I think your nephew makes Socrates sound like a moron.

The labeling is not all that important to me, but I don't think it's helpful to ignore the difference between what is clearly technical work and what isn't. Call it all "philosophy" if you want, but you'll still need some terminology for that obvious distinction. — Srap Tasmaner

One could say, if we want to say what we are doing is philosophy, if we want to label it ‘philosophy’, we must do better.

But, I see the more substantive point. The distinctions being made here are the important point, and where someone wants to overlay the label or official domain called ‘philosophy’ isn’t itself the real point. Like for example, it’s all philosophy, sure, but good philosophy will stand apart (maybe with subtlety at times only recognizable as such by good philosophers) and is worth its own distinguishing terminology.

Now, there are still differences between the three sorts of paragraphs you find in a math textbook, the English, the mathematical, and the transitional. Not all of them exactly *are* math, but all are necessary to math and for math even to be a thing.

And so I think it is with philosophy. It's not really a matter of formalism at all, but more like the distinction in a legal opinion between the actual decision, the language of which is binding on parties, and obiter dicta, — Srap Tasmaner

So would you still have to say?:

There is, for example, no actual philosophical work by anyone anywhere in this thread. At least on this view. Strictly speaking.
— Srap Tasmaner — Fire Ologist

There is, for example, no actual philosophical work by anyone anywhere in this thread. At least on this view. Strictly speaking. — Srap Tasmaner

So wouldn’t one have to do some philosophical work before one could draw that conclusion?

Could you be wrong here, and there is some degree of philosophical work buried in the thread?

Or is the point that, even observations like this one (namely, that this thread and Williamson’s afterword contain no philosophical work), are not properly ‘good philosophy’ until we can expressly show and see the work that goes into them? (Not meaning to call your observation improper philosophy, or maybe you are actually okay with that for purposes of this thread.)

…information processing…Blue and yellow the input, mixing them together is the process, and green the output? — Harry Hindu

Good one, although I’d say blue represents the input, yellow represents the processing, and green represents the output…It could work.

What color is the paint when the lights are out? We don't see paint. We see light. — Harry Hindu

That is a question of sense perception, specifically sight. That’s the first analogy. And your question is the whole point of the analogy. We don’t see things like paint and “the color of paint” without the influence of the eye. We have to remember, the colors in the analogy represent concepts, not actual colors. So, maybe the answer is, there is no “color” absent the eyeball and brain that receives light and processes it. Once processed, we perceive the color now constructed by the brain as the light reflected off of some object, now “seen” as whatever color our eyeball can make of whatever light it receives. Right?

Unless your question is simply what are the physical moving parts of sight - in which case the blue paint is meant to represent all of the elements in the world that contribute to sensation. So for sight, the blue paint represents the object with light bouncing off of it just before the moment it hits the eye. Once the eye (and brain) receive it, yellow is mixed in. Then, what we are conscious of is something reconstructed out of the light reflecting off the object (blue paint), the eyeball and brain and all of that processing (yellow paint), forming “what we see” (always now particularized by the influence of the yellow paint, which makes it a new particular vision, of green).

So really your question of what color is the object without light does have an answer; it has no color, because what color is requires light (specifically reflected light) as one essential ingredient for whatever color to emerge (the second essential ingredient being the particular eyeball, represented as yellow paint).

You could also ask, what color is the object without the lights on and no eyeball, and we again have to say no color, because color is what eyeballs create as a sensation. Or what color is empty space that reflects no light (what is the color of no objects)? Again, no color. What we see is represented as green paint analogously; this doesn’t happen until light reflected (blue paint analogously) hits our eyeball (yellow paint analogously).

How will time end?

Will it?

I see time-space-matter-motion as aspects or points of view that are all the case now that there is more than one thing. Many things in existence, means, time-space-matter-motion, to be crude about it. Where there is one of these, there must be the others. There is no time without matter in motion through space. And there is no motion without some matter moving through space over time. And there is motion. And there are things in motion.

So the question of the end of time is also will motion and the things that move stop moving or cease to be things?

Yet in that darkness sleeps infinite seed, — PoeticUniverse

As one of Kant’s antinomies, we essentially can’t rationalize the “before time” or “end of time.” We can’t conceive “no time “ with our minds and not be generating the time it takes to conceive of anything; even nothingness forever is compounded for “ever” after simply nothing.

I just think that all means we can’t talk about the end of time without sounding like a poet or a mystic.

Many, it seems, would rather stay silent in the face of the non-rational. Maybe prudent, when trying to avoid sounding like a fool, or a poet, or a mystic.

What if it will take forever for time to end?

Is that a rational question?

Personally, if I could be so foolish as to sound like a failed mystic and a failed philosopher, for a moment, (and I certainly could), let’s see if I can speak of eternity. I see eternity as both the wrapping around before the beginning and the end of time, at the edge of time, just as eternity runs through every instant.

Or, put another way, Now, is as good as the very end of time. Now is the pinnacle, end result of all history that has gone before right now. And also, now is the beginning of time. Right now, is the instantaneous moment upon which all that we call the “future” will rest.

Now, is all time, eternal. (Time is actually more like the construct, a watch. A measuring stick.) All that actually exists is Now. So there is no end or beginning of time, because now is always the end and beginning of time. The real raw material we have to deal with is eternity, which resists capturing with words, until we call it “a moment in time” and construct enough duration to wonder about the past and future ends.

See, a failed mystic and/or bad philosopher. Darn those antinomies.

But if you are talking about whether the universe will eventually break apart and will it simply fail one day to support any forms of existence besides a pile of rubble? Maybe.
That won’t be the end of measurable change and motion and time, just the end of anything that could take measure or identify some form to measure any such motion. Like stillness, but for forever. Maybe.

But I agree, I think it makes sense that physically there is a cycle. Like Empedocles - things come together and break apart in an endless cycle between love and strife (he was definitely a cult leader). Or Aristotle - Generation and corruption. Or the eastern thinkers’ conceptions of eternity. Or Christianity, where an eternal God made space and time for us to visit eternity, in due time.

I have to say I don’t know what it means to say “the end of time.”

Did you keep the palette at three colors only to represent a relatively simple idea? How are the “moving parts of other areas and concepts and systems” affected?

Bigger palette? — Mww

I found it pleasing how well the analogy captures sense perception, and, I think, Kant’s observation.

I also find it interesting how the picture of such a simple mixture explains more than one more complex idea; something so simple not only capturing one complex idea, but many more ideas.
I think it helps align the basic parts of Nietzsche’s Apollonian-Dionysian theory of spirit, and the moral act of a person, but not as directly.

Bigger palette might do some work, but analogies can only take you so far. And Kant and sense perception and Heraclitus are what make the analogy, not the other way around.

I thought it was neat when I thought of it. Frankly I figured someone else probably thought of it before and that by posting it here someone would tell me who already wrote that.

I also think you can squeeze Plato’s Allegory of the Cave into it (blue being the man in chains, green being the shadows, and yellow being the light against the puppets), but if you need an analogy to understand an allegory better, you probably are being led too far astray from the human experience Plato was really trying to speak about. But it is another interesting picture reflecting the simple mixture of two colors of paint. At least I thought so.

Our intelligence functions on representations, from which follows our knowledge is not of things as such — Mww

Intelligence functions = yellow.
Representations = green.
Things as such = blue.

Still no?

Why wouldn’t Kant agree we live in green world, behind the phenomenal veil that our mind construct, keeping us separate from things in themselves?
— Fire Ologist

He would agree with that, I’ve no doubt. — Mww

First….we have no way of knowing the blue self of a thing. It is only ever blue because we say it is;

Then…the yellow as category belongs to understanding, hence is not the OP’s yellow analogous to the senses…, — Mww

The analogy to sensation is one thing, and the colors represent the things of sensation.

The analogy to Kant is taken as another thing entirely.

So if you agree Kant would agree with this:
“we live in green world, behind the phenomenal veil that our minds construct, keeping us separate from things in themselves?”

Then it makes sense to me Kant would agree the analogy holds:
Blue represents noumena.
Yellow represents subject.
Green represents phenomena. We live in green, experience is all green, never blue. Not even yellow, which is just conditional framework and not “phenomena” nor “thing”.

who would think of themselves — Banno

elite, pretending — Banno

vanity of self-anointed "deep thinkers," — Banno

Isn’t all of that off topic? That’s psychology that can apply to any type of philosopher or non-philosopher.

——-

He is showing us again what is beautiful in philosophy, and what isn't. — Banno

I think he shows what he sees as most beautiful in philosophy, but does not show what isn’t. He just characterizes it as ugly. Maybe that is a function of him not using names for the ugly philosophers.

What is philosophy for?

That's the question that will decide what you think philosophy is, and how you will do philosophy. — Banno

:up:

I’m quite in love with dissecting minutia, in high hopes of philosophizing with clarity and precision, — Mww

As an analogy to Kant:

So blue represents the thing-in-itself that we can never know in its blue self; yellow represents the categories of mind that construct or allow for our experience; and our experience is all green phenomena. — Fire Ologist

How does it not work? Upset all apples and carts.

Why wouldn’t Kant agree we live in green world, behind the phenomenal veil that our mind construct, keeping us separate from things in themselves?

The systematic philosophers people continue to read generations after their passing are the ones that stand up to such scrutiny, if not quite entirely then more than enough to credit their discipline. — Srap Tasmaner

Also beautiful.

The fact that what you just said is the case, and I think it is, means to me that the qualitative difference between what the analytic tool-makers do (essential to scrutiny), and what the system builders do, is important in itself. It is something to consider and develop. We can’t expend all of our efforts on only one or other. Either one, when taken alone, loses at least some, if not all of its value.

philosophy is thinking well about what it is important to think about.

There are two elements or moments there, and maybe they can't be fully disentangled, — Srap Tasmaner

Beautiful. Shining.

Previously, the two moments seem to have been tagged thinking well, and making shite up.

Once we find non-human minds, this is going to get very interesting. — AmadeusD

If we do.

But once we do, aside from tons of interesting differences, my sense is they will have to have the same ultimate questions and problems with these concepts. I don’t think there is a God who can sort things out any differently. It’s the fabric of personhood and moral existence. IMO.

in high hopes of philosophizing with clarity and precision — Mww

Always.

The ways to philosophize thread(s) seem to be about one way to be clear and precise.

But always hoping for clarity. Either the analogy works to depict Kant’s idea, or it doesn’t. I think it does.

“The noumenal blue objects we sense and come to know…”, is a contradiction.

The Kantian references falsify your thesis; it may have been more helpful overall, without it. But you did say helps secondly, so…. — Mww

Yes, good catch.

So I think the he analogy is a useful tool when describing sensation best. I lumped all of the senses in as yellow to make it most general about all sense perception. But the point is, the empirical world is the blue. We never directly
contact the blue because our senses take the input from the world and process it to become whatever we experience. So less general analogy would be to say, the world is blue (or some unknown color); eyesight is yellow and when mixed with the world we experience the sight of things as green. And hearing is red; and when mixed with the world we experience sound of things as purple. Etc. The point being, our senses are active participants in building the experiences we naively call the color or sound or taste of the thing.

Second best is to understand Kant’s insight regarding the noumenal/phenomenal distinction. You are right. The discussion is not about “sensing and coming to know things.” That was inaccurate. Kant’s point is not merely about sense perception, so I shouldn’t even use the word sense. And Kant’s point is specifically that we can never know the thing-in-itself.

But the analogy holds if you just use the paint to understand that experience is green, that all we can “know” are phenomena.

So blue represents the thing-in-itself that we never know (shouldn’t even call it “blue” but maybe Kant shouldn’t even call it “thing”); yellow represents the categories of mind that construct or allow for our experience which is all green phenomena.

Does that make more sense?

"The one becomes the two, the two becomes the three, the three becomes the fourth which is the one."

Blue is the 1. We understand blue by comparing it to something else, in this case yellow, so this is the 2. They combine to make the 3, which is green. — frank

That sounds like Hegel again. So maybe I need to rethink my sense that the analogy can’t help an understanding of dialectic.

Sounds like we need a fourth color to represent “not-green”. Maybe the palette itself needs to be brought into it…

recreating God's punishment: linguistic atomization and separation — Count Timothy von Icarus

Modern man is an inverse Oedipus. He is born free, master of his own fate, and then tears out his own spiritual eyes, fating himself to wander the wilderness — Count Timothy von Icarus

modern man is more like Balaam, stuck on his path, hoping blindly in the better judgement of his ass to avert technopocopypse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You sound like me. If I knew what I was talking about and read about it. Love it (and wish it wasn’t all true - although I have to look up some of the references.)

My only hope for “modern” man is knowing there are other people out there who get it. Cheers!

Synergy is the idea of something extra appearing out of a combination, the result being greater than the sum of the parts. — frank

Can we use the analogy to help understand the concept of the whole being greater than the sum of parts?

A man is a whole.
His brain and his liver are parts. You can have a pile of all of the different parts of a man, but only when they are arranged in a certain way, and functioning, only then is there a man, and it can then be said that this man emerges as greater than the sum of his own parts.

Green is the whole man.
Blue represents some parts and yellow can be the formal arrangement that produces functioning…

I think that can work. Green is not necessarily greater than blue and yellow (green sort of supplants and is just other than those other colors), unless you see green as blue and yellow plus their mixture.

——-

Honestly, I never liked the notion “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” I think the truth that notion is capturing is that the whole is other than the sum of its parts. I see why the first thought is “greater” as for instance a functioning man is certainly better and greater and more than a rotting pile of body parts. But isn’t a liver a whole liver of sorts? There is nothing wrong with distinguishing parts from the whole and giving them equal weight, value, import, in an analytic sense. “Greater” has baggage that distracts from a good concept.

I think the truth of it is that there is the whole, and there the parts of the whole, and you do not get a whole until you have all of the parts functioning as parts of the whole. But that is not a catchy notion like “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” And now is see that maybe it works to say “green is greater than merely blue and yellow.”

ADDED:
And so back to reproduction:
Blue represents the sperm part.
Yellow the egg.
The living, newly formed conceptus is the green whole new animal life that is greater than the mere sperm and egg piled next each other as mere parts.

Much appreciated.

Just trying to engage, see if I could learn anything useful.

I’ve been forced out of the neighborhood at this point. Like an undocumented migrant philosopher. Don’t speak the language.

You have the property developer, the architect, and the carpenters and builders. You even have the folks down at Home Depot. I never have any problems speaking with any of them. Analytic philosophers seem like code enforcement - all post hoc and redundant when they don’t point to some rule book violation that usually only actually matters to other code enforcement officers.

We need code enforcement, but we need all the rest. And so do code enforcers.

Man, woman and child.

Let's see. Seems like the child has to be green, so we can make the man or woman, each either blue or yellow.

I guess what is odd, is that a child is also male or female, so the child, who is green, is also just blue or yellow.

Maybe just cellular reproduction. The cell is the blue, the two cells produced are each the green, and the moment of division is the insertion of yellow.

Difficult... but maybe worth some further thought to see if it can be made useful.

it can really help to pare down a post to a couple of carefully expressed questions or observations. — J

Got it.

I’m firing off a few, what I think are, sufficiently pared down ideas, hoping maybe one will stick.

So, ignore what I just said. All I’m saying is, thanks for the above tip.

"When you say 'language about language' — J

I'm saying, we are both expressly saying "language about language" and both saying things about this like "essential tool" and "clearly scientific" which seem relatable to me, so we seem to me to be making similar observations in response to the article. Like we are in the same neighborhood (although I'm am starting to feel like I need to find a realtor.)

You don't seem to even see what I am saying. I see us saying a lot of the same things.

So your answer to whether I am understanding anything from the article or from what you said must be "no" (that is, if you, in fact, understand the article - we could both be misunderstanding each other and the article, and we might never know it from how this conversation is going).

I think this exchange between us is a performative example of what the article is trying to say: little to no advancement (be it of philosophy, science, this discussion, etc.) is the result of a lack of attention to rigor and standards, and is the result of leaps, using vague terms like "neighborhood" instead of building clear questions that, thanks to rigor in the building of the question, have possible resolution that two might be able to work on together.

I think I'm following the article just fine.
Be rigorous if you want to create something where progress can be marked. I could say much more, but... me talking continues to be a non-starter, too broad, and unhelpful.

I am a plain, natural language guy. I think, sometimes, not always, we can discern the rigor without strangling the discussion. I think we can tell who is rigorous and who is not without always repeating the ground rules. Sometimes we can't. You see what I am saying as too vague. So does Banno. I think we all see me trying to further clarify what I'm trying to say as not really helpful to the thread, and probably uninteresting to you all anyway at this point.
_______

This is the place where I sit when approaching philosophy. Struggling to move as high above the weeds as possible, often contradicting myself for sake of some even higher vantagepoint, something hypothetical, something yet to be disproved and begging some method to disprove it. I don't want to miss the forest for the sake of the tree stump; but that is precisely because everywhere I go are tree stumps so I know there is a forest that eludes:

Those who applaud a methodological platitude usually assume that they comply with it. I intend no such comfortable reading. To one degree or another, we all fall short not just of the ideal but of the desirable and quite easily possible. Certainly this afterword exhibits hardly any of the virtues that it recommends, although with luck it may still help a bit to propagate those virtues (do as I say, not as I do). Philosophy has never been done for an extended period according to standards as high as those that are now already available, if only the profession will take them seriously to heart.

So last attempt, hopefully, to point to something interesting I've gathered while reading the article (which is really a restatement of Banno's Two ways to Philosophize thread). Rigor is a tool, not an end. Maybe Siddhartha Buddha was not speaking with scientific rigor, but a deeply logical thinker, schooled in modal logic and analytics, can nevertheless glean useful data about the human mind from his words, learn of things worth further inquiry, and maybe even turn his words into something analytic for rigorous scrutiny.

It is important (I think) to note in all of this, that developing the virtues of rigor cannot simply be for sake of having rigor. The development of rigorous, analytic methods, like modal logic, are truly an advancement in philosophic tool-making; but these tools are new, and there is much work to be done before these advancements might salvage the profession from the basement of the humanities department at some crusty old university.

Dissolving has a finite half-life, and an end.

But again, as I've probably completely confused the issue for so many, none of this is meant to side-track or refute or downplay the more express lessons in the article. Lessons that, in the minutia, are clearly over my head (or that I am incapable of restating in my own terms). I agree, rigor is essential to anything approaching science, and if philosophy wants to be able to make progress and measure progress, the science of language, logic and rule-making is an essential part of it, in all of the ways raised in the article.

The US Supreme Court just issued a ruling dealing with free speech and laws that can limit it.

It can be found here:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25985319-free-speech-coalition-v-paxton/

It gets interesting and more readable at page 6 of the opinion, which is page 10 of this online document.

They describe the “level of scrutiny” which is either “strict” or “intermediate” or “rational basis” and why these levels were created. They talk about how “pornography” has been defined and regulated historically. This is where lovers of political freedom (ie most people) should start to pay attention. This is government defining what the content of speech is so they can regulate it. This is where tk court says things like “having no literary or artistic value” about pornography. Most happen to agree with a characterization like that (which is how the Court can make those determinations), and I agree as an adult what porn is and that it is just bad for children if not fairly base for all involved - but we must pause when we let some government official tell us what we are all allowed to actually do and say about anything.

Just to be clear, I don’t see any slippery slope here, and am glad the government regulates pornography to protect the children in society (with what tiny protections they can provide in this area). Just because the government can define what counts as pornography versus what counts as art, doesn’t mean they are going to be able to define other content (like what is good art or what is harmful political opinion) nor develop a law that regulates such content. The court has always been careful here and the voices that oppose legislation have always been well represented.

But the opinion is how the lawyers, judges, and law makers, and free speech coalition, all think about the topic.

Notice the opinion doesn’t get into free agency versus determinism, or whether words can cause actions in others. Debates on those issues would be debates on whether the notion of any government was coherent, which because the constitution exists, they already agree government makes sense , and that all people have liberty and right to their own agency over their speech and thought, but that laws (words) must cause others to act and react in specific ways, and even limit what people can say publicly.

Appreciate the attempt at penetrating my thick skull.

is there something about the structure of language that may be influencing what (one of us) takes to be obvious, or capable of only one interpretation, or producing some necessary metaphysical inference? — J

See, I think I’m following you and can just say “I agree”. And be done.

But I also think if I rephrased what you seem to me to be saying, and questioned “metaphysical” above about the inference, and if I expounded on “the structure of language” being referenced here regarding what is obvious to only one of us, or addressed “capable of only one interpretation” - if I spoke about what you are saying you would probably say I was still getting it all wrong. Because I would say the following were in the same neighborhood and you didn’t.

the thing to focus on here is probably that "language about language" is an essential tool. — J

But language about language remains the clearest domain of the most scientific statements we can make. — Fire Ologist

“essential tool” similar to “clear…scientific”.

Not the same, but neighbors, or showing family resemblance, if you will.

Or here:

the measure of progress in science has emerged from sciences like physics, and not from analysis of language. We learned from physics how to be rigorous and how to measure progress, and then applied this as a tool to philosophy, — Fire Ologist

since physics is science par excellence — J

These are more distant, and I had to pull more context from my use to show what appears to me to be both of us recognizing physics as a prototypical science - the gold standard.

And this point you make:

But it's always appropriate to call a time-out, so to speak, and say, "Now hold on. Notice how we're using the words here. Do we agree on terms, for starters? — J

Fully agree. I am blathering on with terms and context and asking “am I in the neighborhood”, just to, paraphrase your words, check whether Hold on, how am I using my words, where is any agreement?

I’m hoping I’m close, explaining why and how I think that, and asking you to work with me to either dissect and clarify what I said, or agree and/or build on it.

To me, that's just being a "disciplined" (to use Williamson's term) philosopher. I don't require such analysis to set the philosophical world aright, and as that hasn't happened yet, I doubt it will. — J

I agree.

Someone says something.
The next one says something about what has been said to, for starters, form some agreement about terms.
The first one says yes or no to the second one’s reuse of terms. If saying ‘no,’ hopefully showing why not.
The second one can then say ‘ah, I see’ and hopefully shows what they now see.
The first one again says either yes or no (the no process starts the restatement process attempting to come to agreement for starters…)
Once they agree, they can either end the short conversation or one of them builds on the agreement forged.

To me too, that’s just being disciplined.

Where you just said “I don’t require [we] set the philosophical world aright…”

I also agree. I find it is a major achievement when agreement can be reached at all, ever, on just the word “neighborhood” for instance. (Insert jokes like “no wonder, given you have such a thick skull…”)

One tiny step at a time is progress enough.

But although I do not require we set philosophy aright either, I, personally wouldn’t say say I doubt it. Despite all odds against it, I nevertheless do believe it can happen, or I could not see the cost benefit of going through all of this painful rigor. I’d rather learn about rigor doing physics, or carpentry, or any other trade than philosophy, if setting the philosophical world aright was only doubtful.

My biggest philosophical interest and justification for all of the painful rigor, is something eternal. That’s the hope. To know something about being a person worth knowing. Anything permanent. Anything I can teach to a God or a person born 100,000 years from now, or an alien 10 million years advance, or that would make Siddhartha Buddha smile. Something like “is there something about the structure of language that may be influencing what (one of us) takes to be obvious.” If I follow your meaning. Something like “agreement on anything between persons is a miracle.”

Thanks for something.

You are basically painting with a roller rather than a brush. — Banno

Ok, fair. Hence my neighborhood analogy. I’m looking to see if I’m in the neighborhood as opposed to at a specific address, or sitting right across the table from you.

You and J both seem to be saying I’m not even in the neighborhood.

Is the picture I made with the roller at least grossly similar to something the artist with the brush is trying to paint?

Don’t answer. I’ll see if I can tighten up what I’m saying and asking.

And yes, we can't address every problem, but must pick the most tractable and interesting. — J

Why does the question remain unanswered? Why is it ignored? — Banno

You don’t have to answer the question, but could explain why it will not be answered, why it should be ignored.

No. — Banno

Ok, ok. Fine. I’ll “do better” without you, and leave you to it. Enjoy.

It’s like a sub-forum inside TPF - they who shall not be questioned improperly or uninterestingly.

Genuine problems will be assigned, or promoted, to the disciplines that study them — J

That sounds good in theory, but how does it play out to the person interested in making progress? For instance, doesn’t that mean telling a politician that “liberty and equality for all” may be an incoherent fantasy and should probably not be discussed? Can’t really discuss non-existent universals and Platonist ideals, and impossible frameworks called “free agency” as if they can be demonstrably measured for all to see.

I’m just using politics as an example. I don’t care to discuss politics.

I’m saying, if the article successfully convinces the reader about the rigor that should be applied to all things spoken, (the rigor I have been calling scientific), then you can set up a game called politics and stay rigorous during game play, but once you question the existence of or value of the game itself, you are being metaphysical, and run out of tools and rigor and measures. In other words, politics becomes the bullshit it may actually be. Same as metaphysics. And really this would seem to be true of Physics. Which is how “physics” was once Euclid and Ptolemy (which are now mostly bullshit.). We may one day think Einstein was a joke, like the earth being the center of the universe is a joke.

We are stuck on a sliding scale of bullshit, except when we talk about language and logic and make these the subjects of our science - the ultimate game. Or in other words:
“Once the plumbing of language is done, what is left might be physics or politics but not philosophy.”
— Banno

Could you explain why you're casting this in terms of what is most or least "scientific"? — J

Dissecting, analytic, rigorous, scientific philosophy.

Discursive, narrative, not as scientific (or at all scientific) philosophy.

ADDED:

rejecting the suggestion that the mere divorce of sciences from philosophy is sufficient to explain progress — Banno

Instead of a sharp line between science and philosophy, place the analytic Witt type activity as the most scientific of philosophic activities, and the others fall below it. Isn’t the way I’ talking here in the spirit of the article? (Despite it not being rigorous, like the author admits he isn’t being rigorous.)

And what does the honest philosopher (language plumber) think politics is? Total bullshit?
— Fire Ologist

The pairing of politics with physics suggests an answer. Neither is bullshit in the least, but (on this view) neither one is philosophy either. — J

Let me put the question more rigorously (I slipped into metaphorical speak feeling the use of “plumbing” gave me some leeway. I like the language plumbing metaphor by the way. Useful.).

My Question: If analysis of what is and is not done with language, or analysis of what can and cannot be done with language, is the most scientific of philosophical activity (so much so that one would say “once the plumbing of language is done, what is left [is] not philosophy”), then can any other discipline that relies on language be considered truly “scientific”? (“Total bullshit” was my metaphorical and absolutist way of saying “not science” or “not philosophy”). Or asked another way, if philosophy of language is the most scientifically rigorous use of language, are not all other uses of language less scientific?

By raising the pairing of physics and politics, it seems you are placing activities we do with language on a scale where maybe analytic philosophy (logic, Frege to Witt to etc.) is the most purely scientific pursuit, and then below that, something like physics admitting additional suppositions and assumptions to its game and way of thinking, history admitting more, politics admitting many more, metaphysics admitting more than that, maybe as much as poetry, myth and legend; and then fiction not even pretending to be science but is purely supposition. But language about language remains the clearest domain of the most scientific statements we can make. As in, “Once the plumbing of language is done, what is left might be physics or politics but not philosophy.”

Is this all in the right neighborhood of what Banno is saying?

The other notion that I might be missing here is that the measure of progress in science has emerged from sciences like physics, and not from analysis of language. We learned from physics how to be rigorous and how to measure progress, and then applied this as a tool to philosophy, and all that remained standing of “philosophy” as it was formerly called, after we applied this new tool, was analysis of language, the remaining philosophy qua philosophy.

But if that is the case, doesn’t that position philosophy, even if it rigorously keeps its attention on language, as less valuable and less universally applicable type of knowledge? That could be ok and could be the case but doesn’t philosophy become the study of the best ways to talk about physics? So if you learn rigor by doing physics well, there is really never any need to narrow your mind to thinking about language and logic in themselves; philosophy merely shows why two physicists understand each other. If they already understand each other, who cares about the philosophy of it all?

Maybe that is the neighborhood (domain) of philosophy? On my bullshit scale, physics is most scientific, and a sub-issue within physics that simply says when and why physics language is logical or, not nonsense, is philosophy which applies the rigor it gleaned from doing physics to the language physicists use when talking about doing physics. But philosophy qua philosophy, oversimplified, is the glossary, or plumbing, within the physics text book.

Further, if a philosopher tried to tell Einstein “you don’t know what you are saying.” Maybe that is even true, but for a physicist like Einstein to pose something nonsensical to the philosopher might just be the philosopher not able to follow Einstein’s meaning, as opposed to Einstein not being rigorous in his language. New rigor will always emerge ahead of the philosopher’s ability to codify it, axiomize it, and analyze the language this new rigor produces.

In which case I am back to thinking there can be a hidden philosophic rigor in any subject, such as metaphysics or politics. And the philosophy of language (analytic philosophy) is always secondary and post hoc, and things like physics, or metaphysics or even poetry, or politics are really only accidentally different, but each, like physics, could produce their own rigor.

So in the end, maybe Wittgenstein has eliminated philosophy as some sort of universal science of all sciences. That may be true. And we have moved philosophy inside each separate subject of study. So that we have physics, and then philosophy of physics (language rigor surrounding physics speak); or we have politics and philosophy of politics (language rigor surrounding politics, or political science).

But the difference between the subject of physics and the subject studied by a politician, from what I can say, is a metaphysical distinction. So I am back to wondering if there is a subject known as metaphysics that can be rigorously studied as well as the others. Or are we kidding ourselves that there is a real object called “the political”? Is that a figment like a platonic form, an ideal? Can one really be rigorous about politics? Or anything outside of language?



None of what I am saying or asking is meant to refute the article. Merely to understand it. I see myself as using implications to discern things prior and post the idea of true philosophic rigor, or the idea of philosophy as a progressing science with a distinct subject matter. I am not trying to recover metaphysics. Consequences be damned. I want to understand as much as I can.

Once the plumbing of language is done, what is left might be physics or politics but not philosophy. — Banno

And what does the honest philosopher (language plumber) think politics is? Total bullshit? Totally kidding ourselves about “natural” rights and platforms and ideology and voting for worldview change? All of these value anssignments and statements have no solid source, similar to plumbing. There is no true plumbing outside of the plumbing of language. Correct?

Amen, if that is how it has to be.

That if more people actually comported themselves as philosophers, in a spirit of rational self-knowledge and temperance, then there would be correspondingly less strife. But then that can’t really be imposed, it is something that has to be taken up voluntarily. And besides, philosophy itself is generally regarded as a bookish and irrelevant subject by a lot of people.

So - why blame philosophy? Don’t the problems you’re lamenting characterise unruly human nature? — Wayfarer

That is a much more succinct, and so better, way of saying the key takeaways I was trying say. :up:

The only results I see from philosophy are a world in which we are: unable to have peace, — Pieter R van Wyk

Hi Pieter,

Welcome.

We all see what you are asking, but each word is important to the philosopher. You are making leaps without showing the logic and it may not be logical to make those leaps.

Just above you seem to be saying that there is one result from philosophy, and this result is the world where we are “unable” to have peace…

It almost sounds here like you are saying philosophers are sowing the discord in the world, or at least supporting the philosophies that lead to or allow for all the badness.

I don’t think that is what you are meaning to say.

So of we are to really dig into the weeds here, you need to speak more carefully.

"...the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder ..." — Pieter R van Wyk

There are two threads raging on the forum right now as we speak that utterly challenge that. “Good philosophy” requires much more rigor than what “the faculty of wonder” requires.

But still, I personally do think good philosophy and wisdom can come from anyone, not just an academic (academia can be a hindrance to wisdom). So I truly welcome your sense of wonder and willingness to make assertions and test them out here in the forum. But, as you’ve already seen, welcome to all of the push-back!

I think you are asking too much and should ask narrower questions, if you want to get closer to the answer you seek.

There is the human condition and the world we share. I would say nothing in it has really changed for 5,000 years - we shoot ourselves and our neighbors in the foot constantly, and blame the other guy. That’s what we do to each other for various reasons and theories and causes and purposes, or maybe just is.

Then there is philosophy - which includes making observations like the one I just did about the human condition, but also includes seeing if this observation is said well and reflects the reality behind what appears. (So many ways to say what philosophy is.). Further, and more modernly, philosophy has come to be logic, the analysis of language itself. It’s hardly about such grand questions you are asking at all. It’s about whether your question is coherent and can even be asked let alone answered. It’s about whether my observation about the human condition has any real sense and reference to it that others can discuss with me, or is it just my own narrative.

Last there is what you are asking - when is philosophy going to say the magic words that show us how to improve our condition.

But there is a huge disconnect as to whether such magic is possible. It is a philosophic question whether some universal Truth even exists, one that could magically answer your questions.

But also, there is an even bigger disconnect between knowing the one magical truth and subsequently following it and living it. The world is full of war because people don’t always care about the truth and simply want to destroy others despite no logical reason to do so. People are sons of bitches.

All that said, there are answers to your question in philosophy-adjacent areas.

Why is the world so messed up?

Buddha: because of our desire.
Christ and The book of Genesis: because people are broken, our essential nature marred by a self-inflicted wound (original sin).
Existentialism: because mind in the universe is absurd, seeking to know the world it willingly distinguishes itself from in order to reconnect itself to that world through knowledge (absurd endeavor called “truth”) (also, in my opinion, a lot like original sin but without the religious baggage).
Politicians: because the other party are all deplorables. (Because some people are sons of bitches but not me.)

The philosopher qua philosopher hates those answers. Too mythical and psychologistic and idealistic, too able to be dissected into nonsense upon rigorous scrutiny.

But the philosopher has yet to provide an answer, and many philosophers do not think it possible.

And again, even if we wrote the magic book with the most persuasive argument concluding absolutely that compassion and love and humility and respect and charity, all fostered by self-discipline and practice, will together build us a better world, most of us would say, I’m too tired, leave me alone.

That, in my opinion, is the problem - it’s not a lack of philosophy, it’s a lack of effort.

Basically, it’s your fault.
And mine. (Mostly mine.)

Most claims to 'moral facts' rely on a shared acceptance of same. But that's not quite how facts work. — AmadeusD

I like that.

I’d say, mystically, human beings are the moral fact in the universe. Conscience is a sui generis, aspect of human being that exists nowhere else in the universe. The only reason to care what I think is because you are human too and might be able to see something similar as what I see. So a moral fact, that would work like other facts work, would only be derived from contact with other human beings and their consciences.

Eyes sense and organize light for the consciousness.
Conscience detects other human beings (minds), and compares what such human beings actually do (actions) with what such creature’s minds appear to be doing (intent) and finds ought in between them.

We can analogously say “that dog is being bad” but that is metaphor, because dogs don’t seem to have a conscience at all.

So finding moral conscience awareness in evolution or survival, finding moral facts outside of human beings, overlooks the fact that only a human mind can sense or detect the difference between what is and what ought to be.

More that it can not be done well by a dilettante. But also, it is not served by elitism — Banno

I agree. Philosophy is a rigorous science. Has been since Aristotle at least.

Because everyone at some point wonders “what is this life?” everyone thinks they are some bit of philosopher. Further, children can understand something of philosophic wisdom - “nothing to excess” or “live in the moment” or “do unto others” or “if there is one thing I know for certain, it is that I know nothing…”. For this reason, people who would never pretend to be a theoretical mathematician, or a quantum physicist, or any professor, will pretend to be Socrates over a bottle of wine and teach you what life is really about.

But true philosophy, the rigorous science, becomes nothing more than an art and cannot be practical if it is not shared and taught. It is almost entirely words. Is it an art or is it science after all? It is the science of thinking, and must be demonstrable in application, and so needs to be taught, discussed, and those who are taught philosophy must at least learn how best to think.

But the purely theoretical and the purely analytic are both easily rendered impractical. So the true philosophers need to take care that they do not isolate their expertise from all place in the world of common persons. If the elites who practice proper, scientific philosophic thought do not do as Buddha did, and return to the people, teaching their wisdom to everyone and anyone who listens, then all of the philosopher kings are merely art snobs. For who cares of the difference between idealism and realism in Their kingdoms are sandcastles that very few can even see.

And philosophy will continue to die. At least art has redeeming beauty for the shallow dilettante to enjoy anyway. Every philosopher can’t be Nietzsche. If Wittegenstein isn’t patiently taught, how quickly do you think it would die to history.

we should still give some room for unusually good work popping up in unexpected places. — AmadeusD

That is wisdom. Wisdom can accidentally come from watching a dog. The most elite philosophic scientist has every reason to listen to anyone who claims to offer philosophy. Just to practice the trade and maybe find inspiration.

That is my experience, and from it, my amateur opinion.

So I agree with the article and the quotes above. I just caution there is no wisdom in ignoring amateur philosophers. They should be welcomed as students of life’s mysteries and taught how to be rigorous.

We all need midwives. And compassion.

Especially on an Internet forum (as opposed to a post-graduate classroom, where expectations are more frequently set and met.)

Post deleted by me. Don’t know what happened there.

It is difficult to even recognize and discover a truth about the world; it is harder than that to say it truly.

Working through the article. Here are some initial lines I personally would love to hear developed.

“It is widely known in 2007 and was not widely known in 1957 that contingency is not equivalent to a posteriority, and that claims of contingent or temporary identity involve the rejection of standard
logical laws.”

That’s a tree question.

“One clear lesson is that claims about truth need to be formulated with extreme precision, not out of knee-jerk pedantry but because in practice correct general claims about truth often turn out to differ so subtly from provably incorrect claims that arguing in impressionistic terms is a hopelessly unreliable”

That’s important. A bigger tree.

“Philosophers who refuse to bother about semantics, on the grounds that they want to study the non-linguistic world, not our talk about that world, resemble scientists who refuse to bother about the theory of their instruments, on the grounds that they want to study the world, not our observation of it.“

Great line. Forrest issue.

“But when philosophy is not disciplined by semantics, it must be disciplined by something else: syntax, logic, common sense, imaginary
examples, the findings of other disciplines (mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, history, . . .) or the aesthetic evaluation of theories (elegance, simplicity, . . .). Indeed, philosophy subject to only one of those disciplines is liable to become severely distorted: several are needed simultaneously.”

Also interesting forrest issue. Still reading…

Language itself is not the game. Because “a language game involves more than just language.”

Does this then make sense:

In the case of building with blocks, we can construct a language game wherein two people work together and one yells “block” and as the other person hears the language and plays the game of building the other then brings the block because he heard “block” and knows the game. The language game of building here involves language and blocks (likely among other things and more language and more complex gaming). But it takes language and blocks before the language game can emerge. — Fire Ologist

3 distinctions to grapple with? 1. Language, 2. the world to which language is applied, in a 3. language game.

Or

The use of the words (or, the fact of, i guess) is clearly a language game — AmadeusD

This sounds like using language itself is a game (maybe because it comes with syntax, or subject/predicate functioning)? Or is language still not itself a game, and we can talk about language without its gaming application?

I think these are valid questions, no? I certainly don’t know how to address.

For Williamson, systematic philosophical theorising is not the problem, but the lack of seriousness and rigour in it's pursuit. Now I think this not so far from my distinction between dissection and discourse, and worth a proper look — Banno

This has great moving parts: theorizing with rigour. Promising.

way to assess levels of creativity in philosophy. The Williamson article might offer a way to move that discussion beyond mere anecdote. — Banno

‘Mere anecdote or, rigorous metaphysics and “systematic philosophic theorizing”. Philosophic newness, captured in turn of phrase. Creativity is fraught with peril. Continues to intrigue.

how we are to mark, as well as to make, progress in philosophy — Banno

Great question.

rejecting the suggestion that the mere divorce of science from philosophy is sufficient to explain progress — Banno

I reject that. That’s a sideways move at best, not progress to me.

we can intelligibly ask what bread is made of, but not, at least amongst the presocratics, what everything is made of. It is a step too far to ask what things in general are made of — Banno

I think you can intelligibly ask is there an ingredient (so to speak) that all things are made of among other ingredients that only some things are made of, but I still agree “it is a step too far to ask what things in general are made of.”. No need to take a side track, so early.

Understanding the nature of grain and water and heats, and how they interact, lead by degrees and indirectly to the questions of chemistry and physics that constitute our present start of play. — Banno

Staying inside the subject matter between the grain and water and heat, moving slowly, methodically towards eventually, bread, and then chemistry, and quantum physics.... always careful before moving on and retesting, before restating again…

Speculative ambition is an important part of that process. — Banno

Agree. This, to me, is the world part of the equation. It is what the science says or is about. It is the world ingredient.

theoretical system building, needs dissection, careful analysis of small, concrete questions. Williamson wants both — Banno

Yes. Philosophy is a science at the very least; it may be more; it may be about blocks or dead poetry, but science is there in every mix of philosophy proper.

discourse must be disciplined by standards akin to those in the sciences — Banno

For sure. I think that is what Aristotle and Descartes and Hegel and Spinoza and Leibniz and Kant and Wittgenstein and Russell and others were trying to do. Skeptical rigor exists in Plato’s Parmenides, and really in the fact that he made the question and doubting conclusions so central to making dialectical progresses. But, I wander off again. Need more rigour..

undeniable progress has been made in modal logic and in truth theory, and there has been at least movement in ontology, with the then-raging debate between realism and anti-realism and the semantics of natural languages. — Banno

From above:
“systematic philosophic theorizing” and “discourse” and “ways to assess creativity in philosophy”

But now with progress, as:

“modal logic and in truth theory”
“debate between realism and anti-realism”
“semantics”

Doubt I can keep up, but I’ll try.

And so a language game involves more than just language. — Banno

I think I see. And thanks for the reply.

Language itself is not the game. Interesting. Because “a language game involves more than just language.”

Does this then make sense:

In the case of building with blocks, we can construct a language game wherein two people work together and one yells “block” and as the other person hears the language and plays the game of building the other then brings the block because he heard “block” and knows the game. The 1. language game of building here involves 2. language and 3. blocks (likely among other things and more language and more complex gaming). But it takes 2 and 3 before 1 can emerge.

And when you say “we are always already in a language” (which I think you said a few times), does that mean we are always sort of given into a language game, already playing by communicating through language, or does it mean something else, like in a language but not in a language game? I took it to mean we are already in a game when we are thinking/communicating in a language about the world.

What do you mean by “already in a language” then?