting, but they may be missing this central piece of the thread.

The moral thesis of Banno and J is something like, "It is impermissible to judge someone wrong simpliciter, because there are no unconditioned criteria that bind everyone." It is the idea that we can only ever say that someone is wrong according to such and such a standard, but that there are no overarching standards which can be said to bind everyone. And this is applied in a scientific or philosophical register, as for example in claiming that someone's philosophical position is wrong. My notion of, "Expectation of Rational Bindingness (ERB)," may be helpful, even though it is a rough sketch.

May she rest in peace. :flower:

Looking at these recent responses, I don't think it's useful to set up a dialectical between "contextlessness" as a "view from nowhere/everywhere" on the one hand, and admitting the relevance of context on the other. This sort of thinking is, as far as I can tell, something that largely emerges in the 19th century and had cracked up by the mid-20th century. It relies on certain metaphysical presuppositions that are endemic to much modern thought, but which I don't think hold water. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, I think we're falling into Enlightenment categories. I don't think anyone here favors Enlightenment rationality (except perhaps when @J channels Nagel).

I think of reason and principles of knowledge in analogous terms to this example, not as a dialectic where one pole is "contextless." This means looking for unifying principles. For instance, the principle of lift is in some ways the same in different sorts of insect wings, bird wings, bi-planes, drones, fighter jets, etc. and yet it is clear that these are all very different and require a unique understanding. Likewise for principles in complexity studies that unify phenomena as diverse as heart cell synchronization, fire fly blinking, and earthquakes. Identifying a common principle is not a claim to have stepped outside a consideration of fire flies and heart cells, but rather a claim to have found a "one" that is present in "many." If such principles didn't exist, I don't know how knowledge would be possible. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, this is well-stated. :up:

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- Thanks for your answers. I will try to come back to this. :up:

It seems to me that you're simply asking if realism is the case. — Harry Hindu

Why do you think that? The problem is that the "contextualists" presumably do not see their position as precluding realism.

Count’s been doing one thing for about 10 pages now. Beating his head against the wall... — Fire Ologist

Yes:

This is why I effectively ↪told him, "There is very little evidence that Banno and @J are interested in playing basketball at all." — Leontiskos

And the irony of it all is that, IMO, it is the absolute and truth alone that defeat tyrannical authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is about a person, not an idea. The absolute is knowledge, which makes you, the knower, your own authority. That is the beginning of any possibility of avoiding tyranny. — Fire Ologist

Exactly. Those who are bound to the truth are not bound to any person's will. Truth is the only thing that liberates from authoritarianism, as we have seen especially in Communist regimes.

And you are always the one on these threads who sees God lurking. — Fire Ologist

Was the OP just an attempt to supply an argument for the predetermined conclusion that religious thinking is bad? It doesn't seem to have succeeded.

The irony here is that Banno does a 180 when he goes after religion, relying on unimpeachable principles that religion has supposedly transgressed. "Any stick to beat the devil."

I’m going to move on to the Srap-Leon conversation, with Moliere and Wayfarer, where people seem to be working together. — Fire Ologist

Good choice. It's not a coincidence that my first serious post in the thread was written to @Srap Tasmaner. In fact, in writing my Last rigorous thread, I tried to wait to post it until Srap or fdrake were around, and I literally went out of my way to post it in the early morning, when I knew Banno was asleep in Australia. It was all for naught, given that he sabotaged the whole thing anyway. The only threads where you can do <this> would be threads like Jamal's, where the owner writes the thread.

Yes, that's the idea ― and I'm glad it's clear enough despite me mixing up the numbers. (Anyone who found the post deeply confusing should reload to see my edits.) — Srap Tasmaner

Ah, I understand it better now ...I think. Some of this relates to my point about the part-whole relationship, where each implies the other.

We landed at some point on questions like this: Are all narratives acceptable? — Srap Tasmaner

Right: "narratives" was another of the words floating around in this ocean of a discussion. :smile:

To be fair, in many of these discussions I feel like someone drives their truck into a giant swamp, and we're all watching from the sidelines. They inevitably end up stuck in the middle of nowhere, and when they look around for help everyone is sort of scratching their heads and staring at each other, wide-eyed.

What this means is...

Hence my plan of grounding the question instead on the relations among thingies — Srap Tasmaner

...I want to ask specific and clear questions. For that reason I am wary of the word "thingies." It's not a good combination when the words are vague and everyone is looking for an excuse to claim that they are correct.

I don't want to, but in the interests of comity I will also answer your questions ― with the proviso that I'm not altogether happy about my answers. — Srap Tasmaner

Okay, thanks. I think it will serve as a helpful starting point to orient us and clarify misunderstandings. It's something I can come back to and reference if I become confused about your position, and it allows us to see if we've actually changed our minds or not in the end.

I like your discussion of "scientificity" since it is so focused, and because I know what you're talking about:

[When it comes to the sciences...] I think (a) we are really talking about a classic "family resemblance" here, where there are a great many criteria in play, an evolving set, and you won't find all of them or a consistent subset that identifies all and only science, and (b) science doesn't have a monopoly on any of the strands of the rope that binds the sciences together ― which is why identifying a few things common to all scientific practice (as I confidently do above) is not quite enough to identify only science (necessary but not sufficient). — Srap Tasmaner

This is presumably related to Q3:

Q3. Is there some criterion which applies to all ("scientific") fields, rather than only to a subset of them? — Leontiskos

First, to (a) I would say that we have to think about abstraction here. What the opponents of myself and @Count Timothy von Icarus have consistently refused to do is engage in more encompassing abstractions (see my post <here>).

Let me try to illustrate this with a very simple example:

• "Tables have no single thing in common, because some have three legs, and some have four legs and some have five legs, etc."
• "It is true that if we confine ourselves to the genus, "Number of legs," then tables have nothing in common. But what if abstract beyond the number of legs and think instead about the fact of legs? Even if all tables have a different number of legs, once we pry ourselves out of that confined genus we can see a commonality: namely that all tables have legs."
• "But not all tables have legs!"
• "Perhaps not, but do you see how we can abstract by expanding our thinking beyond a single confined genus?"

Now note that you have to omit "and only" from (a) if (a) is not to collapse into (b). And note that Q3 asks precisely whether there is something common to the sciences, not whether there is something that is only common to the sciences. This is a good example of why I want to pay attention to the questions that we take ourselves to be answering.

Your preliminary answer to Q3 was, "Yes-ish ― this one is in some ways too easy and too hard." Now is it too easy when we ask what is common to the sciences, and too hard when we ask what is restricted to the sciences? Or is there a different reason why it is "too easy and too hard"?

I think the question is easy because it asks what is common to the sciences (and I think that is what the thread has been focused on, namely the possibility of "overarching" characteristics or norms). We've already identified some of the commonalities recently, for example here:

I think I'm okay with restricting science to a strategy for learning what can be known, and I also want to say it is something like the distillation of everything we have learned about how to learn what can be known. — Srap Tasmaner

Now regarding (b), I sort of agree with you. I am happy to agree for the sake of argument, given that I don't think (b) bears on Q3 or this thread. I think it is a separate question, and I don't want this thread to balloon more than it already has. But let me know if you think we need to answer (b).

It is clear that people sometimes leave St. Louis and light out for Kansas City. It is possible,... — Srap Tasmaner

Let me lay my cards on the table regarding these questions of "switching positions with someone else." Humans are enormously adaptable, and they all have the same nature. I think we can switch positions with others, whether linguistically, culturally, scientifically, etc. There are a few limitations and immutabilities, but when we are speaking about volitional realities I don't see much in the way of per se impossibility of switching positions.

I have very mixed feelings about the issue of "commensurability" but yeah, I would like everything you mentioned to be on the table. I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask whether any of us can truly understand the ancient Greeks, say. I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask a question like that even if I were later convinced that it's in some way a defective question. — Srap Tasmaner

Okay, good.

I once saw a small flock of birds attempt to perch in a very small yellow-leaved tree. It was too small for all of them to light so they sort of swarmed around it, some finding a spot then taking to the air again moments later. They gave up after maybe five or ten seconds and set off to find a better spot, and left behind a nearly bare tree, the beating of so many wings and jostling about of all these little birds had caused nearly every leaf to fall. I felt, just for a moment, as if I had seen the tree ravished by Zeus, who had taken the form of a flock of birds. — Srap Tasmaner

Very nice. That's part of why I wanted to bring up commensurability and communicability - precisely because they are not agonistic. They presuppose no "prying out what is stuck." Of course one could pick up "commensurability" and revivify the metaphor of stuckness, but I want an optional lens that does not presuppose stuckness.

I actually think the thread—at least this part of it—has largely been considering the question of whether scientists in two different fields can be said to be doing the same thing, rather than whether a scientist can pry himself out of his field and embed himself in a different field. For example, it could be asked whether a scientist's opinion with regard to a foreign field is capable of being worthwhile, or whether a non-scientist's opinions about scientific questions are of any worth. The thread has also been concerned with normativity, e.g. "criteria." So we have been asking whether there are common threads that are criteria.

Kicking myself for not noticing you had already used the same metaphor: — Srap Tasmaner

I'm glad you pointed it out because I think it's the same metaphor applied differently. I.e. "common thread" vs. "binding thread." Or, "Is there some thread common to all the sciences?," vs. "are there threads that run through the sciences and through nothing else?" Note that the first question is neither about the necessary or sufficient conditions of science. It is simply about whether there are things that all the sciences share. For example, if we accepted that all tables have legs, it would not follow that nothing else has legs. The idea that this criterion must therefore have to do with "necessity" is bound up with (Kripke's, among others) modal essentialism, which I don't find helpful.

And the answer is almost certainly yes, but what's common is only part of what makes both science, or both the same science, or whatever, so it's not the whole explanation. Anyway, that's my hunch. — Srap Tasmaner

Right, that's exactly what I was just trying to say. :nerd:

"Is there a common thread?," is different from, "What threads must [this] have in order to call it 'this', or in order to be [this]."

...Apart from that setting of the stage, I will add one thing. We can also think about this in terms of commensurability and communicability. For example, we could ask whether two people could communicate with one another even despite their different "languages." We could ask whether people from two different paradigms or epochs would be able to communicate despite that difference. We could ask whether someone before a paradigm shift could understand or anticipate the post-shift reality, and whether someone after a paradigm shift could understand the pre-shift reality. And so on...